Aventurine

  “Oh no. Not in the least. Logan wants you to be his wife. He wants to keep you to himself, and he will use that bracelet to do just that. Without the stone for your mother, you will always need him to keep her safe. You’re dependent on him because you can’t time travel. That’s how he wants it,” Kye explained. “In the future, he will marry you. You will have a family. And you will be locked away from anyone and everyone Logan deems a threat to you or your relationship with him. That’s what he wants, and that’s what he gets.”

  I was completely dependent on Logan. I needed him to teach me how to save everyone, but now it seemed like even that might not be enough. Kye made it sound like I’d always need Logan to keep my mother safe, even if he showed me how to keep Ty in the present. The price I’d pay would be my freedom.

  “So he never takes it off?” I lifted up my arm and finally looked closer at the small charm slinking down on the bracelet. A small world was attached to the bracelet now. Was he giving me the world or chaining me to his world?

  “He said he was going to give you the world.” Kye snorted. “He’s always been cheesy like that, but don’t let it fool you. I’m sure he put it on there for you to find later and think it was cute. And to answer your question, no, he never takes it off. I’ve met you in the future, and it’s the one thing that he can use to control you.”

  “Control me?” That didn’t sound good.

  “He’s already blackmailed you into dumping Seth. Once he teaches you how to save them from being forced to go home, that bracelet is the only way he can keep you to himself.” Kye seemed to know a lot of the details.

  “You’ve met me?” Kye looked taken aback by my question. I got the feeling he wasn’t happy he had admitted that much. “Was I happy?”

  Kye let out the breath he was holding. I have no clue what he thought I was going to ask him.

  “No.”

  “No?” I asked, though I had heard him clearly. I had been trying to tell myself that if I gave Logan a chance I could be happy. That wasn’t going to be the case it seemed.

  “You need to not forget what you’re doing,” Kye told me. He stood abruptly and began to walk to the doorway again. “Logan isn’t someone you will ever be happy with. Don’t let him trick you into thinking otherwise. He’s trying to keep you complacent to get what he wants. Logan is incapable of real love.”

  Kye reached for the door handle, and I tried to stop him by grabbing his arm.

  “Kye?” Logan called from the hallway.

  Kye looked at me, and I moved my hand. He leaned in close to my ear.

  “Don’t forget who Logan Jones really is.” Kye’s warning made me shiver down to my toes.

  He nodded and quietly slipped out my door.

  It seemed Logan was going to get his way, and Kye wasn’t happy about that. Those two may have been brothers, but I got the feeling Kye wasn’t on Logan’s side, no matter what Logan thought.

  I woke the next morning, thinking about the day before. The date had been fun and romantic. Logan brought back all the old feelings between us. I hadn’t known how much I wanted to hear those words of apology from him until he actually said them, but I had to remember who Logan was. Kye was right. Logan didn’t answer any personal questions. He might have been honest with what he did say with me last night, but he avoided answering anything he didn’t want to answer.

  It was hard to reconcile the many sides of Logan in my mind. He was nice and romantic one moment, and artfully avoiding my questions the next while fooling me into thinking he had answered them. I needed to be completely on my game when dealing with him. I had goals, and I needed to think better about how to achieve them. Shuffling around the house brought me out of my thoughts and back to reality. I wasn’t going to get anything planned sitting in the house where Logan was only a wall away.

  It was only Tuesday, and I had planned to skip my classes, but now they seemed a better prospect for concentration than sitting at home. I looked at the clock. I’d miss my first class, but I had enough time to get ready and make it to my second. I hopped in the shower and quickly got dressed.

  “Going out?” Logan asked as he lounged on the couch downstairs. He was still in his pajamas.

  “Yes,” I replied, trying to get the butterflies to stop tumbling around in my stomach. I hated that my body could respond that way to him. My mind understood what Logan was doing, but there was too much of a history between us. Why did my feelings for Logan have to come back now? “I can miss a few classes, but I figure that I’m already behind, so I should go to them anyway. Why the heck did you make me sign up for economics? Math is not my idea of fun.”

  Logan laughed. “I knew you’d think so, but in the future, when we are older, you said you wished you would have taken an econ class or two. I figured you wouldn’t like it this time around, but then you can’t complain in the future, either.”

  I shook my head with a smile. I don’t think I would have said that to him if I had taken a class like econ before. It was boring and confusing at the same time. I’m sure some of the people liked the class, just not me. It wasn’t something I’d take by choice again. I was sure my favorite art history class was just as boring to some, but you have to take what you like, right? Wasn’t that the fun of being in college? Logan didn’t seem to think so.

  “Heading out?” Kye asked as he came from the stairway, he was also dressed and he grabbed his coat along with mine.

  “Yeah,” I answered. “I’m going to stop by the library before class.”

  “I’ll walk with you,” Kye suggested. I saw a slight nod from Logan when Kye suggested going with me. Kye might have been allowed to be a college student in the future, like I had asked, but it seemed like he was still following Logan’s orders.

  I slipped into my coat and waved to Logan as Kye took both our backpacks. I followed him outside into the cold Minnesota winter morning. Kye puffed some air out and watched his breath. He smiled at the smoke-like fog as it dissipated.

  “I think I could get used to this,” Kye replied. At least he was different from Logan on their choice of preferred weather.

  “Well, you better,” I answered. “This is where I intend to stay for a bit. College takes four years.”

  Kye nodded, but didn’t reply. Again I got the feeling he knew more than he was saying.

  I followed Kye on the path through the woods back to campus. It had only technically been months since I first walked that pathway to the beach with Seth, but it felt like a lifetime ago. Everything was different now, even though I wished it could have stayed like that forever. Kye led us through the east side of campus between the sports’ buildings. I was lost in my own thoughts and just followed him. My life was very messed up at this point. I wanted, more than anything, to be with Seth, but I couldn’t. If I wanted to save them all, I couldn’t be with him. It wasn’t fair. Logan even knew how I felt, but was trying to ignore it as best he could. I wasn’t about to believe the memories Logan tried to use to replace my time with Seth. I was happy with Seth, and Logan couldn’t change that. Could I be happy with Logan? I couldn’t even imagine what life would be like, but Kye seemed to be sure. I wouldn’t be happy unless I changed the future.

  I looked up to find us not at the library, but at another building on campus I had yet to go in.

  “Trinity Hall,” Kye told me before I could ask. “I need to stop here first before we go to the library.”

  Kye opened the old, fourteen-foot, elaborately carved doors. Though I didn’t know the name of the building until Kye told me, I immediately recognized it from the various brochures on campus. The towering spirals that framed both sides of the building gave it a distinct castle feel, with turrets and all. It was the oldest building there, and at Halloween they made a big deal about it supposedly being haunted. The floors creaked as we walked on them, and the large, heavy doors shut surprisingly silently behind us. Kye led the way through the barely lit hallways to a stairwell toward the back. I got why people thought i
t was haunted. While the carvings on all the woodwork were beautiful, if you looked closely, they were filled with grotesque faces. Even the normal classroom doors were framed by the weird carvings. Kye began climbing, and I wanted to offer to stay below, but knew he would say no. He took his watch over Mari orders seriously. So where Kye went, I had to go.

  We ended up climbing to the top of the building. Five stories later, and out of breath, I kind of cursed myself for not asking about staying below. What reason did I have to go with him on his chore? As the stairwell turned, and we passed the last window, it became clear that we were headed to the attic. These were the last set of stairs, and I was glad there was no further to go.

  “You have class up here?” I asked. Windowless attic classes seemed extreme to me. Maybe there was a professor’s office to go to. It would have been easier to take an elevator.

  “It’s a clock tower that isn’t used anymore,” Kye explained. That didn’t answer the question.

  Kye paused at the doorway at the top of the stairs. The door was clearly marked No Passage. He pulled out a key and slipped it into the lock. Nope, we weren’t there for classes, or to meet a professor. Kye pushed open the doorway to an unlit hallway. Thankfully there was an open doorway five feet ahead that light was streaming out of. Kye walked to the doorway and stopped. He looked around and then stepped in. I followed close behind. Had it been anyone but Kye, I probably would have stayed on the stairwell once he unlocked a doorway that had a clear warning not to enter.

  Kye stepped aside and allowed me to walk in next to him. I don’t know what I was expecting to see, but this wasn’t it. Instead of a room, we were in a twenty-foot octagonal space framed by windows. Bright sunlight lit up the entire empty space. Across the way, sitting on one of the windowsills, was Ty. He stood as we entered.

  “Ty?” I asked cautiously. This was getting strange.

  “Mari?” He pretended to be as cautious as me, but he was faking it.

  I looked up at Kye. His orders were to keep me away from the Sangre guys. This was directly disobeying Logan. Kye grinned and nodded. He knew what I was thinking. Kye was going to be in so much trouble when Logan found out. I was worried then. I really wanted to see the guys, but I didn’t want Kye to get in trouble. He had a hard enough time with Logan bossing him around all the time as it was. I didn’t know what Logan would do to him once he found out. He was my last time travel friend. If I felt lonely now, I’d be completely miserable if Logan sent Kye away.

  “Don’t worry,” Kye tried to reassure me. “We’re safe here. Even all-knowing Logan can’t find us here, or hear what we say.”

  “How…?” I began to ask.

  Kye pointed to the ceiling and the crisscrossed beams that met and then radiated down between each window. Between them more metal overlapped to make the ceiling.

  “Iron,” Kye explained. That was all I needed to hear. We were safe from Logan finding us, for the time being. I ran across the small space and jumped into Ty’s arms to give him a big hug. I had missed my best friend.

  Ty wrapped his large arms around me and hugged me right off the floor. It seems I wasn’t the only one who missed the other person. Ty held me a few moments more before setting me on the floor.

  “How much time do we have?” Ty asked Kye.

  “He expects her to be at the library for at least an hour or so,” Kye replied. “To be on the safe side, we should limit it to thirty or forty-five minutes maximum. Longer than that, and he might know something is up.”

  “Why would he know?” I asked. This was all too strange. Ty and Kye seemed to be friends now, and I’d never even seen then actually talk. Obviously, Kye was as sneaky as his brother.

  “The library is made of iron, at least the section you like to study in. It’s why Logan sends me with you. He can’t feel you, or know where you are, if you’re in the library,” Kye replied, moving over to sit on another windowsill ledge.

  “He’s watching where I go?” I asked, shocked, yet kind of mad at the thought. Logan was basically stalking me.

  “Did you expect otherwise?” Kye shrugged, but continued to look outside. He was quite fascinated with the snow and the cold. I had to imagine after living in the Middle East, Minnesota was quite a change.

  “But you’ve seen the future. You’re from the future. He wins. Why would he be worried?” I was confused.

  Kye laughed. “He won every time he changed the past, but somehow he couldn’t make it stick. You always found a way back to Seth.”

  My heart stopped. Was Kye telling me I was always with Seth? Kye noticed his slip, and quickly changed the subject before I could ask more questions.

  “Did you get the message to the other guys?” Kye asked Ty.

  “Yeah. We can meet up Thursday at the same time here,” Ty replied.

  “And you’re sure Melissa won’t know, or suspect a thing?”

  “I hope not. Seti is sure he can keep her busy elsewhere and make it too, but good luck to him. She’s like a leech. He can’t get a moment away without her knowing exactly what he’s doing. I think she even put something on him to track him. She always seems to know where he is,” Ty said, calling Seth by the name he used in the past, before he slid over and patted the windowsill next to himself. I sat down and looked between the guys. I had absolutely no clue what was going on.

  “Tell him that he has to be sure she doesn’t know, or follow him here. Do you know how long it took me to find a place that was safe to talk? We can’t have Melissa ruining everything,” Kye replied.

  I looked at the two guys. This wasn’t their first time meeting. When did they become such good friends? We’d only been back a couple of weeks, and Kye told me himself he’d never been to this time period before. I looked back and forth between them again. It was like they already knew each other. Could they have met before?

  “What’s going on?” I finally demanded. Kye sheepishly looked away, but Ty grinned.

  “Isn’t it obvious? We’ve decided that Prince Logan doesn’t get to keep you. You’re not meant to be his, and never were. You’re Seti’s girl and will be forever, no matter what Logan does. We’re making a plan to get you back,” Ty replied, throwing his arm around my shoulders and giving me a side hug.

  I pushed his arm off of me and stormed over to Kye.

  “You didn’t tell them?” I replied. Ty had no clue why I was even with Logan now, or why I dumped Seth.

  Kye shrugged. I turned back to Ty.

  “I can’t go back to you guys,” I told him. He looked to Kye, and then to me.

  “Kye said that Logan is keeping you here with that bracelet,” Ty explained.

  “And a bargain,” I added, still glaring at Kye. Ty looked to Kye for an explanation.

  “Yeah, something like that,” Ty replied, as if he’d been told vaguely but without details.

  “Ty,” I began, and glared at Kye. Why was I the one that had to tell him about the bargain? Why did Kye leave it out when he obviously was getting all buddy-buddy with my old friends? “Logan knows how to make the goddess not send you back.”

  The certainty in Ty’s smile that there was nothing that could change his idea of how to rescue me faded.

  “I could stay here?” he asked in disbelief. “Like, forever?” The thought had never crossed his mind.

  “Yes,” I replied. “You wouldn’t have to be a slave. You could stay here in the future. All of you could. My mother could,” I added, more quietly. Ty was the main reason I wanted to learn how to keep people in a different time, but my mother and Seth were also part of it.

  Ty’s eyes snapped back to me, and he shook his head no.

  “You don’t have to worry about her. Your mother wants to go back,” Ty quickly added. I knew that, but Logan was right there. My mother could want to be with my father, but it didn’t mean my father wanted to be with her. I knew how that worked personally. I didn’t want her to experience that, and be forced to live through it. She needed to have options, and being
in the future, away from him if he didn’t want her, was the best option I could give her.

  “And what if my father doesn’t want her? What if my father has moved on, and had a family of his own? What if there’s no place for her back there?” I asked. There were too many what-if’s to keep me from wanting to save her.

  “She wants to go back, and we want to take her back,” Ty added, though the we part didn’t sound too confident. He was second-guessing the plan they had been making. I could see it in his eyes. I didn’t blame him. Logan was offering something we hadn’t even thought of as an option.

  “And what if I take you guys back, and you die fighting in your stupid wars?” I didn’t want to tell him the truth of Seth’s fate.

  “No one is going to die fighting. Trust me. We’ve been to war several times, and we all come back. War isn’t about to take any of us,” Ty replied like that wasn’t even a concern.

  How could dying in war not be a concern when they kept running off to do it? Seth’s own father was the leader of the military. It wasn’t like Seth, Dee, or Ty could just refrain from the fighting. They were part of it—a big part of it. Seth had been promoted before he came to the future to find me. They each had roles to play, and it was dangerous, no matter what Ty said. Kye watched me closely.

  “What did he tell you?” Kye asked. Yep, he was watching me closely. Too closely. How was I to tell Ty about Seth?

  Ty now stared at me. They both patiently waited.

  “What did Logan tell you?” Kye asked again.

  “That Seth will be dead in two years’ time in the past. If I let him stay here, then he will live a full life. If I let him go back, he’ll die,” I said it as quickly as I could. Saying it out loud hurt more than just thinking about it. It was like I was making it real and final. Like I was making his life story as easily as Logan did each time we returned and had new memories. I absolutely hated how it sounded out loud.

  Kye shook his head with a grim smile on his face. “Logan can’t break a promise, but there’s nothing keeping him from lying to you otherwise. Did he promise you that Seth would be dead, or did he promise you that he would be safe in this time? Those two things aren’t the same.”