Made to Love (16 page)

Then I flung myself upon my
bed and cried.

“
I miss Allison,” I wept
into my pillow.  “I miss Mariah.  I just want to go
home…”

Part of me wished my
parents would come home early so I would have an excuse to no
longer work on Byron.  An even larger part of me wished I was
eighteen so I could run away and not have my parents come after me,
allowing me to disappear into the relative anonymity of
college.

I ached for Octavius to
comfort me, but he was just using me.  Nobody used Calliope
Crestone.  Nobody.

A sound outside my sliding
doors made me look up.  Octavius had unfurled his wings and
was flapping outside, his hands pressed against the glass.  It
was locked, so he couldn’t get in, but his eyes implored me to
change that.

I got off the bed, drying
my eyes on the backs of my hands.  Then I yanked the curtains
shut.

Out of sight, out of
mind.

Chapter Forty

I stared at nothing, lying
in bed for hours.  Sleep eluded me completely, and though I
tried not to admit it to myself, I strained my ears for sounds of
Byron or Octavius.  But Octavius had taken my dismissal
seriously, and even the crying from the basement was
missing.

But I knew it was
useless.  Even if they'd been there, I wouldn't have allowed
them to touch me.  I couldn't.

I took a trip to the
bathroom, although I didn't know why at first.  I didn't feel
like a shower, and I didn't need the toilet.  It was only as I
stared in the mirror at  my haunted, gaunt face that I
understood.

My grandmother's quill was
in my hand, and like a zombie, I pressed it to my skin.  I
didn't flinch as it pierced the surface, or hiss as the pain shot
up my arm, or blink as a thin stream of red trickled on
pale.

A few moments after, I
cleaned the wound and bandaged it, but I still felt like a
zombie.  I knew, through the haze that was my mind,
why.

Nobody saw me here. 
They saw potential, and glory, and that was something I could never
live up to.  That no human could live up to, really.  Not
when surrounded by the perfection that surrounded me.

I didn't go back to bed
that night.

The particulars of the plan
unfolded as I gathered my things into my backpack.  I tossed
all of the notebooks and textbooks out and put things like clothes
and my poetry inside.  I barely needed food most days, and I
had a little money set aside, and speed was the crucial element
here.

I knew what I needed, and
that was to be out of Coos Bay before the sun rose.

Everything was in place
just as the sky started to light with false dawn.  I went out
the front door and hesitated as I looked by the garage.  
The car would be the fastest mode of transportation, but it was
saddled with downsides: easy to track, the necessity to constantly
refuel when I didn't have the money for it, limited mobility. 
I briefly considered taking it with me just until I reached the
city limits and ditching it, but it would point to the direction I
left.

Instead, I ran.

Every step of the way, my
heart was in my throat, and I wished I had wings or a motorcycle,
like Octavius.  I was exposed, and I was slow, but I was
moving.

My soul called for Octavius
and Byron.  I was ripping myself away from them, and a lot of
me didn't want to.  But they had betrayed me almost as much as
I had betrayed myself, and I was angry.  How could I not
be?

It was that anger that
fueled me over the city line and over the county line.  I
needed away from them.  I needed to go home.

Georgia.

Chapter Forty-One

I walked until I couldn't
walk anymore.  I drank from streams and ate the safe plant
life – my dad had taught me what was edible a long time ago – and
slept under branches.

A couple times, I did touch
the money.  I figured quickly that a bike would be faster than
walking, nearly as safe, and just as mobile, so I went into a
thrift store in southern Oregon and purchased one.  I was
surprised by how much faster it was.

I had never been so free in
my life.  I slept during the day and biked at night, across
dry deserts and snowy mountains and everything in-between, and
avoided towns whenever possible.  I bathed in water when I
could, and I stank when I couldn't.  I was dirty and uglier
than ever, and I'd never been happier.

During my rest periods, I
wrote poems of the beauty I saw.  They were the happiest poems
I'd ever created, and I couldn't even bring myself to care that
they broke the standards I had set for myself.  I hadn't even
cut since I'd left.

This was the life I'd
always wanted.

Which is why it didn't
last.

My hair was all the way
down my back, and I had just reached the moist heat of the South,
when I got hints of others catching up to me.

First of all, there were
more cars driving on roads that had been previously deserted. 
Part of that was due to the fact that I was catching up to
civilization, but it was the first time cars were slowing to take a
look at me.  I'd thought it was in my mind at first – who
would want to see a dirty homeless girl? – but as it happened with
increasing frequency, I started to believe in my
paranoia.

It occurred to me that I
had made a mistake.  By talking the back routes and avoiding
bigger cities, I had also made it more difficult to blend in. 
One girl traveling solo was a lot easier to spot than a homeless
person in a city like Dallas or Denver.  I'd wanted to return
to Georgia so badly that I hadn't considered what Georgia
meant.

Capture.

I had been so caught up in
the normal, if epic, beauty of the United States that I had
forgotten the real reason I was on the road.  I didn't want to
deal with creatures and monsters and a destiny.  I wanted to
be me, in a place where I could be me.  I thought Georgia was
the place, the place where my heart and my friends were, but I was
wrong.

I camped on a beach that
night and took in the moisture.  I also cried in my little
cubby hole until I passed out from exhaustion.  I couldn't
evade the world forever, as much as I wanted to, but I couldn't
bear the thought of leaving this behind.

My sleep that night was
dreamless.

Chapter
Forty-Two

I awoke with someone
standing over me.

Before I could even see, I
panicked.  I began to punch and kick blindly, squeezing my
eyes shut.  “No, Octavius!  Don’t make me go
back!”

“
Whoa, whoa,
whoa!”

That was
not
Octavius’s voice.  Nor was it Byron’s.

I froze, then lowered my
arms slowly, squinting to make out the form above me. 
“
Rich Coos
?” I asked disbelievingly, staring.  It
wasn’t my imagination.  He looked relieved that I recognized
him, sitting down on the sand beside me.

“
We’ve been looking for
you all month,” he said.  “I’m so glad I found you
first.”

“
What do you
mean?”

“
When you disappeared, the
whole town was in an uproar,” Rich said earnestly.  “They
ripped apart the coast searching for you.  Some thought you’d
been taken into the ocean – those who knew what had happened
earlier – and others thought you were just kidnapped.  I
suspected you had run by your own will, so I was looking for you
differently.”

I was flattered that
everyone would spend so much time searching for me.  After all
this time thinking I needed to be in Georgia, it turned out that my
true friends had been in Oregon all this time looking for
me.

And I had worried
them.  I was such a terrible, horrible person.  I hated
myself.

All the stress of the last
weeks on the run came out of me in a rush of tears, and I flung my
arms around his neck, sobbing on his shoulder.  He held me
tight, patient and comforting.

“
They must hate me now,” I
wept.

“
No.  Nobody hates
you.”  He held me at arm’s length, giving me that wide, Rich
Coos grin.  “Least of all me.  I know why you left,
Calliope.”

“
You do?”

“
They wouldn’t tell you,”
Rich said.  “I was right, wasn’t I?”  I nodded mutely,
and he swept the hair off my shoulder, cupping my cheek.

“
Byron and Octavius wanted
to both mate me for my power,” I mumbled.  “Whatever that
means.”

“
Let me explain.  I
don’t know how much you already know, but there are scientists
working on breaking the barrier between the Lands of Myth and what
humans know as the ‘normal world,’” he said.  “It’s destined
to happen.  It’s called the Joining.  But what the
scientists don’t know is that there will be a Queen to rule it
all—and that Queen is you.”

“
Me?” I asked,
gaping.  “How do you know?”

“
It’s all been
foretold.  I knew it was you as soon as you showed up at
school and Octavius began following you around.  He’s a
power-hungry bastard.”

I wasn’t sure if that was
true, but I wasn’t about to argue.  “And how do
you
know all that?”

Rich’s grin widened. 
“I was honest with you now so you’d know you can trust me.  Do
you?”

“
Yeah,” I said. 
“More than the other guys I know.”

“
Great,” he
said.

He stood and backed up,
ripping off his shirt to bare a muscular, lightly-haired
chest.  Then he turned his face to the sky, took a deep
breath, and changed.

All those hints of light I
had seen around Rich’s face – the shapes in the water – the strange
motions of the unicorns on the binder at school – it all suddenly
made sense.  Rich’s body shifted, furred.  His hair
grew.  He dropped on all fours, and a horn sprouted from his
forehead, between his bangs.

Finally, he turned entirely
into horse form, with shimmering white fur and a long, luxurious,
golden mane and tail.

Rich Coos was a
unicorn.

“
Oh my gosh!” I breathed,
reaching up to touch his leathery nose.  He nickered softly,
bumping my palm.

It all made so much
sense
.

He nudged me again, and I
stood, stroking his horn.  It was pearlescent and beautiful,
shining like a star on his forehead.  But it was still
definitely Rich looking at me through the unicorn’s
eyes.

“
Can I… ride you?” I
asked.

He threw his head in a nod,
and I slipped onto his back, gently wrapping my arms around his
neck.  He was larger than a horse, yet somehow more delicate,
like he had hollow bird bones instead of those of a
horse.

But when he wheeled about
and took off across the beach, he felt sturdy and strong beneath
me.  Powerful.  Magical.

I threw my head back,
enjoying the ocean breeze – so long missed – and laughed into the
wind.

Nearly slipping off, I
quickly twined my fingers in his mane to hold myself steady. 
He slowed until he was sure I was on his back safely, and then took
off again, splashing through the surf and leaving cloven hoof
prints in our wake.

We ran for a long time, up
and down the beach, frolicking joyfully.  After a couple
hours, he returned me to the cove where my belongings were and
knelt so I could slip off gracefully.

He shifted back partway,
half-man and half-unicorn.  His skin was still shimmering and
white, and the horn didn’t go away, but he was still otherwise
human.  He managed to shift with his pants both in and out
safely, protecting my modesty.

But I was suddenly curious
what was going on under them.

“
That was amazing,” I
sighed.  “Thank you.  I really needed that.”

Rich grinned.  “Do I
win brownie points?”

“
You can have all of
them.  Trust me.”

He dropped to his elbows
atop me, and I knew he was going to kiss me a second before he did,
and it was fine.  I was happy to let him make out with me,
running his hands all up and down my body.  I hadn’t been
touched in so long, I had almost forgotten what it felt
like.

When he pulled back, there
was fire in his eyes, and I knew what he had in mind.

I grabbed his horn to stop
him before he could kiss me again.  “Are you… intact?” I
asked, eyes flicking down to his jeans.

He laughed heartily. 
“Oh yeah.”  Then Rich showed me, and he definitely was not
lying.

I stared.  “Holy…
wow.  You really are a horse, aren’t you?”

Rich didn’t need to
respond, or even speak at all after that.  He lowered me to
the sand, and I silently thanked my lucky stars that
one
man
in my life wasn’t holding out on me.

Chapter
Forty-Three

I fell asleep again. 
Between the combined efforts of our love, my travel, and all the
worry I'd built up about being caught, it was no wonder I
slept.  I don't think I'd ever slept so well in my
life.