Forever. The word echoes through my head and I swear to God it’s like he’s whispering it to me.
“Wow, you really were somewhere else, weren’t you?” Evan’s voice crashes through my thoughts. He scoots back from the chair and carries his bowl over to the sink.
“Sorry,” I apologize and pick up my mostly full bowl, dropping it in the sink. As little as I’ve eaten over the last few days, my stomach still feels nauseous.
“Did you even eat anything?” He leans down, examining my eyes. “Are you sick? You look sick.”
“I think it’s just nerves.” I yawn, stretching my arms above my head.
“Maybe you should get some sleep?”
“Nah, I couldn’t even if I tried… my mind is too wired.”
“About the battle?”
I shake my head. “Honestly, that’s the last thing on my mind.” I lean back against the counter, staring at the floor. “Do you ever wonder… nah, never mind.” I wave myself off and start to head for the doorway, figuring I can at least try to sleep.
Evan scoots to the side, blocking my path. “Finish what you were going to say.”
I shake my head. “It wasn’t important.”
He scans my expression with a perplexed look on his face. “No, I think it is… I’m picking up a vibe.”
“A vibe?”
“You’d be surprised how many things I can do.”
I scratch at my neck. “Do you ever wonder what your life would be like if you’d done things differently?”
He rests back against the counter, gripping onto the edge. “Like made different decisions?”
I mull over the best way to describe it. “No… like if different decisions had been made for you.”
Now I’ve really confused him. “I don’t get what you’re saying. You make your own decisions.”
“Not always,” I say. “Sometimes there are circumstances… people who interfere… and your life kind of ends up out of your hands.”
“Is that what happened with you?”
“You’ve never been told my back story?”
He shrugs. “Vaguely. I mean, I know you had the Star in you and then you and Alex saved the world from his crazy father.”
“There was a lot more to it than that,” I utter quietly. “There were a lot of years of suffering… years we can’t get back.”
He motions his hand forward. “But you can move on. Make the ones ahead of you count.”
“But what if you try…” I huff a frustrated breath. “What if I try so damn hard, to live a normal life, but, no matter what I do, things always fall apart? Because everything seems connected. Sure we got rid of the Star, but in doing so we let Helena know about our souls. So there’s another problem. In the midst of that, we freed a bunch of Faeries, so there’s another one. Then there’s the fact that, because of the Star, Alex made a bargain with Draven. Because Helena possessed me, after she found out about my soul, Nicholas ended up trapped in the City of Crystal. My father’s stuck in his own mind because Stephan wanted the Star’s power. Laylen was turned into a vampire for the same reason.” I take a deep breath, sucking air in through my starved lungs. “Everything seems to be connected to that damn Star. It’s like a set of freaking dominoes. Knock one down and slowly they all tumble—things fall apart… and what if…” The next part is hard to say. “What if they continue to fall? Forever.”
He’s quiet for an eternity, biting his lip. I wonder if all my twisted thoughts and yammering have scared him off. Then, he walks over to the doorway, sticking his head out and angling his neck back, peering up at the stairs.
I walk up behind him. “What are you doing?”
He looks satisfied as he turns back to me, placing his fingers to his lips. “There might be something you can do,” he says in a hushed voice as he treads back over to the table. He takes a seat and I join him. “But it doesn’t come without a price.”
I scoot the chair in and lean closer. “Everything comes with a price, but it’s worth it sometimes. Trust me, I know.”
A loud noise comes from upstairs and he jumps to his feet, shaking his head. “Is there somewhere we can talk… somewhere private… I’m not supposed to be telling you this.”
I don’t point out that he hasn’t really told me anything. I get to my feet and take him outside, walking back to the garage and noting how silent the neighborhood is; aching with loneliness. I flip on the light and then shut the door behind us. Then, we take a seat on a couple of old patio chairs that are shoved away in the back in front of my old car.
“Good enough?” I ask, scooting the chair closer to him.
He bites his lip again, jiggling his knee nervously. “Who knows?” He lets out a deep breath and then crosses his arms over his chest. “I have to ask you a question first, and then I’ll decide if I’m going to spill my secrets.” He pauses. “Do you really believe that there is a way to stop all of this, put everything back—the Fey, the Lost Souls? Do you think you can find a way to save Alex from Draven, and make the world a peaceful place, or whatever the hell you want to call it?”
I shift uncomfortably in my chair. “I’d love to say, yes, but after what I told you in the kitchen, I think you already know my answer.”
He shakes his head at me. “But I need to hear you say it. And really mean it, if you do.”
“Why?”
“Just trust me that it’s important.”
I’m not sure I trust him. I mean, I barely know him, but he has this look in his eyes, like he’s almost begging me to do it. Say the words and free him from whatever he’s about to say.
My thoughts drift to everything I’ve been through with Alex, Laylen, and Aislin. I want to believe that we can fix everything—save the world and make it a better place—but deep down, I know that problems are piling up, and really, there’s only so much four people can do. Well five, if you count Evan.
“The truth?” I ask and he nods his head once. “No, I don’t think we can fix it. I think we can fix some of the things, but when it all comes down to it, there’s just too much, and it seems like more and more problems are being added to the plate. It’s going to break eventually.”
“And what do you see happening when it breaks?” He holds my gaze.
I shrug. “Mass chaos. Destruction. The usual.”
He shakes his head. “No, what do you see?”
I sit forward in the chair, stunned. “Are you asking me to use my Foreseer power to purposefully look into the future? Because, I don’t do that anymore.”
“Just try it this one time, okay? I need to see… I need to know if something I saw is right.”
I gape at him. “You can see visions, too?”
He stares at me like I’m a moron and then traces the “S” wrapped by a circle marking his upper arm. “I do have Foreseer power.”
I relax back in the chair. “I hate looking at things… knowing how it could turn out.”
“Gemma, just listen to him,” my father whispers inside my head. “It’s important. Please.”
I blink my eyes at the sound of my father’s voice. “I can’t… please don’t make me.”
Evan gives me a funny look. “I’m not making you do anything.”
I shake my head at him. “I’m not talking to you.”
Things start to get a little weird between us and he avoids my gaze like he thinks I’m going to flip out and stab him or something.
“I’m not making you,” my father tells me. “I just need you to know that you need to do it. It’s important, and I know the kind of person you are—if it needs to be done, you’ll do it.”
“But do what?”
“See. Listen. Choose. Decide.”
I’m still not sure what he means exactly, but I listen because there’s not much else I can do at the moment. “Okay, I will…” I whisper, and then shut my eyes, fearing what I’ll see—what I won’t see.
Images instantly blast inside of my skull, like shards of glass. I focus on the one I need, and then I latch onto it.
I’m standing on a path. No two paths. It starts as one, but halfway up, it forks out into two. It’s paved with various images, reflecting in the light above my head; not the sun, but an actual light, bright and radiant.
“Where am I?” I murmur, turning in a circle.
The sound of my echo is the only response I get, so I start up the path, hunting for something, but all there is to the side of me is desert land.
When I reach the fork, I stop. “Which way?” I glance to the left, which winds and curves endlessly out into the distance, then I turn my attention to the other one. It’s short, no more than two steps and then it just drops, fades into nothing, just an abrupt fall.
“Which one do I choose!?” I call out and my voice echoes. “Dad!”
All I keep hearing is my own voice, so I ball my hands into fists, glancing from left to right. What do I do? I mean, it seems obvious. Keep walking along the one that continues to flow, the one I know will take me somewhere, but where? What if it’s bad?
Then, there’s the other one, which doesn’t seem that much better. It just falls. If I jump, where will I go? Somewhere? Nowhere?
I don’t think I’ll ever be able to explain how I make my decision. Maybe it’s the need for chance, hoping for a change? Maybe I just wanted to fall? Maybe I really did believe that walking into it blind was better than walking into the knowing? Or maybe I was just ready to for it to be over? In the end, I end up walking down the short path and, with only a second of hesitation, I jump off the ledge into the darkness.
My eyes snap open and I feel eerily calm. I glance around at the garage, at the street outside the window, at the sky, the sun.
“What did you see?” Evan asks. When I don’t respond, he leans forward, getting close to me. “Gemma, what is it?”
I turn my head slowly towards him, meeting his eyes. “The end.”
I thought he’d question my response, but all he does is nod. “That’s what I thought.” He glances at the garage door and then back at me. “You know, I’ve been waiting around for you to say that for a very long time.”
“What?” The calm lifts from my body. “What are you talking about?”
He relaxes back in his chair, calm and settled, acting very different than he was five minutes ago. “The Omnias are kind of a strange breed,” he says. “Since we have a lot of power, we know a lot of things, like how the future’s going to turn out… Or at least, how it could turn out, depending on the choices people make.”
“People like me?” I question.
“In this case, yes,” he says. “I just needed for you to choose to change it.”
I shake my head. “Please tell me you’re not talking about tampering with visions because that just ruins stuff. Trust me, I know from experience.”