My stomach was churning with a cacophony of emotions. As ridiculous as it might sound, my ego was a little bruised that Stephen so quickly agreed we should stop seeing one another. I mean, he could’ve at least tried to persuade me to hang in there through his light intervention. Then again, I didn’t know who this guy really was. Everything had been based on a lie, so how could I continue dating him? I didn’t even really like the name Stephen.
The strongest emotion I felt besides exhaustion was sadness. An aching, eat-an-entire-pint-of-chocolate-ice-cream kind of sadness. I had only felt like this once before, when a childhood friend died of cancer. I was sad that I would probably never see Stephen again and willed myself to be mad at him even when, technically, it wasn’t his fault. Maybe after his intervention he would be different and we could start seeing each other again? No, it wouldn’t be the same. I just wanted to go home and curl up in bed with my fluffy pink pillows, but an exhaustingly upbeat Stephanie insisted on telling us her mission.
“So here's the situation,” she started. It was so odd to see this woman I had read about in the light papers as one of the darkest women on the earth sitting in front of me, casually talking about a light mission. My mom had excitedly pointed the article out to me when I went over last weekend to help make cupcakes for an office birthday celebration. To think my Dad knew the real story the whole time—this was all mind-boggling to me.
“You will get details over the following weeks, but I want to lay out the general plan,” Stephanie said, her voice steady and precise.
My ears perked up. Over the following weeks? I thought it would be one-time action, not something over weeks! I began to anxiously twist the charm bracelet around my wrist and looked over at Julien. I mean Stephen…whatever. He was staring at the desk in front of him with a look of disdain on his face.
“The Divine Power has stalled Darkness with matters beyond our universe. This gives us six months to get you trained as a light agent and take action, Skyla.”
“What?” I gasped. This day is getting worse by the minute.
“You can’t do this!” Stephen yelled, leaping to his feet. “She is completely innocent in all of this. You can’t just throw her into the agent world; she’ll be eaten alive!”
I bobbed my head quickly in agreement. Me, an? No way!
“Quiet down,” Stephanie ordered calmly, putting a pointed black fingernail to her mouth. I could see how she could look dark to someone. The serious look on her face in combination with her upswept features, all-black velour tracksuit, and matte burgundy lipstick sent a chill through my body like a warning. She pointed to the seat and Stephen sat back down.
“In six months, I will have to go in front of Darkness as a full Council member. No matter how much I prepare, there's no way I’ll be able to stay in the light after that encounter. I will likely give up all the Light Bureau secrets, and worse, your lives will be in danger. I might be strong, but my powers are nothing compared to Darkness.” Stephanie leaned forward placing her arms on the desk. “I want to disrupt and destroy as much dark as I can before this meeting so they will be too weak to take on light. If I can do that, Darkness might be so irritated with Dark Glows here on earth, he won’t even bother dealing with this planet. As you know, Darkness can’t take down light. He counts on his minions. If they’re gone, he will have to start all over.” A look of concern was on her face. I comprehended then that this mission was larger and more important to the balance of light and dark than anything I’d ever imagined.
“How can I help?” I asked, sitting up straight, suddenly feeling brave.
“We need to turn you into a D Glow.”
“A D Glow? How would that even be possible?” I asked, confused, furrowing my brows.
“Your father has arranged for you to go on a fake trip to explain to your friends and family where you are for the next six months,” Stephanie stated matter-of-factly. “The Bureau will work out everything with your landlord and work.”
“My landlord?” I had no idea what she was talking about.
“You will turn dark, Skyla.” She put her hands up in the air and made fake parentheses signs. “Not on a scale, mind you—well, perhaps you’ll shift a point—but you will be dark in the sense of what people see and know about you and the way you act. Skyla will temporarily cease to exist. You will live in a new apartment and become a new person.”
I felt the tiny bit of bravery I had mustered drain from my body. Julien—erm, Stephen—was sitting next to me, shaking his head back and forth. He definitely wasn’t happy.
“I don’t understand. Why her?”
I nodded in agreement. “I don’t mean to sound like I don’t want to help, but why me?”
“We could pull an agent from another mission,” Stephanie went on. “But a key component to this plan is that you date Stephen as a D Glow and partner with him. I thought perhaps it would be better if Stephen went through this with someone he trusted. We have amazing training facilities.”
“What?” Stephen and I both exclaimed in unison.
“Mom!” Stephen argued. “We just decided to call it off.”
“Oh. That's a shame,” Stephanie said. She picked up the pencil and tapped it on the desk. She took a deep breath and said, “OK, well, I’m afraid I have to move to plan B. Skyla, to protect you, and, all of us, really, I will need to erase your memory. You’ll go right back to your previous life without any recollection of all this or of Stephen. It’ll be as if you two never even met.”
“Wait,” I put my palms up, startled. I was still mad at Stephen and sad and confused about everything I had just found out, but I couldn’t deny that I still liked him. I didn’t want to forget him.
“I can’t do it yet,” Stephanie reassured evenly. “I only have powers when I’m dark, so I’ll have to wait until we’re both out of the facility.”
“How would you erase my memory?”
“Well, it's complicated. I’d use my powers on you, fake some sort of accident, and induce a coma for a short time. Then when you wake up, you will no longer remember certain events or people, like me or Stephen.” Induce a coma? No option was sounding good right now.
“Have you lost your mind?” cried Stephen. He seemed genuinely distraught. “Would you erase Skyla from my memory as well?”
“Yes, although I wouldn’t have to fake an accident for you. I would, however, have to repeat the entire conversation again about you being an L Glow and me being a slider because without you, I have no plan.” She sighed.
“You, however,” she nodded at me, “have a choice. Why don’t I tell you the entire plan, and if you still don’t want to be part of it, then, we use one of our agents instead.”
Stephen glanced at me in anticipation of my reaction.
“OK,” I nodded meekly. I needed time to weigh my options.
“Skyla, if you agree to do this, when the time is right, you will come to the house and meet the family, and Stephen will ask permission for a partnership.” She spoke quickly, as if she were ripping off a Band-Aid.
Oh no. I bit my lip. A partnership was a D Glow marriage, this much I knew.
Stephen was now burying his face in his hands.
“The ceremony will occur a few days prior to me meeting Darkness, and I will use this occasion to take down everyone I can.” Stephanie had a look of concentration on her face, like she was walking through that day in her mind at that very moment.
I was still stuck on one word. Ceremony. A wedding ceremony?
“Really?” Stephen urged, getting up again.
“A wedding?” I finally uttered aloud.
“A D Glow partnership,” Stephanie corrected. “It won’t be real, Skyla,” she added reassuringly. “After mission completion, you can both go your separate ways if you want, but you’ll have to honeymoon”—she paused to do air quotes—“for a short time until it is deemed safe for you to return.”
“No way, no way. Why a wedding? Kill off Alecia and get everyone at the funeral, instead.”
“Who's Alecia?” I asked.
“His sister,” said Stephanie.
“Oh,” I exclaimed. Is he joking about having his sister killed? At this point, I didn’t know up from down at this point.
“First of all, I’m not killing Alecia,” Stephanie declared. “Besides, a funeral won’t work. It would be too tightly controlled and secure. I thought about throwing some kind of party, but only a royal wedding will allow me to invite rival cartel members in addition to pretty much the entire LeBete team.”
“I love how you want me to suddenly help light when I’ve been literally in the dark my whole life,” Stephen murmured, pacing back and forth now. “Shouldn’t I be going into light intervention? Aren’t you worried in the slightest that my ‘father’ will figure out I’m really a Light Glow? Now that I know the truth, I could give it away easily.”
“You will act the same, like always. After this mission is over, yes, you will go through an intervention. For now, you need to stay where you are on the scale for your own safety.” Stephanie stood up behind the desk to make her point that the discussion was closed.
“My safety, huh? And what about hers?” Stephen retorted, concerned; almost protective.
“I don’t know,” I interjected nervously into Stephen's tirade. I shifted in my seat. “I don’t think I could pull off being a dark agent, even with years of training.”
“You are going to put her in danger!” Stephen gestured at me. “She's as frickin’ light as they come.”
“Hey!” I protested. It was true, but the way he said it sounded like an insult. “I can speak for myself,” I huffed.
Stephen stepped back, surprised. He stopped pacing and looked down as if thinking about what to say next.
“You can do it,” Stephanie said with resolve, firmly placing her fist on the desk for emphasis. “I can sense things, Skyla. I don’t know why, but I truly feel like you’re the right person for this mission.”
I swear I felt a bead of sweat trickle between my shoulder blades, and I looked down and noticed my hands were involuntarily shaking. Feeling faint and queasy, I tried focusing on steadying myself.
Stephen, of course, noticed and got down on one knee, taking my hand. Any stranger without context would’ve thought he was proposing. The irony. He looked up at me in earnest.
“I don’t want you to forget me. And I really don’t want to forget you. You’re the only person I have…well I guess…loved. But I care about you too much to put you in danger. I don’t want you to do this.” He frowned up at his mother, who had sat back down and was tapping her pencil on the desk again. “Look,” he said caressing my hand as I remained frozen in place. “You don’t want to be in the D Glow world. You’re too nice. I’ve been around D Glows all my life so I can pull this off.” He shook his head to himself. “But you, surrounded by nothing but the worst and most dangerous D Glows?”
I’m not sure if it was my exhaustion or the fact that I was heartbroken about Stephen and had enough of his well-meaning patronization, but something inside me flared up.
“Are you saying this because you care or because you think I can’t do it?” I glared down at him as I pulled his hand off mine.
“Both,” he said plainly. He got up and stood beside my chair.
“Skyla, it will be OK,” Stephanie countered as she stood up, too, and came around to look me in the eye before resting against the edge of the desk. “I promise we would train you to handle any and every situation.”
“When would I start my training?” I asked, my voice cracking.
“Tomorrow. No time to waste.” Stephanie did a slight hop off the desk and put her hands together. “Just know, if you agree, there's no turning back.”
Part of me wouldn’t mind forgetting all this had happened. But, that was the easy way out. I remembered that my father said he thought I could help. He had faith in me. Lorana would tell me to go for it—she certainly would’ve jumped right in without hesitation if Stephanie had asked her. So, why couldn’t I do it? Especially if Stephanie insisted that she had a good feeling about me? I mustered the remaining energy I had left in me and stood up.
“I am a Light Glow. My purpose is to protect light. I’m in.”
“Seriously?” Stephen threw his hands up in disbelief.
“Good,” Stephanie said ignoring Stephen. “You’ll need to head to our admin office now and get into the system as an official employee. Then you can go home and enjoy time with your family. Your dad will break the news to your mother tonight that the Bureau has requested you for a special mission in India to work with some village schools on nutrition and women's health.”
“Oh.” I very nearly clapped my hands together in excitement—that sounded amazing. I was instantly deflated when I remembered it was only a cover story to tell my mom and friends. I was about to pretend I was evil, then pretend-date and pretend-marry Stephen, my complicated, maybe dark ex, instead.
“Wait! I will have to lie to my mom?” I asked incredulously.
I heard Stephen mumbling something under his breath about lying, but I didn’t bother asking him to repeat himself. I thought it best to give him space to come to terms with the situation.
“Your father will, and you can just nod and look thrilled.” She smiled.
How could a Light Glow even say that? And smile? I couldn’t conceal my look of disgust. Stephanie could see I wasn’t happy.
“These are called ‘light lies’ and are allowed, as they can save lives. They are sometimes a necessity in our line of work, Skyla. That's how you must think of it.”
“You mean, your line of work,” Stephen growled.
Stephanie patted my arm reassuringly and then turned to Stephen.
“Stephen, I’m going to walk her to the admin office to get her officially checked in. Please wait here.”
It was more of a command than a request.
The check-in took only about thirty minutes. All the paperwork had already been filled out by my dad, apparently. I just signed a few documents, had my picture taken, and my eyes and thumb scanned. Stephanie wished me luck and said I would be seeing her soon, and we parted ways.
After everything was completed, one of the administrative clerks, dressed in a solid white dress, and a bright pink smile, walked me back to my dad's office. On the way she chattered about how nice the weather was supposed to be over the next couple of days, and I simply nodded, not really hearing anything she said.
“Here we are,” she said pleasantly. “We are happy to have you as part of the team.” She knocked on the door and my dad called, “Come in.”
“I’ll leave you to it, then.” She smiled and turned away.
If she only knew my mission. Stephanie had said only a handful of people would know about my mission for security reasons.
My dad was sitting at his desk, typing something on his computer.
The minute I saw him, I broke down.
“What did I just agree to?” I sobbed. “First I found out my boyfriend may or may not have actually liked me, and he was an L—oh, I don’t even know, neutral?—Glow but thought he was a D Glow, and he was trying to turn me, and his mom is working for the Light Bureau, and she's really nice, but everyone else thinks she's one of the most powerful D Glows in our history.” I gasped for air between tears and continued to blabber. “Then I was asked to give up my current life and start training so I can become a D Glow and…and…Julien didn’t even care when I said we shouldn’t see each other anymore, and then he wanted me to have my memories erased…and his name isn’t even Julien!”
I buried my face in my hands and continued to cry.
My dad came over to me and handed me a tissue from his desk. I took it and blew my nose. He handed me another tissue and I wiped my face.
“You have had a lot to process today, but I know that you know that the mission is a huge honor.”
Dad gave me a long hug. After a few minutes, he put his hands on my shoulder and looked me in the eyes.
“Skyla, I did; t quite catch everything you were just saying, but I’m guessing you said yes to the mission?”
I nodded slowly.
“I thought you would. I’m proud of you and I know you can handle this.”
I thought about not seeing my dad and mom for several months and swallowed. That was going to be hard.
“You’re not alone, Skyla. There will be a team supporting you. Light is counting on you.”
“But, Dad, what if I fail?”
“Then heaven help us all,” Dad said wistfully. “We likely won’t get a second chance. The fact that we have a slider on our side is an amazing opportunity to spread light and end darkness. If this plan doesn’t work and Stephanie comes face to face with Darkness, she will turn completely dark and betray us. We’ll have no chance against her and all those she trains.”
Those words echoed in my head, and then it hit me—this mission was an honor, and I couldn’t afford to be weak. I walked over to my dad's desk and took one last tissue to wipe the remains of smudgy mascara off my face. I took a deep breath and turned to look at my dad, still standing where I left him.
“I will not fail.” I felt an assertive surge of energy run through my body. Remembering my light studies, I thought of something my mom always said when I was growing up: light will protect light. I stood a little straighter. I could and would do this.