The Breaker's Resolution: (YA Paranormal Romance) (Fixed Points Book 4) (19 page)

“My house is just down this street. I was thinking we could have some tea.”

“She hates tea,” Casper chimed in.

“Coff-“

“Not that either,” he shook his head. “You got any Snapple?”

“I don’t- Maybe.” She said.

“Whatever you have is fine,” I said. “Let’s just get this over with.”

********

The silence in which we walked for the next five minutes was definitely that deafening kind that you always hear about in movies and sappy breakup songs. My mind was all over the place. I just couldn’t get passed this.  And the thing was, I didn’t really know why. I had been lied to my entire life. Mom lied to me. Owen lied to me. Hell, even Dad lied to me for as long as I knew him. But this was different. There was something about this lie, about these lies, that made them stick in a way that the others didn’t.

Laurel Luna raised Royce. She took him into her home and raised him every day of his life. And he never had the stones to tell me about it. That made me madder than maybe anything I had ever been through in my entire life, and I had no idea why.

When we got to Laurel’s house, a modest one story blue box with white shutters and a front porch that barely elevated from the ground, she slid the key into the door and turned to me.

“Can you give me just a minute? The place is in shambles and I just want to tidy up for a second.”

“That must be hereditary,” Casper chuckled. I elbowed him hard in the gut and he bowled over. Wouldn’t be making that mistake again, now would he?

“Whatever,” I murmured and folded my arms over my chest as she popped inside.

“Why did you bring me here, Cress? Did you think I hadn’t suffered enough yet or something?” Casper asked, rubbing his stomach. “I mean, I would literally rather dictate the specifics of how I lost my virginity to my own grandmother in front of a busload of nuns than be here for this. And I don’t mean those new progressive nuns, Cress. I mean the old school, habit wearing, ruling slapping, eternal damnation kind of nuns.”

“I need you here,” I said sternly. “I can’t do this by myself. I’d slap her or something.” I shook my head and looked to the ground.

“I mean, I guess I get that, and you know I’m gonna be here for you if you need me. That’s not even a question. But maybe you’ve gotta quell your inner Bruce Banner on this one.” He said, quirking his lip to the side.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“It means that you’re a super powerful ninja Breaker with the ability to melt stone with your bare hands and stuff.”

“Melt stone with my hands?” I asked.

“You get the point. You’re a badass, and I’m not sure your mother deserves all of that. Your ass, I mean.”

“She’s not my mother,” I barked. “And don’t talk about my ass. It’s weird.”

“That
is
weird,” he agreed. “Just maybe go easy on her. Whatever she did, she had your best interests at heart, and I can relate to that.”

“If you say ‘Cars drive on Roads’ right now, I’m gonna hurt you,” I rolled my eyes.

“I don’t say that anymore. That’s why I had the shirt made. Which you’re not wearing, by the way.” He shrugged. “But they do. Cars definitely do…do that thing I’m not supposed to talk about. And they should.”

“They absolutely should,” I agreed, and a bit of softness seeped into my heart.

The front door opened, and Laurel ushered us in. Her home was small and barer than it had any right to be. A single couch, brown and lumpy looking sat in an otherwise empty living room that was only dimly lit by a few lamps that burned from the hall and the kitchen respectively.

I squinted through the relative darkness, wondering why all the curtains were pulled closed.

“You haven’t lived here for very long have you?” I asked as Laurel suggested I take a seat on the couch.

“You still don’t remember anything, do you?” She asked. She quickly disappeared into the kitchen and came out with two cans of orange soda. “Didn’t Jiqui treat you for the effects?”

“It hasn’t done much good,” I admitted, taking the soda and sitting it on the table in front of me unopened.

“I could give you another does myself. Maybe Jiqui didn’t provide the right ratio of ingredients.”

“I’m good,” I answered. “I’m sorta over the idea of ingesting bowlfuls of stuff whipped up for me by strangers.” I sneered at her. “Thanks anyway though.”

Casper grabbed his as well, though he popped the top and chugged the entire thing whole.

“Casper is more trusting than you,” Laurel observed, sitting next to me on the couch-too close for my liking.

“Usually,” I answered. “But don’t talk about him like you know him.”

“I do know him,” she grinned. “At least a little.” She turned to my best friend. “We met in the desert. You said you were happy to know me but that the whole thing was ‘like an entire other level of trippy’.”

“Sounds about right,” Casper shrugged. Then he took my soda and chugged that too.

“This is too much,” I shuffled uncomfortably in my seat.

“I know it is Cresta. I was too much for you back in the desert too.” She held her hands out toward me and I balked thinking she was looking for a hug or something. “The only thing that helped you was this.”

“And what exactly is the ‘this’ you’re talking about?” I bit my lip.

“Take my hands and ask me anything you want to know.”

“And why would I believe anything you had to say?” I challenged her with my gaze.

“You’re aware of how Echo can tell when someone is lying?” She asked. “You’re going to do that to me.”

“I can’t do that.” I shook my head.

“You can,” Laurel insisted. “In fact, you already have.”

“Wow!” Casper grinned. “Like, back in the desert?”

Laurel nodded.

“That’s so cool! I wonder what else happened out there. It sucks so much that we can’t remember. I mean, we could have run across actual evidence of alien existence out there and we wouldn’t even know it. Have you ever thought about that?”

“I honestly never have,” Laurel answered deadpan. Turning back to me, she added, “Take my hand and ask me anything, Cresta. Your body will remember what to do.”

I hesitated a little, glaring at her.

“Believe what you want about my priorities, Cresta. But I hope you know that I’d never hurt you,” she said, her hands stalwart in the air in front of her.

“Whatever,” I sighed and took her hands. I hated to admit it, but she was right. The instant that our palms touched, I felt instantly connected to her. I felt the sweat on her palms and forehead. I heard the rhythmic beating of her heart and locked onto her pupils. I was a human lie detector; like Echo, but without the beard and missing finger.

“There it is,” Laurel smiled, reading my face. “Come on now. What do you want to know?”

This was it. I had my biological mother in front of me, begging me to ask her any question I wanted. She was even in a position where she was unable to lie to me about even the smallest detail about my life. It was a moment I had been waiting for since before I even knew I was.

So why couldn’t I think of anything to say?

“Cresta?” She asked after a few moments of silence. “Don’t you want to ask me something?”

But I just sat there, looking at her eyes, at her cheekbones. They looked like mine, dammit. But I didn’t want that. I had a mother. I had mourned my mother. I didn’t want nor need this imposter in my life. But here she was, and as much as I wanted her to, it didn’t seem like she was going anywhere.

As always, Casper came to my rescue.

“Echo,” he said, kneeling beside me. “What about Echo?”

I looked over at him, confused like I was coming out of a daze. “Right,” I muttered, snapping out of it. “Where is Echo?”

“I have no idea,” she answered flatly. Her heart remained steady. Her pupils stayed the same size. She didn’t even fidget. She was telling the truth.  “He was there when I left you in the desert. Whatever happened to him between then and now happened when I wasn’t there.”

“And in the desert,” I started, trying to find my groove in this very uncomfortable situation. “What did you want from us?”

“To get you away from the Hourglass and to safety,” she answered. Again, no abnormalities.

“So why’d you leave?” Casper chimed in.

She shot him a look. “I had matters to attend to here, matters that couldn’t wait.”

“And what matters were those?” I asked, scrunching my face because my nose was itchy but I couldn’t release her hands to scratch it.

“Cresta, stop with this minutia. Ask me the questions you really want to,” Laurel suggested, biting her lip the way I always did.

“I don’t know what you-”

“Cresta, just ask me,” she repeated. There was a softness in her voice that I didn’t want to recognize.

“You left right after I was born?” I asked, keeping my voice steady. I would be damned-literally damned- before I would let this woman see any cracks in my façade.

“I did,” she confirmed, nodding curtly. “I left the hospital two hours after you were born. I dropped you off with Ash-with Julie, I mean- later that night.” She swallowed hard. “That was the last time I saw you until that night on the bridge.”

A flash of that horrible night- the Beach Boys on the radio, my dad’s eyes as we went careening off the bridge, his body floating in the dark water.

“And why?” I asked through clenched teeth. “Why did you leave?”

“Because it was too dangerous for me to stay with you.” She tightened her grip on my hands. “I wanted to Cresta. More than anything, I wanted to be with you.”

I tried to pull away, but she wouldn’t let me.

“No,” she pleaded. “Look at me. Listen to my voice. I wanted to be with you. I’m telling the truth.”

And she was.

“I don’t care,” I muttered, and I didn’t really know whether that was a lie or not. “Though I do find it curious that you managed to take Royce with you. Why was one kid better than another?”

“He wasn’t better, Cresta,” she shook her head. “But there were rumors about your father and me. Even before we left, there were whispers about our relationship. If they’d have found me with a little girl who had Blut hair, they’d have killed you on sight. It was too dangerous.” She blinked hard. “Royce needed me though. He was just a baby, like you. And, like you, he was going to be punished for something he had no control over. Those awful parents he had, that horrible father. He’d have choked the child to death with his own hands if he’d have known that he was-”

“Destined to be with me,” I finished.

“So we took him. Rennar was still on the inside, but no one has ever kidnapped a Breaker child and gotten away with it. The Council, the families; they’d have never stopped looking. So we faked Royce’s murder and got him out of there. And since he had no connection to me-”

“You thought it was safer to have him with you than me.”

“It doesn’t mean I didn’t think about you every second.” Laurel leaned into me. “Cresta, Ash loved you too.”

“I didn’t need you to tell me that,” I answered. “I’ve always known that.” I closed my eyes tightly. I couldn’t think about Mom, not right now. “Why did you send Jiqui? You know what kind of person he is.”

“Because he’s a killer,” she said flatly, and there wasn’t a trace of dishonesty in her voice.

“Well, that doesn’t make much sense,” Casper scoffed.

“You were in danger. You all were. More danger than I could ever adequately explain to you. I needed someone who I knew could and would do anything necessary to keep you safe, someone who wasn’t loyal to any of these ideologies.”

“He worked for Allister Leeman,” I balked.

“He was a hired gun. He still is. I had to pay him fifty thousand dollars to stay with you.” Laurel answered. “And besides, Allister Leeman is dead.”

“So you went to find a whole town full of people who believe the exact same thing he did?” I asked.

“What are you talking about?” Laurel’s eyes narrowed.

“You said you wanted to help me end the world. I can think of another person who thought that way.” Bile burned the back of my throat.

“I said that because you were surrounded by these people, because even now we’re surrounded.” Her eyes bore into me. “Do you think I want this for you? Do you think I even wanted you to come here? I wanted you in Texas, in the house where I raised Royce. And here you come, showing up like you’ve got something to prove.” Fire lit in her eyes. “You’re not safe here, Cresta. There’s a reason they had to bring you here kicking and screaming. There’s a reason your best friend was scooped up like cattle and brought here the instant your back was turned. They want to use you and once they do, they don’t give a damn about what happens to you.” She jumped up, pulling her hands from mine. “What are you doing?”

Casper was twisting the knob of a locked door. He must have gotten up without me noticing.

“I had a lot of orange soda. I’m gonna need a pee break.” He answered.

I must have been really in the zone or something, because a boatload of shade poured from the locked door.