Page 88 of Of Flame and Fate
“I can’t believe you haven’t killed him yet,” Bren says to Gemini. He links his fingers behind his head. “Hey. Do you want to head to O’Malley’s? I hear they offer an all you can eat breakfast for nine bucks.”
“Seriously?” I ask.
“Okay, maybe it’s ten,” Bren adds.
Johnny leaps over the guardrail and stomps into the woods. I glare at Gemini, seething. “You’re going to let him go, just like that?”
“The Fate doesn’t belong to us,” he says, keeping calm.
He doesn’t like us fighting in front of others and it reflects in his tone. Well, that’s too damn bad because I’m raring to go. “His name is Johnny,” I remind him. “And don’t pull that he’s not one of us crap. Neither am I and look at howmagicalthings are between us.”
Bren laughs and it takes all I have not to zap the shit out of him.
Gemini isn’t laughing, he turns around, gripping the side of Bren’s seat. “Don’t compare what he is, to who you are. I don’t trust him. Where he could have used his power toward something good he used it only to better himself. Don’t you see? He became that renowned idol he always wanted to be.” His grip tightens. “You never would have used your powers like that.”
“You’re wrong.”
He rights himself, realizing I’m telling the truth.
“My childhood sucked, you know it did. Too many times we went without, and more times than not we hurt. If I had Johnny’s power, especially at his age, I would have jumped at the opportunity to save us.”
I fling open the door and throw it closed behind me. I don’t usually allow my emotions to get the best of me—scratch that, I do all the time—but it’s not often I allow my deep-seeded memories to poke through. They bring out misery I tried to forget and always result in vicious tears.
I place my hand over the guard rail and swing my legs over. I’m still wearing my hot-pink shoes. In my defense, my only mission was to pick up Gemini and Johnny from the airport.
The long thin heels pierce through the sand and mud along the rocky terrain. I stretch out my hands, trying to balance as I maneuver down the small incline. I don’t want to cry buckets over my pathetic upbringing, I’ve done it enough. But a tear escapes even though I order it back home and demand it stop being a little bitch.
I blame my exhaustion and time with Destiny for being overly sensitive, until I sense Johnny and his sadness. He’s crying too. I don’t hear him, or see him right away. I feel him.
The same melancholy pull that first drew me tugs at my heartstrings. I suppose Johnny doesn’t have to create anything to be heard. He simply has to be.
I find him near the small section of woods where the highway loops around. He looks from side to side, appearing torn over which way to go.
“Right takes you back where you came, left takes you down the mountain. Straight takes you across the road and into deeper woods.” He starts to head straight. “Uh-uh. That’s not someplace you want to be, even during the day.”
He looks at me, his eyes red and swollen. “Are there demons in there? Creatures or some other shit?”
“Probably,” I admit, taking a seat on a large boulder. “But I was referring to the black bears and rattlers. Either way, something’s going to take a bite.”
He looks down at the dirt and edges away. Maybe he sees something. Maybe he doesn’t. Regardless, escaping into the throes of Squaw Valley doesn’t sound as promising as it once did.
He walks toward me and takes a seat, the way the boulder slants putting us at almost eye level. He reaches into his back pocket for his cigarettes, but quickly changes his mind.
“He hates me,” he says. “They all do.”
The wolves, he means.
I put my left hand over his and give it a squeeze. Between his palpable sadness and the amount of empathy he inspires, I can’t help myself. “It’s not that they hate you.Weresjust perceive strangers as a threat or prey until they get to know you and their beasts decide for them.”
“Are you saying your boyfriend will like me once he gets to know me?” He rolls his eyes. “I doubt that.”
I doubt it, too, but I don’t admit it aloud. Despite all his tears and fragility, Gemini considers Johnny a predator and recognizes the harm he can potentially cause. I recognize it, too. I just don’t have an inner beast prowling within me, constantly toying with the notion of gnawing Johnny’s limbs off.
“I had a plan,” Johnny says. “Go back to my people and back to my life.” He looks out toward the highway. “But that was before.”
He releases my hand. I think he’s ready to bolt. But too many thoughts appear to race through his mind. “What’s going to happen to me, Taran? If Destiny dies, will the witches claim me as their new Messiah?”
“It looks that way,” I reply. I stretch out my foot and roll the ankle. “As much as she didn’t look the part, Destiny was queen in the witch world. But where most queens are admired, most saw her as strange. They respected the position more than they ever respected her.”