Merritts of Writing 3

Chapter 33-2

Angie

As much as I didn’t want to admit it, I was as blind as Mylane and Char had suggested. And it didn’t appear that I was going to get any wiser anytime soon.

JUST OUT OF REACH

Stevron took a deep breath.

I felt my blood turn to ice. “Not going to tell me, right?”

Stevron gave me a small shake of his head.

Somehow I wasn’t surprised. “You know, Jake has been warning me about Carter even before we both were bitten. He told me that I needed to save him. Why is that?”

Mylane’s look at Stevron was derisive. “Lies upon lies,” she said and then began to mutter under her breath.

Obviously neither of them were happy with my attitude towards Mylane or my line of questioning.

“You know what?” I said and got quickly to my feet. “I don’t care. I’m fed up with the two of you. I think I’ll just let Jake take me into the Far Beyond where I’ll finally find the answers to my questions.”

“Your connection with Jake has been temproarily severed, Angie.”

I sucked in a breath. “How do you know that?”

Stevron pressed his lips together. He didn’t answer me.

“Fine,” I said, frustration making me angrier, “since you’re not going to tell me anything, I’ll go back to the campfire. Maybe if Char’s still around he’ll answer my questions. He’s been good at offering up information.”

“I wouldn’t,” Mylane countered. “Char is not what he seems.”

“Aren’t you all.” I scoffed and turned to leave the tent.

“Angie, please,” Stevron pleaded. “You’re not dying because you have Sapphyre Wings blood in you.”

“Hurray, finally!” Mylane cheered.

Both statements had me stopping cold in my tracks. Shock rolled through me. I…I… “Ex…ex…excuse me?” I stammered

“Your Sapphyre Wings blood interacted with the fyre crawlers’ venom,” Stevron replied, “and cancelled out the venom that was in the canisters.”

I turned slowly around. “You’re saying that the canisters had fyre crawlers’ venom?”

“Yes.”

“So, I’m not only not dying but getting younger as well?”

Stevron nodded. “By morning your body should be back to the same age as you were when the canisters fell.”

I was stunned. I glanced down at my hands. The once wrinkled and papery thinness of my skin had tightened. My hands were looking more youthful and my fingernails were no longer brittle and splitting, but healthy and shiny.

I held out my arms and glanced at the folds of skin that only a few days earlier had been flabby. My arms were now taunt, with a hint of my muscles showing without me even having to flex them.

I hadn’t looked in a mirror since the first time Stevron had encouraged me to glance in the side view mirror of the truck. If my hands and arms were any indicator, I could only surmise my face was returning to how I’d looked years ago.

I should have been thrilled at the news. I was going to be seventeen again. I wasn’t going to die an early death. However, I surprisingly wasn’t happy at all. I’d always viewed my ageing as a form of penance for my selfishness. A way to punish me for all I’d done seven years ago. I shouldn’t be getting off so easily.

“If that’s true what you say, then that means when Carter wakes up he’ll be able to hear?”

Stevron shook his head. “Carter’s loss of hearing was not caused by the canisters.”

“Then what?”

“Angie, please…you’re asking things that need to still be hidden.”

I growled. “You just told me I’m a Sapphyre Wings. I think the time for the truth is here.”

“She’s right,” Mylane said.

“It’s too dangerous,” Stevron countered.

“For whom?” I demanded. “If, me, I can take care of myself.”

“It’s not you I’m concerned about.”

“Carter?”

Stevron exhaled heavily. “Carter knows he’ll be in danger the moment he wakes up. It’s Emmalee I’m worried about?”

I gasped. “My sister?”

Stevron nodded and before I could ask why Mylane answered my unspoken question. “The day the canisters fell Carter’s mate was chosen.”

My mouth dropped and my eyes flew to Mylane. “You’re saying Em? Em will become The Oracle of Death’s mate?”

“Neither of them are aware of the fact but Carter’s deafness and your sister’s blindness are connected.”

I wet my lips. “How is that possible? Unless…does that mean Em also has Sapphyre Wings blood?” I paused and then huffed. “Of course she does, she’s my sister. So then both Jam…and Jake. But I don’t understand, Jake takes me to the Far Beyond.”

I could see that my thinking had surprised them both. That I had made the connection between myself and my siblings so fast. Mylane’s eyes widened and I saw the growing fear in their depths. She then adverted them from me.

I turned my attention to Stevron. He took a deep breath. “You, and your brothers are of mixed blood. Only your sister is a true Sapphyre Wings.”

I felt my stomach clench. Memories from years ago flooded my mind. A chance paternal argument and a promise to a mother. Could it mean? My heart seized. “She’s not my sister is she?”

Stevron sighed. “Emmalee is your half-sister. Your mother was a Sapphyre Wings.”

I sucked in a breath and I started to tremble. My entire world suddenly tilted. Everything that I knew was yet another lie. “I need to sit down.”

Stevron immediately reached for me and helped me back onto the floor of the tent.

I tried not to cry, but the loss of Em as my full sister tore me apart. How could it be true? “So, Em’s father is…was also a Sapphyre Wings? Is he even alive?”

“Yes, on both accounts,” he replied and gently brushed his hands over my shoulders.

I began to shake my head, tears running down my face. “I’m confused,” I said. “I didn’t think if was possible to be of both races. You’re either one or the other.”

“There are more out there than either races will acknowledge,” Stevron said and then began to explain softly, “but your father is what our people call an Outsider. He was born a Far Beyond but was turned.”

My stomach convulsed. So that’s what an Outsider was. I’d known for years that my father was an Outsider, but had no idea what the reference meant. Now I knew, but how?

“Turned?” I croaked and my eyes flew back to Mylane. “By you?”

Mylane raised her eyes and met mine. “Yes,” she admitted, “I’ve told you I’m a Collector. My blood is instrumental in creating Outsiders.”

“This, this is too much.” I began to cry harder and slumped forward with my head in my hands. “Why, why would you do such a thing?”

“Because your father was dying,” Mylane’s voice reached my ears.

My head snapped up, my tears instantly drying up. “If your blood can save people, why didn’t you use your blood to help all those people who came in after the attack? So many people died, why didn’t you help them?”

“Different circumstances,” Mylane answered in a flat tone, “and it wasn’t their path.”

I felt my jaw drop in disbelief. How could this girl, this teenager be so cold? How could she have stood by and not do anything?

I started to breathe heavily. “No, no,” I moaned, “this isn’t right. You’re trying to tell me that my father’s path was to be turned into an Outsider so that he could kill The Oracle of Death? His own deity governing the Far Beyond?”

“Put simply, Angie, yes,” Stevron answered my last question.

I raised my hand and massaged my forehead. If ever I needed a moment where Jake would singsong a riddle in my mind, it was now. I was so confused, so torn apart with what Stevron and Mylane were revealing to me. I had to catch my breath and think. But Jake was gone. How? Why? And would my younger brother ever come back to me?

“Jake, Jake,” I pleaded softly. “I’m sorry, come back. Please, I need you.”

“He won’t answer you,” Mylane stated, “he’s with Carter.”

A lump formed in my throat. I tried to swallow but couldn’t. My heart began to throb. Jake was with Carter? How could that be? Jake had never, ever mentioned anything to me about being able to enter Carter’s mind. The only thing he’d ever said about Carter was to tell me that Carter was to die.

“Is Jake going to kill Carter?”

Mylane shook her head. “No, Jake would never harm Carter.”

“She’s right, Angie,” Stevron added. “Jake needs Carter.”

“Why?”

“Carter offers Jake protection, just like you do?”

“Protection?” I scoffed and shook my head. “All Jake does is try and pull me into the Far Beyond. Does he take Carter to the Far Beyond as well?”

“Actually you’ve never entered the Far Beyond, Angie,” Stevron said. “You’re forbidden.”

“Forbidden?” I cried incredulously as realization dawned on me. “Because I’m of mixed blood?”

Stevron nodded.

“Then where has Jake been taking me when he pulls me into the portal?”

“You go to-”

Stevron’s next words were cut off as Mylane screamed.

He reached out and gripped her firmly by the shoulders. “Easy,” Stevron commanded gently. He put a hand to Mylane’s hand the one that was resting along Carter’s cheek. When he had pried her fingers from Carter I noticed that spots of blood had appeared where her nails had dug into his flesh. He whispered something in Mylane’s ear and I realized the teenager was in enormous pain. Was Carter in pain too?

“Look.” I whispered in shock.

The half moon dents Mylane’s fingernails had left on Carter’s cheek were beginning to vanish and the blood coming from the tiny cuts had stopped.

Carter’s face that had wrinkled so dramatically over the last few hours was smoothing out. The hair that had turned snowy white was darkening and Carter’s once still body twitched on the cot.

I reached for his hand and squeezed it. Hope flooded my heart.

Carter’s eyes fluttered. He opened his eyes then blinked a couple of times, giving me a glassy-eyed stare. I drew a sharp breath. His once brilliant green eyes now shone with golden swirls.

“Welcome back,” Stevron said, while extracting the needle from Mylane’s vein.

Carter gripped my hand tightly. I turned back to him and watched as he closed his eyes and licked his lips. Then he opened his eyes again. He raised his head and looked first to Stevron and then Mylane. Then he softly cried when he looked back to me. “Oh, Angie, I’m so sorry. Please forgive me. Jake, Emmalee, I…I.”