Shattered (28 page)

“He’ll come around,” Emma
said, dragging me out of bed.

She took me downstairs with a
snap. We landed in the kitchen, amidst laughter and the smell of bacon and
pancakes.

I thought I’d seen it all. I
thought, after last night and all of the things I’d been through this year,
that nothing could possibly shock me. Boy, was I wrong. From the kitchen, I had
a clear view of my parents sitting in the dining room, laughing the hardest I’d
ever seen either of them laugh.

I’d assumed Mom would be gone
by now. Her life was much too busy to be sitting around in pajamas with her
ex-husband. On today of all days, with only one day left to Kamon’s Temple
night, she should’ve been somewhere planning and training until she made her
move.

Dad finally noticed Em and I
in the kitchen and waved. “Pumpkin. Emma. Good morning.”

“You guys are eating
together,” I said. “And laughing. Don’t pretend that’s not weird.”

Mom caught her breath and
dabbed the corners of her eyes. “Your father just challenged Sophia to a
cook-off. You should’ve seen it. He was kidding, but she got all excited. Her
chubby little cheeks turned red and she started hopping around before she left.
It was hilarious.” She sighed. “Maybe you had to be there.”

Jokes and cook-offs? Someone’s
priorities were a little off.
 
 

Emma pulled me to the stove.
There was just enough for us. As we made our plates, we had a silent and
shocked conversation about my parents with our eyes. “Do you want to go in
there with them?” she asked.

I would have if I hadn’t
sensed that my best friend needed more time with me after last night’s scare.

“No. Let’s go outside. Just
me and you.” She grinned and I waved to my parents on the way out.

 
“Honey,” Mom said. “I’ll come say goodbye
before I leave.”

“Okay.”

As we ate, I blocked out the
noise in the air. As usual, Kamon’s voice was there with awful screams and
cries. Emma distracted me from the urge to peek into the future to see if
anything had changed about tomorrow. We stayed outside for hours. We talked
about the boys and how she thought my next outing should be planned and aimed
at clearing the bad press we hadn’t addressed.

Then her parents called and
took her away from me. “I’ll come back later,” she said. “They just like to see
my face to make sure I’m not dead or chanting to the devil.”

I laughed and waved. With her
gone, anxiety and curiosity quickly began to overtake me. I stared at the
waves, trying to make my heart match their rhythm. That didn’t work. I watched
a bird flying close to the water, trying to make my breaths as long and smooth
as its movements. The waves continued to gently rise and fall, the bird continued
its smooth glide, and I continued to panic.

The not knowing was the
worst.

“Why am I doing this to
myself?” I said. “Just look. Take one look and back off just like you’ve been
doing.” I took another long breath and asked myself the question I really
wanted to know. “Will she listen to me? Will she save them?”

I let the noise into my head
again. The bloodcurdling screams rattled every piece of me. I felt myself
suffocating, and for the first time in any of my visions of tomorrow, I saw
blonde hair falling over my eyes.

“Mom,” I said. I sensed she
was in there, in the fire, unable to move. “What are you doing? What happened?”

My powers answered me.

She was going to wait to save
them until tomorrow so no one would sense her plan. My mother wasn’t callous
and ignoring Pop. She cared about the people inside and was going to try to get
them out. But, I saw her in my head … on the ground, unconscious again.

I heard the name
Tyler Moss
. He was … an agent? Yes, an
agent. He worked for my mother and had orders to…

My powers hit a wall, but I
pushed right through it.

He had orders to carry out
Mom’s plan no matter what. Whether she was there or not. “She’s going to get
trapped,” I said, completely sure of it. “Drugged and trapped.”

Then I felt the terrifying
feeling of chaos. Riots. Fear. War.

My mom was going to try to
bring peace, but she wasn’t strong enough to pull it off. My powers were
telling me she would fail.

I ran into the house to ask Dad
for my phone. I needed to call and warn her. It wasn’t until I raced past the dining
room that I remembered she’d been here for breakfast and hadn’t said goodbye
yet. “Where is she?” I asked myself.

A vision entered my mind of
her lounging in the hammock, still in her pajamas … with Dad. Laughing.
Kissing.

I gasped.

I had to be wrong. My parents
weren’t back together. That was impossible. My powers had to be off. Maybe I
was wrong about everything I’d seen today. I wanted to be. I hoped my brain was
just fried from the screams that were still blasting in my ears and Mom wasn’t
going to lose again.

“I’m wrong,” I said, walking towards
her room to prove that.

Her door was slightly
cracked. I stepped in slowly with my eyes shut tight, praying that I’d find her
on her bed and she’d assure me once again that she had everything under
control. I guessed that was the box I needed
her
to live in.

I opened my eyes and hope
slowly drained from my body. She was not in her Lydia Shaw box. She was so far
outside of the box that I nearly fainted. Even though I’d just seen it in my
head, the sight of her and Dad making out on the hammock knocked the wind out
of my chest.

Neither of them looked up,
too lost in each other, and I just stood in the doorway and watched them kiss
for a minute. I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t. The kiss meant so much. It
meant that my parents had somehow found a way back to each other, my vision
wasn’t wrong, and we had even more to lose now.

As it stood, Mom’s plan to
blow up Kamon would backfire. Never mind what her third defeat would do to my
life and my family, without Mom, and with more innocent magical beings dead,
the world was set for another war.

How was I supposed to sit
back, be a good little girl, and let that happen? How was I supposed to let her
run off and leave Dad again, give up her life again, risk everything for the
world when she had nothing left in her to give?

I’d seen myself there, in his
prison, and I’d wanted to ignore that. But now I couldn’t. Going there wouldn’t
be this stupid and reckless thing I should stop myself from doing. After last
night, I didn’t think I could call myself stupid and reckless anymore. With a
machete and gun at my disposal, I’d chosen to do the right thing, the
responsible thing, and leave Kamon and the triplets alive. I wasn’t the same
girl who almost burned Sienna and Whitney to death or the girl who jumped into
the portal and killed millions of people.

I was a girl who loved her
Mom, wanted peace, and had the power to make it happen. And because that was
who I was, it was my responsibility to go in my mother’s place. I knew I could
get Emma to knock her out for me, make her sleep through tomorrow, and when she
would wake, it would be too late to stop me.

This wouldn’t exactly qualify
as the baby danger she’d approved of me dabbling in, but I didn’t have a choice.
I never had a choice. I’d seen myself free his captives months ago. In the
dream, there was no Lydia Shaw, and it was up to me.

I remembered Sister
Constantine again, standing in her garden, yellow flowers all around her,
talking about seasons again. It was Kamon’s season to die, Mom’s season to
rest, and my season to make it happen. I was sure of it. Completely and
thoroughly, one hundred percent sure of it.

I was going.

Then, abruptly, as my parents
still made out on the hammock, the sounds of war ceased in my head.

The phone rang and rang and
rang as Paul sat on my bed and took his laptop back. We’d been researching how
to sell a home since Sophia told me I was never leaving her house again. My new
room had once belonged to Paul’s parents, then Emma’s sister, and then a nomad
family of wolf shifters, according to Paul. Now, the pale blue walls held the
photos of me as a child with my mother, and Sophia had managed to rid my fur
blanket of blood and decorate my new bed with it.

So … I lived here. And I was comfortable.
And … I didn’t plan on going anywhere until I got Chris back.

The phone rang again. I
didn’t even think about giving up.

 
Finally, he answered. “What?”

“Hi, it’s…”

“I know who this is,” Mr.
Gavin said. “What do you want?”

“You said to call you when I
wanted to talk to her.”

He sighed. “And you called,”
he said. “Twice this morning and three times during lunch. One of those times
was exactly twenty minutes ago. You are really annoying, you know that?”

“Sorry,” I said. “But you
didn’t specify a calling limit, sir.”

It sounded like a sliding
door opened and closed. His background noise changed to waves and birds. Paul
had told me Christine now lived in Puerto Rico. I was excited about visiting
her there … whenever he’d give me his blessing.

“My answer hasn’t change,
Nathan. She’s doing well, and I don’t want to ruin that with a phone call from
you.”

“Fair enough. So … how’s your
day going?” Paul laughed and plopped down on my bed. I shooed him off, knowing
I’d still smell him and his pack of cigarettes there later. My blanket had just
been cleaned.

“My day is actually going
well,” Mr. Gavin said.

“Nice. Rumor is … Lydia’s
there. That’s what I heard, anyway.” He hummed in the speaker. I interpreted
that as a yes. “Is that why your day is going so well?”

He sighed and said, “Nice chatting
with you, Nathan. Please don’t call me back today.”

Crap. I’d crossed the line.
“Okay, sir. Talk to you in the morning.”

I hung up before he could
tell me not to call then. “He’s going to string you along for a year,” Paul
said. “You are aware of that, right?”

“Shut it, buzz kill. How much
does it say I can get for a house like mine?”

He turned the laptop so I
could see the screen from my bed … where he was not allowed. “A pretty penny.
Sure you’re not going back?”

I hunched my shoulders. “I’m
sure. I needed it to heal, not to live in. And I wouldn’t want to live there
with Chris anyway. We should be married in a few years, right? Her dad can’t
possibly string me along for that long.” He made a face that made me feel
foolishly hopeful.

An elated scream startled me.
It was followed by, “Thank heavens!” It sounded like Sophia had just won the
lottery. Paul and I raced down the stairs and found Sophia and her husband in
his study.

She danced around the room by
herself to no music with something made of metal in her hands. She lifted it up
to the ceiling like an offering as she squealed with glee.

“What’s going on?” Paul
asked.

His grandfather lifted his
head from a large book on his desk. He looked as confused as Sophia was
excited.

“The compass,” Sophia said.
She stopped twirling and brought the metal object in her hands closer to our
faces. “We’re going to do it, my boys. Peace! Do you see that?”

Paul nodded, but I was lost.
I’d never seen the compass thing before. It looked about as old as Earth and
was missing the typical directions. She danced over to her husband and gave him
the compass.

“I have to tell Lydia the
good news!” she said. “This is cause for celebration. We should have a nice
dinner. Or a party! That’s it. A party!” Sophia was usually a bundle of joy,
but her enthusiasm was off the charts right now.

“My love,” Gregory said.
“Don’t you think we have bigger things to plan than a party?”

Sophia shook her head. “With
one call, we’ll have the warehouse for a makeshift shelter for Kamon’s
captives. You know that. And we can get our children to help us with creating
food and getting them cleaned up. You know several memory spells to wipe their
brains of Christine, honey. The day is already planned!”

“Wait,” I said. “This is
about Chris?”

“Partly,” Gregory said. He
tapped the compass on his desk and I moved closer to it, studying the lines and
the letters. H and M. the silver arrow was resting in the center of them.

“What is this?” I asked.

“It predicts peace,” he said.
He huffed like he was having trouble believing his own words. “The arrow hasn’t
been there in a very long time. Things haven’t looked this good in a very long
time. But … I don’t know why it would’ve happened so suddenly.”

“I don’t either,” Sophia
said. “But I’m glad it did. Lydia must have something up her sleeve. I’ll see
you all later.” She squealed again before disappearing.

Gregory turned the compass
over in his hand, staring at both sides from several angles like he expected it
to change.

“Pop,” Paul said. “You told
me a war could be coming.” Gregory nodded. “And now?”

“Now … we’ll see peace if
this is true.”

Paul yelled, “
Whoo
!” and danced his way out of the study.

“You don’t seem happy,” I
said. He smelled apprehensive and nervous.

“I’m just confused,” he said.
“This is coming out of nowhere. I’m having trouble trusting it.”

“What do you think happened?”
I asked.

He hunched his shoulders.
“Either Kamon just suddenly stopped being Kamon or Lydia’s plan will work … for
all of us.”

“What’s the plan?”

He snapped and closed the
door, trapping our now secret conversation inside. “Do your best not to repeat
what I tell you. You’re immune to psychic powers, but we still need to be
careful.” I nodded, and he told me about the plan to blow Kamon up and the
tragic fate of the people left inside. I hadn’t thought about the army as
victims before. When it came to Christine’s safety, it was hard to see anything
else. Even my own problems.

“Lydia would have to be a lot
stronger than she’s proven to be lately,” he said.

“Unless she’s planning to have
backup. She doesn’t work alone, right?” I said.

He shook his head slowly, and
then his lips melted into a frown. “She’s not alone. She has …” He gripped the
compass in his hand and squeezed tightly. If he had my strength, it would have
crumbled in his palm.

“What?” I asked.

 
“Who do you know that is strong enough to
do this and kind enough to care where this arrow lies?”

My eyes landed on the silver
arrow as I started to understand what he’d meant. “Chris,” I said. He nodded.
“Are you going to stop her?”

He shook his head. “I
couldn’t if I tried. But … fortunately, she is not alone. Paully! Paully!!”
Paul poked his head in. “Call Emma for me, son. I need to get a message to
Christine.”