“Silas. He’s fulfilling one of many promises he made to Landen; the only problem is that Landen will not understand them now,” Perodine answered.
I knew what Silas was doing. I knew he was watching people die, people that were intended to become like him. “Landen knows the people that are dyi-”...I couldn't say it.
Perodine nodded. “He does, but I fear that is the least of his problems. Landen was pulled into The Realm for a reason. He’s there with Drake, and I would fathom that this was not seen by Willow when you met her before. This is a ploy by Donalt; he’s seeking a host and will stop at nothing to gain it.”
“How would them being there create a host?”
Aden squeezed my hand. “They’re switching places, aren’t they?” he said.
“I hope not,” Perodine answered. “If that happens and Willow shows love for Drake inside of Landen’s body, Donalt will have a way in - and if he has a way in, all of his power will be in human form. It would take more than a few undead Witness to stop him, and when they did, the host would perish, Willow would perish, and all that was done to prepare for this day will be over. I’m afraid that means you’ll be over as well; we’ll lose this battle before we ever figure out what we’re fighting or what our roles are.”
“Then we have to stop it now,” I said, standing. “They’re already switching; Aden saw them call each other by different names.”
She stood with us. “We cannot undo what has happened; you just have to make sure they wake there, that there they know who they are. A part of Drake is now in Landen, and a part of Landen is in Drake.”
“If we can’t reverse it, then what are we stopping?” I asked.
She smiled weakly. “It seems my daughter’s one-track mind had a divine purpose. You’ve brought Madison here. You’ve brought doubt. Even if she and Drake aren’t meant to be together now or at any point in their existence, Willow has unknowingly established doubt with her obsession. Landen will believe that Madison is the missing soul mate, and Drake will question his dreams, at least for a moment. A break, no matter how small it is, will not allow Donalt to take control of the host. Drake must have no doubt that he loves Willow in this life, and she must also have no doubt. If you pull them out now, doubt will be in place.”
“And how does this help my brother, or Monroe? We’re going to do this anyway. I’m just curious,” Aden asked.
“I’m sure Monroe will help all of us more than we’ll help her, and as far as your brother, if there’s anyone that can help him fight the darkness that’s seeking him, it’s my daughter... and Drake.”
“Long lost family,” Aden mumbled.
Before Perodine could confirm that theory, Brady stepped into the study.
“Draven was looking for you guys.”
“Um...how’s Madison?” I asked.
Brady’s eyes grew sad. “I tried to stop her from going in there, but she went anyway. I don’t know what’s going on now, but we need a plan. You have to teach me how to see.”
“We don’t have time,” Aden said, glancing at Perodine.
“We need to make it,” Brady said.
“I can help,” Perodine said, stepping closer to Brady.
We followed them to the door, prepared to end this now.
“How?” Brady asked.
“I’m going to combine your energy and open a door. I think all of you need to divide and conquer. One group will seek Drake, and the other Landen.”
“Fine,” Brady said, eager to do anything. “I’ll go with Draven and Willow; we’ll get Landen. The rest of you find Drake.”
“That doesn’t seem very even. Three people who know their way around The Realm looking for Drake, and only one looking for Landen?” I said, wanting to make this as fair as possible, doubting Madison could help me save him, not moments after figuring out he’s real.
Brady sighed slightly. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but Draven seems to know this Realm better than all of you. I wanted to be fair to Drake.”
“He’s right,” Aden said. “Draven is the best, and you can’t be near him in The Realm. We don’t need Silas on top of everything else.”
“Who?” Brady asked.
“Never mind,” I said, glancing at Perodine. “Are you sure you even want Willow in there?”
Perodine smirked. “Trust me. Even if I told her death was certain, she’d still go. Olivia will go with you as well; she’s her shield.”
I didn’t understand the reference to a shield, but I already knew that Olivia would be in The Realm; Madison’s dream had predicted that.
“I’ll get what I need,” Perodine said, turning to leave through a door on the other side of the room.
“We have to change the song,” Aden said to me.
“We could manifest them there. I heard it clear enough.”
“I don’t want to take any chances. Playing it makes it ours,” he said as his pupils expanded.
A second later, drumsticks appeared in his hand. He walked to the sitting area and played a beat on the back of the leather couch. “It was like that, right?” he asked.
“Yeah. We need to change the base guitar, though; I swear I know it well enough from what she showed me,” I argued, not wanting to take the time to hash this new sound out.
“Yeah, but we all have to know what to create, or it’s gonna sound horrible. We both have to agree on the sound.”
“You’re right,” I mumbled, not wanting to ruin the new way that Monroe had showed me to kill those men. The thought of reaching inside of them again made my stomach turn.
Brady had his arms crossed and was looking back and forth between us like we were insane. “Is a guitar going to appear now?” he asked calmly.
“I need to ask Draven which one,” Aden said, nudging my arm for us to go to him.
We left the room with the intent to end this now.
Chapter Fourteen
I was terrified to see Madison; there was no telling what she was going through right now. Halfway down the hall, I saw her run out of that room. She was in a full sprint, running in our direction, fighting tears. Willow was right behind her. I stepped in the center of the hall to catch her, to be the shoulder she needed to cry on, but she ran right past me. I turned to chase her, but Aden caught me. “She wants to be alone,” he whispered in my ear as I struggled against him.
Brady went to follow Willow, but she told him to stay with us and learn to see.
“They shouldn't be alone, not with the mood Madison’s in,” I said to Aden, trying get loose from his powerful arms.
“It’s not her mood you need to worry about,” Brady muttered, struggling with the idea of chasing them.
“They need to work this out,” Aden said, loosening his arms. “Madison needs to wake that girl up.”
“Wake her up?” Brady asked.
“Yeah,” I mumbled. “You guys need to get over this love triangle thing. She loves Landen, and even if she didn’t, your daughter would be fine. All of you are powerful, and you’re wasting that power on Willow’s obsessions. There’s more to all of this.”
Brady’s blue eyes fell into mine. “Thank you.”
“For?”
“The reality check. You have no idea what we’ve been through over the last few months.”
“I know enough. Come on,” I said, reaching out for him. “We need to get ready.”
He nodded, and we began to walk toward the room the bodies were in.
“So, do you guys see with music? Is that it?” Brady asked.
“Music helps us cope. You should pick up your guitar, man,” Aden said.
“You play?” I asked. I hadn’t seen that, but Aden had spent more time around him.
“I used to, long ago,” Brady said, grinning.
“You think you could play that song that’s helping them?” Aden asked him.
He shrugged his shoulders. “I doubt it. That’s pretty intense; never heard anything quite like it.”
“If you can feel it
, play a part of it, that might help you figure out how to get there on your own.”
“Perodine will open a door for us,” Brady confirmed.
“This time, you’ll have to go back; we all will,” I promised, knowing that waking these boys was only step one.
We reached the room, and I found Draven at the foot of a massive bed. There was a sitting area and a table on the other side of the room. He was alone in there, staring deeply into them.
I walked slowly to his side. The bed had a canopy over it, and the drapes were pulled almost closed on each side. I assumed that was why it took Madison so long to figure out who was lying there.
I saw Landen lying on the left. His shirt was open, and his dark hair and tan skin was glistening. He looked so pure, like an angel. I couldn’t help feeling immediate respect for him; he almost seemed to glow. Even in the state he was in, I felt the peaceful power all around him.
Next to him a few feet away was Drake. Neither Madison’s sketches nor the visions Preston had shown me of him could compare to the power I felt coming from his essence in real life. I don’t know how to explain it; he was just magnetic, the way Draven was. He held the flawless face of a sleeping king.
Draven reached his arm around me. “They’re closer now, on the level we’re always on.”
“Can you see them?” I asked.
“Not clearly. She’s hidden them. We’re going to have to find them or ask her where they are.”
“I’m sure Bianca will gladly tell us,” I mumbled.
He glanced down at me to see what I’d been doing. I let my eyes fall into his and showed him how messed up these people were, that now they had some illusion that I was older than them. Draven’s eyes returned to emerald green as he glanced over his shoulder at Aden.
“I think they thought he was you a few times,” I said quietly.
“They don’t make mistakes like that,” he said with a quiet sigh.
I furrowed my eyebrows to question him, but he offered no explanation.
“What did Madison say? Or did she just run?” I asked.
“She didn’t see him. She saw his brother, then figured it out, then ran...but get this: Willow and Madison were born side by side.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. I think that has them all puzzled. Something about having to protect her life now, or something.”
“Let’s just get them out, Draven. I don’t want to be here.” I complained.
“Change of heart?” he asked, pulling me a little closer.
“I wanted to go to Chara, not a place that was more damned than where we came from. I have no doubt that more shadows are gonna come after us, that that evil angel will be back.”
“Right,” he said, turning to Brady and Aden.
“So we have to change it?” he asked, referring to the song.
Aden nodded. “Which guitar do you want?”
Before Aden finished his sentence, two guitars and a small amp appeared around Draven.
“You guys are blowing my mind,” Brady said, as his eyes grew wide with shock.
I let the song Monroe had shown me play in my memory, looking for the difference I knew was there. I rocked my head and moved my fingers to the sound, then all at once I figured it out. “The fifth chord. She changed every fifth chord,” I said, looking up at Draven.
My stomach twisted. I hated how that number haunted me, how it always seemed to surface with change.
Draven leaned in and kissed my temple. “Brilliant,” he breathed. A warm, tantalizing sensation rippled through me. God I loved him so much. He reached for my hands as if he could see the glow that the vision had predicted. “Play for me.”
“I can’t lose myself in the music right now.” Or him for that matter. “I’m waiting on Madison to come back. She needs me.”
“Just a few chords...show me...show me so I can feel it. It’s your song, baby. You have to change it before we can play it.”
Shyly, I reached for the guitar by him. When my fingertips touched the neck of the guitar, I felt all the tension leave my body. I closed my eyes and played the chords, changing the ones that were meant to be altered; it was as if I were closing one chapter of my life and opening a new one. I opened my eyes when the song was over to see Draven’s seductive eyes peering into me.
“Perfect,” he whispered.
I slowly took the guitar off and handed it to him. “Your turn,” I whispered.
He smiled innocently and handed a bass guitar to Brady. “Time to come back to the music. You may not play it there, but if you remember the song, it will give you a foothold, let you not fall too far into the illusions you’re sure to see.”
Brady took the guitar without hesitation, and I could swear I could see the stress wash away from him. Draven angled the amp toward the bed so that the sound would go that way, then he and Brady took a seat on the couches that centered the sitting area. Aden sat on the opposite couch from them. His eyes expanded, then between his legs his acoustic drum appeared.
I listened as they hashed out the sound. Draven and Aden had played it so much the other way that they kept forgetting to change the fifth chord. Brady seemed rusty, but he was grasping the song really fast. I could tell he had a natural talent; one that he’d explored at one time, but then let go dormant. They played the song at least five times before it was changed, before it felt natural again.
I glanced up and saw a man coming into the room. It was Jason, Willow’s father in this life. He smiled warmly at me, then glanced at Brady, and his grin grew even more. He nodded once, then went to the bed to check on Landen and Drake.
I was growing anxious. I had no idea where Madison was or why it was taking so long for her to come back. I walked to the threshold of the door.
Outside, away from the music, I thought I heard whispers. I glanced to the shadows along the wall, then stepped out so I could hear them more clearly. It sounded like they were saying, “Run, Charlie”, but I couldn't be sure. I wasn’t afraid; even if they were saying to run, they were just reflecting my thoughts.
I wanted to run, but I couldn’t; I was deep in whatever this was now. I was crouched down by one of the long tables in the hall. It was dark under there, and I was waiting for the shadows to move. I felt useless right now, and I figured helping a few more of them would take my anxieties away, keep me awake. I felt someone touch my shoulder and jumped. When I looked back, I saw Madison behind me.
“Just call them out if you want to help them,” she said blankly.
I stood up slowly. “Are you OK?”
She glanced away. “Maybe I would have been if you’d just told me.”
“I tried.”
“Not hard enough, apparently.”
“Whatever,” I mumbled, looking away and crossing my arms in a shameful way.
Madison began to pace in front of me. “These people are jacked up.” She rubbed her hands across her face as her pace quickened. “I told her everything, every philosophy I knew, every idea, every notion on The Realm, this place, or lives in general - but she still wouldn’t move past this Drake thing.”
“Have you?” I said in a daring gasp.
“Are you serious?” she said, stopping in front of me. “He was a dream, not some lost love; he was a warning. Am I freaked out that he’s real? Yes! Hell yes! Do I care that I look like the girl he’s in love with? YES.” She let out a sigh. “But I’m not going to love him...”
Sure. I believed that. Not. “Show me your dreams.”
“Why?”
“So I can see if you’re hiding from this or if this really was a warning. So I can figure out how we all connect and why we aren’t living ordinary lives with ordinary problems.”
“You’re not going to find those answers in my dreams.”
“So you’re going to keep them sealed off. I know what that means.”
“What, Charlie? What does it mean?!”
“That you’re scared. Scared that fate has led you to that boy. You??
?re scared that you won’t be able to stop yourself from falling for him.”
She gasped as she fought back tears. I’d never seen her this unraveled. That boy was inside of her, pulling at her heart and whispering in her thoughts. Whether he knew he was or not. Drake had invaded Madison on a very personal level. “What do you think?” she spouted. “That this is some kind of reverse Sleeping Beauty thing? That I’m going to wake him up and we’re going to live happily ever after in some dream world?”
Good way to look at it, I guess. “No. I think you’re going to wake him up and protect him from becoming a host for a demon. A demon that we’ll have to kill. That will kill him. Love him or not, you won’t let someone just die.”
Her eyes expanded. I knew she was looking for a reason that I’d said that, what Perodine had said to me. I bit my bottom lip, knowing I didn’t know much.
“You fell more than once?” she asked as confusion and anger for what we were fighting came to her.
“I guess.”
“Why were they looking at Aden like that? The two of you?” she pushed.
“Would you stop it! Seriously, you went into my head trying to figure out something about Drake, then come out asking questions about me and Aden - is it that automatic for you? That easy to put your own issues on the back burner?”
I heard a loud crash, and before I could turn around, a large dirty hand came around from behind me, holding my mouth closed and slamming me into the wall. My eyes were wide with terror; I doubted Draven could have heard any of this over his music. There was another man holding Madison. Instinct kicked in. I kneed the man holding me in the groin, and his hand moved away from my mouth. I didn’t yell for Draven; instead, I screamed, “Show yourself!” All at once, the shadows I was chasing a few minutes ago emerged into dark images, saying my name over and over again. The man I kicked regained his composure, then slammed me against the wall again. “Call your demons off!”
I squinted my eyes closed, praying for a way out of this, for someone to come looking for us - then all at once the man was gone. I heard Madison scream out in agony and opened my eyes: the man that had attacked me was pinned against the wall by some invisible force, and Madison was on the floor, blood pooling all around her. The man that had attacked her was feet away; he’d been thrust down the hall.