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I feel as if the whole world is shaking. The floor beneath me doesn’t feel solid anymore. I can almost feel it rippling below me like I’m trying to balance on the surface of the ocean. I stand still. If I move, I will drown in a sea of heartbreak.
I’ve only just found my parents after all these years, and now they are leaving me again. In this moment, I realize how quickly they have become so important to me. How quickly I have started to love them. I spent so much time being angry with them and trying to pull away, when I should have been holding on, taking in every moment I could. I know now how central they have become to my life.
The day I was reunited with them, I was determined to hate them, but I just couldn’t. They gave me so much, and now they’re taking it all away again.
I have to tell them—there’s so much I want them to know. All of this, everything. I need to tell them that they have made me strong, both with their training of me, physically and with my powers, and with their love. Their love showed me I am worthy of love. Because of them, I now know I was never unloved or unwanted.
I open my mouth to tell them how important they are to me: how much I love them, and how I will do anything to get them back.
But it’s me, so that’s not what comes out.
Instead, I hear myself snort in derision.
“I just got you back and you’re leaving again when I need you the most? Why am I surprised? Why should this time be any different?”
I turn away from them so that I can bite back the tears I can feel starting to bubble up inside of me. I won’t cry. I won’t let them see how much they are hurting me. I won’t.
I don’t know if can ever find the words to express what I want to say, so instead, I’ll put my wall back up. It’s been my thing ever since I can remember, and it’s always served me well.
I notice Ryder and Parker huddled together with Mel and East. RJ stands with them. I vaguely remember hearing his parents died when he was young and that the twins’ parents took him in. They are a family. A real family. They aren’t afraid to hug each other and tell each other that they love each other and that they will see each other again. Even East has tears in his eyes.
Why can’t I be more like them and just give in and show some emotion?
I pull my eyes away before it all gets too much and I spot Nix with a woman who I assume is his mother. She holds him tightly and tells him to be strong.
I can’t spot Lucas, but maybe that’s a good thing. I’m already teetering on the edge of insanity without any of my feelings for him affecting me.
I turn back to face my own parents. Avoiding looking at them isn’t working. I can still hear them talking to Dylann, and I can hear her saying all the right things back to them.
Pryor is hugging Dylann tightly, and she’s starting to cry.
“We’ll be fine, Mom, Dad,” Dylann says, tears forming in her eyes too. “And we love you.”
It’s sweet that she includes me in that. I think maybe she knows me well enough to know I just can’t bring myself to say it, and she’s doing it for me.
“Be strong,” Silver says, touching her arm.
She makes a visible effort to get ahold of herself and nods her head.
Silver turns to Pryor.
“If anything happens to one of them I will make sure whoever is responsible regrets the day they were born. I swear to you all that I will tear this city apart with fire and I will kill those responsible with my bare hands,” Silver says.
He isn’t shouting, but I can hear the venom dripping from his words. He doesn’t want to leave us any more than we want him to go.
Pryor reaches out and caresses his cheek lovingly.
“It won’t come to that,” she says.
“But on every other quest, some of the team members haven’t made it back.”
“But none of those quests had our girls. I have complete faith in them and so should you.”
“I do have faith in them, and the rest of the team, but I don’t trust who they are up against.”
The anger seems to leave Silver as quickly as it arrived.
“If anything happens to them...,” he says again, but softer this time.
“It won’t,” I say, more coldly than I planned to.
I just want this whole goodbye to be over.
I hope I’m not making promises I can’t keep.
The plasma circle begins to spin slowly outside of the window.
“It’s time,” I hear Mel say behind me.
With last shouts of “goodbye” and “we love you” everyone is gone but me, my team, Death, and my parents.
Why won’t they just go? Can’t they see this is hard enough? I know they’re waiting for me to say goodbye. To tell them I love them, but I can’t. I just can’t.
“Everyone will be staying here,” Pryor tells me. “Stick together and stay strong. We know you can do this. All of you.”
I nod curtly.
She embraces me first, and then Silver does. I keep my body stiff and my arms by my sides.
Why am I such a bitch?
As they step out of the window, Pryor turns back to me.
“We love you,” she says with a sad smile.
“Whatever,” I say back.
Whatever?
I turn away and leave the room. I can’t watch this. I can’t be there to see that circle disappear, taking my family away with it.
I push through the door and go out on the balcony. I need some fresh air. I stand with my arms on the railing, looking out over New York. I look down. The cars and the people seem smaller than they should. Insignificant.
Exactly how I feel right now.
The door behind me opens and closes and I’m not alone on the balcony anymore. I expect it to be Dylann coming to ask me what the hell that was all about.
I’m surprised when I hear Lucas’s voice.
“Well that was stupid, wasn’t it?” he starts.
Great. That’s all I need. Isn’t he supposed to love me? Why can’t he just understand?
I don’t trust myself to speak, so I don’t.
“Going off on your own like that,” he continues.
I’m confused for a moment. What does he mean? And then it dawns on me. This isn’t about my lack of a goodbye to my parents. It’s about me going off to save Parker.
So much had happened since then that it feels like forever ago, but in reality, it was less than an hour ago. Thankfully, my wounds weren’t serious, because if they were, then everyone would be right and I’d be dead by now because I completely forgot to mention them. There was just too much going on for me to risk making any of it worse.
Because saying whatever to my mother’s I love you didn’t make it worse at all!
Lucas’s voice is angry and he’s shouting. I don’t care. I feel numb. All I can think about is the missed chance I had with my parents.
“You went to a place you didn’t know, with no real idea of what to expect, to face a powerful enemy that you had no knowledge off. That’s not the way we do things. We are a team and we work together as a team. If you’re going off to do something like that, you call one of us first, and we go together. This isn’t the Summit Case show.”
I can hear his footsteps pounding against the wooden flooring heavily as he paces up and down. I can picture the look of anger on his face, and I can almost see his hands gesticulating wildly as he talks, his finger slamming down into the palm of his hand to emphasize his points as he rants.
“I’ve done stupid things in my life, Summit. Took risks I probably shouldn’t have. But I’ve never gone into a situation blind like that. I’ve never put myself in a position where there was such a good chance I could be killed. Not because I’m a coward, or because I’ve never been tempted to, but because the team comes first, and that means we talk to each other before we act.”
He stops and I think he’s done, but then he carries on, and this time, I can hear his voice breaking slightly.
“If anything had happened to you out there today, I don’t know what I would have done.”
Something in his tone, the gentle way he says it, brings forth the tears I’ve been determined to hold back. Tears for my parents, tears for what might happen to one or all of us, and tears for the fact that Lucas and I can never be together.
I can’t hold them back any longer. My hurt pours down my face and drips off my chin, but I won’t let him see. I manage to stay silent. I continue to stare out at New York although I can barely see a foot in front of my face for the tears blurring my vision.
“You might be the First Toren and be powerful beyond anything any of us can imagine, but that’s no excuse to act recklessly. Why did you do it, Summit? Why didn’t you call me? You know I would have dropped everything for you.”
The truth is, I don’t know why I didn’t call him. I could have, and he’s right, I know he would have come. But in the past, I never had anyone I could count on, and I’m not good at it.
I’m no leader, that’s for sure. But I have to learn to be because I let my parents go off into Limbo thinking I don’t care about them, and I have to see them again. I have to tell them I’m sorry and that I do love them, but that I was so scared of losing them that I couldn’t find the words to say it. Lucas waits for me to say something, and when I don’t he sounds angry again.
“Well that’s real mature, isn’t it? I have enough respect for you to tell you what I really think without sugarcoating it, and you don’t have the decency to talk to me about what you were thinking. Hell, you don’t even have the decency to look at me.”
I count the seconds as they pass. He doesn’t say anything else. He’s done. And suddenly, I know if I don’t say something soon, I’ll lose him for good. I can’t bear to lose anyone else. I turn around slowly to face him. His angry face softens and turns to concern when he sees the mess I’m in.
I open my mouth, but no words come out. Instead, I throw myself into his arms. He takes a half step back and then catches his balance. He wraps his arms tightly around me and I cry against his warm chest.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispers to me when I start to calm down a little bit.
I shake my head. “It’s not you. You’re probably right. What I did was stupid, but it paid off, and I’m not sorry about that.”
“So what’s wrong?” he asks gently with a half smile.
“They’re gone,” I say as another wave of emotion rushes through me. “My parents are gone and I didn’t say any of the things I should have. I didn’t tell them I’m sorry for going off alone like that. I didn’t tell them I was happy we found each other. I didn’t say having them back made me feel like I had a real family. I didn’t tell them I will fight with everything I have to complete this mission and save us all. I didn’t tell them I loved them or that I would miss them. I didn’t even say goodbye.”
I sniff loudly, and Lucas’s arms tighten slightly around me. I’m conscious of the fact I’m a babbling wreck, but when I’m in his arms, I feel warm and safe and loved, and in this moment, I know we can do it.
We can complete the mission. I can do anything with him by my side. The thought doesn’t stop my verbal diarrhea though.
“As they left, my mother turned back and told me she loved me. And you know what I said? Whatever. Can you believe that? Whatever! What sort of a daughter am I? I don’t even know why I couldn’t say what I really wanted to say.”
As I say that, it hits me that I do know why.
“No, actually I do know why I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t say it because it would have felt too final. Like it was a goodbye forever, not a see you later. But what if it is forever? What if the last word they hear me say was whatever?”
“Hey, it’s okay,” Lucas says softly. “You will see them again. I promise you. We’ll complete this mission and we’ll all get back home safely. Together. You’ll see.”
I feel some of the tension drain out of my body. My tears have mostly stopped now. The muscles at the top of my back, which have been tightly knotted since I found out what the circle was for, finally start to relax.
It’s going to be okay.
I hold Lucas tightly, not ready to leave his embrace just yet. He makes no move to step away from me.
“They have to come back,” I say, forceful now. “I refuse to be unwanted, alone, again.”
Lucas gently strokes my hair.
“You’ll never be unwanted or alone, not while I’m around.”
I smile against his chest. He always seems to know just the right words to say.
I pull back slightly and look up at him. His eyes bore into mine and I can see the truth behind his words. He leans down and plants a lingering kiss on my forehead. He presses his forehead against my own.
We stay that way for a minute.
Everything is going to work out, I tell myself. We are all going to be fine.
It seems the universe thought that was a challenge.
Lucas frowns slightly and pulls his head away from mine. He reaches up with one arm and rubs his head.
I open my mouth to ask him what’s wrong, when he lets out a roar of agony and reaches up with both hands.
His puts one hand on each temple, pressing hard.
“Lucas!” I say.
I reach out to him.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
He groans in agony again and drops to the ground. I fall onto my knees beside him.
“Someone help,” I shout, hoping one of the others inside can hear me.
“Lucas,” I say again. I can hear the panic in my own voice. His body writhes in agony, his eyes squeezed so tightly shut they almost disappear. The air is punctuated with his cries. I reach out, trying to touch him, to let him know I’m here with him.
“It’s going to be okay,” I say. As suddenly as it started, it stops again. His eyes close and his mouth is frozen mid scream. Suddenly I’m longing for the sound of his cries—at least that way I’d know he’s alive. But right now, Lucas is eerily silent; that can only mean one thing...