Winter's Fury - Volume Two of The Saga of the Twelves (79 page)

She giggled in spite of
herself.
Andrew, you are so funny
sometimes.
How was it that the simplest
things could evade him completely every once and a
while?

“
It’s not weird, my Drew.
It was just supposed to happen, and it did.”

He glanced away, peering
past her in thought, his eyes glossy and his mind elsewhere. Then,
after a time, “Something out there made sure of it.” It was just
above a whisper.

She had to strain her ears
to hear him. “I know, silly, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell
you,” she whispered back in a mild tone. She rubbed one of his
knuckles with the tip of her middle finger.

His laugh was tiny.
“Really?”

“
Yeah, really.” She
sighed, still staring at him, feeling things in the pit of stomach
flip-flop like an over-easy egg. “Aren’t you glad you met me?” she
asked, being coy.

He bobbed his
head.

She knew he had understood
her humor.

“
Yes, of
course, I am glad. It just all seems so
heavy
, you know?”

“
All
this shit is ‘heavy’ Andrew?” She began counting off. “Us being
yanked from our families and thrown onto a place that had not
existed months ago - that is ‘heavy’. You and me being members of
the Twelve Chosen to protect all mankind - that is ‘heavy’. Your
best friend just happens to be the Kring-Hël, the Light of the
World. And his destiny is to save us all from certain destruction
-
that
is so
‘heavy’, it’s like gravity times three!

“
You and I, meanwhile,
seem simple. Do we not? We’re just two young adults destined to be
together. That might be heavy under normal circumstances, but when
compared to all the others… Well… Nah, no way! It seems kinda
simple to me.” She fell silent, grateful to be holding his hand as
she said it.

He was about to say
something else when another thought popped into her
head.

She giggled, which brought
him up short.

“
What?” he
asked.

“
Nothing, I just had a
funny thought. With all this talk about Anthony and the Twelve,”
she replied pushing down the mirth, trying to remain somewhat
quiet. The others had yet to wake up.

“
A thought about
what?”

She looked back at him and
knew he was not going to let it drop.

Ok, you asked…

“
I was thinking,” she
began, more solemn. “What if it was your Gift that did all this
stuff happening between us. You know, the dreams, the sense of
knowing, you being able to project your name into my head. I mean,
what are the chances of that?”

His eyebrows knitted
closer together with every word she uttered.

She could tell he was no
longer breathing, holding his breath inside as if the motor
function had failed him.
What?
she thought to herself. Then, she wiggled
Andrew’s hand to get his attention, but he did not move.

“
Andrew?” she
probed.

Nothing.

“
Andrew?”

Nothing.

“
Honey, what is wrong with
you!” she said with more insistency, shaking his hand more roughly
than she had before.

“
You said ‘chances’,” was
all he murmured. His eyes were peering far into an imagined
distance.

“
Chances? What are you
talking about?” She was getting concerned, pulling herself up from
the air mattress, using her elbow to prop herself even
higher.

With quick movements, he
mimicked the way she was laying, which made her jerk her head back
in surprise. He had done it swift.

“
One of the Gifts Joaquin
spoke about is the Lükk, the person who is the Harbinger of Chance.
He or she is the only member of the Twelve that can bend fate
according to his will. He or she acts like the final defense
against something bad happening to any of us. If he or she can act
quickly enough… This person possesses a mind focused enough to
alter reality as we know it.” He mumbled the last sentence, but she
heard it nonetheless.

Now it was her turn to
frown. “But, how does that explain what happened to us?”

“
Oh my
god, it explains
everything
, Anna!” he blurted loud,
then covered his mouth, lowering his tone, but the fervor with
which he spoke was undeniable. “How would things have been if you
and your family had stayed back in Holbrooke when all the shit went
down? You would have been stuck in the Melded World a thousand
miles from any of us - helpless and alone. The odds I was able to
find your mind, through the tangle of minds existing back on Earth
are too incredible to comprehend. And yet, I did. I was able to
tell you my name even.” He stopped, in awe of his own
words.

That much was clear to
her.

Then, he stared at her
once more. “Think of how lucky you were to run across Garfield’s
path at the exact time you did, before you fell. If you had done so
say fifteen minutes earlier we would have walked right passed you
in the snow. We would have never known you were even there. You
would have frozen to death.

“
If you had come fifteen
minutes later, we would have already passed you and again you have
died, by yourself curled up on the ground. You do remember the
blizzard started within minutes of our arrival at the mall,
right?”

She nodded, sheepish, the
facts he was piling up on her were too many to be other than the
truth.

“
You wouldn’t have stood a
chance out there in weather like that.” He scooted toward her on
both of his elbows bringing his massive sleeping bag with him.
“Don’t you see? I’m the Lükk, Marianna. I bring chance and luck,
and bend it to our advantage.”

“
B-but how could you have
done that? I mean we left Holbrooke more than six months ago?” was
all she could bring herself to say, the implications of Andrews’s
words were staggering.

“
I know, huh? But it makes
perfect sense, right?”

“
Yes,” she admitted with a
gulp. “It all seems so eerie. Now that I know you changed the fate
of my entire family. You brought us all the way to southern
California without you even knowing it! It’s downright scary.” She
shivered and laid back down to cross her arms about the upper
portions of her body.

He paused to consider what
she had said, some of his enthusiasm trickling from him. “When you
put it that way, it does sound a little freaky.” He chuckled. “It’s
like I’m some sort of super-stalker or something, huh?”

She looked up at him from
the mattress and produced a wan, half-hearted smile. “I thought it
was destiny that brought us together, Andrew.” She trailed off into
silence, her tone making him look down at her with mild
disquiet.

“
It was, girlie. Only this
destiny we are able to explain. We don’t have to chalk this up to
some mysterious force or majestic being. It was me. All along - it
was me.” He crossed his wrists before him, still perched upon his
elbows.

The quiet overtook them
once again.

She could hear the steady
breathing of their companions all about them. There were soft
snores coming from Louis and Sophie, an asymmetrical counterpoint
without rhyme or reason.

“
I’m cold, Drew, do you
think I could fit into your sleeping bag and cuddle with you for a
while?”

Andrew peered down again
and smiled with a slight flush to his face. “Even if we don’t quite
fit, I’ll find a way to stuff you in here somehow. Come.” He held
out a hand to her.

She took it at once, while
he opened the sleeping bag as wide as he could. She writhed from
her own with Andrew’s help, sat up and then twirled on her butt to
position her feet so that she could enter Andrew’s.

After a few seconds, it
was quite plain there was more than enough room to accommodate the
both of them. A few moments later, they settled. Intertwined and
holding onto each other tight, Marianna leaned into her mysterious
boy and kissed him…

…
Again and again and
again… until they both fell asleep once more – fervid and careless
of the world around them.

~~~~~~~<<<
ᴥ
>>>~~~~~~~

~ 47 ~

Motherly
Concerns

Monday, November
29
^th
,
6:22 am…

Unable to sleep much, she
was already up and washed, half-dressed for the day to
come.

Thus, Lynn Loren had not
been all that surprised when she heard her cell phone squawking
this early in the morning. What did make her face melt into a
semi-frown was the ringtone itself. It had not been the one she was
expecting. This one was the default alert, one for incoming calls
that were not logged into her address book.

This was not Vanessa
calling. This was someone she did not know.

Putting down her
hairbrush, she walked to her bed. She had thrown her phone upon it
before she had gone into the bathroom down the hall to wash-up. The
Caller-ID showed the number and the words “Restricted Caller”
across the screen of her cell.

A land line?
she thought a tad intrigued before she swiped at
glass and answered.

“
Uh, hello?”

“
Ah yes,
is this Lynn?”
The voice was female,
older, maybe middle-aged, but that was not what got the teen’s
attention.

The woman sounded on the
verge of hysteria.

Lynn could tell she was
holding back a tremendous amount of fear by the way her voice
quavered.

“
Yes it is,” she replied,
trying to be as polite as possible.

“
Oh,
thank god!”
said the lady in a
rush.
“Sweetie, do you remember me? I’m
Holly Menendez, Vanessa’s mother. We’ve met a few times when you’ve
spent the night or had come over to visit -.”
She stopped to swallow hard and catch her breath. She was
talking a mile a minute.
“You remember
right, honey?”

“
Oh, Mrs. Menendez! Yes,
of course. I remember you. How are you?”

An unseemly gasp filled
the following moment, issuing from the woman on the other end of
the call.
“Not so good, hon.”
Another paused ensued.
“I’m sorry if I’m putting you on the spot, Lynn, but I have
to know.”

“
Ooookaay.” It was the
drawn out inquiring version of the word.

“
Would you happen to know
where Vanessa might be?”

The question shocked Lynn
to the degree she pulled her cell away from her face as if she was
holding the head of a rattlesnake of a sudden.

“
Hello?”

“
Wait. What do you say?”
asked Lynn wanting to make sure she had heard correctly.

“
I’m
sorry if there’s some big secret in the works, but I need to know
where my daughter is. Would you happen to know?”
She said it like she was
praying.

“
Mrs. Menendez, I don’t
understand. I talked with her late last night. We made plans to get
up early and go the police station to ask about our friend. She
said she was going straight to bed, so she wouldn’t be too tired in
the morning,” answered the sixteen-year-old in one breath. “I don’t
understand.”

“
Lynn, please, be one
hundred percent honest with me. I need to know. Did she sneak out?
Did she tell you where she was going?”

“
Sneak out? Why would she
sneak out?” Lynn was even more muddled than before.

“
Does she have a boyfriend
I don’t know about? Is she sneaking about with someone new? Did she
spend the night with a boy?”

A boy!
Lynn’s thoughts were raging.
Did she
just ask me if Vanessa had snuck out of their house so she could
have sex with her boyfriend? She doesn’t even have one! What the
hell is going on?

“
Mrs. Menendez,” she
stopped her throat constricting. “I don’t know what you’re talking
about. I don’t understanding your questions. Ness doesn’t have a
boyfriend, especially one she’d want to… uh, you know.”

“
Please, Sweetie. I won’t
be mad. At this point, it would be a huge relief. I just need to
know where she is. I need to know that she’s ok.”

Vanessa sleeping with a
boy would be a relief! What the heck?

“
But that’s just it.
There’s nothing to tell. Our plans were to sleep, wake-up early and
go to the police station. There was no boyfriend or anything like
that,” explained the girl. Her voice strained, hoping Vanessa’s
mother was listening.

“
There
was no party or kickback, or whatever, going on last night?”
Holly was sounding more and more panic-stricken
with each passing second.

“
No.”