The Bargaining Path

  ***

  “What exactly is it that you came here for, Paul?” Adam asked him, “Surely you knew that you would more than likely be killed.”

  “Yes. I did. But it was a risk I was willing to take.”

  I was asleep, tossing and turning beside James.

  “And why would you take such a risk?”

  “Oh…” Paul sighed, “For the sake of travel. Seeing the sights. Watching the natives. Experiencing the culture.”

  “I highly recommend that you begin answering seriously. It is only a matter of time before my husband loses the grip on his temper. That grip never fails to only be loose, I must warn you. So you will want to answer truthfully now. Why are you here, Paul Valz?”Janna asked, in that slow, almost slurring, catlike purr of a voice. She was trying to seduce an answer out of him, using her feminine wiles to make sure that the answer he gave was truthful.

  “I actually came to talk to you about Brynna Olivier.”

  “Oh, there is that name again! By the one God, that girl must bathe daily in pheromones.” Janna spat furiously.

  “I can see your wife is privy to your affairs with Daniel’s daughter.”

  “Affairs? What affairs?” Janna asked so quickly that if I had been there, I would have laughed openly at her pathetic desperation and jealousy. “Tell me now, Paul, or I will…”

  “I have told my wife all that occurred between Brynna and myself. As she has been engaging in similar behaviors with Brynna’s brother and boyfriend, I feel no guilt in those occurrences. In fact, I would not have felt a sliver of guilt either way. But this is irrelevant, and…”

  “You and Elijah Olivier? An interesting pairing, most certainly. Those Olivier children, they love their scandalous romances, don’t they? The strapping older brother canoodling with the breathtaking wife of the First King of Purissimus; the exiled daughter wrapped tightly around a man twice her age, while secretly harboring deep, unwavering feelings for none other than the aforementioned First King of Purissimus…”

  “You will only speak of her when you are explaining your earlier mention of her. You will not speak of her in this way! You will not disparage her in front of me, Valz. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, do say you understand.” Janna drawled irritably with a roll of her eyes. Her gleaming white cheek was rested in her thin, elegant palm.

  “I do not think that you will be asking me to withhold my critiques, though what I said earlier was certainly not a critique, more of an observation. Once you learn the information I am now going to share, you will be saying worse about her than I have. But you might want to brace yourself, for your dear Brynna has been playing you for a fool…”

  I awoke with a gasp and an abrupt jolt upwards. My eyes were white, and the adrenaline was kicking my heart into overdrive before I had even fully awoken. I was ready to run to the prison. Already, the words I would need for my desperately apologetic explanation were beginning to link together to form sentences, until I had rehearsed a rough outline of all that I would say to him. James had not awoken, because I had not made nearly as much of a fuss as I normally did after a nightmare or vision, and very carefully, I eased myself off of the bed so as not to wake him.

  Before my jeans had even been pulled on completely, I was running out the door, buttoning and zipping them as I zoomed off towards the jail.

  Adam was long gone by the time I arrived. Not a hint of his scent remained in the building. The night guard was asleep, and in my haste to reach Paul, I did not even begin to think that he was not only sleeping, though I do remember distinctly acknowledging that he was Earthean and not Pangaean.

  “It is a lie. Tell me. Tell me it is a lie, Janna.”

  As I walked closer and closer to Paul’s cell, the residual effects of their emotionally chaotic and mentally straining conversation began to invade my mind, settling in so I could process and understand the implications and possibly predict what was to come.

  “Read this man’s heart, and you tell me that he is lying! Do it now!”

  “I am telling you this now because you deserve a fighting chance. Her father tried to beat the devil out of her but couldn’t. And now she has lied and betrayed you just like all those who cannot be saved lie and betray and hurt…”

  When I reached the end of the corridor where Paul’s cell was located, I slammed my open hand against the bars, sending them cracking inwards at an alarming angle.

  “Oh…” Paul sat up, rubbing his eyes in what was almost convincing sleepiness. “Hello. Sorry, I had dozed off. My goodness…” He smiled slightly, and luckily his hideous smirk was hidden under his thick gray beard. He gestured to the broken bars. “Even more evidence that you all can do amazing things when you are angry.”

  “Why would you tell him?! What was the point?! You wanted me to deliver him to you…”

  “…and you were not going to deliver him. I could see it in your eyes. I could read it in your body. You were backing out. You were unsure about it, most definitely. But you were withdrawing from our arrangement. Your obvious withdraw was taken as a violation of our verbal contract, and alas, I spilled the beans, as they say, to Adam.”

  “Leaving out the part, of course, about how you knew I was not going to go through with it!”

  “Leaving out the part, also, about how you were going to try to bamboozle us into giving you your mother back with his help. Honestly, though, Ms. Olivier, if you were planning on doing that, you would have said so from the very beginning. You would have told him what I had offered you right after you escaped. Why didn’t you?”

  “Because…”

  “I know the answer: You were not willing to risk the chance of being discovered in your bamboozlement if your mother’s life would be compromised and possibly lost all over again. You would not have her death on your conscience twice.” He said the last word with a lighthearted emphatic lilt and even held up two fingers. His personality consisted of traits and quirks that would be ideal in a children’s show host’s: a never-failing tendency to demonstrate physically what he was talking about, a never-failing tone of almost blissful content mixed with near-excitement, and also, a glint in his eye that, in the case of the children’s show host, would be merely a slight shine of pleasant, completely benign immaturity, but in Paul, was actually a hint of the sadistic, manipulative monster that lurked beneath the whole façade.

  “So, I told Adam. Now your whole way of life will crumple, the fragile peace that you have built with him and his people will be broken, the old prejudice he felt towards our kind will be rejuvenated with a breath of life and a roar of indignant fury at your terrible betrayal. It is quite thrilling, don’t you think, how it all turned out? Now, our plan proceeds as continued, we win the war, and together, your people and my people will live out the rest of our immortal lives. If I had the materials here, I would be mixing us drinks, because by mistake, you contributed to our victory, Brynna Olivier, and I thank you for that.”

  “No one knows where you are.”

  “Surely, they do now. You see…” He stood up and sauntered over to the bars, his smile fading, his eyes becoming shadowed, and his tone darkening. “I arrived here under the pretense that I wanted to know whether you were still in on our deal. However, my arrival here was the catalyst to set a few reactions into motion. First and foremost, the people that we have had buried in your camp all this time saw me and are currently sending messages amongst themselves to make sure that they are all informed of my arrival. They are all receiving little blue gemstones like this one…” He pulled at the chain around his neck and on it hung a blue gem the size of a penny. “This will keep the airborne tree-beast venom from muddling their minds. So, since they do not have to fear becoming lost and disoriented in the woods, those people will discreetly take off into the wilderness from different points around the entire circumference of the village. They will run as far out as they can, in a straight line, and mark the trees, and then return. Some will head towards our agreed upo
n location, marking their trail as they went so they can lead our people back here. And that is how the Old Spirits, as you call us, will come to occupy your pleasant forest village. You will more than likely spend the rest of your immortal life onboard the Lapsarian, though I strongly believe that you will not last very long as a free imprisoned woman there; one of those men will snatch you up and make you his the second you get one foot on the cold metal floor, and James will be there with you. Should he try to help you, one of those baddies will snap him in half, because though he is a Protector, he will be unable to protect you from the likes of them. Adam will be executed publicly, and Queen Janna will be degraded and sold off to the highest bidder. But if no one wants her after all we do to her, she will be onboard the Lapsarian, too. And all of this, my dear, is your doing. If you and I had not made our deal, I would have had no reason to be here, thus you would have never lead me back to your camp.” Through the bars, he grasped my hand. “So thank you. Thank you so much, Brynna.”

  “Was she alive?” I asked, and my voice was trembling in a rage I knew could become tangible. Beneath my death grip on the bars, I could feel heat burning. He had tricked me. He had played me. He had done both so easily. I was supposed to be All-Knowing. How had he been able to fool me so easily?

  The answer was as easy as his manipulation: He had sought out an emotional weakness in me and exploited it. I had done it to others too many times to count and just as effortlessly.

  It still boils my blood to say, even now, but like many others before me, some wiser, some not, I had been beaten at my own game by my own game.

  “Was she alive?!” I demanded, and when I banged the bars again, they buckled even more severely.

  His grin grew even wider, and that glint in his eyes brightened even more in his sadistic glee.

  “I don’t know, sweetheart. Why don’t you use that power you sold your soul for and tell me? But really, it is deceptive of me to say that you sold your soul. Rumor has it you had no soul to sell.”

  “Tell me if she was alive, Paul!”

  “No.” He said simply.

  “No, she is not alive, or…”

  “No. Just no.”

  Everything collapsed. Thoughts, rational judgment, common sense, everything that elevated me above animals, disappeared completely. My five senses were more alive than they had ever been, though, and my killer instinct was so strong that an army tank standing right in my path, firing missiles at me, could not have stopped me from killing that man. It had all been a lie. Everything was a lie. Worse, I had been taken in by it. I had believed it, and now every person for whom I was responsible, over five thousand people, were going to face the fight of their lives. I had betrayed my friend, a man for whom I cared deeply. Our whole lives would fall apart because of me. Because of a minute and a half that I had considered betraying him…

  “Baby! Baby! Brynna!”

  James had pulled me away, and I was shrieking, my fangs clashing together noisily as my jaws snapped open and shut. I could taste his blood, I could hear him screaming, I could see him writhing on the floor… My senses were heightened, and not only did they enhance my ability to kill or maim, but they helped me enjoy the act of it. The taste of his blood did not disgust me; in fact, my tongue was licking up what was around my lips. My mind remained clear, but my eyes drooped as I inhaled deeply the scent of his blood; it was as though I was becoming high on it, and his screams enhanced that strange high. Even after James had pulled me back through the bars that I had ripped sideways in order to gain entry to Paul’s cell, I was still screeching, pushing against his grasp around my upper body in an effort to free myself from it. He had to carry me to the waiting area of the jail over his shoulder.

  “Come back to me, baby. Come on.”

  James was trying to hold my face, but I was jerking it away in an effort to keep looking behind him, down the corridor where Paul was. Every time I tried to move sideways to get past him, he moved with me, grasping my arms when I went to push him out of the way.

  “Brynna.” He said only somewhat firmly. “Look at me, baby.”

  I did, and the second his face had registered in my mind in all its comforting familiarity and breathtaking handsomeness, I flung myself towards him, attacking his mouth with my own. The two highs were so similar in their intensity that it was very easy to become confused. The desire to kill was bred from rage, and a different rage—a violent, angry hunger—drove sex, at least some of the time.

  “Baby, stop. Brynna, stop. Brynna…”

  My hand was rubbing him hard on the outside of his jeans, remembering earlier in the night, when we had made love on the kitchen table, and later, when we had made love again in the bathtub, and still again, when we had made love for the last time in our bed. My lips were pressing to his neck. Without any hint that I was going to do it, I slipped my hand into his pants.

  “Baby, we can’t.” He grasped my wrist to stop me. “We can’t right now.”

  When I looked at him, I saw that his eyes, which had been brown only a moment earlier, were swirled with white; my condition was contagious.

  “We need to get Penny and Violet together, and we need to go, sweetheart.” He told me.

  At the mention of Penny and Violet, my eyes dissolved back to their natural blue but one shade darker. My worry was visible, and when he continued, it did not abate. It only worsened.

  “Adam is on a rampage, apparently. He’s looking for you.”

  “He is looking for me, and you left Penny and Violet.”

  “Savannah is hiding them, and Alice, Quinn, and Nick. I’ve been looking for Eli, but I can’t find him. Paul told him, didn’t he? That’s why you attacked him?”

  “No. He did tell him, but that is not why I attacked him. James, I have not seen Adam since he found out, but I have heard some of what he said, and felt some of what he felt, and he is angry, certainly, and he feels betrayed, but that betrayal hurts him greatly. I may be able to calm him if I just explain to him…”

  “No.” James replied firmly, “I know you want to give me an earful for telling you what to do, and I promise, I’ll welcome the tirade later, but right now, we need to go. Savannah has her kids packed, Rachel is ready to go, Tom, Tony, and Mrs. Rose are ready. So, let’s go home, let’s pack up our stuff, and let’s leave here before this gets completely out of control.”

  “James, where are we going to go?” I asked, and for just a minute, my frustration seeped through the façade of calm I was trying so hard to uphold. “There are Shadows, and tree-beasts, and water-serpents, and lions, and…”

  “And we’ll just have to keep our eyes open, and keep moving until we find somewhere safe to lay low until all this blows over.’

  “What if he kills all of our people? What if we’re…”

  “I am concerned about us. End of story. And you can look at me like you’re looking at me right now, like I’m the most heartless son of a bitch to ever live, but I am getting my people, my friends, my family, out of this situation. Now, because you possess such a philanthropic streak these days, I took care to send word through the appropriate channels that bad times are coming.”

  “Are you really disparaging me for my concern for others? And what appropriate channels? What channels do you know that I do not know? What are you even talking about right now?”

  “I’m a man with secrets.” He took my hand, and we began to walk quickly, “Must I share them all with you and kill the mystery? No? That’s right. Now, come on. We are going to go get your stuff, and then we are getting out of here.”

  “I still think there are more diplomatic ways of going about this. Just let me talk to him, James. Let’s just go to his house, and I will talk him down. I will explain what happened.”

  “Baby, I am not condescending you when I say this, but did you not hear what I just said? He is on a rampage looking for you.”

  “That is condescending even if you say it is not intended to be, and also, you cannot condescend
someone. You can speak condescendingly. You can use condescension. But you cannot condescend, at least not in this context.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Webster, for the completely inappropriately timed grammar lesson.”

  “It was not a grammar lesson. It was a vocabulary lesson, but all of this condescension towards you is unimportant and inappropriately timed, as you said. Also, if he is looking for us, why in either world would we be returning to the house? If you do not want him to find us, I mean.”

  “Because he has already checked there and is now in search of us elsewhere. Plus, he knows that you would say that.”

  “James, this is ridiculous!” I exclaimed, “Adam and I have established a friendship, and I know that that does not make you happy, but in this case, you cannot be too upset about it. I will be able to talk him down, as they say.”

  “Brynna, I know I am going to get an earful for this one, but I am about to knock you over the head and carry you out of here. I’m not even joking. You’re completely missing what I’ve been saying. He is hunting you down, and he is livid. Tony and Tom say that he literally ripped their door off the hinges to get in there and look for you. When he finds Paul, he is going to take that you attacked him as confirmation. You two aren’t friends anymore, sweetheart. Okay?”

  “I should slap you in the face for so many things that you just said.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

  We had reached our house.

  “First, I should slap you for threatening me with assault and what is essentially kidnapping. And that would not be the first time for you! Then, I should slap you for once again being condescending towards me. If you want me to obey you without question and get down on my knees and honor thy boyfriend, maybe we should just go become Old Spirits! Maybe I should just forget all of my feminist leanings and the belief in equal standings of men and women such feminist leanings afford me, and just stand behind you quietly, biding my time until you throw me down at your leisure but certainly not at mine, and…”

  “Baby…”

  “Do not ‘baby’ me!” I shouted, “You have been completely untoward since we left the jail, and…”

  “Come here.”

  “No! How many times have I told you that I will not follow orders, especially not those barked at me by a man hopped up on his own testosterone, and…”

  Very gently, he grasped my hands and pulled me closer to him. Very gently, he kissed my forehead, moved down to my cheek, and then cut off my tirade by very gently kissing my lips.

  “I’m sorry.” He told me, “I’m just a little panicked. You know how that turns me into an asshole. Need I recount for you the arguments we had in the car when we were driving to the ship?” He asked, and we both laughed softly. “I just want to get us out of here, baby. I just want to get you somewhere safe. I’m afraid for you. I know you don’t think he’ll hurt you, but I know he will. You know things because of your power and because of instinct, and I might just have the latter, but that’s enough in this case. I love you, and I need you to trust me now. I need you to let me get you out of here.”

  “I just think…”

  “Baby… Just give me this one. Just this once. Please?”

  I looked up at him. For what felt like a lifetime, my intense, stubborn gaze met his. Another first was being experienced right then: the first time I put aside my beliefs that were to the contrary of his and agreed. After I nodded, he kissed my forehead twice.

  “Thank you.”

  He unlocked the door and tapped my butt twice the way he sometimes did when I was supposed to walk ahead of him. I laughed as I always did and took his arm to wrap it around my waist as we walked.

  Because we were touching, when Janna’s seizure of his heart struck, it took us both down.

  The light clicked on, and James wrenched his hand off of me with great difficulty. He did not yell out in pain but I could see blood streaming from the corner of his mouth and knew that he had bitten his tongue and his teeth still had not released.

  “James!” I exclaimed, but just as I reached out to wrench his mouth open, he reached out, too.

  “Don’t!” He gasped out, “Don’t touch me!”

  Janna slunk out from behind the lamp, dressed all in black, her glare fixed hard on James.

  “Stop it!” I screamed at her, and when I jumped up to charge her, James grunted loudly, and his body seized up, his hands clawing at his chest.

  “You!” He shouted at me, his eyes alight with rage. “I’ll kill you for it! I’ll rip your heart out, you stupid whore! I’ll rip your heart out for it!”

  “James, what are you…” I started to say.

  “You did it! You did it!”

  “Just to inform you, because you look so very confused, he does not know why he wants to kill you, but I have provoked his rage enough for him to think he has good reason. All I have to do is erase his self-control, which unfortunately for you, takes all of half a second, and with his great strength, he will kill you. And after that, I will not have to reach in and provoke his grief, will I? Not when his worst fear is to hurt you.”

  Her grip on him released for a moment, and he collapsed to the ground, breathing heavily and sweating profusely.

  “Brynna… run… go… please…”

  I would never leave him. As usual, he was only concerned about me, and that never-failing fear for my safety and wellbeing did not drive me to heed his words but instead kept me firmly rooted at his side. Inside of me, his pleas for me to abandon him lit the fire of my protective, indignant rage; I could feel it growing slowly, licking the bottom of a propane tank that would no doubt result in an earth-shaking, throat-ripping, heads-rolling rampage once exploded.

  “Bitch…” I hissed to Janna, my eyes so red, I could feel the heat from them. I stood up, my entire body trembling, my fists clenched at my sides, and James immediately seized up again. First, he was keeping his mouth closed tightly, but then, he was gasping and fighting sobs. Tears ran down his cheeks, and his cries intensified; I never could have known it, as I had only seen him shed tears, but that sound broke my heart more painfully than any I had ever heard before, truly. To see him in such a vulnerable state, and to hear the evidence of such vulnerability in his sobs, simultaneously devastated me and angered me further.

  “Janna, stop it!” I shouted at her, “I did it! I lied to Adam! I made a deal with Paul! It was me! You will not hurt him for something I did!”

  “Oh, but haven’t you been listening? He will be the one to kill you. This is just a fraction of what he will feel after you are dead. But do not fret, Brynna; at least while he is doing it…” His tears dried up, and his sobs stopped abruptly. His eyes turned red, and he was growling, baring his fangs at me, working up what would no doubt be a wall-shaking roar. “…he will love it. He will relish your screams and take the greatest pleasure in your pain. Your beloved James only thinks he has a reason to kill you. My Adam, on the other hand, does have a good reason. A perfect reason, actually. One to which you just confessed. And…”

  I was beginning to rise onto my feet again, and James gave a shout behind me.

  “Please don’t.” He started begging, “Please don’t hurt her. Please.”

  “I just tweaked the fear he feels. Made it louder so he could show you.” Janna said, “It is actually rather sweet, how very much he loves you, how terribly he fears your death. In his heart, I can see that he thinks his life will end without you. But you know…” She released him, and he collapsed to the ground, panting again. I waited, letting her talk, knowing that my anger was still rising, heating the bottom of that combustible tanker inside of me; once it reached its maximum threshold of heat tolerance, it would detonate and then, my power would kill her. Easily, it would kill her, but not slowly. For what she was doing, I would never let her die slowly. A few more minutes, and I would be able to not just wrestle the control away from her, but seize it violently…

  “One thing I cannot do is manufacture
emotions. I can only provoke that which is already there. Now love is a tricky one, because it branches out into so many variations. Like, lust for instance.”

  My concentration on my growing anger was broken by the sudden assault of James’s hands. They were all over me, clawing down my back, running furiously up into my shirt, and then struggling against my own as they worked at the button on my pants. All the while, I turned my head from side to side, trying to dodge his mouth that was trying to assail me with hard, cold kisses. His breaths were heavy and fast, and when I managed to push him, he stormed forward, a renewed fight in him, his desire stronger.

  “James…”

  She released him, and his sweating body collapsed against me, and he was panting heavily, trying to stifle the sounds of his weak moans in my neck.

  “Brynna, please… Please, run… before she makes me… before… Baby, please…”

  “That was, in its basest form, the desire he feels for you. It is strong, as you can see. But with his love for you erased temporarily, you see how quickly his lust grows violent. Lust, in its most basic carnality, is nothing more than an animal’s urge to mate for the sake of its species, you know. Alone, it is dangerous. Alone, it is unstoppable, driven by the most basic instinct instilled in us by the one God, to make more of His race. Now that is his lust for you. Only you. But what of his lust for me?”

  James flew off of me and was on her, touching her the same way he had been touching me, and kissing her the same way. The sheer aggression of it did not seem to bother her; the smirk on her annoyingly perfect lips never faltered, and after several moments of him fondling her and licking her and kissing her, she was grinning.

  “And now you are jealous. Now you are angry, angry that your precious James is nothing more than my little puppet, and that despite all his words that speak to the contrary, he still wants me. It angers you to know he wants me as much as he wants you.”

  “Yes.” I hissed, “It angers me enough to do this.”

  Unfortunately, James was touching her, so when I sent a tidal wave of mental energy bombarding towards her, he felt the pain that was intended only for her. He yelled out, falling to the ground, holding his head in both hands.

  “Honey, I am sorry.” I told him quickly as Janna clawed at her head, not screaming, but squealing.

  “Just fuck her up…” He murmured weakly from the floor, “…for both of us.”

  “The mind gives the heart its power. Didn’t you know?” I asked in the same deeply sarcastic, completely demeaning tone. Picturing it like the flames of a sudden explosion billowing towards the sky, I reached my mind into her heart and detonated every last feeling I saw, knowing the effects of it would drive her into deep, possibly endless insanity. I wanted to see her suffer. More than anything else in the world, I wanted to see her in the deepest, darkest pit of sadness and frenzied with rage. I wanted to see her begging desperately in fear to something she did not know, and stifled by love, all the branches of it, broken by it. Envy, greed, pride, all of the deadly sins would combine with her emotions to cripple her first and destroy her second.

  “This is nothing, Janna. This is only the beginning, the exposition, the opening act, the tip of the iceburg, as they say.”

  The adrenaline was pumping through me, clearing my mind first and then kicking it into hyper overdrive; I was speaking quickly and in long, fluid sentences whose intellectual caliber were of my earlier self, the one that had been hidden away, but not lost, after all that had happened in the previous months—Maura, the trebestia, my father, Ray, Rich, Paul, the possibility (or was it the threat?) of my mother being alive…

  Janna was thrashing and convulsing on my floor, screaming and crying, begging me to stop, shouting threats. Her breakdown was more intense and vocal than even mine had been when I had been scratched by the trebestia; she was possibly in a worse off state than anyone, ever…

  “Stop… stop…” She begged, when I released her.

  But I did not stop. Instead, I let the fire from the explosion inside of her burn, because it could without all of my attention now, and then I turned my gaze to her mind.

  “Why don’t you get up?” I asked her, “Maybe you should try to walk it off.”

  Her body lurched upwards, bringing her to sitting position abruptly. Her feet twisted backwards at an awkward, agonizing angle, and she screamed in pain, tears running down her face now. Almost as though a violent, invisible hand were doing it, her body was pushed forward so she was on all fours, and then she was yanked backwards so she was only on her knees. Her legs straightened suddenly, and she was standing just like I ordered. Immediately, I directed her legs to walk quickly around the room.

  “Who is a little puppet now?” I asked her, and from the floor, James laughed, and I joined in until we were both rather hysterical. He was gaining his strength back, and soon, we both knew, Adam would arrive because Janna’s fear would have reached him. James was gearing up for that fight.

  The sound of the door banging open did not startle me, because I had known he would be coming soon.

  “Down.” He said when James went to jump up, and James, mid-sprint, collapsed to the ground, slid across the hardwood floor, and grasped his chest in both hands, screaming. I sensed that my hold on Janna was the only thing keeping Adam from ripping James’s heart in half, so I reached out my hand towards Janna and sent her walking briskly towards the window. With a slight flick of my wrist, she jumped up onto the window ledge, her back facing the outside, her eyes wide in alarm at the thought I pushed into her head, which was, of course, of the fifty foot plummet backwards to the ground.

  “Let her go.”

  “Let him go.”

  “You will release her first.”

  “Why? So you can kill him the moment she is free, and then kill me? Adam, I should have told you about this from the beginning. I should have told you right after…”

  The already maroon shade of red in his eyes darkened to black, and he stormed towards me. His grip on James released, and James bolted across the room, grabbed Janna, and held onto her tightly from behind, his hand pushing her head sideways so he could rip into her neck with his fangs if Adam tried to harm me.

  “If you touch her…”

  “My wife will die. Yes. I know.”

  “Adam…” Janna said, and the desperation in her voice left me scowling and rolling my eyes, but at the same time, feeling ecstatically triumphant.

  “You have betrayed me. You have lied to me. You have played me for a fool.” Adam growled at me, his voice low, dangerous, and trembling. “For that, you will pay dearly, Brynna Olivier. Now, I know that you and your disgusting family and your perversion of a lover and your whole despicable race are cowards, and that you will try to run. I beg of you, do not be so pathetically foolish. For if you leave this village, I will hunt down every last one of your kind—man, woman, child—and if you thought the mutilated bodies hung in the trees by my house were terrible, your heart will stop at all that I will do! Every one of you, equally, with no mercy, with no thought, will be slaughtered!”

  I should have continued trying to talk him down. Instead, his threat stoked the fire of my anger, and in that anger, I found the will to push him further.

  “If we leave?” I asked, as though I did not understand.

  His hand raised, trembling even more violently, and as he swung it at me, I dodged what would have been a jaw-breaking backhanded slap. When he grabbed onto my shoulders and dragged me towards him, James pushed Janna onto her knees and roared, getting ready to bite into her throat. Quickly, I reached out into his mind and stopped him.

  “You will not mock me now!” He shouted deafeningly in my face. “If you leave, you will die! All of you!”

  “And if we stay?”

  He laughed, his white fangs glinting in the light from the fire-lamp, his eyes glowing with malice.

  “I suppose you will just have to wait to find out.”

  “Adam…”

&nb
sp; “No. I do not want to hear a word of your lies. Not a single word, Brynna Olivier!”

  “I never said that I would…”

  I did not realize we were flying through the air until my back had slammed painfully into the hard wooden wall and his hand was pressed to my throat.

  “What is that? I cannot hear you?” He asked as I gasped for air, tugging at his hand. “If you were innocent in all of this, you would have told me long before now. If you had not considered it, you would have had no reason to lie.” He came forward so his lips were pressed to my ear. “You have pained me.” His grip released on my throat so he could hold my chin in a crushing grip. His face came away from my ear so he could shout in mine, “You have pained me! And for that, you will pay most dearly. Run, and you will regret it, because not only will you and that piece of filth die, but so will Violet, and Elijah, and your dear friends, Rachel, Tony, and Tom, and that woman, Savannah, and her children. And of course…” He came closer to me, but his gaze diverted from mine for a moment, “…so will your precious Penelope.”

  If the loss of all senses had been jarring when I had lost my control with Paul, the moment after he said that was violently so. I broke free of his grasp, punched him hard in the face, sending him staggering backwards. My foot rooted firmly in his stomach and pushed backwards. He stumbled over his feet and then over my coffee table to land splayed on the couch. Before he could even blink, I had zoomed forward and was perched on top of him, holding him down to the couch with my slight weight.

  “If you ever… say their names again…”

  He was struggling to break the grip I had on him, but suddenly, I realized, I had become stronger than him. James had become stronger than him. Perhaps, I wondered, we all had.

  “What will you do, Brynna Olivier? Tell me!” He shouted.

  “I will make what you think you can do to me into a preschool jamboree! If you do not want to hear reason, fine. Do not hear it. But do not make threats.”

  He began to laugh softly, and then, his smile faded, and he had grasped my wrist and twisted. I will confess that I did scream in pain when the bone broke in half.

  “Get out!” James bellowed deafeningly, and I realized, through my agony, that he was beside me now.

  “Tell the little girl to say that she will not leave.”

  “GET OUT!” To our left, one of the windows broke.

  Adam scooped Janna up and carried her to the door.

  “Brynna Olivier, you have crossed me once. If you do it again by leaving, you will be sorry. I will deal with you soon. Stay put.”

  “Adam, I swear to God…” James shouted, but he was gone. Upon looking at me, his eyes turned light brown again, and his voice lowered. “Alright, sweetheart. Are you okay? Let me see it.” Gently, he pried my wrist away from my chest, where I had been cradling it protectively.

  “Don’t!” I exclaimed, my voice threatening to crack as tears of pain poured into my eyes but did not fall.

  “I’m not going to hurt you, baby. I promise.”

  My wrist was twisted into a sickening S-shaped curve. Already, Adam’s handprint had bruised into my skin, a constant reminder that it was him, a man I considered to be a friend, to whom I had grown so very close, who had hurt me.

  “Come on.” James kissed my forehead as he began to lift me. “I’ve got you.” He kissed my cheek. “Come on.” He kissed my lips.

  “Are you alright?” I asked him, and my voice was barely audible.

  “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”

  “You always say that.” I told him as he sat me down on the counter in the kitchen.

  “I’m so sorry. For what she made me do…”

  “You know exactly what I am going to say.”

  “Shut up?”

  “No!” I replied, “I am going to say that your key phrase in that sentence was ‘what she made me do.’ So, do not apologize.”

  “I know, but…” I was trying to move my broken wrist, my face contorted into what was no doubt a hideous grimace of pain. “Alright. Alright, hold it right here.”

  “Don’t!” I exclaimed again when he went to touch it. Even though his grasp was so gentle, I still jumped nearly off of the counter.

  “Trust me, baby. I’m not going to hurt you. Just trust me. Hold it to your chest again. Good. Hang on. Let me get something to set it, baby.”

  He started to walk away, but with my uninjured hand, I reached out and grasped his; I had felt the strike of fear in my heart at him not being with me, but I had not known that my body had reacted. My needs had a way of acting by their own volition. He looked back at me just as tears began to silently stream from my eyes.

  “This is my fault, and I am so sorry, James. I am, and if you want out of this…”

  “‘This?’ He asked, “‘This?’ What is ‘this?’”

  With my uninjured hand, I gestured in violent exasperation between the two of us.

  “This! You and me. Us. Our relationship. When I have complicated things so terribly, you should not have to suffer the consequences. When I have made a mistake, you should not have to pay for it with your life, which it appears Adam will make you do.”

  “So, because I shouldn’t have to do those things, I should just leave you to do them on your own? Is that how it’s supposed to be? Brynna Olivier against the world?”

  “Well, it is certainly not that I want it that way, but it is not like you have to say it like it could never happen…”

  “Oh, believe me, I know it could happen, but I don’t want it to. Baby, I could give you a lecture about how because we’re a couple, we face everything together, not just everyday, run-of-the-mill stuff, like Penny getting sick, or Violet being a hooligan, or paying Don’s ridiculous crops-tax. But then you’re going to say that because I am teaching you something you don’t know or don’t grasp very well that I’m talking down to you, and while I love your in-depth reprimands very much, I just want you to try to recuperate from having your wrist snapped in half by that son of a bitch…”

  “Would you stop making jokes slash using sarcasm for a minute and just listen to me!”

  I was not angry, but I did start to cry. Quickly, I covered my face and just as quickly, he was apologizing (even though he did not need to) and kissing my forehead over and over.

  “I don’t want anything to happen to you!” I cried, “I love you, and I want you to be alright, James! I would not be able to stand it if something happened to you because of a mistake I made! Don’t you understand that?! I would not be able to stand it if I lost you, but especially if I lost you due to a fault of my own. I would not be able to stand it, James Maxwell, so I am telling you that you need to go! I am not asking anymore! I am telling you!”

  “Yeah?” He asked.

  “Yes! Now go!”

  He raised my head so I was looking at him.

  “Your mistakes are my mistakes, if and when you make them, and what you did is not a mistake. But your problems are my problems, also. So, you’d best save your breath, Brynna Olivier, because we’re going to figure this out together. There’s nothing you can say that will make me leave. I won’t let you face him on your own.”

  “You’ll be the first one he kills, James. And he will kill you. I could see it in his mind. He will kill all of us. He was thinking that he can do it. I thought I could explain it to him, but I could not. My explanation sounds empty and unsupported, even to me. I am so sorry for all of this.”

  When I looked down, he put his hand under my chin and raised my head back up. For a second that slowed down all the racing energy around us, he kissed me softly.

  “I love you so much, baby. We are going to figure a way out of this. We are going to be okay. But the only way we are going to be able to do that together is if you stop blaming yourself. Anyone would have done what you did, including me. Including him.”

  “What are we going to do, James? If we stay here, he can kill us whenever he finally decides it is time. If we leave, h
e will hunt us down. If all he wants is to kill me for what I did, then I should just let him…”

  “Brynna!”

  His heart and his nerves were still feeling the effects of Janna’s manipulations. Vividly, he remembered how it had felt when Janna had tricked his heart into believing I had died.

  “Don’t.” He said softly, “Just don’t say that. Please.”

  My arms wrapped around him, and he pulled me to him. For a long time, we were silent, pressed together in the dark kitchen, recovering from all that had been said and done. His face was buried in my neck, and my forehead was pressed into his shoulder.

  “Remind me never to mess with you, by the way. You messed her up, you lunatic.” He told me, and we were both laughing again. “It was kind of sick, what you were able to do to her, and by sick, I mean ‘disturbing, scary, but fucking awesome.’”

  “Now I know how to make you do the dishes.”

  “If that is the worst thing you will make me do, then alright.”

  “I can think of worse things.”

  He walked me with him so he could find the materials he needed to set my wrist. After he had taken them from the bathroom cabinet, he sat me back on the counter again and delicately began to wrap my wrist in gauze.

  “You were right, and I should have listened.”

  “Oh, that was weird. That’s the weirdest thing you’ve said in a while, actually. Say it again.”

  “Are you seriously asking me to admit that you have trumped me in reasoning and wise decision making at a time like this?”

  “I don’t know if I’m seriously asking you, but…”

  “James Maxwell, your sense of humor never fails you, does it?”

  “Brynna Olivier, it is my gift and my curse.”

  “Believe it or not, I say the very same thing when people ask me how I feel about you. Of course ‘it’ is changed to the masculine pronoun, but…”

  One of his raucous laughs actually provoked me to smile, despite the growing heaviness in my chest. He kissed me gently, holding his lips to mine for a long minute.

  “I promise you, we’re going to figure all of this out. We’re going to survive. Haven’t we proven that yet?”

  “Hasn’t he?”

  “Well, what are you planning? Are you planning to kill him?”

  “Of course not. But if our plan is to outlive him, or outwit him, or outrun him, I think we might as well just turn ourselves over and suffer his punishment now, whatever it may be. James, I think it is very safe to say that we are completely at his mercy now. And the worst part is, I will never know for sure either way whether she was alive or not. If she is alive, if she was alive, if she was here, if she stayed behind… I will never know. Even my power can’t show me. She’s just gone. She’s completely erased. From everything. It’s like she never was.”

  “I know. I can remember things she said on the news, but I can’t remember her voice. It’s just the words in my memory. Like a transcript. I think I might have thought she was really attractive, but I don’t know. I have no idea.”

  “I know. I think I did it. I erased her after I had that dream. When I had taken that pill, and I saw her die. I think I got so…” I stopped, and squeezed his hand before releasing it and squeezing it again, feeling that mental vagueness beginning to seep into my mind, poisoning the clarity away. My slips into that strange, densely populated mental space were mercifully gradual in those days, and, also quite mercifully, they were stopped by James’s voice.

  “Brynn? Where are you at, sweetheart?”

  I shook my head back and forth, blinking a few times.

  “I have done so much wrong to her, and I suppose I was going away to think about it.”

  “To abuse yourself over it, you mean.”

  “And I do not deserve my own abuse for all I have done to her? On Earth, I thought I knew so well what she deserved for all she had done, and now, I do not have that certainty anymore. I do not have much certainty about anything anymore, actually.”

  “I know, baby.” He kissed my forehead, “I’m sorry. I am so sorry for all of this, sweetheart.”

  I nodded, nestling my head against his chest and hiding my face behind his arm after both were wrapped around me.

  “You are not nearly as sorry as I am, honey.”

  Quinn

  Brynna was not exactly forthcoming with what exactly had caused the shift in hers and Adam’s relationship, and believe me, Alice, Violet, Nick, and I pestered her all the way back to our houses.

  “Guys, come on. That’s enough.” Savannah told us. When she thought we weren’t looking, she ran her hand down the back of Brynna’s hair. I was the only one who had seen, so I was the only one to see Brynna flinch as though Savannah had just struck her over the head with a blunt instrument.

  “Rachel, do you know what this is about?” Violet demanded, “Because God knows that those three…” She beckoned furiously at Savannah, James, and Brynna, “…won’t say anything!”

  “And I will? I would betray my best friend on all of Pangaea?”

  “To her sister? Yes, you would!”

  “You mean she should.” Joe filled in with somewhat less of his usual sarcastic pizzazz. “That woman wouldn’t break under CIA interrogation.”

  “I was under CIA investigation, and I did get interrogated.” Rachel informed us, “And I didn’t break then, and I won’t break now.”

  “This is why we are friends, Rachel Terry.” Brynna said, and if Joe was lacking his usual pizzazz, Brynna seemed to have never possessed it in the first place. Her arms were locked around James’s middle so tightly that they were walking slightly crookedly. Her shoulders were raised almost to their highest point. As we passed by the side street where Adam’s house was, she looked off towards it and only stopped when she would have had to strain her neck to keep looking.

  “Do you know, though?” Nick demanded, “Rachel?”

  “Of course I know! But that doesn’t mean I am going to go around sharing it. Guys, in due time, all the people who know will tell you everything, okay? But right now is not the time. This situation is jacked completely. Not that it’s your fault, Brynn, but…”

  “It is my fault. Let’s just accept that now. This is one hundred and fifty percent my fault. There is no denying it.”

  “It’s not, Brynna, and…”

  “Ladies and gentlemen!” She exclaimed, actually raising her voice to a volume that sent it bombarding off into the darkness to reverberate back to us after bouncing off the trees. “I do not know if you are simply coddling me or if you truly believe that I am faultless in this. In regards to the former, I do need anyone to snuggle me close with their kind words and well-intentioned lies. I do not need that now, nor have I ever needed that. In regards to the latter, you would be genuinely foolish or pitifully blind if you did not see that if I had not done what I did, none of this would have happened. Or, if I had done what I did, but simply told Adam about it from the beginning, we would not be in this predicament. Jesus Christ!”

  James’s favorite exclamation when he was very angry and exasperated…

  “What good does it do, Brynna?” I demanded.

  “What are you talking about, Quinn?”

  “I am talking about us saying that it’s your fault. What good does it do?’

  “It lets her take all the responsibility.” James answered before she had even opened her mouth. “You know how she tends to blame herself for everything. Brynna, everyone would have done it!”

  “Everyone, Brynna! He is not lying about that.” Savannah added firmly.

  “It would be great if you all would enlighten us as to what the hell you’re talking about! Us not knowing is not doing anyone any good.”

  “Stop yelling!” Penny shouted at us, “You’re making her sad!”

  The forceful shout of a five year old was heeded; the argument stopped abruptly. Penny broke free of Nick and Violet’s hands and ran to hug Brynna’s waist. Brynna picked her u
p and squeezed her tightly.

  “Thanks, turnip.” I heard her murmur appreciatively.

  We had all decided to stay in the same house, but Alice and I still had to gather up as much of our stuff as we could carry. As we threw everything into bags, knowing that our friends would help us sort it later, she looked at me.

  “What do you think she did?”

  “Who, Brynna?”

  “No, dumbie. Penny.”

  “Shut up. You know, babe, I honestly have no idea. I have no idea what she could have done to Adam to make him so angry.”

  “I know! They’ve been attached at the hip! Quinn…” I looked over at her to find her standing still, a cluster of clothes still clumped in her arms. “What are we going to do?”

  “We’re going to stay with them.”

  “Of course we are! I didn’t mean just you and me. I meant all of us. What is going to happen?”

  I walked over to her and took both of her hands.

  “I don’t know, baby. I have no idea. We’re just going to have to play it by ear.”

  “Do you know how sick I am of playing things by ear? God, I just want to scream. Haven’t we earned a little peace by now? Don’t we deserve that yet?”

  “Of course we do, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to have it. I just don’t know what she could have done. You don’t think they were… you know… do you? I mean, she has a thing for older guys. They’re like, the only people she’ll get with, you know?”

  “No! There’s no way she would have cheated on James! She and Violet both hate that; you know how they both freak out over it.”

  “Yeah, but James cheated on her with Janna. So maybe Brynna got with Adam, and now Adam is mad that she’s staying with James.”

  “No way. If that is really his issue, then he is crazier than I thought. And really childish for a guy that is thousands of years old.”

  “There is no way that he wouldn’t be a jealous guy; you’ve seen how he lusts after her. Well, I guess that’s lusting. He is really infatuated with her. He sent James after her to begin with, and you don’t do that unless you have one hell of a thing for someone.”

  “Yeah, but he wanted her power, James said. He didn’t want her.”

  “Well, he probably saw her, and that was it. She is basically a magnet for older men. Baby, we have to get to the bottom of this. Maybe if we know why he is so angry, we’ll be able to help.”

  “And if say, it’s because he’s jealous of her and James, what are we going to do?”

  I stared at her, my mouth opening and closing silently as I tried to formulate an answer.

  “I don’t know! But I don’t think we could hurt the situation!”

  “What are we going to do, talk him down? Like he is going to listen to us. He’s on some sort of ethnocentric rant now…”

  “Ethnocentric? I don’t even…”

  “It means, like, elevating your own race above another like, snootily, or something. Brynna said it the other day when she was reading some book about girls reading in Iran. She said that she read stuff like that to avoid ‘late-forming, completely useless ethnocentrism.’ So she didn’t ‘point fingers’ like her mother. I don’t know! You know how she is.”

  “Weird as hell. I know. So, yeah, Adam is being what you said, so maybe we can’t help, you’re right. Look… I’m not saying I’ve considered it, but have you thought that we should… maybe…”

  “No!” Alice exclaimed, “Quinn, what is wrong with you!?”

  “Baby, I didn’t say I had considered it! I was just making sure we were on the same page about it!”

  “They’re our family! We could never leave them! We need to stick together now more than ever!”

  “I know! I just told you that I didn’t mean it! Chill out for half a second!”

  “I’m chilled out. You startled me with that.”

  “Quinn! Alice! Let’s go!” James’s voice called from next door.

  When we came into their living room, James was sitting beside Brynna, with Penny nestled in between them, holding one of each of their arms over her.

  “Comfy?” Alice asked her, and she nodded, grinning her huge smile in which her two front teeth were missing.

  She sighed heavily and rolled her eyes to the ceiling.

  “I just love them so much.” She said, and it was so random, we all couldn’t help but laugh. Brynna kissed her head twice and gently pulled her hair back away from her eyes.

  “We need to stay put.” James told us after a few moments of silence had ensued.

  “Originally, we wanted to run, but it is in our best interest to stay. He threatened to kill every last one of our kind with no distinction between man, woman, and child—we would all be slaughtered mercilessly. Apparently, our deaths will also be painful. So we need to stay here.”

  “But Brynna! He can sneak into the house in the middle of the night and smother us in our sleep! He’s old! And he’s fast! He can do it, and we won’t be able to stop it!” Violet protested instantly.

  “He’s not going to hurt any of us.” James said.

  “Yeah, Vi, we’re going to all stay together. Sleep in shifts. Not leave the house alone. It will be fine.” Joe added helpfully.

  “Besides, I don’t think Adam is going to do this in private. This will be very public.” Tom said, “For all of us.”

  “If he kills us.” Savannah added, “If he kills us, it will be public. But I don’t think he will. He and Brynna got very close over their time out in the woods. Over that time, you confided in him, didn’t you?”

  “Doctor-patient confidentiality is being breached right now, Savannah.” Brynna warned her with significantly less fire than she would have had in her voice in any other situation, I think.

  “Brynna, we know that you did.” James said, “Everyone can see that, given how much you hated him before and how you feel about him now.”

  “Exactly.” Savannah continued, “In time, I think he’ll see that what you did he would have done, too. Anyone would have done it.”

  “But of course, no one can know about it, because that would make too much sense.” Violet huffed, and we all looked over to find her sitting with her arms crossed over her chest, and her lips pursed in irritation.

  “Oh, Lord help me, there’s two of them.” James groaned, looking between Violet and Brynna.

  There was a knock on the door, and everyone jumped.

  “Stay here. You, especially.” James pointed at Brynna, and Tom, Tony, James, and I went to the door. Of course, by the time we opened it, Brynna had come to stand behind us. A tall, buff, Pangaean man with blonde hair so bright it was nearly translucent stood on our doorstep.

  “Rexprimus has called a meeting. All humans must attend.”

  “And what about all of you? Do you have to be there?” Brynna demanded, wondering, no doubt, what we all were wondering: all of us thought that Adam was rounding us up to execute us in one sweep.

  “Yes. Though surely, I do not know why that is any concern of yours, Brynna Olivier.”

  “It is a concern of mine, Dolph Lundgren…” All four of us guys snorted through our noses at that, “…because I will not march my family, my friends, or the people for whom I have been made responsible into a mass execution. If it were just us, I would put the odds of said mass execution happening at about eighty-five percent, roughly. With Pangaeans present, I must assume that the percentage of my people being killed is slightly less.”

  “Do you think so?” Dolph asked before slinking off.

  “We shouldn’t go.” Tony said, “What makes you think he won’t kill us in front of the Pangaeans? The Pangaeans will more than likely cheer him on while he’s ripping us all apart.”

  “I do not think so. Not in the slightest. A lot of the Pangaeans have grown close to us. We have been living together in a manner that is not only mutually beneficial but also peaceful. Almost enjoyably content. Relationships have been formed. In fact, friendships have been forme
d. Adam’s people do not share his prejudice.”

  “They will when he is holding a gun to their heads, so to speak.” Joe replied.

  “We shouldn’t go.” Tony repeated.

  “I am going, because if I have to knock that man over the head, drag him off, and hold him down while I explain what happened, I will.” Brynna informed us, “But you all should stay here.”

  “Brynna, you are not…”

  “Violet, stay behind and watch Penny.”

  “What?! I’m not allowed to go…”

  “…to what is potentially a mass execution?” James filled in for her, “Hmm, no, I think you should sit this one out, killer. As should your sister, who…”

  “I am sorry, am I about to be ‘condescended?’ Are you about to give me more orders? I think I will just ignore you now, and save myself the irritation when that order finally comes.”

  “I am not going to…” He started to say, but she had already walked out the door. “Goddamn it, Brynna!”

  “Stay here.” I told Alice before hurrying after them.

  “What is it with all of you?!” Alice shouted after me, “All the testosterone from your power is turning you into chauvinistic drill sergeants! God!”

  We were heading towards the village square, James and I several yards behind Brynna.

  “We need to catch up to her. Quinn, if things get bad here, I want you to come back here, get the girls, and get out. Go into the woods. The trebestia hives are to the east. So go anywhere else but east. In fact, go south. There is a beach town called Del Mar, and the people are kind to humans, from what Adam said.”

  “Adam told you this? When?”

  “He told me so I could take Brynna there if anything ever got too bad here. So I want you to get yourself and them out of here. You and Nick. You gotta watch out for them, okay? You both have to take care of them.”

  “I know. I will, James, but I don’t think…”

  “Come on. We don’t have any more time. We gotta catch up to her.”