8
The drive to the airport was long and slow. Heather sat in driver’s seat of Carlos, and Henry sat beside her. It was dead silent in the car. Heather shifted her weight uncomfortably to the brake as she slowed down for a red light. She thought back to the first time she met Henry in the psychologist’s office after her encounter with killer Dr. Thompson, when a thought hit her.
“Hey, why did Dr. Thompson turn all evil? Do you guys see that too? Is it, like, part of the flashes?” Heather asked, taking her eyes off the road for a second to glance at Henry.
Henry had been slumped against the car door, but when Heather started talking he sat up. “No, that’s part of being the Time Bearer. You can see people’s true identities for a few seconds. No one else can do that.”
“Whoa. That’s pretty cool!” Heather exclaimed as she leaned back in her seat and continued driving. “What else can I do?”
“Well, you can freeze time, as you found out. You can also go back in time, but just in short spurts. From what we know, the Time Bearer can only go back about 5 minutes. If they go any further, it’s too much power, and, in theory, their head would implode, causing instant death,” Henry stated matter-of-factly. Heather blinked a few times, too shocked at Henry’s bluntness to say anything. “Besides the usual Kidellian powers, that’s about it.”
What about Matt? What else can he do?” Heather asked, blushing at just the mention of his name, and her stomach doing this weird flippy-floppy thing.
Henry sighed. “Look, Heather. There’s something you need to know about Matt. You know how he’s a shape-shifter? Well, all shape-shifters that Damien has had in the past lose all their memory of ever being a Kidellian after a certain number of transformations, and they lose their ability to shape-shift. It’s as if the brain can only handle so many shifts into different bodies before it just completely burns out. That’s why it’s so dangerous to trust him. If his memory is wiped at the wrong time, Lykos might get a hold on him before we can, and turn him into a Mordan. Once he forgets, the best thing for him to do is go on and live a completely normal life. It’s really dangerous to try to get them back as Kidellians; all the information could potentially destroy their already fried brain.” A solemn silence settled over Heather and Henry as Heather tried to process this information. After a few moments, she opened her mouth to speak, but something darted in front of Carlos. Heather slammed on her brakes, she and Henry jerking forward, and Heather screamed.
“Oh my god,” she whispered to herself, placing her hand over her rapidly beating heart. She looked up and out the windshield. The cutest kitten Heather had ever seen sat in the middle of the road. “Aaaawwww!” Heather cooed. “She’s so cute!” The kitten wrapped its fluffy tail around its legs and stared at the headlights with huge, green eyes. Heather had the weirdest feeling that she had seen it before. Then it hit her: the emblem. She squinted at the kitten again, trying to figure out what the kitten from the emblem was doing sitting in the middle of the road. She could hear cars honking behind her, yelling at her to go, but she was shaken by the kitten’s appearance.
“Heather . . .” Henry cautioned. Heather tore her gaze away from the kitten and looked past it. Hundreds upon hundreds of adorable, fluffy kittens were prancing down the road.
“Oh, they’re so cute! I could just eat them all up!” Heather fussed, forgetting about the emblem kitty.
“Yeah, but why are they walking in a pack of two hundred and why are they walking down a busy road?” Henry asked skeptically.
“I don’t know, but I’m just gonna go pet them a little, okay?” Heather mumbled, completely entranced with all the cute little kittens. She placed her hand on the car handle, and started opening the door before Henry jerked over and slammed the door shut.
“No, Heather. I don’t know what’s going on, but I really don’t like it. You just gotta drive. Come on, Heather. Drive.” Henry urged.
Heather gave him a look. “Are you kidding me? No. Not going to happen. I’m not going to just run over a bunch of innocent kitt-” Before Heather could finish her protest, Henry reached over with his foot and slammed on the gas. Heather screamed and death-gripped the wheel.
“HENRY! What the hell are you doing?!” Heather screamed at Henry, but he just remained silent and focused on the road ahead of him. Heather felt sick and disgusted as the truck bounced and thumped over the kittens. She tried getting control of Carlos from Henry, but his extreme strength was to his advantage. Most of the kittens had enough sense to skitter away from the rapidly approaching truck, but others met their untimely demise. After a few moments, Carlos had broken through the wall of kittens and Henry let go of the gas pedal and wheel and allowed Heather to keep driving. Traumatized, Heather was speechless for the next five minutes, but continued down the road to the airport. Pulling into a parking spot, Heather turned off the ignition, leaned back into her seat, and took a deep breath.
Looking over at Henry, she said slowly and shakily, “What . . . was . . . that?”
Henry sighed. “I don’t know. But it had something to do with Lykos, I can just tell. Whatever it meant, or why he used kittens, I don’t know. But it’s connected to Lykos.” Heather suddenly remembered the emblem with the kitten on it, hauntingly similar to the cat that had darted into the middle of the road. She opened her mouth to ask Henry about it, but a knock on her door window made her jump. She whirled around and saw Jimba’s anxious face peering in. Heather rolled down her window, and Jimba started babbling.
“Hey, guys. What was that? Are you guys alright? Were there a bunch of kittens? Did you get hurt? I got this vision when it happened of cute little kitties in the middle of the road, and then I saw you guys run over them. That would have been mean! Did you really do that? Did any of them get hurt? Are you sure you guys are feeling okay?”
Henry chuckled, and silenced Jimba. “Yes, we’re fine. And those were evil kittens, I think, so yes, we did run over a few of them. Where’s Damien?” Jimba gestured to the parked car next to them, and Henry stepped out of Carlos. Reluctantly, Heather got out of the truck and followed him. She needed to talk to Henry about the emblem and what it meant.
Damien stepped out of the passenger seat of his car, while Matt and Ivy climbed out of the backseat. As Heather debated whether she should bring up the emblem now or later, Damien studied her face with his timeless wise eyes. He could tell something was troubling her, but prudently decided to let her to work it out on her own. Damien slowly looked away from Heather and glanced at Henry striding towards him.
“Sir, do you know what that was about?” Henry asked Damien urgently.
Damien just clasped his hand on Henry’s shoulder. “Henry, my boy! You did a great job today. If I had been in your position, I probably would have just had a heart attack and died! And that’s saying something because I don’t croak too easily!” Damien laughed at his own joke, and Jimba awkwardly giggled, trying to please him. Damien nodded and smiled appreciatively at her, while Heather, Ivy, Matt, and Henry just looked at him as if he had lost his mind.
“But, Sir, do you know what it means? Because I feel like it has something to do with Lykos or his Mordans. What did it mean?” Henry asked, desperation in his accented voice.
Damien just laughed again. “Henry, I have no idea. I’m immortal, not omniscient. It probably did have something to do with Lykos, but we’re done with it. Why worry about what happens in the rearview mirror when there are plenty of bumps on the road ahead of us?” This silenced all the Kidellians, just as most of Damien’s wise words did. His bright, intelligent eyes twinkled as he smiled. “Alright then. Shall we?” Damien gestured towards the airport. The Kidellians looked at each other, searching for reassurance in each other. Heather was the first to step forward and say, “Let’s do it.” One by one, each Kidellian stepped forward and bravely accepted the seemingly impossible journey ahead of them.
Heather was in danger. Two blurry figures stood in the shadows of the room with her; one she knew she could trust and the other she knew she couldn’t. The one Heather knew would hurt her stepped forward into the light, a mildly good-looking boy. Suddenly, his face transformed into the most gruesome thing she had ever seen. It snarled at her, and bared its teeth. She couldn’t quite tell what it was anymore; it looked like a human face with open wounds everywhere, but Heather could also see a hint of a scarred, bruised horse in its eyes.
Suddenly, everything was in slow motion. Her ears popped. She was struggling, holding someone’s wrists so he couldn’t touch her. The wrists she was holding twisted counter-clockwise, forcing her grip to release. She couldn’t see who it was, but she knew instinctively that he was going to hurt her. His hands came up to her shoulders and shoved her backwards. She stumbled backwards, one step, two steps, and suddenly, the floor wasn’t there anymore.
She was falling. Wind was whistling through her ears, her arms and legs were being pushed upward from the force of the air beneath her. All that Heather could see was the blue sky above. No, there was something else too. Heather squinted and stared hard at the object above, trying to figure out what it was. A plane! Yes, it was a plane. And she heard something. More specifically, someone. He was shouting, but she couldn’t possibly fathom what it was that he was saying. Everything was still moving in slow motion, as if Heather was falling through honey. Even though she knew she was falling to her death, Heather felt calm.
She jerked up, panting. Heather rubbed her tired eyes. That dream kept coming back to haunt her, getting longer and longer each time. She leaned forward in the uncomfortable seat on the plane and studied her crumpled boarding pass. She read the words, “Destination: Tampa Bay, FL.”
“Hey sleepy-head,” A British voice said quietly. Heather looked to her left and examined Henry.
“How long was I out?” Heather inquired curiously.
“Most of the plane ride. We’ll be in Tampa in about ten minutes,” Henry responded, glancing at his watch. Heather quickly debated telling Henry about her terrifying recurring dream, but decided not to. She would tell him about it later, if it was truly important. She wondered if maybe she could tell Matt instead of Henry. Matt. The conversation Heather had had with Henry about Matt came slamming back into her mind. Her heart sank; the idea that Matt wouldn’t even know her anymore bored a hole in her heart. She couldn’t possibly like, or even love, this boy, and Heather knew it was absolutely ridiculous that she was so attached to someone she hardly knew. And yet . . .
She sighed. “Is it true what you said about Matt? That he’s really going to forget everything?”
Henry nodded. “Damien hasn’t told him yet; he says he’s waiting for the right time, whatever that means. But, hey, I do have some good news!” Heather looked up hopefully. “Damien said that the shape-shifters will remember the people, they just don’t remember being a Kidellian or anything that happened with other Kidellians, but they do know who they are.” Henry explained.
“So he won’t forget us, he’ll just forget that all this has happened?” Heather asked, excitement rising in her voice. “But he’ll know who we are?!”
Henry nodded, a half smile coming over his face. Heather beamed, and giddily reached over her seat and hugged Henry. Henry, taken by surprise by the hug, hugged Heather back after a second. He then glanced up and looked out the window. He gently tugged her off, and pointed out the window. “Look!” He said softly. Heather turned around and looked out the small airplane window. She leaned her forehead against the hard plastic and planted her hand on it while she looked down at the deceivingly beautiful city. Heather knew that this city and this adventure would completely change her life, if it didn’t end it. She took a deep breath, and as the plane gently touched down on the runway, she whispered, “Welcome to the beginning of the end.”