The Legend of the Eight: The Twisted (Book 3)

19: Heart

        He held her tight and they began to rock while they stood there, watching themselves in the mirror.

        "Well lucky for you, you won't ever have to find out. I promise you, Fi. Forever and always, I love you and I am never going to leave you."

        She reached for his hands and wrapped her fingers around his.

        "I love you so much."

        The words came out of her so quickly. It was like she was drowning and they were her life raft.

        "Now and forever. Forever and always."

        And then she kissed him. Because she didn't have a clue what the future held for them but she knew she wanted him in it.

A WARM FIRE CRACKLED ON the stony shore of the beach where the Eight and Company gathered that evening. After spreading Liam's ashes into the ocean, they sat around the fire to stay warm while a salty breeze blew past them. The beach was the perfect place to hold the memorial—it was where Liam ran nearly every morning since they'd been there. They were trading their favorite stories about Liam and as they did, Phoebe couldn't help but feel like a part of him was there with them.

        "I remember our sophomore year, Liam and I were hanging out after practice with some weed I'd got from Xavier," Drew was saying while Phoebe sat in his lap, snuggling tight to him. "And I remember he looks at me and with the most serious of faces, he tells me that his nail spelled backwards is Mail and that mine is Werd. We laughed about that for a while and it was right about then that we realized we were both stoned to the bone."

        Phoebe laughed with him and the others, holding back the urge to cry again. Next to her, Wil rested her head on Levi's shoulder while they sipped from a bottle of Jack Daniels.

        "When we were kids," Levi said after swallowing a drink. "He used to be fascinated by cars. Fast cars, vintage cars, he loved them all. We never used one—because, well, not many people back home did—but in the shed, Dad used to have this old Impala. It didn't run but Liam used to climb in the driver's seat and pretend to drive it. He said he wanted to race cars when he was older but Dad said he needed to pick a career that was a little less dangerous."

        "Funny how things play out, huh?" chuckled Luke at the irony (considering Levi grew up to be a showman who battled dangerous beasts). Phoebe saw something in Live's face twitch, like a switch had been flipped.

        "Not like you'd know," he sneered, setting the bottle in the sand next to him. He straightened up and Wil lifted her head off his shoulder. "You took off. You don't know how things played out the last few years. Why are you even here?"

        "Levi," Wil started to say, trying to calm him down.

        "Liam was my brother too," Luke argued and beside him, Thea looked a combination of scared and confused.

        "Was he?" Levi fired back. "That's funny. Because you had no problem leaving your brother a few years ago—both of us, actually. Not to mention our parents had just died."

        "I didn't have a choice," Luke insisted, his voice deepening to a growl. "The people who killed Mom and Dad were looking for me. If I stuck around, they'd come back."

        "So you thought abandoning us without any explanation was better? Do you know you never even told us you were an Alchemist? We kind of had to figure that bit out for ourselves."  

        "I thought I was protecting you," insisted Luke. "I thought you'd be safer without me."

        "Right," Levi nodded with a sarcastic chuckle. Then he gestured out to the ocean where they'd sprinkled Liam's ashes not long ago. "And look how that turned out. Remarkable job at protecting us, you've done."