“Oh, Jos. Don’t cry, sweetheart.” He reached up and wiped away a rogue tear that slowly trailed down my face. His finger trailed up the right side of my jaw, moving toward the mark. My body tensed for just a moment before I cast it away. He had told me he loved me; what did one cursed mark matter?
And then, his finger made contact with the raised mark.
It felt like a thousand volts shot through my body. I gasped in surprise at the sensation, shock whipping through me. My vision went white as the jolt encompassed me, my back arching in surprise or pain; I didn’t know which. The electricity had gone as soon as it had come and my vision refocused on Ryland, but he didn’t have the same look in his eyes as before.
He was terrified.
His body had tensed around me; his arms tightening as his eyes darted around the room. He stood up, taking my body with him, keeping me plastered against him.
“No,” he moaned, and his voice sounded like an agonizing sob.
“No!” His yell of pain and fear echoed around the room as he tilted my head to the right side, his hands jerking my hair aside to reveal the mark.
“No,” he repeated, but this time his voice strained into a sob.
He lowered his head to mine and pressed his lips to the brand, a smaller shock moving through me at his touch. He stayed like that, with his rigid arms surrounding me, his tender lips against my mark.
“I’m sorry.” My voice was panicked. His reaction was so unexpected and fearful; I felt my body begin to shake.
“How long have you had the mark, Joclyn?” he demanded.
My body froze; my heart dropped. I wanted to kick and scream and hurt something. Why did this mark always have to ruin my life?
“Joclyn!” Ryland yelled in a panic. “How long?” He released my body and moved me away from him, his eyes meeting mine with the terrified look they held earlier.
“Since… since I was five,” I whispered, my voice catching.
“You have hid it all this time?” He didn’t wait for an answer; he just crushed me to him again. “Oh, Joclyn, sweetheart.”
Sweetheart?
Wasn’t he mad, angry? Wasn’t he going to cast me away?
He crushed me to him even further before releasing me, placing me at arm’s length away from him. His hands held me in place, leaving me nowhere to look but right at him.
“You’re the one. The one they have been looking for. And you were here… No! They have seen it by now.”
“Seen it?” I asked, my confusion growing.
“The cameras, Joclyn; they watch me all the time. You have to get out of here.”
And there it was. My heart sank to my knees and the tears started flowing.
“Leave? Ryland, why? It’s just a mark—it’s nothing. Please say it’s nothing,” I begged him, my hand clenching the front of his shirt in desperation.
“Oh, Joclyn, the mark means everything.”
“Why? I don’t want it. All it has done is ruin my life! I don’t want to leave!” I screamed, my emotions and fear blending together in a boiling pot.
“If you don’t go, they will kill you.”
Wait.
Kill
? Was he serious? His terror started to seep into me, and as I watched his face, my anger melted into confusion.
“Ryland, what’s going on? I don’t understand.”
Ryland pressed his forehead to mine, his eyes closed in agony.
“I don’t know how to make you understand…”
The blue of his eyes pierced right through me as he looked to something beyond me. His eyes darkened with a heavy determination I wasn’t aware he possessed. “They are coming.”
“Listen very carefully, Joclyn. My father is coming, and if he finds you, he will kill you. I will head them off as long as I can, but you must run.” He kept his head pressed against mine as he spoke, his words tumbling over each other.
“Your father?”
“Take my car and go straight to your mother. Take her and go… go to Ilyan.”
“Ilyan?” I asked. Why were we talking about Wyn’s brother now? What did he have to do with any of this?
“He is tall, has blonde hair and speaks with an accent, correct?”
I could only nod in surprise; how did he know?
“Go to him, show him the mark; he will protect you. I have to… I have to keep you safe, Joclyn. I can’t lose you.”
“I can’t leave you.” I knew I couldn’t; my body screamed at me not to go.
“If we go together, they will hunt us down like dogs. I need to fight them to give you time to escape.”
“Fight?”
“I will find you, Joclyn. I promise. Just go to Ilyan; he will protect you.” He moved his eyes away from mine to press his lips against my forehead, the connection spreading his familiar warmth through my body. It spread through me, stretching to my toes; it filled every part of me with a calm determination, my fear vanishing behind it.
He dragged me to the door, his back straight and his muscles flexing. His hand held mine, neither of us willing to let go. He pressed a small key ring into my other hand.
“To my car, to your mom, to Ilyan,” he repeated. “Say it.”
“To your car, to my mom, to Ilyan.” My voice was small and shaky despite my new-found determination.
“Good. And, no matter what you do, do
not
take off the necklace.”
The door opened before us, without anyone having touched it. I could hear many running feet through the hallways, the sound getting louder as they moved closer. My heart beat faster in its attempt to escape my chest.
“Run, Joclyn,” Ryland pleaded. “Don’t look back. Run!”
I ran down the hall, a man’s voice yelling behind me. His angry shout ricocheted off the ivory colored walls, echoing in my ears. That one shout was followed by what sounded like a hundred others, but I knew that couldn’t be right.
“Leave her alone!” Ryland’s voice was like a magnet to my heart. It took all of my willpower to not turn around and to just keep running.
“What have you done, son?” Edmund’s cold voice was a palpable thing; its mass, its anger, hitting my back with a tangible force.
I ran to the door of the servants’ corridors and swung it open, slamming it behind me. I didn’t stop to see if it closed. I didn’t stop for one last look at Ryland. I just ran. My feet moved forward of their own accord, taking the steps two or three at a time as I fled down a level toward the garage where Ryland’s car was parked. I had moved about halfway down the staircase when the whole building rocked under my feet.
I was thrown into the metal hand-railing as an explosion shook the building, the loud booming of who-knows-what resounding around me. I stopped and looked back. My heart begged me to go to him, to save him; but what could I do against all those men? What could I do against explosions? I clenched my fist around the key in my hand, the plastic cover pressing into my skin.
I couldn’t go back and help him. I couldn’t. I had to do what he asked. “To the car, to my mom, to Ilyan.”
I burst through the final door into the large garage and looked among what appeared to be hundreds of cars for the yellow Lotus. I spotted it on the far side of the garage and began to move through the vehicles toward the expensive sports car ahead of me. I had only made it partway through the garage when another explosion rocked the space around me. This one was bigger than the last one. I screamed out in fear as I slammed into a turn-of-the-century Ford; pieces of plaster falling from the low ceiling above me.
I picked up my pace, trying to ignore the constant rumble on the floors above. I made it to the car and threw myself in, starting the engine. It roared to life and the garage door opened in front of me; the sound of the engine, its cue to rise.
I gunned it.
Ryland had taught me to drive this car almost a year ago, but I hated to because I could never keep the speed reasonable; being behind the wheel felt like I was in the middle of a video game. My heart rate sped up even faster as adrenaline added itself to my fear. I tore out of the garage and down the street, the odometer reaching one hundred thirty miles per hour in just the first few seconds.
I caught a glace of Ryland’s house as I drove in front of it. The third floor was in flames. I wanted to stare. I wanted to call the police. I wanted to do something. However, Ryland’s instructions echoed through my ears; his warning of what his father would do to me. I strengthened my resolve and turned the corner. If I stayed at this speed, I could get home in five minutes. The challenge would be to avoid traffic and the cops.
I struggled to keep my speed high, but once I made it into the city I was faced with traffic lights and other cars. It was maddening to move so slowly. I hit the steering wheel in exasperation as I stopped at a traffic light, again. I screamed my frustrations and fear at the red light just as it turned green and then I zoomed between cars in my eagerness to get home.
Moments later, I pulled up into the no parking zone in front of my apartment building. Out of habit, I looked up to my third floor window and my heart dropped. Even though it was night, my mom was sure to stay up to make sure I got home okay and share a play-by-play of the evening, but the window was dark.
I tore out of the car, leaving the engine on and the door open, to run up the stairs. With each step, the necklace bounced against my skin, its temperature steadily increasing. I reached the third-floor landing and froze; the door to our apartment was wide open. I just stared at the dark expanse of space beyond my apartment door.
Something in the back of my mind told me to turn around and leave, to just go to Ilyan, but I couldn’t. The fluttering panic in my heart pulled me forward. I could taste the danger on my tongue. I could hear the voice of reason screaming at me to get away. At the moment though, I could only think of my mother.
I stepped into the apartment and waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. Figures and shapes began to emerge from the black that surrounded me. I looked from one out-of-place object in the room to another until my eyes rested on an arm protruding from behind the half-wall that divided the living room from the kitchen. The fingers of the hand curled softly; the bright yellow fingernail polish were all too familiar.
I screamed out in fear and pain as I made my way to her, my knees sliding against the linoleum as I dropped to her side. She lay on the floor of the kitchen, her body pressed against the painted wood cabinets. My hands floated above her, desperate to do something to help her. I could feel the racking sobs of my agony threatening to break through. I grasped for her wrist, trying to remember how to take a pulse. I thought I felt something, but could not be sure that, through my shaking hands and loud sobs, I had found her pulse at all.
“Mom!” I screamed. I could hear my own agony line my cries. “Mom! Answer me. Please be alive.” I was still at her side when the door to our apartment slammed shut and two dark figures moved in front of it. I grasped my mother’s hand as I turned toward the intruders, my wailing sobs dying down.
“Well, well, well,” one of the two spoke with a light, mocking voice. “Is the little half-ling crying over her mortal mother? How disgusting.”
“Don’t give her any sympathy,” the other said; a man whose deep voice made him seem much older than his body led me to believe. “After all, we were the ones who had to watch her in his room year after year.”
“And all the while, she plotted to kill the prince.”
“We would have done better to kill her as a child.”
“If only we had known she hid the mark.” The two chattered back and forth as if I wasn’t there, their wicked voices making my skin crawl.
“Kill? Kill who? I wasn’t going to kill anyone,” I gasped, my voice breaking with tears. I clung to my mother’s hand, desperate to feel her squeeze back. I needed her to sit up, to tell these wicked men to leave, and to just make everything better. In the deepest portion of my heart though—a part I was trying to ignore—I knew that it would never happen again.
“Oh, don’t bother to lie,” the man with the deep voice sneered. “We know all about the vile things inside your head.” He took a step closer and I crept backward, my mother’s fingers slipping from my grasp as my back pressed against the bathroom door.
“Cail,” the first man spoke with a touch of boredom to his voice, “just get it over with and kill her. There’s no use in playing with her.”
“Kill me? I haven’t done anything wrong! I don’t know what you are talking about,” I screamed at him in desperation as he continued to move forward.
I knew, in my heart, it was too late. I had failed Ryland. I had told him I would run, and here I was, trapped and about to die anyway.
“Could it be?” Cail’s voice was soft, but I could hear the amusement behind it. “Do you really not know?” He took a step forward, letting the light that filtered in through the window illuminate his face. Cail—the bodyguard from the Rugby game, the one who had accompanied Edmund, the boy who had constantly looked in my direction, the one who had seemed to sense I was there.
His lips twitched as he watched me place the connection. I shrank away from him, lost in the pitch-black hatred of his eyes.
“Recognize me, do you?” he said. “Yes, I could feel someone nearby at the Rugby game. I never would have guessed it was you, though.”
“Didn’t you say you saw Ilyan nearby? Perhaps she doesn’t know anything.”
“Yes, and now, he has waited too long to come and collect his precious ‘Chosen Child’, so I get to kill her.” Cail raised his hand to me in what could have been perceived as a gesture of help, but I didn’t wait to find out.
I jumped to the side as the door behind me exploded in a shower of splinters. I scrambled across the slick linoleum in an effort to find a hiding place and scooted behind the counters to slam against my mother’s limp form. I stayed still until the refrigerator slid across the floor. I scuttled under the kitchen table just as the fridge launched into the counters, causing them to explode in a shower of sparks, pinning my mother’s legs underneath it. She didn’t even react.
I screamed and spluttered as my breath came in short spurts. I could feel a panic attack coming on as my chest seized. Nothing made sense. Things were exploding around me, my mom lay unconscious on the floor, and two men were trying to kill me.
“The last of the ‘Chosen Children’, helpless and alone,” the first man laughed from the other room.
I whimpered as I watched their feet enter my tiny kitchen, the first man still laughing. The table lifted itself away from me and slammed into the wall where the refrigerator had been only a moment ago. I wailed in terror and backed up to feel my feet come in contact with the wall. I was trapped. I stood, back dragging against the window frame behind me. If I was going to die, I would die standing, not cowering in fear.
“I’m sorry, Ryland; I failed. I didn’t make it to Ilyan,” I whispered to myself.
As I spoke, I felt a small tug in the pocket of my jeans. I looked down to see the small, purple bead wiggle its way free, and fly up to hover in the air between me and my would-be assassins. Suddenly, a bright light filled the room. The flash blinded me, and when I moved my hand from over my face, the bead lay harmlessly on the ground.
“No!” the men yelled together.
“Ilyan,” the first man spat angrily. “Kill her now; he will be here any second.”
Cail raised his hand, and I sank against the window, cringing away from him.
I love you, Ryland.
I bid him farewell, expecting the blow to come at any moment. Before anything could happen, a comforting warmth began to spread over my body. It felt so close to the warmth I felt when Ryland touched me that I focused on it, happy for the last connection between us. Tears streamed down my face as I watched the man flex his fingers, a bright light forming in the palm of his hand.
Just as the light in his hand became the size of a softball, a burning heat seared into me from the necklace that hung around my neck. I called out in pain as it burned me, but before I could even reach for it, a flame of blazing, white light shot out of it, intercepting the one that the man had just shot at me. They collided in the middle of the kitchen in an explosion that shook the entire apartment complex. The men were thrown back into the kitchen wall just as I was thrown backward out the window.
The glass window shattered around me, the sharp edges cutting into my skin as I plunged through it. I felt the air swoop by me as I was thrown into the cool, night air outside, knowing that below me laid three stories of nothing before the hard asphalt of the alley.
Time slowed down as I fell, tears flying away from my face and into the air above me. I could have counted each star, each cloud. I could have given them names and danced among them. I watched them as my mind caught up to what was happening.
The wind whipped around me, but it wasn’t the welcoming sensation I had felt on the tops of buildings or up in the trees. This time, the wind moved through me as it bid me farewell. The night sky watched me as I fell, the twinkling eyes of each star shining, as if to say “I’m sorry.” I reached for them in frantic desperation, wishing they could reach out and stop me from the impact that awaited me.
Far too soon, I collided with the asphalt street. The alleyway filled with a resounding crack as my back snapped under the impact. As my body broke, a fire spread through me, burning me from the inside. It seeped and shuddered through me, consuming every part of me. I could feel its burning pain eat away at the nerves and muscles of my legs, igniting my hip bones. My body protested against the pain as my head added its own agony to the fold, the fire spreading into a resounding tension that shattered my skull into a million broken fragments, causing black spots and blobs to dominate my vision.
I opened my mouth to scream, but no sound came out. My mouth opened wider as it strained against the agony that consumed me. The rest of my body stayed still, even though my insides felt like they were writhing, twitching and contorting with the pain. My mouth continued to open in a silent scream as my vision began to fade in and out of blackness.
I could feel my body giving out, and sadly, I didn’t mind the thought. The warmth I had felt before, the warmth that reminded me so much of Ryland, continued to move through me, the warm feeling intensifying into a numbing sensation that spread through my body like water. Although I could still feel the pain—the burning agony—I didn’t care so much anymore.
Something around my neck pulled me, and I felt my body being dragged across the uneven gravel of the alley, my limp frame shaking and rattling against the ground. My shirt ripped and tore against the rough stones, pieces falling away to reveal skin that I was sure was getting scratched and cut against the sharp gravel.
My vision faded in again as I was dragged into the shelter behind a large dumpster. Something heavy crashed against my feet, the weight twisting my body at an odd angle that I was happy I couldn’t feel. I looked around, desperate to see who or what had pulled me into the shadows, but found nothing.