The Breakers Ultimatum (YA Urban Fantasy) (Fixed Points Book 3) (2 page)

“Cresta!” I heard Echo’s voice in the distance.

“Over here!” I yelled. He was coming up from the cabin; running with Casper behind him. As he neared me, I noticed how tired he looked. When I first got to Weathersby, Echo was an intimidating man with wide shoulders and a trimmed beard that accentuated a certain steadiness in his face. Now, he seemed to crouch as he settled beside me, and his beard was shaggy and unkempt. He looked older and more worn; not surprising given what he had been through since the first night he laid eyes on me. It seemed that knowing me had not been good for Echo- or at least not for his complexion.

“What is it?” He asked, and took my palm in his hand. With lithe fingers, he started running his thumbs over it. Casper must have told him what was going on. 

“It hurts,” I said through clenched teeth, though at this point, that was an understatement. His fingers, as gentle as they were, sent spikes through my hand. It was hot and felt like something underneath my skin was about to explode. What was this? Was it the Council? Had they pinpointed me and were going to enact my punishment my killing me from the palm down?

“Fate be good…” Echo muttered. His eyes grew wide and flickered across my hand as though he was reading lines in a book.

Casper was beside me, with his hand on my shoulder. He leaned forward, trying to decipher whatever had Echo so astonished. “I can’t-Dude, what’s going on? Is she sick? Is somebody attacking her or something?”

Echo looked up at Casper and then at me. His face twisted into a somber mask. “No. I’m afraid it’s much more severe than that. This is no attack and no mere sickness.”

“Then what is it?!” The pain twisted me up into writing pretzel on the ground.

Echo blinked hard as he answered. “It’s the source of all things.”

I was curled up in Echo’s arms, being hauled around like a baby when we made it back to the cabin. He kicked the door open, every bit the lumberjack his scruffy beard and burly frame would have led you to believe he was. It swung open, revealing an empty living area. I hadn’t paid it much attention before, given how stunned I was when I woke up here to find, not only Echo and Dahlia, but Casper too. And since I was in so much pain, I didn’t have the best eye for detail at the moment. Still, I could tell that this place looked extraordinarily lived in. With stacks of books everywhere, piles of dishes in the sink, and rugs on the floor that looked worn and aged, it was obvious that someone had been living here long before last night.

“Dahlia!” Echo screamed.

“A little busy, dear,” she said from a back room. Her voice, though nowhere near the fever pitch of Echo’s, was tinted with her own, more refined, strain of stress.

“This isn’t optional!” His voice was a roar throughout the cabin, so it didn’t surprise me when Royce- or Poe, I wasn’t sure what to call him anymore, came rushing into the living room. He must have been showering because his sandy hair was wet and slick and he wore only a towel. I twisted in Echo’s arms as a flash of pain, starting in my palm, pulsed across my body.

“What in seven hells…” Royce muttered. I would have totally appreciated the Game of Thrones reference if I hadn’t been in such agony. As it was, I just moaned as another bomb of pain exploded in my hand.

“It’s her lines,” Echo said frantically. “Somehow, they’re changing.”

And that-that was the last thing I remembered hearing.

Usually, when I passed out-something that’s happened with startling frequency since I learned about my Breaker heritage, I’d wake peacefully in new surroundings with whatever pressing matter that caused the blackout changed or resolved in some manner. That didn’t happen this time.

There was no peace when I came to; only pain. Royce was above me, still in his towel, his hair dripping down on me like an open faucet. “Come on, Sweetheart,” he said through clenched teeth. His hand was pressed against mine, something that made my palm hurt even more.

“Is it working?!” A voice, Casper’s voice said from close by. It was then that I noticed that, while I was lying on the floor of the cabin, my head was propped up on something. Hands, gentle and familiar ran across my forehead, sweeping the hair out of my open and watering eyes. It was Casper. My head was on his lap.

“I don’t know,” Royce said.  His voice, low and gravely, seemed shaky and more than a little on edge.

“What do you mean you don’t know?!” Casper’s fingers tensed at my forehead.

“I mean I don’t know! There’s so much. I don’t know where it’s all coming from!”

“I’d start with the glowing hand!” Casper was screaming and, judging from his voice, a voice I knew every bit as well as I did my own, he was crying too.  “You know what, just stand back and let Echo take care of it.”

“He can’t! I’m the only one who can do this, Baseline. So shut your mouth and let me work!” Royce’s face hit up with anger like somebody had punched him in the mouth. Then, just as quickly as it did, he tensed back up, his mouth snapping shut forcefully.  Wait, it wasn’t anger that had got him so animated. It was pain. Was he hurting too?

His eyes, eyes that I had seen kill Ezra with a glance, flickered down at me. They weren’t really his, though. He was Poe. His real eyes were luminous. They sparkled with green and yellow, like a bird’s; like a raven’s. Still, even now, after everyone knew his secret, he still kept up the façade. I wondered what that said about him, and if he had been forced to hide who he was for so long that it was second nature to him now.  His expression went from pained to stunned as he caught sight of me. I wasn’t sure if it was the fact that my eyes were open or something completely different that caught him by surprise. And I didn’t care. The pain in my hand had traveled now. It seized my body, running up and down my left side, then my right side, and filling up the center with spikes of fluid, agonizing pain. It was hot and excruciating. It felt like I might explode and, if exploding meant the pain would end, I would welcome it.

The whole of me clenched up, Royce’s hand trapped in mine.

“Fate’s hand! It’s too late!” Dahlia’s voice shouted from somewhere beyond me.

“Like hell it is!” Royce said, leaning forward. “I just need a new tactic, that’s all.” He pressed down on me and, even though I was in more pain than I ever thought possible, I suddenly became very aware that there was only a thin layer of red cotton separating me from every inch of him. “This ain’t how I pictured it happening for the first time, Sweetheart. I’m sorry ‘bout that.” He said, looking me right in the eyes. “But we do what we do, right?” Then he leaned ever closer, and kissed me.

I was surprised- so surprised that I barely noticed how wet his face still was, or the brush of stubble against my cheek as he moved into the kiss. I barely noticed that he smelled like leather and soap, or that he tasted like honey and chili powder. In fact, the only thing that did register with me was the fact that I didn’t feel as bad as I used to. The pain, the throbbing hot knives that-just instants ago- seemed ready to spear me from the inside out, had started to subside.

He leaned further into the kiss, grabbing the side of my face with the hand that wasn’t locked in mine. He didn’t come up for air. He didn’t come up for anything. And for my part, I was glad of it. It wasn’t that he was a good kisser (though honestly, he sorta was). It was that the longer his lips stayed pressed against mine, the less I felt like I wanted to die. When he finally pulled away from me, leaving my face almost as wet as his, the pain was a shadow of its former self.

“…thank you,” I muttered in a weak pathetic voice.

His lips twitched into a mischievous little half grin. “Anytime Sweetheart.”

And my eyes fluttered mercifully closed. 

The next time I woke was something more akin to what I was used to. I was in a bed. One look at Casper’s ode to Star Wars sheets, and I knew exactly where I was. Leaning up, I happily noticed the pain that had rendered me a weeping mass in Echo’s arms, was still gone. Thank you, Royce.

Guess that was a hell of a kiss.

There was a beeping though and, turning to investigate, I saw that I was hooked up to one of those monitors that you always see in hospital TV shows.
Seems a little dramatic,
I thought, as I pulled the stickums that helped the machine read my vitals from my arms and chest. How long had I been out anyway?  Judging from the angle and intensity of sunlight streaming through the window, I figured it was late evening which meant I had been unconscious all day. No wonder they were concerned. Rubbing sleep from my achy eyes, I noticed Casper stretched unconscious a chair on the other side of the room, snoring softly with a line of drool hanging from his mouth.

“He hasn’t left your side, not even for an instant.” Echo came striding into the room. His voice was a whisper and he held a covered tray in his hands.

“You don’t have to do that,” I croaked out. My throat was dry and sore. “It would take a grenade to wake him up when he’s sleeping like this.”

“Noted,” Echo said, smiling. “I’m glad to see you up finally. How are you feeling?”

“Confused, and not very hungry,” I said, motioning to the platter in his hand. “But okay, other than that.”

“It’s actually not for you,” he answered, placing the platter on a nearby table and motioning to Casper. “It doesn’t look like he’s very hungry at the moment either, though. Now I-“

“I wanna know what’s going on,” I said, straightening up under Casper’s R2-D2 sheets. “And none of that Breaker hokum, with the rambling beginnings and the middles that don’t make any sense. Just tell me, straight up, did the Council almost kill me?”

“Did you just use the word hokum?” Echo’s brow creased.

“I’m serious!” My voice raised a couple octaves, though it still wasn’t enough to wrestle Casper from sleep. He just sniffed and readjusted himself across the chair.

“It wasn’t the Council. You’re safe here, Cresta. They can’t find you,” he said steadily.

“Then what was it?” I asked as he made his way closer. “It felt like-like I was gonna die or something.”

“We won’t let that happen,” he answered. “There are things that can be done.”

“What-“

“Give me your hand,” Echo said, and took it before I had the chance to answer. I flinched, sure that it would be sore or hurting or something. But, as he ran fingers across my palm, I realized that-whatever Royce did when he kissed me- did a damn good job of fixing what was broken inside me. “These lines on your hands; they’re not just lines. “

My mind flashed back to Owen standing at the bottom of the stairs in Mrs. Goolsby’s basement. It felt like a million years ago, though it hadn’t been more than a handful of months. He was talking to Ezra and Jiqui, amazed about what he had seen when he touched my hand.

The lines are changing, he had said. And that was what Mom had said before those bastards burst in the day our house exploded. It was the thing that finally convinced her something was up with me. And now, when Echo carried me back into the cabin, he had said it again. Her lines are changing. But what the hell did it mean?

“These lines, for Breakers anyway, are outward signs of everything within us. They show us our destiny, our potential. Everything we are, everything we do, have done, or ever might do sits etched across our hands,” Echo continued. “Now, you’re probably wondering why we don’t just use these lines to decipher a person’s individual future.”

I wasn’t, but go ahead…

“It’s because there’s no way to differentiate between potential and intent. Just because a person is capable of something doesn’t mean they will or won’t do a certain thing. My lines tell me I have the potential to be a master pianist, but that never came to fruition for me. So, as it stands, I couldn’t play if my life depended on it. Do you understand?”

“I mean, as much as I ever understand anything around here,” I admitted, sighing. “So you’re telling me that there’s a chance that the whole Blood Moon thing is just my potential; that it’s not set in stone-just set in palm?” I wiggled my fingers.

“Unfortunately not, prophecies are a different thing altogether. But there are times when- and this is rare to the point of being basically theoretical- a person’s lines can change. It takes a massive amount of energy and a precision that simply doesn’t exist among Breakers anymore, but it is technically possible. “

“And mine are changing?” I sat up straight as a board. My whole body tensed.

“They’re in flux; or they were,” Echo answered, but there was an edge in his voice that told me he was hesitant about all this.

“And when they’re not in flux anymore, I maybe won’t be the Blood Moon?”

Echo sighed heavily and ran a hand through his hair. “You’re a fixed point, Cresta. Fixed points don’t change unless they die. You are the Blood Moon and, as much as I wish I could change things for you, you will always be the Blood Moon.”

My heart dropped, crashing against the pit of my stomach. It was too good to be true, of course it was. “So, if it doesn’t matter, then why are you telling me this?” I asked, trying to mask my disappointment.

“Because I want you to understand what’s happening to you.” Echo still had hold of my hand, and he squeezed it, as if to tell me he was here for me. “Right now it seems like your body is either producing or absorbing massive amounts of shade; too much for it to handle. All that shade is why your lines were in flux and unstable. Now, if you were almost anyone else the shade would have probably spent itself out adjusting and readjusting your lines until you were left with an entirely new identity; new future, new potential, perhaps even new interests and desires. But, because you are a fixed point- and because things like that cannot be changed, the shade has no way of burning itself off. It was trapped inside of you, lighting you up like some sort of overcharged battery.”

“I don’t get it,” I answered. “I use all kinds of shade. I tied a giant freaking dome to the moon last night. And now you’re telling me I’m overcharged?”

Echo sighed. “That wasn’t- Look, you know your abilities. You shape the shade of others. All your feats from earlier, they were likely accomplished using borrowed energies. That says nothing for the shade you produce yourself. Now, I’m of the mindset that you must also be absorbing ambient shade, because there’s simply no way your body could create enough shade to explain what’s happened to you.”

“But why now?” I asked, trying really hard to keep up.

“Because of where you are,” Echo answered matter-of-factly. “There is no place in the entire world that is party to the amount of shade that exists within the Hourglass. You’re surrounded by Breakers here, Cresta; many more than you ever have been before. I think you’re inadvertently siphoning their energies. The more Breakers you’re around, the more power builds up inside of you.” He looked down at his own hands. “Even now, you’re probably siphoning from me at some low level.”

“Great,” I sighed, instinctively scooting away from him. “So now I’m a freak, a murderer, and a thief.”

“The way your powers work is not your fault,” Echo answered softly.

“Yeah, but if it kills me whose fault it is won’t matter,” I said. I leaned forward, knitting my hands together. “And that’s what’ll happen, won’t it Echo? When the shade started in my hand, it felt like I was going to explode.”