Owen took a step back from her, his hand shielding his face from the blue light. For a moment his teeth grit together and his eyes glowing for a bare second. But he stopped when Kathryn raised her hands and her armor faded away as quick as it appeared.
She looked at him and her eyes were weary, really tired. No pretending to laugh or be friendly. Just tired. Owen stared at her face, the new context recoloring who she was to him. He had to wrestle with everything in him to blame her, to want to ignore her, and run away. He took a slow breath and thought about what she actually said.
“You need my help? With what?”
Kathryn stared at him and let out a slow breath of relief. She had no urge to do any more fighting right now.
“You remember what happened in the last fight. In the streets.”
“The thing that Hawk started,” he looked at the ground and his guilt was like a billboard. “The thing that I let happen.”
Kathryn looked at him and had to fight to keep her eyes on his face. “Yeah that.”
He looked at her and said softly, “Your friend died. Hawk. We. Killed her.”
“No. Hawk did that, not you.”
“I might as well be the reason that she’s dead,” he said taking a step back and shaking his head.
“Look it doesn’t matter who did it. She’s not dead,” Kathryn almost shouted and stomped her foot against the ground taking a slow breath. “And we can save her.”
“What are you talking about?”
“She’s still alive. Trapped in your dream pocket dimension place like a trophy.”
He shook his head. “No. No. That’s not how they said this would work. They said that we would beat them and make you pay for what you did. They didn’t say anything about trophies.”
“Who said that? Who told you?”
“They said their name was Key. They said their twin is the reason all those things happened last year. They said that you guys, you were the ones that brought them here.”
Kathryn laughed sharply and shook her head, “We didn’t do shit. We got chosen by Ley randomly and it became our job to stop the Taq-Law from invading the Earth and destroying it. It fucking sucked. But those people became my friends.”
“Why should I believe you?” he said. “Why should I even trust you?”
She shrugged her shoulders, “I don’t know. You fought your friend to help us. Why’d you do that?”
“Hawk isn’t my friend,” he said sharply glaring at her. She took a step back her eyes and gem flashing. He got ready to fight but slowed and looked down. “Just like you guys we got recruited randomly. Chosen and dragged together by Key.”
“What did you go to a party too?” she asked with sarcasm dripping from her voice.
“No. We tried to kill ourselves. Or got close to it.”
She stared at him at a loss for how to respond to that. She reached toward him and her hand hung in the air before finally falling. “I box. To relieve stress. I like the adrenaline. Fighting. I was in a tournament. Fought way too long. Should have tapped out but I wanted to keep going. Took one punch too many and I was knocked down. I was gone. Really gone. And I saw my mom. I saw her face. And then I was back on the ring, bleeding.
“I don’t know how I got home but when I feel asleep, I woke up in this dark place. And there they were.”
“Like a living lava lamp with a candle for a head?” Kathryn asked.
That made him laugh, a short bark of one that had surprised him. “Yeah. Exactly like that.”
“Ley is like that too. Glad to see neither of them have a sense of normal. Or at least our kind of normal.”
“No kidding,” the spark in his eyes returned for just a moment. She saw the kid that she had befriend in her classes. But it died away slowly like a flash light turning off. “Turns out Hawk and Vixen had the same thing happen to them. And that’s what Key wanted. They promised us all different things but they said they’d make them happen if we got rid of you guys.”
“What did they, Key, promise you?”
Owen stared at her and shook his head looking at the ground again, “My mom died because of the invasion. Killed in the chaos.”
Kathryn finally looked down and shook her head slowly, “I remember you telling me. We. We wanted to save everyone. But clearly, we couldn’t. I’m sorry we failed.”
“Yeah. Key said that they could let me say good bye to her,” he closed his hands into a fist. “They said if I punished her killers, I could see her again. One more time.”
She shook her head slowly, “It doesn’t work like that.”
“They made all of this happen. I figured what was really the limit,” he said looking at her. “Mom would be so disappointed in me if she knew what I was doing.”
“It’s not too late to change things,” Kathryn said softly. “Our stones work like keys to get us into those pocket dimensions We’re like neighbors kinda. Ley, our Celestial, can break Sarah’s soul free and get her back but we need the key to your pocket dimension.”
He stared at her confused still but the cogs clicked together and he finally understood, “You want my stone?”
“Yeah. Sarah’s alive over there. Going through God knows what. Call this a hail Mary.”
Owen turned and dug his fingers into his hair looking torn, wanting to scream. Everything that he thought he knew the past month had changed in an instant. Now he didn’t know what the hell to believe. But when he looked at her, she sounded infinitely sincerer than anything he’d heard from Hawk, Vixen or Key. He wanted to believe her.
And for a moment he could hear his mom, see her face. He knew what she’d want him to do and he sighed before nodding, “What do I have to do?”
The Harlequin Library 