Persuasion Enraptured

  I fell back into my body in time to see Malcolm—or Lance as Malcolm—snapping his fingers to disappear.

  My knees gave out, and if Henry hadn’t caught me, I would have hit the ground. My whole body vibrated.

  Grayson hugged me close. “Mom? Is he okay?”

  I imagined he was. Who would deserve to move on to their next life more than Malcolm? He wasn’t hanging around; I didn’t see his ghost anywhere. He wouldn’t do that to me if he had any other choice. He’d never make me move him on.

  He was fine. He was no longer here. It had been so long since I’d cried, I’d actually forgotten how. I kissed Grayson on the head and then jumped to my feet. I needed Abbi, my little one, who would never know Malcolm.

  I needed to breathe.

  Chase was gone. Ross was gone. Chelsea had never come back. Malcolm was gone. One by one, my friends and family would die. The world would end, and even if my children survived, they’d never be able to leave this dimension. They’d have no spouses, no friends, no lovers, and no children of their own.

  I pushed through the door of Michael’s cabin. He’d set us up for nothing. We were lambs to The Master’s slaughter. How could he have done this? Why not tell us to run? Why not let us off the hook?

  Coming up short, I stared at the wall. Why hadn’t I noticed the artwork before? It probably had to do with the fact that I’d spent little time in the place. Still, now that I focused on it, it was kind of odd that he had it painted on his wall.

  The phoenix was in front of me in all of her glory. Her wings were spread and the huge rainbows of colors practically glowed off her. I stepped forward and touched the rendition. The real life version had saved my life, but she was gone. They had her. That’s how they got Malcolm. The shadows couldn’t possess us without the Phoenix. When had they taken her? When we came here? When Chase went to retrieve it? So many unanswered questions.

  The bird had been the key to everything.

  “Hey,” Victoria said, standing in the doorway. “You okay?”

  “Gosh, I don’t know.” I kicked the wall. “I love him, and I can’t even cry. I’m defunct.”

  She wrapped her arms around me. “I don’t know. You breaking down wouldn’t solve anything. You’re not convinced its over. If you were, you’d be weeping. Blackened heart and everything.”

  I snorted. “I didn’t say I had a blackened heart.”

  Her eyes twinkled. “Oh, sorry, my bad. Guess that’s just how I feel about you.”

  “Malcolm would know what to do.” I was the lightbringer. I wasn’t supposed to be the brains of the operation.

  Victoria sighed before she nodded. “Sure he would. And I know what it would be, his suggestion. He’d want to run head first, willy-nilly. He wouldn’t want to worry about small details or who got hurt. Malcolm comes for Kendall. It’s what he does. That’s why he grabbed that Phoenix that day.”

  I put my hands on my hips, moving from Victoria. “Shouldn’t I be able to feel it if he was gone?”

  “I’d like to think I would know Henry was gone.” She pointed at the Phoenix on the wall. “It’s a huge rendition. Do you suppose Michael painted it?”

  “How were the phoenixes made—originally? In mythology? Where did they come from?” I knew so little about it.

  Victoria shook her head. “I’m not hugely versed on the subject. But as far as I know, they’re Greek. A symbol of fire and divinity. Rebirth.”

  “All sounds so right to me. I’ve died. Come back a few times—even into fire and ash when I was in the Shadow Dimension. I never realized how much I had in common with the bird.”

  My best friend gasped, her hand coming over her mouth. “Why didn’t I think of it before?”

  “What?” I gawked at her. Victoria was so rarely rattled. “What is it?”

  “You don’t have a lot in common with the phoenix. You are the phoenix.”

  “Oh sure.” I shook my head. “Look at my wings. I’m flapping them right now. Yes, I’m a big, giant bird.” I spread my arms like they were wings. “I’m going to fly away.”

  She pointed at me. “You assume Michael left you nothing. But he did. He always had. Probably from moment one. You are the phoenix. You die, time and again, and you come back. You are the phoenix, Kendall. That’s why he gave you the phoenix to bring back with you. He made it your responsibility. Because it was always about you.”

  “No.” I shook my head. “Not possible. If I was the phoenix or something, I’d have to know.” Wouldn’t I?

  Chapter Seven

  “Victoria.” I sunk to the floor. “I’m not the phoenix. The phoenix is an ever-changing idol that was buried, for a very long time, in your backyard.”

  She shook her index finger at me. “Do you remember when I did the blood calling? To bring out the Others? We used the phoenix. And all that happened was you spoke to them. You—not us, not me holding the phoenix—you. Malcolm got all hot and bothered.”

  I remembered it well and pushed away the memory. No thoughts about Malcolm like this right now. “I’m walking around. I’m a person. I remember being born. I remember dying. I remember coming back to life. I am not a mythical bird.”

  She knelt down. “We have all been reborn. But, not like you have. Over and over. When your mother died—”

  I stood. “Don’t say it.”

  “Your mother said you weren’t her daughter.”

  I walked out of the cabin, hoping she’d stay away, but being Victoria, she chased me. “My mother had dementia.”

  “Yes, but what if she wasn’t wrong? What if you aren’t her daughter?”

  I stopped, my blood pumping in my ears. “Then what I am? I have all those memories. I remember the years leading up to my death. We drove around in my parents’ van. I’m Kendall. I’m not a phoenix.”

  “One in a bazillion people could survive like you have. Over and over. What if it’s possible you’re both? Maybe they did answer your request. Maybe they made you the phoenix.”

  Victoria chewed on her finger. “The idol. You gave your powers to the idol. Mary shouted for help, you got the idol, you brought her back.”

  My head buzzed, and much as I loved her, I hated Victoria in that moment. “You did that with me.”

  “Sure.” She nodded. “I did. We all help you. We love you. You’re like my sister. But we all assist you. Even Malcolm. He fights. You don’t ask the phoenix to fight if it can be avoided.”

  I grabbed her shoulder. “Everyone burned and came back to life in the Shadow World. Everyone does. It wasn’t just me.”

  “Do they? Or do they just do that when you’re there? Malcolm said they were afraid of you.”

  I rubbed my forehead. “In this version of the world you’re creating in your own mind, I am the phoenix? Is that it? If I’m the phoenix, how do they have Malcolm, Chase, and Ross? How did they do that? If I’m the phoenix, they can’t possess their bodies.”

  “Not necessarily. Magic is funny. There’s always a price.” I’d heard this speech many times. It had certainly been true when she’d lost her own powers helping me. “Don’t lose the phoenix, the Others told you. So you didn’t. You believed it held your powers. Malcolm brought it to you, and you healed yourself. You gave it power. But it’s not the power. You are.”

  I shook my head. This was too much. There was no way this was true. “You’ve lost your mind. Go spend some time with Patricia. Let her examine your head. I don’t have time for crazy right now.”

  “Did I tell you I’ve got most of my powers back?” She put her hands on her hips. “So I hope you’ll forgive me for this.”

  I swung around. What the hell did that mean? “Victoria—”

  A blast of her powers hit me hard. I gasped, knowing she had zapped me so hard I was going to die. I tried to push through it. Over the many, many years, I’d developed some resistance to magic. But Victoria was a hell of a witch.

  She stopped my heart.

  First there was pain … then there was nothin
g.

  I sat up slowly, my head pounded, and I tasted sand in my mouth. I frickin’ hated dying and coming back to life. I rubbed my eyes and looked around.

  Everyone who was still alive, over the age of eighteen, in the dimension with me, and not a shadow-person using a body, surrounded me. Levi let out a loud breath.

  “Fuck. I’m so sick of this.” He stood, shaking his head. “I thought she’d killed you.”

  I got to my feet. My muscles felt like mush. A good wind was going to blow me over. “She did.”

  “Thank the goddess I was right.”

  I whirled around. Henry held Victoria’s shoulders, and they both took a step back when they looked at me. “You killed me.”

  “Yes, but only because you’re the phoenix. You come back to life.” She squeaked, and Henry put himself in front of her.

  “Two problems,” I shouted. I didn’t even try to battle for calm. Being pissed off was all I could manage. “The first is that you didn’t know that for sure. You might have just ended me forever. The second—it hurts. Okay? Dying and coming back hurts. Or have you forgotten?”

  “I only did it once.” She held up her finger. “And I’m thinking that was because of you.”

  Oh, no. No. No. No. “I did not have you killed and brought back. I didn’t even know you.”

  “Maybe not the first time. Although, there could be magic in that, too. You needed things. You got them. The universe provided. What’s more, honey, is that I did know it would work because I suddenly remembered I’d always known. When I got my powers back, I totally reset.”

  I crumbled onto the ground. It was dirty. I was tired. I’d died. I wanted Malcolm and maybe some chocolate. I couldn’t have any of it. “So I’m basically a bird who wanted to be human. Why did you know if I didn’t?”

  She rushed around Henry and threw her arms around me. “Because you don’t want to be a bird. You never were. You were a little girl with way too much power who got shot and killed by a psychopath. You weren’t done. The Others did what they could. But now you need to be the phoenix.”

  I’d thought I was done with tears. I was wrong.

  They travelled down my face, and I didn’t even try to stop them. “What happens to the phoenix? Doesn’t it eventually burn out?”

  Maybe my father had spent so much time on mythology for a reason. Levi squatted down and pulled me against him. He wasn’t Malcolm, and I didn’t love him that way anymore. But he smelled familiar, and he had once been the sun to my universe.

  “You’re not a bird. But you are magic.”

  I watched you in utero …

  I sat up straight. The night was quiet. Abbi slept nearby. In the other room, Levi and the kids were strewn out on couches and mattresses. I got out of bed before I put my hand on Abbi’s back. She was so small to be so alone. I wanted to run away with her, to have the time I’d had with the others. Baby-moon. Her dark hair shone in the moonlight, and I had to smile. This was what Malcolm must have looked like when he was a baby. Dark hair, olive skin … sharp, alert eyes.

  I picked her up into my arms. She didn’t wake, which was amazing, and carried her into the living room. Levi was nowhere to be found, but our three children slept hard in their places. They’d been through so much. Too much. And all of it was my fault, at least to the extent that I hadn’t done a good enough job of shielding them from my problems.

  A glimpse out the window showed me that Levi stood on the porch, looking up at the moons above his head. Still carrying my baby, I joined him quietly outside.

  He turned when I approached, nodding at me. “I knew you’d come. You’re leaving, right?”

  “I am. Can you look after Abbi? It’s so much to ask. I may not come back.” And Malcolm was gone. Despite Victoria’s assurance that as the all-mighty phoenix I could perform miracles, I had no idea if I could bring back Malcolm, Chase, or Ross.

  He took the baby from my arms. “Her Uncle Levi has this under control. In any circumstances.”

  I appreciated he did me the favor of not pretending I was a for-sure return. “Thanks.”

  Levi nodded. “When this is over, I’m getting a girlfriend. I want you to know that. I’m going back to work, and I’m finding a girlfriend. I’m always going to love you. But I think I can love someone else, too.”

  “I want that for you. Fall in love again. You were the most wonderful husband.” Even if Malcolm was gone, forever, I couldn’t go back to Levi. Time moved on, and so must we. My heart had let Levi go. I didn’t want to step back; I wanted to go forward. Whatever that meant. No more pauses or trips off my path. “We’ll always have the people we made together to remember the good times.”

  His mouth was a grim, thin line. “For sure.”

  “No regrets? Wish you hadn’t married a bird?”

  He snorted. “You’re not a bird, and I’ve come to love Victoria like a sister, but the woman is half-mad. When she killed you, everyone freaked out.”

  “The best kind of mad, but yes, I’ll agree, that was over the top.”

  He leaned against the railing. “No regrets, Kendall. Not about knowing you. Not about loving you. I do regret letting you down.”

  “You can let that go, Levi. You lived through Top Hat possessing you. I think somehow you’ve made up for not believing I could see things you couldn’t. I forgive you, although there really is nothing to forgive. Can you forgive me? For lying?”

  He nodded. “Absolutely. I mean, you can’t expect a bird to tell you the truth.” His mouth twitched, which made me smile. I covered my mouth to stop from laughing.

  “I can’t get anyone else killed.”

  Levi didn’t look at me when he spoke. “I know.”

  It helped when there were people in my life who really did know.

  * * *

  The problem with being a phoenix—or having been made one or whatever the Others did to me after I made my request of them—was that I didn’t know how to be one. Sure, I could easily die and come back. But there had to be more to me than that. A constant dying and rebirth cycle didn’t solve my problem with The Master, also known as Lance, also known as a pain in my ass.

  They wouldn’t have done this to me if there wasn’t some other point. If I ever did get to see Michael again, I’d kick his behind for not telling me about this.

  Unless, of course, he did. There were too many questions. The gravity on Earth was slightly different and I adjusted as I walked through Zilker Park aching for Malcolm. An actual, physical hole in my soul had formed where he was supposed to be. So far, I hadn’t seen any shadows.

  Hiding in plain sight had seemed the best course of action. I stopped short in my tracks as a familiar body appeared up ahead. Chase was gone—his body taken by a shadow—and I had the unfortunate luck of running into his squatter-occupied body up ahead. My heart sank into my stomach. These people were my family. Annika and Mary were despondent back in the Other dimension.

  He didn’t see me, and I managed to duck around the side of a tree to wait for them to pass. What were the chances of Chase’s body being in Zilker Park when I was? This couldn’t be coincidence.

  “Sucks he’s walking around like that.”

  I jumped, my hand coming to my neck. There, in pure needs-to-be-moved-on ghost form, was Chase. My heart fell into my stomach. “So you’re dead.”

  I had hoped, deep inside of me, that somehow he, Ross, and Malcolm had held onto their bodies, that somehow they’d done it.

  He squatted on the ground, running his hand over the dirt but not really touching it. “It would appear so. I didn’t even see it coming. I always thought I would, as though I’d get the chance to have a last battle or something.”

  I sat down next to where he would be sitting were he alive. “In the end, we all die. Except for me. Apparently, I’m a phoenix. I don’t die. Or I do, but I come back.”

  He nodded, looking down at the ground. “That’s pretty fucked up.”

  “Yep. Maybe I could bring you back. I b
rought back Mary. I have to figure out how.” Perhaps I could regrow his body.

  Chase shook his head. “Don’t.”

  His words shocked me. “Don’t” was the last thing I’d ever thought I’d hear him say. Or maybe not. He hadn’t wanted me to bring back Mary.

  “You’re ready.”

  He smiled at me. Chase had been really handsome. I only had eyes for Malcolm, but Chase could stop traffic with how gorgeous he was. “I should have died on a boat when I was ten. I got another chance. Fell in love. I never wanted kids, although I liked yours a lot. I travelled, and I’d like to believe I helped people. What’s left? More pain? More battles? I’m … tired.”

  “Then you need me to send you on. Unless you know how to do that yourself.”

  He looked up at the sky. “Am I being selfish?”

  “Look, you died. As you said, you didn’t see it coming, but you were killed. I’ve got no control over my powers, so the shadow was able to take away your body. Most people, they die, they’re dead. How do I know if you’re being selfish? I’m selfish. This wouldn’t have happened to you at all if it weren’t for me.”

  He laughed, a strong, loud sound. “You didn’t tell the shadows to break out of their dimension. You didn’t ask for any of this.” He furrowed his brow. “But if you are the phoenix, then maybe it’s time to burn.”

  I nodded my head. “Have you seen Malcolm? Or Ross?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “Sorry, hon. Is it time?”

  I pointed upwards. “It can be.” Even though it was going to kill something inside of me to send him on. “If you’re ready.”

  “I think I’ve always been, since the first time. I only said yes for Mary. I didn’t want to leave her. But I’ve been feeling really in-between for a long time.”

  I rubbed my throat. It might be closing and never open again. I’d just quit breathing and … wake up after I was dead, since apparently I was a phoenix. I didn’t die. I kept living, which was going to be helpful, I guessed, in beating The Master. Would I keep going until I eventually killed him? Was it just a matter of the two of us waiting each other out in eternal life?