All Your Fates (Currently editing/updating)

Chapter 31: Revelation ~ Willow Polson

“No.” My voice was shaking now, along with the rest of me.

“My advice is that you stop this, David. Go home, to your own universe, and live out your days with some weird girl who likes comic books and looks like Bettie Page and has a dozen tattoos and collects antique radios. Go home before you get yourself killed. Have you looked in a mirror lately? You look like you pissed off a gypsy.”

He laughed at his own joke and stared at me, and something in his eyes forced me to stare back. There was something in them. Something not right. I couldn’t look away. I started to feel something shift inside me, but I recognized it. It was a jump coming.

“NO!” I shouted and forced myself to look away. My head swam and I almost hit the ground, but somehow I managed to stay up. I swallowed back some bile, willed myself to stay on that godforsaken windy hill full of bushes and hate, and I looked back at him.

He seemed genuinely surprised that I was still there. I think I was almost as surprised.

“Why do you want me out of here so badly? So you can have Emma all to yourself?”

Gabriel blinked at me, then burst out laughing. Much less musical this time.

“I am the Alpha and the Omega. And you, David Blunt, are the biggest wrench in my machine. Well, not you. The other you. The meat suit you’re currently borrowing.”

“I won’t let you have her.”

“Oh really?” His brows lifted and he seemed to actually see me for the first time since I’d jumped into this body. Before he had just looked at me. Now he was really looking.

“No. She deserves better.”

He laughed again. Each time it got less musical and more sinister.

“Oh, and I suppose you think that’s you? I can offer her anything. Everything. Even her life. I can choose that she gets to live. I can save the world for her, if I want to. Can you do that?”

Choose that she gets to live?

“Ah, there’s that dumbfounded look I’ve come to know,” he continued, running one finger along my cheek. “I’ve grown accustomed to your face. Unfortunately, this is where you get off. I’m throwing you under the bus, my dear stooge.”

Determined to finish my scheme, I only paid attention to half of what he’d said and plowed on like the idiot I am.

“Fine, if you don’t want me here, then tell me how to get back to my world. To my own Emma. Tell me what to do to get home.”

“Why would I do that?”

“To get rid of me. Like you said.”

He grinned at me with those shark teeth. “I have a better idea, actually. If I keep you here, I can set you up as a traitor, and then be rid of both you and the David that you’ve replaced at the same time. Win/win.”

The only win/win I could see was in his favor. A cold feeling radiated out from my stomach and up my spine. My hands tingled and I looked to see if he had a weapon.

“Oh, I won’t kill you myself directly. Emma would be horrified. She thinks I’m something special. And she’s right, but she has no idea what I really am.”

“And what’s that?” I choked out. The tingling was spreading up my arms.

Just then, a flash of yellow that dimmed to orange as it boiled up into the sky, somewhere down below in the city, caught my eye. Then another. After a few more seconds, one more. Then, a distant rumble as the sound waves finally started to reach our hilltop. Then another. After a delay, the third one. I could almost feel the pressure inside me, creeping up my arms and out of my stomach and chest. My feet started to go numb.

“I’ve already told you,” said Gabriel, leaning in close to my face. “The Alpha and the Omega. Emma is right. I can save them all. Because I control it all.”

I was torn, then. I should try and force myself to stay, to risk my life and tell Emma what was really going on, so that she could take her people and run. Fight. Whatever they needed to do.

But she wasn’t mine. Gabriel owned this one. He owned it all. Just like always.

He always seemed to be at least one step ahead of me. Hell, even the other David, or maybe Davids, were ahead of me. But not back home. Not where I came from. If I could just get home and find Emma there, tell her everything, and get her to help me, then I still had a chance to beat them all.

I slowly looked up into his eyes. Then I smiled darkly.

“Good luck with that, fucker.”

Then I let the creeping tingling numb pressure take me over. And I was gone.

* * *

A/N from Willow:

Hello all. It has been my pleasure and delight to write for this

project, and I'm sorry it's coming to an end. In this form, at least.

I love The Karada and all its iterations and worlds and ideas, and I

fervently hope that it's picked up in the near future as a television

series. It has so much potential, and you, the readers, have proven by

sheer numbers that this story is wanted and should be allowed to be

bigger than just a written format.

Together, let's create that 3D full-color live-action universe so that

maybe, just maybe, David can get his Emma someday after all....

Well, probably not, but I feel sorry for the guy, and we all know that

as a TV show, this would kick ass even if he doesn't. ;)

Follow me on Twitter (https://twitter.com/WillowPolson) and friend me

on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/willowpolson) to see where I've

been and follow where I'm going next...