Dear Fatefuls, we have come to the end of Book II - hope you all enjoy the fateful finale!! :)
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Scene 12: Fateful
A.D. 2015
She was ready. For her life to change forever, she was ready. Wasn't she? She had to be. For one thing, her life had already changed forever. And even if she wasn't ready, even if she'd never be, that was not what really mattered. What mattered was the truth - and there were truths as yet untold, unheard. What mattered was the fact that she possessed some sort of power that enabled her to literally determine the future. Though she had no clue how or why, that much she knew for sure. And so she owed it to the future, to the world, to find out anything and everything she could about this fateful power.
This wasn't about her life changing forever; it wasn't about her. It wasn't even about the... about the... whatever it was that she felt toward Ryder. In spite of the fact that, when Cloe was stupid enough to even let herself think about him, which was far too often, it felt as if nothing else could ever matter.
The mysteriously otherworldly Miss Primor had offered to tell her the entire story, whenever she was ready. And whether or not Cloe was ready - whether the truth would be ugly or pretty, set to bring chaos or clarity, or both, or neither - it was high time that she took Charliese up on that offer.
Alone in her hotel room, she typed up an email to Trevor, asking if he could please advise Charliese to get in touch with her. Cloe's only way of contacting Miss Primor was through Prof, since she of course didn't have the platinum princess's number. She felt terrible bothering Trevor, when he had so recently been knocked out cold and locked inside a storage room, but she hoped that he was conscious now, and mentioned in her email that she hoped he had recovered.
As seconds passed, then minutes, she began to doubt it. Struggled not to flip a shit. What if he was still unconscious, or even dead, damn it? If that were true, then how was she supposed to stop herself from using her abilities to bring him back to life? Which would obviously be a grave abuse of power and potentially apocalyptically unwise... Cloe tried not to think about it. Tried very hard not to think about anything.
This of course led her to think about Ryder. Resisting this, since it was always so damnably dangerous, Cloe forced her mind to wander to another subject, any other subject, down whatever tangent it could find. This led her to remember that, sooner or later, she would have to talk to Eldor. She hadn't even seen him since the incident, but she knew that she couldn't avoid him for long. He was the one who had so generously arranged her stay in this palatial hotel, after all.
But just the thought of seeing him again was painful - the thought of how awkward and tense it was going to be, after what she had done in the moment of truth, when the gun had been held up to Eldor and his fellow veteran. The sacrifice that she had clearly been ready to make, not for him, but for the other soldier. A man who was all but a stranger to her. She had leapt in front of Ryder, set to take a bullet, choosing him instead of Eldor in an instant. As if the epic prince, who had only been the most perfect gentleman and steadfast friend to her... as if he didn't even matter.
That could not have been less true; Eldor mattered more to Cloe than he knew. But, in that fateful moment, she had seen and felt and lived for only Ryder. No one, nothing else. And there was no way to explain that to her friend. Hell, she couldn't even explain it to herself. She would have no idea where to begin, whenever she had to face Eldor again. Doubted she would be brave enough to even look at him.
Eager to think on another topic, Cloe's mind shifted then toward the other two girls who had evidently played a role in the dramatic series of events this evening. Some sort of... fateful role, it seemed, based on how Charliese had addressed all three of them collectively. The raven-haired stunner who happened to be Eldor's sort-of-sister, and the pretty blonde who happened to be married to Ryder. Two women who very clearly, very vehemently hated her. If these two indeed possessed similarly fateful powers, then in light of the... tensions they harbored toward her - the conflicts of interest, clashes of wills that would follow if all three of them were somehow the directors of destiny together... Cloe honestly feared for the fate of the earth.
The chime of a new message in her inbox presently broke through Cloe's ever-overwhelming thoughts. She turned to the screen, eyes devouring the reply from Trevor confirming that he was all right, then the subsequent one-line email from Charliese, which consisted of only a phone number and a few words: 'Please feel free to call me.'
Cloe dialed the digits immediately, bracing herself for a downright deluge of truth and self-discovery, stepping out onto her balcony in hopes that maybe these mind-blowing revelations would be easier to take in against the backdrop of the visually soothing view of Santorini. Knowing full well that they wouldn't be.
Charliese answered in her characteristic silken coo. "Hello, Cloe."
Cloe took in a deep breath, shutting her eyes for a moment, then staring out at the boundless, benighted sea. "I'm ready," she stated, "to hear everything. Everything you have to tell me."
Miss Primor responded with a sound that was something between a soft hum and a lofty little chuckle. "I'm sure you are," she reckoned. "But a suggestion, if I may - I daresay it might do you some good to spend just one more night like this, as just a simple girl, living a normal life here in this mortal world."
Cloe did not take well to these words. "Thanks for the thought, but I don't want to waste another minute, let alone another night-"
"Trust me," Charliese levelly replied. "It'll be worth your while, Cloe. Fate can wait."
Something about the words, the way Charliese had spoken them, gave Cloe pause for a moment.
"Just one night," Miss Primor urged. "You're staying in the most splendid hotel on the island, right?"
Cloe furrowed her brows, unsure how something so patently inconsequential could possibly matter right now. "I... guess so..."
"I hear there is a lovely garden on its rooftop terrace, yes?" Charliese remarked. "Why don't you pay it a visit, get some air. Perhaps you'll find some clarity there."
Cloe bit her lip. Her private balcony offered plenty of air... but there was no promise of clarity here. She had hoped that Charliese's confessions tonight would provide it, but alas, the stormy-eyed enigma seemed set against sharing her wisdom just yet.
"Take this last night, Cloe. Believe me; your heart needs this," Charliese stated. "Fate can wait, just one more night. I promise."
Though Cloe had no clue what any of this really meant, she was convinced. Miss Primor's honeyed coos just seemed to have a way of doing that, and it would be no use to try to deny or resist...
"Goodnight, Cloe," Charliese uttered, interrupting the pensive silence on the other end of the line, then hanging up before Cloe could even say a word.
And before Cloe could take a moment to think about anything, she found herself up on the rooftop, standing in the garden. Just as Charliese had bidden. She felt as if her heart had swept her here before her mind had even had time to decide. And as soon as she arrived, she knew exactly why.
He stood at the far end of the garden. Her heart swept her across the distance that remained - if it had been the far end of the world, she would have followed him. He turned to face her and she wondered, for a moment, how anything other than this one man could ever matter.
The truth mattered, she willed herself to remember. The truth about her fateful powers. Yet somehow, some part of her already knew the truth. Too many truths. The truth about herself, her fate; that her self and her fate were just one in the same. And that, for centuries, her fateful heart had been beating in Rider's name.
These truths she knew, and always had, somewhere inside - and she knew that she could never live as a mortal again, once she let them come to light.
But maybe they didn't have to. Not just yet. Just as the grey-eyed goddess had said... Maybe fate could wait, just one more night.
For the thousandth time - the first, the last, the only time that mattered, every time - their gazes met. Bright brown and bay-blue, all the truths unspoken in their hearts were written in their eyes.
Cloe smiled. Fate would have to wait, just one more night. She had been waiting all her life. They both had lived a thousand lives, for this, for one another - for the chance to live, to love, for once as two immortal human souls without the weight of the entire world upon their shoulders, they would die a thousand times.
She spoke, some part of her knowing that she had asked him this a thousand times before. "Are you waiting for someone?"
His roseate lips lifted into a bright, fateful smile. "Not anymore."
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... THE END of Book II :D (title TBD...)
THANK YOU so much to all my dear Fatefuls for following the Fates and me on this journey!!
** If you enjoyed Book II, or even just this scene, please don't forget to vote! :) **
For any who may be wondering about Book III - as ever, I will do my very best! Now that I've graduated, passed the Bar, and am officially no longer a student, I just recently started a 'real world' job with insanely intense working hours, so finding time to write will be extremely, extremely hard :( Even more so than it's been in the past (which was already super hard). So please be patient if it takes me a very long time to get to writing Book III. But please know that I want to keep writing this series and that I will try :) If I had it my way, I would be writing full-time and churning out new upFates every day!
Anyway, once again (for what's probably the thousandth time), a great big THANK YOU to all my dear Fatefuls!!! To everyone who has ever commented, voted, followed, supported this series in any way at all. I luv you all very much and always will :) ❤️