“Bad side?” I said. Ilyan just looked at me before looking down at the couch. I waited for clarification, but none came. My heart skipped a beat in fear; was the bad side really all that scary?
“Complication?” I tried again, the longer word feeling like acid in my throat.
Ilyan looked away from me to focus on a spot on the blankets that covered me.
“There are those among my kind, and among the Trpaslík, who believe that the kiss is a gift, a sign of royalty. For four hundred years, they have systematically exterminated, not only the children who bare the kiss, but also the Vilỳs who are the sole reason the marks exist in the first place.”
“Extermin…” My voice caught; I couldn’t even bring myself to say the word.
“Yes, Silnỳ, they kill them. The men who attacked you in your apartment were there for that reason.”
I knew the men were trying to kill me—they had made that blatantly clear—but that wasn’t why I found myself hyperventilating again; it wasn’t why I found my vision fading in and out so fast my eyesight was almost a flicker. There were others who had wanted to kill me beside those men, and if it wasn’t for Ryland, they would have. If it wasn’t for Ryland knowing about the mark, and what it meant, they all would have succeeded.
“Ryland,” I gasped, my weak voice shaking even more.
“I am not sure we should go over this right now,” Ilyan said.
“Ryland!” My strong voice bounced angrily around the room. Wyn said something, but I didn’t bother to look to see if she had woken this time. I didn’t dare let my eyes leave Ilyan. Ilyan sighed and looked hard at me as my breathing and heart rate continued to increase in tempo.
“Wyn’s brother is Cail. Wyn’s father is Timothy. They both follow the man who gave the extermination order for the children who bear a kiss on their skin; the man who bears the first kiss ever given—Ryland’s father, Edmund LaRue.”
Somehow, I knew; I had known from the beginning. I knew from the moment Ryland saw the mark on my skin. I knew when I saw his own mark, standing out so vividly on his back. I knew, but I simply didn’t want to see it. I didn’t want to accept it.
My breathing reached a rate that couldn’t possibly keep me conscious. I looked into Ilyan’s pained face for only a moment more before my vision went black. The warmth from Ilyan’s hands filled me at an alarming rate, his magic seeping into me and allowing me to slip into sleep.
The sunlight streamed innocently in through the open window, saturating the faded carpet and white walls with the golden light of morning. A light breeze blew through the open patio door, bringing a sweet smell of flowers and grass into Wyn’s living room. My face was warm and felt swollen as if I had been crying the entire time I had been asleep, which I wouldn’t doubt, given the reason I was sleeping in the first place. I shifted my weight under the heavy blankets that covered me, surprised to feel only a slight ache in my joints.
My rested body and serene mood lasted only a moment until I realized the reason I had woken up in the first place. I could hear frantic yelling from the other room, the voices raised and lowered dramatically as they yelled at each other in Czech. Wyn and Ilyan were not angry though; they were panicked. The sound increased as a door opened and I watched Wyn walk out of the hall, a large bag draped over her back, an even bigger suitcase clenched in her other hand. The bags were so large in proportion to her body it looked like she would topple over at any moment. She caught sight of me staring at her and both parcels came crashing to the ground.
“Oh, thank all!” she sighed, her accented voice still sounding odd in my ears. She rushed over to me, placing her hand right against my cheek. I looked at her in confusion, still unable to take my eyes off her dark tattoos.
“Ilyan! She’s awake.” She looked at me sadly, realizing that I was looking more at the dark marks on her face than at her. “I would hide them, Jos, but it hurts too much and I need to be able to focus right now.”
“Good,” Ilyan’s voice carried from the other room. “Is it hotter than before?”
Wyn removed her hand from my cheek and moved the heavy pile of blankets from off my torso. The removal of the weight increased the soreness I felt.
“Sorry,” she cringed.
She placed her hand against my chest, pressing Ryland’s necklace against my skin. My jaw tightened as the hot stone made firm contact. How could I not have felt that before? The ruby burned against me, making my whole chest feel as if it was on fire. The second Wyn released the pressure of her hand, the heat lessened, but I could still feel the necklace’s intense warmth from within Ryland’s sweater that they had placed me in.
“It’s hotter,” Wyn called back down the hall where Ilyan was.
I heard Ilyan swear in English before he appeared at the end of the hall, his hair pulled back into a pony tail and the knees of his torn jeans caked with what looked like dirt and blood.
“We are out of time. Get that stuff to the car; I’ll be down with her in a minute.”
Wyn obeyed, grabbing the large bags as if they weighed nothing and disappearing out the door.
Ilyan rushed over to me and stripped the top most blanket off the pile that covered me and laid it on the floor. When he removed the blanket, the aches increased just as they had when Wyn removed half of them a moment before.
“I’m sorry, Joclyn, but they have found us; we have to move now.”
My heart plunged. I knew beyond a doubt who “they” were: Cail, Timothy, Edmund… Ryland. I kept my head about me this time, the magic-induced sleep seeming to have helped me cope with the reality of Ryland’s association with the man who would stop at nothing to kill me.
“Ryland?”
“I don’t know, Joclyn. He could be with them. He could be… I just don’t know.” Ilyan stripped the remaining blankets from over me, causing my body to tense with deep aches that overtook me.
“I am sorry, Joclyn. I would do this gently, but we really do not have the time. I had hoped to have your spine healed before we moved you, but Edmund has other plans.” He kneeled down beside me and ran his hand down the right side of my face, his thumb resting on my mark. I expected a jolt or a pain like that which had accompanied Ryland’s touch, but instead, I felt nothing.
“I need you to be as quiet as you can. I can’t take the pain away right now; you need to be strong.” He slid his arms underneath my body and I knew what he meant. My body wasn’t as close to being healed as I had thought. With the heavy blankets gone, the aches and pains covered every inch of me. I felt like I had been thrown out of a third story window, which I had been.
I tried desperately to keep the majority of the sound in my throat as Ilyan lifted me and placed me on the floor on top of the blanket he had laid there. I lay like a rag doll, my body unwilling to move.
As Ilyan straightened me out, I caught a glimpse of fleece pajama bottoms—the same ones I had been wearing in my dream with Ryland. My heart caught, instantly aware that Ryland was right; it wasn’t a dream. If it wasn’t a dream, then what had happened to Ryland?
Ilyan wrapped the blanket around me tightly, like one does an infant, and then prepared to lift me. My body tensed as his hands began to slide underneath me.
“Ilyan,” I pleaded, “I can’t”
“You can, Joclyn. You have to. If we don’t leave now, they will kill you. There are too many of them for me to fight on my own. You are the last of the Chosen Children; the last one between Edmund and his “perfect” world.” He slid his hands under me and lifted me to his chest in one quick movement. I groaned as we moved, allowing too much sound to escape my lips.
“Do it for Ryland, Joclyn. He may need you soon.”
I clenched my teeth. I thought of Ryland, the way he twitched and writhed as his father fought his way into his brain. Ilyan was right; someone had to save Ryland, too.
I turned my body into Ilyan as he ran out the door of the apartment and down the stairs toward the small parking garage that sat below the complex. I kept my teeth clenched as my body jostled around, my hands wrapped around the blanket. I focused on my tensed muscles in an attempt to ignore the sharp pains.
I could tell when we entered the garage; Ilyan’s footsteps changed to a flat gait that echoed around concrete walls. He walked straight to the black Mazda he always drove, the rear driver’s side door opening on its own before we even reached it. He leaned over and placed me in the center of the back seat.
“How many,” he asked Wyn who sat in the passenger seat looking stressed.
“At least a hundred, but they are spread out.”
Ilyan reached around me and firmly placed the seatbelt over my shoulder and waist, placing large bags and suitcases around me in an obvious effort to stabilize me.
“You still need to be quiet, Joclyn.” He placed his hand against the right side of my face, his thumb resting on my mark. I twitched away from the foreign, uncomfortable touch again. “It’s more important to get us out of here alive than in comfort.”
“For Ryland,” I sighed, trying desperately to keep my mind focused.
“For Ryland.” Ilyan slid into the front seat, and turned the key in the ignition, revving the car to life.
“Where is the strongest?” he asked Wyn as he backed the car out of the parking stall.
The force of the car’s movement slammed me into the large bag on my left. I cringed at the pain of the impact.
“There are more bodies to the east, but the strongest power is coming from the north. That would be my guess as to where they are.”
“To the north then.” Ilyan’s jaw clenched as he hit the accelerator and gunned us out of the dark parking garage.
The warm summer sun poured through the back window, and I leaned my head against the seat, letting the sunlight hit my skin a bit. It felt nice; if only this warmth wouldn’t go away, I might be able to endure the pain.
“To the north?” Wyn asked. “You can’t be serious, My Lord. We would be walking into their trap.”
There it was again,
My Lord
.
“We are already in their trap,” Ilyan reminded her with a growl. He flipped his phone open and pressed it against his ear. “Ovailia,” he spoke the second someone answered the phone, “set a trail to the east; we are going to go to the north. Meet us at the second safe house.”
Ilyan did not wait for a response; he simply threw the phone to the side and turned the car around a sharp left-hand corner, followed by a quick right. My body flung around in the back seat like a rag doll, each impact sending more pain through me.
“What do you suggest we do when we come face-to-face with Edmund?” Wyn asked in a panic.
“We run.” Ilyan pressed the accelerator down all the way as we turned onto the large highway that cut its way through the city.
“Run?”
“Yes, Wynifred, we run. We fly. We save our lives. I can save the battle for later. There are more important things to face tonight.” They turned toward each other as a silent agreement passed between them. Ilyan turned back to the road again and increased our speed. I sat in silence, listening to their quick conversation, their infectious panic creeping into me.
“How far?”
“About two miles.”
“Find all the usable cars, trees, buildings; I need to know what I have to… dammit!” he swore, causing both me and Wyn to jump. The car decelerated, making my body lean forward.
“What?”
“They have a barrier up, so they can track us. Switch me places.”
Wyn didn’t say a word; she simply moved over to the driver’s side as Ilyan moved to the passenger’s side, the car never deviating a millimeter from the road.
“Pace yourself with as many cars as you can, and keep your speed steady,” he instructed, his accented voice filled with insane determination.
“Are you going to try to break through it?”
“No, I am going to demolish it.” Ilyan looked toward Wyn, his face filled with enjoyment or madness, I wasn’t sure which.
Wyn nodded to him once before accelerating, the force sending me against the back of the seat, Ryland’s necklace pressing against my chest.
The necklace was a white hot brand, flaming through me, the warmth pulsing hotter and hotter like the beat of a heart. It was more than just heat though; it was pain beyond my own: hate, love, fear, and excruciating heartbreak. None of the emotions were mine, but with that one touch, they filled me; they destroyed me. I couldn’t help it, the second it burned into me, my mouth opened in an agonizing scream. My voice ricocheted around the car, growing louder in the cramped space.
I heard Ilyan yell along with me as a bright light moved away from him through the window, only to explode against an invisible force that broke into a million pieces. As the wall broke, my scream continued, only silencing when Ilyan turned to clamp his hand over my mouth.
“You need to drive as fast as you can, Wynifred; they know exactly where we are.” He removed his hand from my mouth, and I instantly clamped my mouth shut.
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly “The necklace… it’s in pain.” I didn’t know why I had said that, but the phrasing was right. The emotions that the necklace filled me with felt as if it was in severe pain.
Ilyan’s eyes grew wide, his jaw clenching. He looked over my head sharply as he looked for something. I could see his clenched jaw pulse angrily.
“Fast, Wynifred; they are both here.”
Wyn hit the gas, and we sped away from the cars we had been pacing with. All the cars became blurs as we soared by them, the black Mazda swerving in and out between the others on the highway.
“What do you think of your brilliant plan now?” Wyn grumbled as she cut in front of a yellow Hummer.
“Faster Wyn!” Ilyan screamed.
The words had no sooner left his mouth than Wyn swerved to the left, barely missing another car. Only a second after she had moved the car, an explosion filled the space we had just left. I turned my head to the side, the red and white of the fire filling the air.
The explosion sent a panic through the cars and drivers on the highway. Half the cars pulled to the side of the road in confusion or curiosity as to what had happened, while the remaining cars sped ahead in a desperate attempt to outrun the fiery blast. All the cars began to drive erratically; they paced and swerved, several cars ramming into each other in violent collisions that filled the road with the sounds of grinding metal, and shattering glass, and the smell of smoke that masked the magical onslaught around us.
I watched them as we moved, the car swerving around each accident as we weaved our way through the masses. I could see the fear on the other drivers’ faces; almost
feel
the palpable energy of the screaming men and crying women. I wanted to scream at them to run, beg them to find a way to get far away; they were all getting hurt, many of them dying, because of me.
My mother had died because of me, too. Her life had been stolen, just like all the others. I pulled away from the thought only to catch a short glance of a screaming woman that froze my soul. Was that how my mom had felt before she died?
Wyn swerved again, this time sending me into the corner of the suitcase. I forgot everything else and yelped out in pain as my breath was knocked out of me from the impact. She moved the car and another explosion hit the road, sending bits of asphalt against the side of the car. The residue of the blast pelted us, a large piece slamming into the side window near my head with a resounding crack as the glass shattered.
“Ilyan, do something!” Wyn screamed as she swerved once again to escape another explosion.
Ilyan hesitated before raising his hands above his head in silence and then placing his palms flat against the top of the car. His hands glowed bright blue as the roof of the car ripped apart in a loud explosion that ricocheted through the enclosed space. I screamed as the pieces of metal ripped and curled away from the car and into the remaining highway traffic. The hot wind of summer flew into the now topless car, whipping my hair haphazardly around my face.