AMANI: Reveal (28 page)

              She cried out, letting go of my neck for a split second, slapped the chain off my hand, and resumed her struggling position as though her face wasn’t covered in lacerating burns.
              I had just given up, my world slowly fading, my ears buzzing, and my limbs becoming too heavy to move, when              I heard another gunshot. I looked up just as the pressure on my neck vanished.
              Trying to breath, the sound around me grew louder and my sight cleared slightly.
              Before I could make out what was going on, someone was pulling on my shirt, getting me to my feet. It was Xander. We followed three other people out of the house in haste. Two of them seemed hurt. At the other end of the tunnel, Xander pushed the rock back in place and then dragged me even further away from it.
              We had been running down the hill less than a minute when I heard a loud explosion behind us. I tripped on a protruding root and fell down. Xander and Karl were shouting at me to get up, but I couldn’t move. I had to know.
              Squinting at a tree next to me, I waited for my sight to clear. Scales on the trunk became gradually visible, as well as the snow littering the ground and melting under my legs.
              I looked up at the people surrounding me. They had all removed their helmets. There was Xander, looking pleadingly at me, Karl who seemed barely capable to stand on his two legs, and Madame M., half carrying the Guardian of Chupa, who was apparently fighting to stay conscious.
              “Delilah…”
              “Amya, she was one of them,” Karl said firmly.
              I shook my head in denial, hot tears filling my eyes.
              Xander kneeled next to me. “Amya. She tried to kill you.”
              I kept shaking my head.. “No…” Someone put their hand on my shoulder, but I shrieked, crying ever louder. “NO!” I repeated with a voice that wasn’t mine.
              It had been a dream. Surely my sister couldn’t be a Rascal. She couldn’t be working with Wyatt.
              “We have to leave now,” Madame M. said gently. “The bomb might not have killed them.”
              But Xander did not move. He swallowed hard, staring at me as though I were an injured animal he couldn’t help, while I gazed pleadingly into his pale blue eyes…
              “Oh,
pour l’amour de Dieu
,” Madame M. added before she pulled Xander to his feet, transferring the Guardian’s weight on his shoulder. She then walked behind me, slipped her hands under my arms and, with a jolt, yanked me up as easily as she would have one of her cats. “Let’s get going, now. Come on.”
              I reluctantly walked—very fast—with Madame M.’s help, until we reached the parking lot, where Samera, Mary, Adam, and Vivian were waiting for us. The former jumped on me the second she saw us approaching.
              “Amya, I thought you were…” she whispered, hugging me. When she realized I was crying, she stepped backwards. “What is it? Are you hurt?”
              I shook my head, but it was Mr. Jensen who answered. “Her sister was working with them. She was—”
              “—IS. SHE IS! She’s not dead!” I shouted, before I crumbled to the ground again. “She can’t be…”
              “She
is
a Rascal, then.”
              Samera, Mary and Vivian gasped.
              “Who’s he?” Vivian asked.
              As I raised my eyes to look at her, I saw she was pointing at the Guardian.
              Everyone’s gazes turned to me.
              “Guardian of Chupa,” I mumbled.
              At that moment, his eyelids closed as he slid over Xander’s shoulder. He would have collapsed on the ground next to me were it not for my friend’s fast reflexes.
              “He’s lost a lot of blood!” Mary intervened. “Let me heal him.”
              “No,” Karl said firmly. “I allowed you all to come, but none of you is getting involved in this.”
              I suddenly felt like I was standing right next to the sun. My entire body was shaking, sweat accumulating around my temples, my nose, and below my eyes. The floor seemed to be circling under my weight… Circling and spinning ever faster.
              “Amya?” I heard a woman’s voice say. “Amya are you okay?”
              My vision was shifting in and out of focus and I had to grab my head to make it stop hurting
              “No…” Samera whispered. “No
way
!”
              I could feel liquid down my arm as I kept my hands pressed on either side of my head. What was going on? A buzzing noise grew louder and louder, making the conversation around me almost inaudible. After a moment, I knew I was going to pass out. I opened my eyes and the last thing I saw was my best friend staring directly at me, her eyes wary. She mouthed:
              “You were bitten.”

Amya Priam

I drifted in and out of consciousness, my body aching as though the blood in my veins had transformed into acid. I sometimes heard myself crying out loud for what seemed like hours until a warm, comforting hand held mine. Then the cries slowly diminished and vanished, only to come back again later.
              Other times, I heard whispers next to me, but I was incapable of making any sense of their words, which sounded miles away.
              At some point the pain faded and I could feel the sheets surrounding my body. They were soft and soothing under my arms and fingers.
              I opened my eyes.
              “Oy, she’s awake!” I heard my best friend cry. “Guys, she’s awake! Come on!”
              Samera was sitting on a leather chair next to my bed. She jumped into a standing position, clapping her hands to her mouth. Then came rushing Mr. Jensen and Mrs. Cohen, followed by Xander, Mary, Adam, Kristin, Emily, Patrick, Sine, and Vivian. They were all squeezing in beside each other, staring intently at me.
              “How are you feeling?” Mary said quietly, but she did not let me finish. “I tried to heal you, but it was too late. The venom had already infiltrated your blood…”
              “When Adam called me yesterday, I gathered everyone here,” Patrick added, gesturing around. “You’re in my house. You’re safe now.”
              In Patrick’s house? Why weren’t we back at Madame M.’s? Or HQ? How long had I been out?
              Mrs. Cohen stepped forward. “I came as soon as I could. Your parents are in another room. They will visit you when you are ready to see them, all right?”
              I nodded. I had so many questions, but somehow I couldn’t voice any of them.
              “Madame M. had to move out of her house after yesterday,” Sam said.
              “Amya,” Xander interrupted. “We thought that the Canadian Protectors were asleep, but they were dead. I think that the Rascals would have attacked us if we hadn’t gone to the party.”
              “Probably,” Samera continued. “And now Madame M.’s gathering all her belongings as we speak, in case the Rascals come back. We still haven’t heard from them since yesterday, but we can’t be too cautious. If they’re not dead…”
              Her voice trailed off, probably because I had shuddered at the word “dead.” My sister could be dead by now. Because of me…
              Or was it?
              With the benefit of hindsight, I could look at yesterday’s events from a new perspective. It was easier for me to see that my sister wasn’t the victim in the story. She had chosen to join the Rascals of her own will. She was responsible for calling Wyatt at the hospital—Wyatt, who had then bitten Xander and transformed him into one of them. She had planned a way to kidnap me and to manipulate me into telling them where the jar was…
              “The Guardian…” I whispered.
              “He is badly hurt,” Karl replied quietly. “Xander nearly missed his heart and we believe the bullet—um—melted in his body. We couldn’t find it.”
              “They were made of gold!” Sam continued excitedly. “My theory—and almost everyone agrees with me—is that the golden bullet somehow melted in his body and blended with his tattoos. But the wound won’t heal… He’s lost a lot of blood.”
              “Even
I
couldn’t heal him,” said a voice behind the hoard of people. Hibiscus rolled in my direction. “Hello, Amya,” she added, before she grabbed an object from her pocket and set it firmly on top of my arm.
              “ARRRG!” I cried, cringing away.
              Xander instantly pulled Hibiscus’ wheelchair away from my bed. “Are you completely insane? She’s just recovering from her transformation. Can’t you people let her rest?” he said, angrily, his irises darkening.
              “Just making sure she really is one.”
                “One what?” I snapped, looking sharply at Hibiscus, who was putting her glittering object back in her pocket.
              “Look at your arm, Amya,” was her answer.
              What had she done to my arm? I raised it parallel to my face and let out a small yelp. There was a circular red blotch where Hibiscus had touched me.
                Then it all came back in a rush. Delilah strangling me… a sharp pain in my arm… Samera’s last words to me before I passed out in the parking lot…
              I was a Rascal.
              I got up so fast, everyone recoiled away from me. Everyone except for Xander.
              Breathing deeply and loudly, I looked down at myself. I felt light yet strong. Powerful, yet vulnerable.
              “Amya,” Karl said, “Would you sit down? We need to know what happened to you.”
              Looking around at everyone’s fearful expressions, I sat and forced a smile on my face, which probably resembled more of a grimace.
              “Sorry,” I said. Then I told them everything. How Daniel and Delilah had manipulated me into leaving the party. The story Wyatt had told me about Reeshon and the “door” that could open to Hell. Delilah’s fake torture. How everything had been a ruse to make me Sojourn into the Guardian of Chupa’s head and reveal the location of Pandora’s Jar…
              After nearly thirty minutes they knew everything, and none of them dared speak.
              “So,” Hibiscus said at last, braiding her hair for the third time since I’d started talking. “If the bomb did not kill them, they will keep looking for the jar. And once they find it, all Dimensions will merge into one.” She paused, looking more anxious than I’d ever seen her. “Blimey! And I thought my wedding would be the most stressful event this year!”
              “But we can find it before they do, right?” I turned to Michelle, who was holding her husband’s hand. “The Protectors have eyes everywhere. Surely someone’s heard of a lost city sunk to the bottom of the ocean.”
              Samera muttered incomprehensible words under her breath, but did not look at me.
              Michelle, however, shifted uncomfortably and said, “Let’s just say that we do not have the Protectors’ resources anymore.”
              “What do you mean?”
              “They sacked her,” Hibiscus said.
              “They what?”
              Michelle took a deep breath, closing her eyes for a moment as though the memory was painful. “Ian Cohen convinced more than three-quarters of the Protectors in New York that I’m working with Rascals. We are not allowed into HQ anymore. And I could bet anything that Ian is their leader now.”
              Anger swelled in me like a growing tornado. “What are we going to do? We have to fight back! He can’t get away with this. What about the other Protectors? Where are we going to go?”
              “Those who stood against Ian were banned from Headquarters as well,” Sam answered. “But there aren’t many. And we’ll need to find someplace else,” she continued, as though it was obvious. “We’ll need equipment, new employees, good technology, and a doctor… that’s if we want to keep the Guardian of Chewbacca alive anyway.”
              “Chupa. Guardian of Chupa,” I corrected. “And I know exactly who’d be willing to help us.” The only doctor I knew who would be all too happy to be part of a plan to stop Rascals. A doctor who’d believed in ghosts and evil spirits back when I was at the hospital. “Doctor Bennett.”
              “Isn’t he the one who cared for you when you were in a coma?” Sam asked. I nodded eagerly. “How do you know we can trust him with the knowledge of the Dimensions?”
              I thought of the way he’d explained his theory about evil spirits taking control over European citizens, and how much he’d suffered from knowing his father had killed his mother even though he was known to be a good and respectable man. I wanted him to know it hadn’t been his father’s fault. I wanted him to know the whole truth.
              “It’ll make sense to him. Just trust me.”
              Michelle refused to talk about it until I was fully rested, even though I kept telling her I’d never felt better in my entire life. They left me alone in the unfamiliar bedroom, where I attempted to go back to sleep. But my mind was rushing with all that had happened inside the mountain. Reeshon, the Guardian, my sister… How had I not seen it coming?
              But somehow, I didn’t feel sad and responsible anymore. My current sentiments were closer to resentment and anger towards my sister, whom I had trusted, and especially whom I thought I’d been protecting. I had spent almost an entire week terrified of what the Rascals were doing to her, and responsible for her kidnapping, when it had been her plan all along.
              My fists clenched and my heart beat increased just thinking about it.
              Clearly I wasn’t making any improvement on falling asleep, so I got up, put on the clothes that had been set for me on a wooden chair, and silently sneaked out of the room.
              Patrick’s parents were evidently wealthy. The hall reminded me of a Victorian movie, with pale walls decorated with rectangular moldings and large, expensively framed paintings. The floor resembled a ches game board that spread to the end of the dimly lit hallway, five rooms ahead.
              According to Michelle, my parents were in one of those rooms. All I needed to do was listen… I hadn’t made two steps forward when I heard my mother’s voice. With a new rush of enthusiasm, I opened the door from which the sound was coming—
              —and came face to face with my father. We both halted abruptly and looked at each other. His eyes were wary, yet hopeful. I heard my mother gasp and immediately clasp her hands to her chest. Did I look any different, now that I was… well, now that I was a Rascal? I still couldn’t believe it myself.
              “Hey,” I said, and instantly regretted it. My voice sounded hoarse and distant. What was I supposed to say to my father, who’d lied to me for nineteen years about the fact that he was a creature from Hell who fed on human’s dreams?
              When seconds had passed without me finding an answer, and when I realized that neither of them was going to speak, I resigned the use of words and instead extended my arms toward my father and wrapped them around his own. For a split second, he stood there, frozen, before he returned the hug with greater force.
              “I’m so sorry,” he whispered.
              “It’s okay, Dad. It’s okay. I understand.”
              A third pair of shaky arms circled around us and I had to think of something else to prevent myself from crying. I felt like we’d never been more united, like our family bonds had never been stronger than at this precise moment… even though we were missing a family member.
              Had Michelle told them about Deli? I hoped she had, because I couldn’t. I couldn’t mention my sister’s name in front of them.
              Several minutes passed before any of us dared break the embrace, and after that, we all seemed happier and more comfortable. At least I did.
              “How long have you been here?” I asked.
              My dad offered me his chair as he sat on the bed next to my mother. “We arrived with Michelle yesterday. Mr. Jensen called her during the night, saying that you had disappeared, but your friends had followed your trace. They knew where you were being held. We went directly to Headquarters for help, but Ian never allowed us to enter, so we had to find another way. A certain Jeffrey Archer in… er… the Red Dimension?—I still don’t understand all of it—but this person was able to take us rapidly to Canada.”
              “You used a convy?” I interrupted, grinning at my father’s confusion.
              “Something like that, yes,” Mom replied, frowning. “Very interesting concept, this
convy
. And you should know that Michelle told us most of the story on our way here, but you will have to explain yourself, Amya. You lied to us about everything: the Dimensions, Rascals, your involvement with Protectors…”
              “Let’s not talk about lying for a while,” my dad said quickly. “I think we all had our reasons, didn’t we?”
              I nodded vigorously. “I wasn’t allowed to tell you anything. The Protectors are… quite secretive… and for good reason!”
              “Yes, Michelle mentioned it,” my mother said. “But we’re still your parents!”
              “He’s still my father!” I exclaimed furiously. Seeing his reaction, I regretted it immediately. “Sometimes,” I added in a calmer tone, “we lie for good reasons, that’s all.” My mother was glaring at my father, and the atmosphere became uncomfortable again. I cleared my throat. “If you knew my location right away, why didn’t anyone come sooner?”
              Grateful for the change of subject, my dad answered, “To make sure that nobody got hurt, we had to create a weapon against Rascals. We stayed in the Red Dimension longer than we were supposed to. Jeffrey had contacts who helped us create a gun that could fire bullets made of gold. Not entirely
gold but enough to hurt a Rascal permanently,” he added, when I opened my mouth to ask where they’d find such a big quantity of gold. “We used all our savings for a dozen bullets…”
              “Kellen! Amya doesn’t need to know that!” my mother snapped. She then glanced at me, a genuine smile on her face. “It was all worth it, darling. We were ready to sell the house if we had to. Michelle wanted to use the Protectors’ funds, but Ian Cohen blocked her access.”
              “We thought we were getting our two girls back,” my father added, looking at his hands as though they were the most interesting things in the world.