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Authors: wildly

Tags: #supernatural fantasy, #star crossed series

WILDly (25 page)

BOOK: WILDly
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Sensation was
coming back to me, and my sight was clearing. up. I stood
motionlessly next to Alex, but I was slowly returning to myself,
feeling better. I signalled this to Alex by squeezing his hand,
hoping that he’d understand my message.

“Please try,”
Alex threatened. “But know this: if...no,
when
the council
finds out about your treachery, you’ll be severely punished, even
by death.”

“I have a
better plan. Let’s finish this, once and for all,” Duncan
invited.

“Sounds like a
brilliant plan,” Alex agreed.

“Give me your
best, Mr. Bigshot,” Duncan mocked.

Duncan stood
there with his arms next to his sides, like a soldier called to
attention. He closed his eyes and took the beating, without
retaliating. Alex launched one attack after the other, switching
between powers and coming at him again and again. He grew brighter
and brighter with each attack, seeming to become more and more
furious.

And somewhere
during the fight, I started to feel sorry for Duncan, for facing
the wrath of the powerful sun, being a moon himself. And like he’d
said, all he’d ever done wrong was to love Earth and me. The dream
in the hospital came back to me, and I remembered the fear that I’d
felt then for Duncan’s life.

Alex took
revenge for me, for himself and for Benjamin, he took out all his
worry and fear and stress on Duncan, acting like a madman, glowing
brighter each second, hurting Duncan every way he could, while
Duncan appeared totally defenceless.

It looked like
the middle of the day instead of the middle of the night.

Alex had
stopped using his powers now, and had begun physically beating
Duncan.

I suddenly
realised that Alex’s glow wasn’t brightening because of his fury,
but rather because his link was being exceeded. And I remembered my
father’s warning, that Alex would have to draw energy from the sun,
more than his link could handle, and in trying to kill Duncan,
would kill himself in the process.

And as Alex
shone brighter and brighter, the terrible realisation hit me: I was
exactly where Duncan had wanted me to be. We’d fallen straight into
his trap.

I went cold
with fear. I stood paralysed, desperate to save the love of my life
but vacillating as I watched them fight. Duncan flashed me a smirk
every now and then, as every tick of the clock forced more life out
of Alex, bringing him closer and closer to his death. It was
happening right in front of me, and something just snapped in my
mind.

Suddenly I knew
what I had to do: I had to draw power from the centre of the Earth,
to heal Alex and to kill Duncan myself. It was the one thing that
Duncan had wanted from the very beginning – the shift in balance,
to throw Earth from its orbit.

It would be a
risky move, but I trusted my instincts.

Without the
slightest hesitation, I planted my feet firmly on the ground. My
hands jumped into position, instinctively knowing exactly where
they needed to be. I closed my eyes and I saw the raw energy in the
centre of the earth, fighting to get out, strong and wild with
fury. We were completely in sync, Earth and I. She was just as
upset as I was.

The wave of
feeling rose slowly, the soil growing warmer and warmer around me.
And when it reached me, my legs faltered and I fell to my knees. It
was nothing less than pure, raw energy and it slowly pushed up
through me, drawing every bit of energy from my body so I could
barely stay on my knees and let the energy flow into my hands. My
arms shook heavily, almost out of my control. Even my ears
buzzed.

Only the
thought of Alex gave me the strength to hold on, to let it continue
through me.

“Valerie!
Valerie, no!” I heard someone yelling, faint and weak.

I didn’t pay
any attention to the call. All I could focus on was that I had to
save Alex, and I pushed even harder for the wave of energy to grow
onwards.

As the energy
left my hands, the enormous strain eased suddenly, even though it
was still flowing as strongly as before. I even had enough control
now to open my eyes.

But the moment
that I opened them it became clear why the strain had eased up.

Lisa was next
to me on her knees as well, completely relaxed, with her eyes
closed. And for the first time ever, I saw her glowing: very
strongly, a bright golden colour.

The colour was
strange, matching her blonde hair almost perfectly. But the gold
was turning blue, quickly. I followed the edges of her glow and
then realised why.

One of Lisa’
hands was gripped tightly around mine. We were sharing a link!

I tried
frantically to remember what Alex had told me about sharing links,
about why it was dangerous and what would happen. But my mind was
blank; there were too many things going on around me. I
concentrated, and gasped as I remembered.

By sharing an
energy link with me, she was balancing the transfer of energy in
such a way that Earth could not be overpowered. But she was risking
her own life and planet to do it.

The situation
seemed even worse than before. Lisa was possibly saving the entire
human population, Earth and everything on it, but she was making
the consequences even worse. Now I had to find a way to save not
only the love of my life, but my best friend in the world as well.
If I did nothing, they would both be gone. Out of my life. As if
they had never existed.

No!
I
wouldn’t allow it, not both of them!

“Nooooo!”
Duncan yelled as he suddenly registered our shared connection.

For the first
time ever, Duncan was intimidated; the smirk now replaced with an
expression of shock. That one word gave me hope. Not much, but just
enough.

In front of me,
the energy was flowing from both my and Lisa’s hands into Duncan in
the form of a beam that looked like lightning. It flowed through
Duncan into Alex: Duncan didn’t have a chance, it was too strong
and I knew it.

Lisa’s body
next to me was shaking violently. Her eyes were still closed and
her face was expressionless, but her cheeks were a bright red. Her
glow was now completely blue, but it was flickering.

I knew that was
a bad sign.

I dropped my
hands.

I knew it would
be safe, as I felt the presence of the three Reds behind me.

Lisa, Alex and
Duncan fell to the ground, like puppets cut loose from their
strings.

Lisa’s glow
flickered, fading, fainter and fainter. And then she disappeared.
One second she was on the ground, the next she was gone without a
trace.

And this is
where I am now. I wish I knew more about where I come from.

I want to know
everything; I want to know why I exist, why I am here.

If only I could
remember more about those first three years of my life, maybe all
of this would make sense to me. Why am I on Earth? Why was I ever
created?

After all,
there is no way that a baby could survive out in the wild on its
own. Surely someone must have protected me and kept me alive while
I was weak and small and vulnerable?

I cannot
remember anything out of the ordinary from my life before I was
adopted. I’ve tried a million times to think of something
significant, without any success… nothing that could explain any of
this, or even give me a clue to the mystery of how or what happened
that brought me to life.

Why am I so
unique? Why me? What makes me so special? Why am I the most special
one, out of three hundred ambassadors, and out of billions of
celestial bodies?

Or am I?

BOOK: WILDly
4.52Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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