Guardians: The Triplex (The Guardians Series, Book 4)

  I only know about it because Emmy is reading the Splash in bed. She has reread the article at least ten times. After she reads it, she looks at the Replay I gave her. She watches it for hours. She then curls up in her comforter and cries. It’s the most heart-wrenching sound I’ve ever heard a human make. I sit at the foot of her bed and watch over her.

  She cries for hours on end. And when she has exhausted herself, she feeds Ms. Charlotte and drifts off to sleep. I’ve taken a lot of Snaps in order to be able to watch her. The team says I need to rest. I don’t care about recharging. I’m gonna stay with my love until the Council forces us to come back to the Light.

  A few days later, sitting by her bed like I normally do, something strange happens. When it’s time to feed Ms. Charlotte, she doesn’t get up. She just stays there staring off into space. The cat meows over and over again and she doesn’t respond.

  I call Rio and he confirms what I feared, Emmy is severely depressed. It was better when she was crying because then she was feeling something. But now it’s like she’s numb and doesn’t care about anything.

  I remember how she was when she lost Sara. She was almost catatonic. I can’t let her go through that again. But then Rio reminds me that there is nothing I can do to help her. I spend every waking moment by her side just like before only now, she never moves. She doesn’t cry. She doesn’t do anything.

  So now when Ms. Charlotte cries, I feed her. I have the grocery store deliver food although I know Emmy won’t eat. She looks pale and weak so I buy her vitamins, even though I’m sure she won’t take them. I’ve taken to straightening up her apartment when she’s asleep.

  Jay enters the apartment and observes me with a sense of wonder.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “I’ma be real with you, I’ve seen you put your life in danger for Emmy many times. But I have never seen a guy, Angel or human, dust his girl’s apartment. That’s love, man.”

  “She’s not my girl anymore,” I lament.

  “She know you come in here and do this?”

  “No, when she’s awake, I take a Snap and disappear.”

  “Words out everywhere: You and Ameana are back together.”

  “Good.”

  “Wolf hates you.”

  “I get that.”

  “And Rio’s been staying away from this place.”

  “Emmy’s emotions are that strong?”

  “Marcus, she made it rain blue. This from a girl with no powers.”

  “Where’s Rio?”

  “Since the rain, he’s been on the other side of the world. You know how it is for him when someone feels only one thing. He feels the full extent of that. Sometimes it’s more than he can handle. Only way he could function is to get some distance. Emmy’s pain is so concentrated—”

  “I know about her pain, Jay.”

  “My bad,” he says, walking off.

  I text Miku and tell her to take credit should Emmy ask who did it. Miku tells me I should stay away. She says it’s unhealthy for me to watch Emmy suffer. She thinks it’s a way of torturing myself. I don’t know if she’s right or not. I’m not sure it matters. I’m not sure anything matters really.

  Days later, after feeding Ms. Charlotte, I walk into the room, invisible as usual, and find Emmy on the phone. It’s only now I realize how much I miss hearing her voice. Does this mean she’s okay now?

  Are you okay after only a few days? I ask myself. But this is different. Emmy is strong. In many ways, she’s stronger than me. She just doesn’t know it. I listen carefully to her conversation.

  “No, not later. I need to see you now. Please, Rio?”

  She waits for his response.

  “Great. Thank you!” She puts the phone down and bites her lip. I know what she wants to ask him. She’s about to be hurt yet again.

  Damn…

  Half an hour later, Rio comes over to Emmy’s apartment. He knows I’m there because he reads my Waves in the room.

  “I’m thinking maybe Marcus is under some kind of spell. Ya know like something someone found at the Market?”

  “He’s not,” Rio says gently.

  “How do you know?”

  “The Market doesn’t really deal with matters of love.”

  “Oh. Maybe he’s just afraid because we won’t be able to spend more than a day together. And maybe he doesn’t want me to be alone.”

  “That’s not it.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “He loves Ameana.”

  “Are you sure? Are you absolutely sure?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry.”

  “Does he have any feelings for me?”

  “He cares about you—a lot.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “No, he doesn’t love you anymore.”

  “Thank you for being honest with me, Rio.”

  Rio takes her hand and sits beside her in bed.

  “How are you?” he asks her.

  “Don’t you know already?”

  “Yeah. But it’s rude not to ask.”

  “I’m okay. You guys are sweet to bring me food and stuff. Thank you.”

  He raises an eyebrow but doesn’t say anything.

  “I feel so…unwanted.”

  “You’re not unwanted. We love you. You know what an unbelievably great person you are, right? You helped save billions of lives.”

  “Yeah.”

  “C’mon, let me take you out.”

  “Another time,” she says, as she crawls back into bed.

  Rio heads out the door. I appear before him in the hallway.

  “Marcus, it’s not fair to her. Let the girl grieve in peace,” Rio insists.

  “I just want her to be okay.”

  “Well, that’s not gonna happen. You broke her heart. I know the reasons you did it. That doesn’t change the fact that she has to go through this. Give the girl some privacy. Damn.”

  Rio doesn’t usually get pissed off. I guess he sees something in her Wave that tells him she really needs to be alone. I nod and take off to the Green Mountains.

  Once there, I sit on the highest peak and look down at the world below.

  “Angels make horrible suicide jumpers,” Jay says.

  “Who told you I was here?”

  “Rio.”

  Jay sits beside me.

  “You remember the last time we were here? You were beef’n with Ameana?” he offers.

  “Yeah. Guess I always sucked in relationships.”

  “Well, you ain’t got skillz like the kid,” he brags.

  “I destroyed her.”

  “You know what I learned about Emmy? Never ever count that girl out.”

  “That’s true.”

  “She survived the Akons and Lucy. I think she’ll survive being in love.”

  “At least one of us will,” I joke.

  “C’mon, let’s go play some Runner Ball. We leave earth in a few hours. We should get some play time in. After that, we need to talk about the Triplets.”

  “What about them?”

  “Well, I was wondering why—you know what? Screw it. Let’s go play some ball.”

  I reluctantly agree and the two of us fly back to the hotel to see if the others want to join in. We round up the rest of the Guardians. Suddenly the thought of playing Runner Ball excites me. I need something, anything to shake the misery of the past few days.

  As we gather in the living room of the deluxe suite, there is a knock on the door. Miku goes to answer it. When she comes up the stairs, Emmy is behind her.

  “Hi guys,” she says. Her voice is soft and slightly hoarse.

  Everyone greets her except Ameana. Emmy turns her attention towards me.

  “I was gonna check on you but I thought you needed space,” I say, sounding way too eager.

  “No need to check up on me.”

  “Yeah I know, I just…I’m glad you’re okay. Look if you want to talk…”

  “I don’t need to talk. I just needed to stop off
and give you this.”

  She hands me a glass casing with red liquid inside it.

  “You’re giving me my Rah back?”

  “Yes. You’ll need it for…”

  “Wait. You don’t have to give it back to me right now.”

  “Yeah, I do…”

  She extends her hand once again. I take it from her. She heads out the door.

  “Emmy…” I call out to her desperately.

  She stops but doesn’t turn around. She simply says the words I’ve dreaded hearing since I first laid eyes on her.

  “Goodbye, Marcus.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN: GOING HOME

  It’s our last day on earth. There’s sadness in the air. I don’t think any of us thought we’d come to miss humans or earth itself. We just assumed we’d save the world and never look back. We were wrong about that. In fact, we were wrong about a lot of things.

  I allow everyone to spend their last day anyway they want to. Rio is off traveling somewhere on the other side of the world. Jay and Isabelle will continue to see each other in the Light so leaving isn’t as difficult for him, although I know he’s gotten very close to Emmy and he hates to say goodbye to her.

  Miku and Ameana are off giving their designer clothes to Goodwill and other charities. Jay had to give Siren away. If he could cry, I think he would have. The only saving grace was that he was able to give it away to a family desperately in need of money.

  They all call to check up on me through out the day. They ask if I need company. I tell them I’m okay. They are nice enough to pretend to believe me. And even if I was to be honest with them, what could they do for me? What can anyone do for me?

  They ask where I am and I tell them I’m playing Runner Ball with a few Ground Walkers. Rio, being Rio, knows I’m lying but that’s the great thing about him, he acts like he can’t read your Wave sometimes.

  So, where am I?

  I have no idea. I’m surrounded by mountains from every angle. I can’t even remember how it is I got here. I’ve been lost in thought ever since she came over…

  I thought no matter what happened I would be spending my last day on earth near her. I could take “No See” Snaps and be with her all day. But it turns out there is a limit to how much pain a First Guardian can take.

  I didn’t reach my breaking point with the The Hun, Rage, or Kairo. The one that broke me weighs about a hundred and fifteen pounds, has no powers, and can’t fly. Yet she was able to bring me to a place of total despair.

  I can’t stand to be in the same hemisphere she is. Let alone the same room. I can’t stand to be around her beautiful eyes, soft lips, and enduring smile. I know I hurt her beyond reason, I just didn’t think she’d give me my Rah back. Why didn’t she fight for us like Ameana did?

  Because you betrayed her, embarrassed her and broke her heart, and all she did was love you unconditionally.

  I tell myself that we would have parted anyway but it does little to ease my mind. We knew it would end eventually but we were supposed to have the last few days. We were supposed to be together until the final seconds before midnight.

  There’s a question she asked a while back. It’s a question I’m asking myself now: Do I have any regrets? If I could go back to that moment in the living room when I first saw her - messy hair, cartoon T-shirt and all, would I change anything?

  If I could somehow make it so that none of it ever happened, would I? If I knew this kind of devastation was possible when love doesn’t work, would I still have fallen?

  Yes. Idiot.

  I know very well what my answer is. But I don’t understand why it’s that way. Who walks into a situation knowing the end would be so brutal?

  I’d only do it for her…

  She’s the only girl who could have driven me to the lengths I have gone to. I look back and try to find mistakes that I’ve made, moments where I could have been wiser, points in time where I could have said “let’s not fall in love.”

  But instead of finding moments that I would change, my mind finds moments that I want to hold on to. I seek them out and replay them like a playlist on eternal repeat.

  When she first said my name…

  How adorable she was when she came to dinner and worried the team would disappear into their memories and never come back…

  The way she can confront demons like Kairo, but hides her eyes during scary movies…

  The way her skin feels between my fingers…

  The moment she sees I’m losing hope, she lets herself get thrown into dumpster so I’ll laugh…

  Oh yeah, her laugh…

  The way she holds tight to hope no matter what…

  The books that she’s read a million times but keeps nearby so she can read them a million more…

  Her kiss…

  Her body against mine…

  The way she loves… I will never again be loved the way she loved me. And that, that is the pain I will not recover from.

  The moment she stopped loving me is the moment I died, again.

  I take my Rah out of my pocket and study it. It’s something I didn’t think I would ever have again after I laid eyes on her. Now it’s in my hand. No one wants it. No one is asking for it. And even if they did, they can’t have my Rah.

  It belongs to her. It will always belong to her…

  I spot an opening on the mountain side. I walk in and look around. Here seems as good a place as any. I carefully make a small hole on the side of the mountain and insert my Rah.

  I always envisioned her and I doing this together…

  I can’t see a world where I don’t hurt anymore. I wish I was human. Humans live eighty or ninety years, then their pain is gone. I will live thousands of years with a gaping wound that her love once filled.

  *************************

  I spend a few hours in the mountains trying not to think about her. I fail as I expected I would. Finally I push myself off the mountain and fly back to New York City. I can’t even fly over her neighborhood with out missing her.

  Damn, there’s got to be a mixture to make this hurt go away.

  I head over to see if Miku and Ameana need help giving their massive piles of clothes away. I need to focus on something else, anything.

  As I walk the cold New York streets, I run into happy partygoers. They are all rushing off to Times Square to see the ball drop in a few hours. The streets are flooded with happy couples, families, and friends. The mood is upbeat despite the bitter cold.

  I wonder what she’s doing right now…

  My cell rings just in time to keep me from a dangerous train of thought. I’m grateful to whoever is calling on the other line. I see it’s Jay and wonder what he’s come up with to keep me distracted.

  “You don’t have to keep calling to check on me, I’m good,” I tell him.

  “Hey, there’s something I think you need to see,” Jay says, sounding far more serious than I have heard him in the past few days.

  “What is it?”

  “We may be wrong.”

  “Who is we?”

  “Me and Isabelle.”

  “Wrong about what?”

  “We’re at her family’s house. She has a huge collection of history books.”

  “Okay…”

  “Well, I told her about the Quo and she thinks she’s read about them before.”

  “They said they have never been out into the Angel world.”

  “Then why is there a chapter dedicated to them in the Tri-history, volume three?”

  “Are you sure it’s about them?”

  “It doesn’t say “Quo” but it talks about Angels mingling with humans.”

  “Okay, so a few people may know about them, so what?”

  “According to this book, they’ve been around for many Cycles and the Council kept them at bay because they were afraid.”

  “Yeah, they were afraid it would mess up the balance.”

  “No, Marcus, the Council was afraid. Like actual fear.”
>
  “Why would they fear the Quo?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Okay, I’ll take a look at the book but let’s do it after we get to the Light.”

  “Okay.”

  “You and Isabelle meet us at the take off point.”

  “Done.”

  The take off point is near a small village in West Africa. It shouldn’t take long to get there, so while we still have some time, I head to see if the girls need my help.

  There’s another reason why I want to see the girls. I’m sure Ameana didn’t go to see Emmy but Miku would certainly say goodbye to her before she goes. A part of me is hoping that Miku will tell me she asked about me.

  That is so pathetic…

  I see the girls heading out of Goodwill but Miku goes back towards the hotel and Ameana walks in the opposite direction. Maybe she’s meeting Wolf. She checks to see if she’s being followed, then double checks again.

  Why is she acting so suspicious? At this point everyone knows that her and Wolf are together. Though I’m sure she didn’t mention to him that Rage saved her life.

  I follow her as she dodges into an alley a few streets over. She takes off into the sky. I follow at a safe distance. Something tells me she could be in danger. I have learned to follow my instincts as leader over the past few months.

  Well, on anything but love…

  She flies to the West Coast, to an out-of-the-way beach with a hidden cave. She double checks to make sure she’s alone. I quickly pull back.

  What is she doing here?

  Maybe this is some romantic tryst she and Wolf are having before they go into the Light. I think about maybe turning back and giving them their privacy. But again, something tells me to stay with her. She walks into the cave toward a figure I can’t make out.

  There’s a fire burning in the center, it gives everything a warm, orange glow. The flames enable me to make out a shadow along the wall. Ameana is in the cave with a male figure who has wings.

  So, I guess it is Wolf.

  She sits next to him and examines his chest, silently. I guess all of his wounds from Pyron aren’t healed yet. She gently applies a mixture to different spots on his bare chest. He studies her as she tends to him.

  When she’s done, they sit in silence for a few moments watching the flames. Then she strolls out of the cave and onto the beach. Hiding is just an extra precaution because Ameana is too deep in thought to see me.