Destiny (Vanish Book Four) (13 page)

“Okay, we need to figure out how to get
everyone out of here, and then you all need to go home.”

“What? You’re not staying here,” Skylar
said.

“I agree,” Dante and Violet said at the same
time.

“I have to,” I sighed. “I’m going to save
Sienna and Hazel. I’ll make them forget everything, and then maybe
they can have a normal life.”

“Who cares about them, Scarlett? They tricked
us; they’re the reason you’re here.”

“Fine then, we all save them, right now. Does
anyone have any ideas?” I asked.

“They injected us with something. I was in a
daze for hours; I could hardly move,” Rose said, I knew exactly
where she was going with that.

“Let’s find more. I’ll go out there and drug
them. Once they’re drugged, we’ll bust the door down, and then I
guess we’ll figure it out from there.”

“I’ll help,” Dante offered.

“So will I,” Skylar said.

We ran back down. Stored inside a small
cupboard on the other side of the room, was about fifty syringes.
It looked like they were already filled. I grabbed three, and
handed one to Dante and one to Skylar.

We went to the top of the stairs, and I
grabbed Skylar and Dante’s hands. We turned invisible, walked
through the door, and then, we ran up to the side of the house.

“I’ll take care of your dad. You two go for
the girls,” Skylar said.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

“Okay, when we go through the wall, it’s
going to take a lot out of us; it’s much thicker and harder to do
than a door. We need to be quiet; it has to be a surprise.”

“Alright,” they said.

Once we were in, we sat down for a moment. I
knew that Dante was still not quite himself, and Hazel would be the
easier target.

“Okay, at the top of the stairs the first
room on the left, I believe that’s his. Sienna and Hazel have their
names on their doors, so that should be easy enough. I’ll take
Sienna; you get Hazel, okay Dante?”

“Okay,” he said.

We headed up the stairs. Skylar opened the
first door on the left, and my dad was inside sleeping. I nodded to
Skylar, and he walked in. Dante continued into Hazel’s room, and I
went to Sienna’s. They were all asleep, oblivious to what was going
on.

I walked up to the bed, slowly pulling the
covers down to get to her arm. As I went to stick the needle in her
skin, her eyes shot open. She grabbed my arm, uncovered the rest of
herself, and kicked me into the wall. In the second I had to react,
my only thought was that I hoped Dante and Skylar had already used
their shots. If they didn’t, then we were all screwed.

Sienna came at me and held me up against the
wall by my throat. Then, she took the syringe from my hand and
brought it up to my face. She held the needle just inches away from
my eye as she choked me. I lifted my leg to push her off; it
worked, but she was right back up the next second. She ran at me
and knocked me to the ground. I pushed to get her far enough off of
me, that I would have enough momentum to punch her in the face. It
worked, and she fell to the ground. I got on top of her and grabbed
the syringe. She tried to push me away, but it was too late. The
contents of the syringe were already swimming through her veins.
Her arms hit the ground, and she laid there without moving; she
just stared at the ceiling.

I ran out the door and into Hazel’s room, she
was laying there motionless. Dante and I ran to check on Skylar,
who had completed his mission. We ran outside, and out to the shed,
Skylar had one of the hollow handled knives on him, and he
proceeded to dig it into his palm right under his thumb.

Once the handle finished filling with the
blue liquid, he screwed off the blade and drank the contents. Then,
he brought his hands to the lock, and it crumbled between his
fingers.

Everyone was free, aside from Sienna and
Hazel. I couldn’t know for sure; I couldn’t be totally confident in
this, but I knew they should have a chance at a real life. If
things backfired, I would have no choice but to kill them. Which I
was fine with, because if I left them here, there was no doubt that
I would kill them or one of them would kill me.

“Okay, we need to go back for Sienna and
Hazel now,” I said.

“I think this is too much of a risk,
Scarlett. You know if I didn’t think that, I would be okay with
this,” Violet said.

“Look, I’ll make them forget. We can tie them
up or something. We can go and get more of those syringes, but at
least this way they have a chance—we have a chance.”

“Okay, go, but if this doesn’t work—”

“I’ll take care of it,” I promised.

Dante and Skylar followed me back into the
house. It would be quite a long walk home, and someone would have
to carry the girls. I knew Skylar could handle it. Hell, after that
lock crumbled in his hands, he could probably easily carry both of
them.

We went up to their rooms. Everyone was still
passed out. I went into my father’s room first—he would need to
forget as well. I put my hand to his forehead, and made him forget
everything about me, Rose, Sienna and Hazel.

Then, I went into Sienna’s room, and placed
my hand on her forehead. She would have to forget much
more—basically her whole life—if we wanted this to work.

Once that was done, I moved on to Hazel, who
would also, have next to nothing left to remember. Skylar came into
Hazel’s room with Sienna already slung over his shoulder; he bent
down to pick her up, too.

“Are you sure you can carry both of them?” I
asked.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” he replied with
confidence.

“Where’s the knife maybe I could—”

“No, Scarlett, I’ve got this,” he
interrupted.

“Alright, where’s Dante?”

“I don’t know.”

“Okay, you take them outside, and I’ll find
Dante.”

I went into Sienna’s room, but he wasn’t
there. So I went and checked my dad’s room, and there he was,
standing on the side of the bed with a knife.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Everything, all of this, it’s his fault,
every-last-thing, Scarlett, and you want to let him live?”

“I don’t know what I want anymore, Dante,” I
sighed. “How are we going to solve all of these problems? Because I
know killing him wouldn’t do it. He would find another body and try
again.”

“You’re right,” he sighed.

“One day, he will pay; I promise, but for
now, he isn’t going to remember much. He’ll be as harmless as
Ann.”

We went downstairs and back outside. Everyone
was waiting for us, and we began our walk home.

It took us about an hour and a half to get
there, but finally, we made it. I didn’t need to worry about the
Alliance or my father, not right now.

I had one worry on my mind that left little
room for anything else—exactly what kind of loophole did Skylar and
Dante find, and what would this entail? I didn’t even know if they
knew the reason Skylar and I had been forced together; the reason
Dante and I had been forced apart.

“Can I talk to you for a minute, Scarlett?”
Violet asked.

“Yeah,” I said as I followed her into the
house.

“They’re going to need somewhere to sleep. In
the long run, we might need to move, but as of now, they’re going
to take your room.”

“Fine, but I need to get some things first.”
I went to go upstairs, when she grabbed my arm and stopped me.

“I’m sorry Scarlett, so much of this is my
fault, but I didn’t know. Not until it was too late, not until they
were gone. I was clueless. I should have told you about the curse,
but by the time you were in my life, you were already in love with
that boy. It was already set into motion, and it broke my heart
every day. I never told anyone about that.”

“It’s okay; everything is going to be made
right,” I said before I went upstairs.

I grabbed the boxes from Ms. Winter’s house,
and took them into the basement. The book that I’d been looking at
was at the top of the box. I opened it, and it opened to the exact
page I was looking for. The page with me and Skylar. There was no
breeze, but the page was doing exactly as it had done, when the fan
was blowing it. His eyes were changing between green and brown. I
set the book down and ran upstairs. Violet was still sitting at the
kitchen table.

“Where’s Skylar?” I asked.

“He put the girls upstairs, and then he took
off, why?”

“Where’s Dante?”

“He left, too,” she said.

“I’ll be back,” I said as I ran out the front
door.

I was going to stop at Dante’s house, but I
had a strong feeling that he wasn’t there. I closed my eyes and
concentrated. I saw a quick flash of his face; he was standing
somewhere in the woods, or next to the woods.

I was about to run into the trees, but I saw
light coming from just off the lake. I walked up slowly, taking
everything in. There was a table with two candles, and a small vase
filled with roses. There were strings of lights hanging off of
every branch, but I didn’t see Dante. I walked up to the table and
a few feet away, I heard them talking.

“You know that isn’t possible, Dante, it
won’t be any different. I’ll barely even be there. It will be just
like normal, and don’t forget, this was supposed to be my date
anyway,” Skylar said.

“You’re right. I just hope this doesn’t upset
her,” Dante whispered.

“That’s why she’s not here. Stand still.”

I peeked through the bushes and saw Skylar
holding a knife to Dante’s neck. What the hell were they doing and
how would killing Dante help anything?

“What are you doing?” I cried as I ran
through the bushes.

“You should just leave Scarlett. This will be
easier on everyone if you’re not here.”

“I’m not going to let you kill him,” I
shrieked. “Do you even know why we’re
meant to be
together
?”

“Yes—it actually makes a lot more sense
now—and if you know, too, and you try to be with him, he’s going to
die anyway.”

“What?” I ran over and pushed Skylar away
from him and buried my face into his chest.

“I love you Scarlett, but he’s right; this is
the only way.”

“I love you, too,” I mumbled into his chest.
“But I don’t understand why you have to die.” I stood up on my
tiptoes and kissed him. Seconds later, he was gone, just a pile of
ash.

“What happened?” I sobbed.

“You read the page; you knew why all of this
was happening. You knew that you were supposed to be with me, but
you kissed him anyway,” he explained.

“Why didn’t you tell me that?” I demanded as
I beat on his chest. Tears were flowing down my neck, soaking my
shirt.

“We have to hurry Scarlett,” Skylar said.

He took the potion out of his pocket. A blast
of pink smoke came out, and it was in the shape of a heart. Then, a
thin line of smoke went to Skylar, then me, then the pile of ash
that Dante left behind.

Less than a second later, I saw Dante’s
ghost, and the line moved toward him. Skylar put the vial to his
lips, tilted his head back, and swallowed it. He fell to the ground
and it sounded like he was choking. Dante’s ghost walked over to
him and sunk into him. He lay there motionless, and I was starting
to get worried. Then he sat up, coughed, and opened his eyes—they
were brown.

“Dante?” I whispered.

“Hey, beautiful girl, how do I look?”

“Like you, like Skylar, great. How do you
feel?”

“Honestly? I feel really weird, not bad, just
weird.”

“Well you’re okay; we’re going to be okay—” I
paused and wondered how Skylar was doing at this moment. “Where’s
Skylar?”

“He’s in here; he said it would be like
having another personality that was controlled about ninety-eight
percent of the time. During that ninety-eight percent of the time,
he said it would be like being in a dark room for him. He can kind
of hear what’s going on next door, but he can’t see it. That’s the
way it will be for me, that two percent of the time, but that’s
fine, Skylar has sacrificed so much more.”

“Thank you Skylar,” I whispered, and a few
tears fell to the dirt. I only hoped that he could hear me.

“You’re welcome,” Dante said, and I looked
over to him. His eyes flashed green for a second, and then turned
back.

I walked over to the table, and sat down;
Dante followed my lead. He laid his hands on the table, and I
rested mine in his. Before when I touched Dante, I felt little
bolts of electricity, now it felt like I was in a bathtub with a
hairdryer. It didn’t exactly hurt, but it was a very intense
thing.

In that moment, that small part of me that
longed for Skylar, and the rest of my heart that knew exactly where
it stood, came together. I could have sworn Dante noticed this
change. He got up and went around the table. Then, he grabbed my
hand, and we walked toward the water. The lights continued overhead
until the shore. We stood there facing each other for the longest
time.

He was Dante, the love of my life; he was
Skylar, the only other man I’d ever felt anything even close to
love for. Together, they made me feel complete. I felt so selfish,
always wanting Dante, never just enjoying my time with Skylar. Then
Skylar—the boy with the beautiful soul, that I didn’t quite see
until it was too late—unselfishly gave up his life, without the
freedom that came with dying. He would be locked in that dark room
forevermore, paying for his courage, and selflessness, and silently
holding on to his love for me in the dark. While those pieces of me
came together—the part that loved Dante, and the part that longed
for Skylar—I knew that those pieces were still headed in the same
directions.

“I love you,” I said as I looked up at
him.

“I love you, too,” he whispered, as his eyes
flashed back and forth between green and brown before finally
resting on brown.