"Hunter will rip your face off when he finds out you nearly killed her."
"I was trying to help her."
"Help her cross to the other side, maybe."
"The spell got out of control, okay? I'm not feeling great, either."
My senses came back slowly. It was all a haze at first. Darkness stretched for miles around me, and the fogged memories of what happened started to merge with the ripples of pain that exploded inside my head. Trying to think, breathe, or move heightened the cramping sensation in my limbs, and much to my dismay, the two voices overhead rang like a foghorn.
They were clear as day. Both familiar to me.
"What even happened?"
"I have no clue. One moment I was trying to boost her powers so that they would finally surface and the next...the next you came in and threw me against that stupid wall."
"Well if it weren't for that you would have killed her."
I gave myself a moment to steady my breathing before I sat up.
Bad idea.
Flashing, colorful spots blinded me, and it took a full minute for those swirls of colors to settle into carved silhouettes. One of them was dangerously close to my face, as if no one had ever taught him the first thing about personal space. I could see scars near his eyes, carving deep-set paths down his neck here and there, which only made me wonder where and how he'd gotten those.
The one thing that remained constant about his face was the same smoldering anger underneath his stony expression.
Truth be told, he was the last person I expected to see there.
"Caiden?"
"That's my name, yes," he said, straightening his back. "You hit your head pretty bad. I'm surprised you didn't crack the floor."
His eyes were centered at the left side of my head, and only then did I register the pulsing ache. The spot felt tender against the tips of my fingers, which could only mean a hideous bruise was on the way.
I looked around the room in hopes to put two and two together.
My surroundings had changed drastically. The soft pillows of the couch were now stacked against my back, and Caiden sat at the coffee table next to it. I could still see part of the other room, but it was barely recognizable. Like a hurricane swept through it. The pentagram was no longer lit up, its sides smeared and twisted, and the book of spells had crumpled on the ground, near a couple of broken glasses with herbs and glowing liquids that were merging into thick puddles.
The sky was tainted with a dark blue, fading into darker spots.
How long had I been there?
I searched for Gideon then, and found him leaning against one of the walls, clutching his side with both hands. He looked disheveled, pale, and spoke between breaths. "Are you okay?"
"Am I okay?" I echoed. "What the fuck was that?"
"Olivia, I—"
"Is this your definition of a painless spell?" I pressed my hand to the side of my lip, and a small trail of blood stained the tips of my fingers. "Jesus, Gideon."
His eyes diverted to the pentagram. "It was not supposed to hurt you. I don't know what you did in there, but whatever's happening with your powers...I've never seen anything like that before. They're completely blocked."
"By what?"
He shook his head. "I don't know. It's like they have locked themselves within the borders of an invisible barrier."
"Why would they do that?"
Gideon's eyes met mine again, a stern look on his face. "That's a brilliant question. I guess it slipped my mind while I was trapped in a limbo of infinite nightmare scenarios. Should have thought about asking them, though—how rude from my part."
"Someone's salty," Caiden muttered, but his words were not the ones that shocked me.
"Trapped in a limbo? You were there, too?"
Gideon's features darkened. "I don't know what there means for you, but the place I saw...." He paused, taking in a shaky breath. "It looked a lot like what you'd imagine Hell to be like."
The memory of the languid, horrid creature came back to me, and I forced it into a dark corner of my mind. I could still hear its words, a trickle of sweat travelling down my spine.
They are...looking for...him.
"So, you didn't see Sally and Roy?"
"No. I did not."
"What did you see?"
He kept quiet for a moment, but when he spoke, his words held a dark undertone. "Things I made sure were buried in the past. Things that don't concern you, Olivia."
"Why are you acting as if this was my fault, all of a sudden?" It was a challenge not to raise my voice, and I realized Caiden was giving Gideon a questioning look. "You told me you would help me figure out a way to—"
"I know what I promised," Gideon snapped. "But what happened in there,"—he pointed at the other room, his eyes flaring green— "Just proved to me that this goes far from my control."
It was hard to swallow. "So you won't help me?"
"I don't know how."
"You said you saw Roy?" Caiden asked, his brows knitting in a fashionable frown as he left his spot on the coffee table to walk over to the window panels.
"Yeah, so?"
"Do elaborate, please."
"I've seen him plenty of times: at school, at Teardrop Bar...my room."
Caiden's gaze had been set somewhere around the harbor, but he looked over his shoulder at the sound of my words. "Your room?"
"Don't worry," Gideon said. "They were not having sex, in case you were wondering. I thought of that possibility myself when Olivia first told me about the incident."
"Gideon," I snarled.
He shrugged, and Caiden's expression shifted into an unreadable puzzle.
"What I'm trying to say is, I've seen him in person before, but it's been different in two occasions. One of those times he showed up in my dream—or at least I thought it was a dream at first. He kept on telling me how convinced he was that I knew about him, and when he tried to hurt me...." I stopped for a second, remembering the burning pain I'd felt in my heart. "He managed to do it."
"Hurt you?" Caiden asked.
"Yes, which is why I'm sure that wasn't a dream. God, I'd even left my window locked at night, and I woke up to it wide open and my chest burning inside. I know what happened was real, just like I know I was talking to him twenty minutes ago."
He sighed, angling his body to stare at me. "Well you're right about one thing: these aren't dreams or visions. Especially since you dragged Gideon with you this time."
Gideon's eyebrows shot up at that. "Oh, I'd love to hear this explanation."
"The Void Dimension," Caiden said. "It makes perfect sense if you say you've been talking to Roy somewhere out of this dimension. Out of the five of us, he's the one who has the power to access it as he wills."
Gideon tilted his head back, his factions permeated by defeat. "Oh, dear God."
My head spun. "The what now?"
Caiden sighed, and he pinched the bridge of his nose. Had I known him any better, I would have sworn he was trying his best not to choke me. "It's a place where time ceases to exist. Sort of like limbo—or in your case a dream. Some people even call it a passage between this dimension and the Veil."
"It's not really a passage, per se," Gideon debated. "It is said there are time loops and small gateways that lead to the Veil from in there, but only certain people know their locations, and they are extremely difficult to access. That dimension in general is not a place you can easily get to." He glanced sideways at me, his eyes darkening. "Or at least I thought so."
"And you think we were there?" I asked. "How would we even get in?"
"I guess we should be asking you that question," Caiden suggested, his voice dry.
My eyebrows rose, but before I could reply, Gideon grumbled a curse and headed to a small table near the window panels. It held the same bottles of expensive liquors that he kept in his office. He filled a glass, nearing the rim, and chugged it down before saying, "I'm such an idiot. Supernatural walkie-talkie.... I should have known the Reaver Blade wouldn't allow you to communicate with someone like that. It's supposed to show you visions at most—but all this time it's been taking your mind somewhere else, letting you reach beyond this dimension somehow."
"You've been using a Reaver Blade for that?" Caiden questioned.
"Well, yeah. It's been showing me things. I used it to talk to Sally the other day—"
"Who the fuck is Sally?"
Something flicked inside me at the sound of his words.
"You know, maybe you'd know these things if you had the decency to care about what's happening around you instead of throwing fits, walking out of places, and then disappearing without letting anyone know where you are."
Caiden balled his hands into fists, the same dark flame that filled Roy's eyes flickering through his. "And maybe I shouldn't have stopped Gideon. With you out of the picture we wouldn't be in this mess to start off."
I choked on a breath, and the warlock's angered voice followed. "Both of you, do me a kind favor and shut up."
Caiden shook his head, cussing under a breath. "Are you sure you used the right spell, Gideon?"
Gideon's gaze turned into a glare. "I trust you know who the warlock here is, don't you?"
"I'm trying to understand why you're travelling to a dimension that shouldn't be accessed in the first place," Caiden growled.
"And how many times will you have me tell you that I don't know what the hell happened in there?"
"Well if you didn't fuck up the spell, it means she's the one who's doing this," said Caiden.
"You think I'm the one willingly entering a dimension I didn't even know existed?" I stared at him in hopes he'd reconsider his words, but he kept a stoic expression on his face. "I don't even know how to use my own powers, Caiden."
"Exactly," he deadpanned. "You wouldn't even begin to imagine the things that you can do with whatever you're hiding inside of you. And to make things worse, you're apparently using the Reaver Blade like a freaking toy."
"Wait, even if we don't know what's hiding inside her," Gideon interrupted. "Travelling through dimensions is not a common trait for Keepers. With the help of a Reaver Blade or not, this is not normal."
"Roy wouldn't care about her if she was ordinary. That's the whole point."
"Of course he wouldn't," I murmured. "That's not what the prophecy says."
The loud shrill of a ringtone cut through the conversation, and Gideon reached for the left pocket of his suit. He didn't seem to have heard my words, as he strode into the other room to answer without thinking twice on it, unlike Caiden, who stood in the same place with his shoulders tensed into a square. A momentary flick of surprise in his eyes confirmed what I'd refused to believe: there was a prophecy, and Hunter hadn't told me.
Another untold secret I could add to the list.
"Who told you about the prophecy?"
"Roy was very adamant to let me in on that small detail all of you forgot to mention," I pointed out, my heart sinking to the bottom of my stomach. "Which doesn't really surprise me. At this point, I'm starting to wonder if I'm even trusting the right people."
He tilted his chin up and let out a deep laugh. "I can't believe you."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"That you're impossible," he said. There was nothing affectionate about his tone, and for once I feared he wasn't as harmless as Hunter claimed he was. "Hunter has been going through all this shit for these past weeks to keep your ass safe. First, telling us to risk heading into the city while there's a hit on our heads just to save you, forcing us to take care of your crazy best friend—who called me a monkey in the process—and then dragging us into this whole mess to try and stop something we had already escaped. He did all of that because of you, and you still whine about not knowing where your trust lies? Oh, I pity you."
"You pity me?" The pain in my limbs became anger, and I used it as fuel to get on my feet. "Don't you think I deserve to know about these sorts of things?"
"No," he barked. "You don't, because you know nothing about how this world works. We gave up our lives so that none of us had to carry the burden of an unwanted prophecy, and we were doing just fine for the last few years until you came along, yanking us back to square one."
"And you were willing to let Roy take down the Veil? Isn't that a bit contradictory, considering that you were trying to stop this from happening in the first place?"
"At least it wouldn't be our problem," he drawled.
"You're unbelievable."
"What's unbelievable is the fact that Hunter is still trying to keep you safe after everything we've been through. A fucking Keeper and he's acting like he's supposed to be your nanny."
Frustration flared through my veins. "What's your problem? I've done nothing to you."
"You've done nothing for me, either."
Gideon's heavy steps returned, a flustered look on his face. "Hunter just called, and I'm afraid I don't have good news."
"What a surprise," I muttered.
"There were no traces of Tara, Marcel, or the girl, but they think the Infernal Council might be close. The crystal picked up on a much stronger energy, which led them to a burnt down portal. Someone went through it, someone with much more power than a warlock or a witch."
Caiden didn't look surprised at his remark. "I know. That's what I came here for. Some Shifters were spreading the rumor of them trying to find a way into this dimension, but if they found a portal already, then we're screwed."
"You think they're here to kill you?" Gideon asked.
"What else would they be here for? Roy will break the Veil and they will get what they want: our heads on a stake."
"There has to be something we can to," I tried, but Caiden's glare cut me short.
"Yeah, we could kill you and be done with our problems—maybe make a run for it and see if we can lose them, but I doubt Hunter would be a fan of the idea."
"Killing me won't fix your problems."
Caiden's eyes fitted with mine, making me question my own statement. "It would certainly be one less thing to worry about."
"Enough," Gideon said, taking a step closer to us. "No one is killing anyone. And you two need to stop acting like kids. If the Infernal Council is here, then you better come up with something fast. We still need to find a way to stop Roy before Sunday."
I stared at him. "I thought you said we were fighting a battle that was already lost."
He hesitated. Then, his voice low, he said, "Let's just say the things I saw reminded me of why that wall shouldn't be broken."
"I should get going. I need to talk to the guys," Caiden informed, walking over to the door.
"They're already coming back here."
"I'll meet them halfway. There are some other things I need to tell them about."
With that, he slammed the door shut behind him. Gideon grumbled a couple of things I couldn't quite catch, my legs bolting after Caiden before I could register their actions. My heart crept into my throat, and I wrapped my hand around his elbow.
"Wait," I spat, a trickle of energy bolting through my fingers. It reminded me of the Reaver Blade somehow. "I need to know about that prophecy, Caiden."
He gave me a long, angry look, and I drew my hand away. "Ask Hunter. I don't owe you any explanations."
I stood still for a moment, contemplating the brunette in front of me. Every inch of my body wanted to understand his mind, see through the barrier of remorse and rage that clouded his eyes all the time. Maybe Hunter was right, maybe what happened with Pauline had left him in a broken place, but either way, there was something about him that I couldn't quite figure out. An untold message that I couldn't decode.
The elevator's doors opened, and he hurried inside.
"Why do you hate me so much?"
I felt stupid the minute the question left my mouth.
Caiden drew his arm back, walking backwards until his back met the elevator's hand bar. His words were as sharp as a razorblade. "Because you're going to get my friend killed."
The soft click of the doors closing left me in an empty hallway with a thousand questions screaming at me. The efforts to settle my thoughts down were futile, my heart working in double time and refusing to go back to its normal rate.
Could he be right? Roy hinted on Hunter and I's attraction being solely a reflection of the prophecy's biding, nothing other than a matter of what was written on an ancient piece of paper, and maybe because of that our judgements were clouded. Maybe neither of us realized what we meant in each other's lives: a burden.
He kept on dragging me further into the mess and I held him back from walking away from a life he didn't want.
Two weeks ago we were perfect strangers, and now I was left to wonder if it would have been better to stay that way.
"Olivia?" Gideon's head peaked through the door, and he gestured for me to step back inside. "I should fix your face before...you know, before Hunter sees that."
I moved past him, noticing the mess had vanished. The apartment looked exactly they way it did before: spotless. There were no broken vials or herbs scattered around, only a fresh smell of pinewood and clean, marbled floors. I resisted the urge to ask him if he could to that with my life, flick his hand and fix everything back to the way it was before. It was a wish I was certain not even the most powerful warlock could conceive.
"I'll get going before they arrive. I need some time alone."
"At least let me get this done," he said, reaching his hand toward my face. The familiar, burning feeling stretched through my lip and temple, but it was over before I knew it. "What were you and Caiden talking about while I was on the phone?"
"About the same thing I asked you about back at your bar," I hinted, my voice low. "When you told me it only meant I knew Latin, but I guess we both know it meant way more than that."
Gideon's features froze, his hand moving down slowly. "You know about the prophecy?"
"You should have told me."
He turned around, reaching for another drink. "It was not my place to tell you."
My anger and frustration melted into defeat. There were too many emotions clashing around inside me, and all I wanted to do was make it stop. I didn't care how—I just needed the questions, the lies, and the secrets to stop. I needed to leave.
"Lately it seems like it's nobody's place to tell me anything."
Gideon met me halfway out the door, his arm working as a barrier. "You need to be careful.... With your powers, I mean. I don't know much about the prophecy itself, but what I do know is that it speaks of a Keeper with abilities that go beyond what we've ever seen, genes more powerful than anything in the ancient records."
"Well, Roy doesn't have much to worry about, does he?" I asked, tears burning in the back of my eyes. No, you won't cry in front of Gideon. "You said so yourself. My powers, if they're even there, are blocked, so he shouldn't have a problem facing them."
"They will get out eventually," he warned. "And it will be like an explosion. You have to be ready."
"The only thing that will explode is my head if I don't get out of here."
I ducked under his arm, making my way toward the elevator.
"You can't run from this, Olivia."
"Apparently, I can't be a part of it either," I resolved, my hand reaching instinctively to wipe the wet trail from my cheek. "Every time I try, I find out you're all keeping secrets from me, and I won't be partially involved, not when this psychopath is threatening to kill everyone I care about."
He remained quiet, and the elevator's doors slid open for me.
"Tell Hunter not to call me, will you?"
"You're giving Roy exactly what he wants," he said. "This prophecy.... I'm not surprised Hunter didn't tell you about it. He's been running from it his entire life. He wouldn't make you carry a weight as big as this one."
"Yeah, well, it isn't his destiny the one that's said to be written in blood at the altar of God, now, is it?"
I couldn't hear what he said next. The doors closed and the elevator whisked me at the first floor faster than I remembered going up. I strode out of the building and pushed myself into the crowded sidewalk in an attempt to get lost within them. I wanted the city to swallow me up, make me feel like just another person walking down the streets with problems as minuscule as a bad day at work or a coffee stain on a new shirt.
But even as I crossed the five-lane road and Millennium Park's sidewalks greeted me with hundreds of tourists taking pictures, I felt like I would overflow.
Life suddenly didn't want me to feel like any of them—it wanted the raw feelings of this mess to eat me alive while everyone else went on, clueless of what was happening around them.
The weight of Caiden's words made it feel like there were thousands of pins and needles getting shoved into my heart. Because you're going to get my friend killed. Did Hunter feel that way too? He made me promise I wouldn't trade my life for his, but was he aware that the statement alone implied he would lose his in the process? A shiver crept through my back at the thought of the Infernal Council torturing him, shredding his powers slowly—
I buckled over, emptying whatever was left in my stomach from this morning and holding on to the metal bars surrounding the park. The sign with a map of Millennium Park served as a shield from the gross scene, but some unfortunate glances were thrown my way from those who had managed to watch the disgraceful event.
Part of me wanted to look back at them and give them a fake smile—pretend to be sick from something I ate or simply walk away in hopes I'd never see any of their faces again—but I couldn't move. Exhaustion began to drain through my thoughts and body, threatening to send the world around me spiraling into a swirling mass of colors again.
It was hard to think of a distraction that kept me alert, but the sudden buzzing coming from my pocket managed to pull my mind out of the fog. The name on the screen was enough to keep me sane, a breath of relief giving my lungs the air they needed.
His voice greeted me the moment I slid my thumb on the screen. "Hey, did you get any of my texts?"
Guilt gnawed at my conscience when the memory of Patricia's mark flashed through my mind, and I threw my head back, dreading the idea of heading back into the building just to ask Gideon if he'd seen anything like that before. The last thing I needed was to be in that place any longer, but when I tried to apologize for forgetting about it, the words broke into pieces in the back of my throat.
"Liv? What's wrong?"
"I couldn't ask Gideon," I said. "I'm sorry."
Wind rustled on the other end of the phone, and his voice lowered with a tinge of worry. "No, no, that's what I called you for. The mark is gone—maybe Hunter was right. Maybe it was a rash or.... Hell, forget about the stupid mark. What happened? Why do you sound like that?"
"I'll explain later," I said, forcing myself to steady my breathing as I crossed through the lines of cars that waited on the red light toward Millennium Station. "Can you stay at my place tonight? I need to make sure Dad thinks I spent the afternoon with you, and I don't want to be alone right now."
"I was actually on my way to my house to pick some things up and then head to your house," he said, I heard a door closing on his side of the line. "I'll just get some extra pair of clothes for tomorrow."
"All right." The automatic doors closed behind me, and I ventured down the hall that led to the train platforms. "I'll be there in thirty minutes tops. I'm at Millennium Station right now."
"Wait—Liv?"
"Yes?"
I didn't have to look at him to know he was probably worrying on his lip, frowning like he always did when he couldn't find the right words. "Are you sure you're okay? Do you need me to pick you up or something?"
"Don't worry, we'll meet back at my place."
He didn't answer.
"I'm fine, Jared."
"Yeah, right, and I can fart money while I sleep," he snarked. "I'm picking you up at Central Park station and you're going to tell me exactly what happened, end of story."
A sigh got caught in my throat, and I took the stairs down two at a time. "Okay."
"Call me when you get there," he said, the engine of his car thrumming in the background. I could've sworn it went at the same speed as my heart. "Over and out, Rhodes?"
"Over and out, McCall."
I secured the phone back in place, taking in the smell of metal and dirt as the train platform came to view.
The station looked like a seething mass of humanity. People walked shoulder to shoulder, in each other's faces, with no personal space between them. Usually, I wouldn't have taken in any information about anyone. They were just blurred things in my way. Moving, smelling, unknown, rude things. But for once, it felt like those things were looking at me, judging me. And I found myself looking back at them, searching for an unknown pair of eyes I was most likely imagining.
Either way, all I wanted to do was get away from there as fast as possible.
Taking a steadying breath, I moved toward the yellow line, and it didn't take long for the whining shrills of metal to let me know the train had arrived.
The doors opened along with another buzzing coming from my pocket, but the name on the screen made me want to bend over and repeat what happened back at the park. I pressed decline and shoved it back into my jeans, feeling a single, burning tear clawing its way down my cheek.
People started to walk past me into the train car, then, and I felt like the world was slowly disappearing in front of me.
Or maybe it was just me who was fading away.