Catalyst (Forevermore, Book Two) (31 page)

I heard the distinctive sound of Lydia screaming from somewhere behind me and looked around in alarm.
I spotted her near the top of the stairs, being dragged by her hair up the final step by Isabelle. I raced toward them. The closer I got to them, the more I noticed that Lydia’s clothing and skin were scorched and smoldering. I ran as fast as I could up the stairs in pursuit of them, following Isabelle down a hall and into a side room, nearly passing them by when they went around a curve. Peering into the room as silently as I could, I watched in horror as Isabelle lifted Lydia effortlessly over an opened window and held her head over the edge. Snow was pelting her face and sticking to her tear-stained face. She was struggling against Isabelle’s grip and trying to pull herself upward to avoid falling or being pushed out.

“
No!” I screamed and ran in to rescue her. I could hear her muffled, pain-filled voice repeating ‘
please
’.

Isabelle
turned her eyes toward me and smiled. She let go of Lydia’s hair but the girl clung to Isabelle’s arm and shoulder, trying to claw her way back from falling. Isabelle’s eyes flickered and her own arm appeared to catch fire. The flames licked along the length of the appendage, down toward Lydia’s grasping hands.

“
No!” I ran to stop her, but it was too late. By instinct, Lydia let go of the flaming heat and fell backward. I could hear the sound of her screams as they grew evermore distant, and then the sickening thud and crunch as her body made impact with the mountainous rocky ground below the cliff.

I stopped in my tracks. I couldn
’t believe it … Lydia … the calmest, most gentle girl I had ever known was dead. Brutally slaughtered thanks to me.

Isabelle covered her mouth with a hand, her eyes widened in a façade of surprise.
“Oops. I think I may have killed her.”

I lunged at her but
found myself hitting empty air as she dodged out of the way. I nearly tumbled over the edge of the balcony, but managed to steady myself. My hands gripped tightly to the stone railing, nails cracking as they penetrated the rock in my moment of fear. I looked down from the balcony, which was overlooking a sheer cliff that appeared to drop off into nothingness. I knew that Lydia’s body was somewhere down there, mangled and lifeless. I shuddered and spun around before Isabelle could do the same to me. My vision was filled with orange and I instinctively ducked as a fireball whizzed overhead and out into the abyss, singing my hair as it went by.

A
nother ball of fire exploded from her hands and I rolled to the side. I looked up at a row of long, sharp icicles hanging up above the archway. I held my hand palm-up toward them, willing one to snap from its place. It hovered in the air, wobbling weakly from side to side until I managed to steady it, then sent it flitting through the air. The ice shard embedded into her shoulder and she gasped in pain, clearly not expecting me to fight back. She stumbled and I took the opportunity to run free from the balcony and down the hall, only to find myself lost and headed in the wrong direction. I could hear the sound of battle from below and wondered who was still alive and who was dead. Isabelle came around the corner, hurling fire in my direction. I summoned another shield without thinking. The metal quickly heated up under her onslaught and scorched my hands. I let go and the towering shield clattered to the stone floor.

As soon
it fell, I saw Isabelle only a foot or two away, running at me with blood dripping from the open wound on her shoulder. She roared as she leapt onto me, knocking me backwards and pinning me to the ground. I coughed and wheezed as the air was knocked from my lungs. I cried out in pain between my struggled breaths and tried to wiggle loose. For such a slender woman, she was strong – immovable. This would be the end. I was up here, alone and helpless. If any of my friends were still alive, they were too far away now to save me.

“
I am going to enjoy this, you stupid little bitch,” she sneered and clasped a hand around my throat. The pressure was too much. I could barely breathe. I gasped for air but nothing came. My eyes felt like they were going to burst from my head and I could feel the veins in my face bulging.

Bright orange ember lit up Isabelle
’s eyes and I knew that this was the moment I would die. I was too weak to move, trapped and choking, and soon her fire would overtake me as it had Lydia.

A confused and
alarmed look crossed Isabelle’s face which quickly changed into horror. My vision was starting to cloud, I was losing consciousness even before she would burn me, but the look on her face was unmistakable. I couldn’t understand why. Was I imagining it in my final moments?

Then the fire came
. But instead of hitting me, the blast hit Isabelle in the face and trailed down her neck, shoulders and arms. She screamed and jumped up and away from me as the fire began to consume the entirety of her body. Gasping for air, I backed away as far as I could and against the nearest wall. I watched in horror as the flaming woman danced around in a panic, her own power eating away at her flesh. I didn’t know what was going on or how; there was no one else around. The smell of burning flesh and hair made me gag and I covered my mouth with my hand. Isabelle was screaming and thrashing around wildly, knocking into walls and tumbling toward the balcony from which we had come. The screaming stopped and through the haze of smoke and glowing orange, I could see through to her shimmering skull, burnt wisps of black hair twisting like snakes around it. I stood as she stumbled over the edge of the balcony, the same place Lydia had been sent to her death mere minutes before. I ran and peered over just in time to see her corpse combust, fragments of clothing, bone, and skin sprinkled downward, mingling with the falling snow.

Stunned and horrified, I
fell down beside the balcony, pressed my back against it, and started to cry. I didn’t understand what had happened or how. I knew I was safe and alive, but Lydia wasn’t. The sound of footfalls down the hall caused me to jump to my feet. I turned toward the noise, wiped my eyes, and prepared for another fight. To my surprise, Hannah was approaching.

“
H-Hannah?” I sputtered.

“
Who else?” she replied with a grin.

I ran over to her and hugged her tightly, grateful that she was okay. Hann
ah seemed reluctant to return the gesture and pushed away. “Get off of me. What’s going on up here? Where’d that black-haired bitch go? I have a little something to settle with her. She won’t be so tough now that I’m not tied to a chair.”

“
I ... uh, she’s dead. I killed her ...”

Hannah looked at m
e in disbelief. “Are you sure?”

“
Yeah.” I nodded, pointing toward the balcony. “She sort of caught on fire and fell from the balcony to the cliffs below.”

She arched a brow
and peered down the drop, then shrugged. “Well, not likely anyone could have survived that. Maybe you did kill her. Kind of pissed that I wasn’t the one who did, but whatever. Let’s go.”

My aunt grabbed my hand and ran
the length of the long hall, leading me down the stairs and into the main room. The floor was littered with lifeless bodies — most of which I didn’t recognize. Ezra, Artemis, and Mom were standing and looked okay. There was a gash across Ezra’s forehead in addition to the dripping wound on his wrist that I now knew had restored Hannah. Artemis had his back turned toward me and I couldn’t tell what he was doing or if he’d been hurt. Mom looked unscathed; she had either been healed already or her injuries were nonexistent. My heart sunk and I could feel panic welling up inside when I realized that Alan wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

“
Where’s Alan? Is he ... is he —?”

“
Right here,” I heard him say from ahead of Artemis.

I walked around my Clan leader
, initially excited, but panic rose again as I saw him lying on the ground beside a body where Noah and Hannah had been dropped. The body … it had to be Noah’s …

I ran to the body and knelt down beside Artemis, who was already tending to the body of the boy I had been so wrong about.

I noticed that Alan’s left arm was badly burned and there was a long gash across his abdomen.

“
Are you okay?” I asked, swallowing back my alarm.

“
I will be. Artemis will heal me after … after he …” His voice trailed off and he glanced over at Noah.

There was a pool of dark liquid all around Noah
’s motionless body. Artemis was continuously hovering his hands over him and whispering under his breath in some language I couldn’t decipher as he struggled to heal him. I could tell he was using all of his energy. Sweat poured from his body as he clenched his eyes shut, his extended hands began to sag, and the words became slower and less rhythmic.

Everyone that was left had gathered around, silently observing as the Clan leader
struggled to bring Noah back to consciousness. I couldn’t believe that he was dead, refused to believe it, and loathed myself for ever doubting him or disliking him for anything he’d ever done or said.

Noah
’s body convulsed, his stomach caved, and he gasped for air. His eyes flew open, wide and searching. I lifted his bloody hand with mine.

“
I’m so sorry, Noah, so, so sorry. Everything’s going to be okay now. Everything.”

He looked at me and attempted a grin.
“Fifty-one percent,” he said and coughed, wincing. “Just need to ... walk it off ...” He tried to laugh but it came out in a strangled cough and I saw Artemis shaking his head.

“
Be silent and still, Castus Palmer! You are still in bad shape and you need your strength,” he said through gritted teeth. “Is everyone accounted for? Where’s Castus Fisher?”

Hannah looked at me knowingly; she must have see
n Lydia being dragged upstairs by Isabelle.

“
She … she didn’t make it,” I said remorsefully.

Artemis didn
’t reply, but his shoulders tensed and I heard him exhale. Alan hung his head.

I
felt a sudden stream of tears rolling down my cheek — tears of both relief and sorrow. Then a sudden realization came over me and I released Noah’s hand and looked up at Artemis.

“
Did you see him?” I asked and looked from Ezra to Hannah, then to my mom, and finally Alan. “Did anyone see him? Mathias ...? Constantine?”

Everyone was speechless.

“Did you?” I asked pleadingly.

Ezr
a was the first to speak. “No.”

“
He has to be somewhere. Artemis can stay here with Noah ... let’s go, come on. Everyone. They have to —”

“
They’re ...” Noah struggled to speak and coughed again. “They’re not here.”

I turned toward him, confused.
“What? How do you know? Where are they …?”

Artemis, who was knelt down and trying to heal Noah
’s shattered leg bone, shook his head again. “I said that was enough.”

Noah s
tubbornly ignored him. “My sis —” Another cough and an annoyed glare from Artemis. “Chloe ... she somehow sneaked out to my cell before they left ... and she told me.”

“
Left? What did she tell you?”

“
She said that Constantine had ... had our f-friend. That he was taking him and some others. A lot of others – including her. She said he’d been making trips for a while, but no one else had gone with him besides that other Shimmerer. Until … until now.”

“
Where?!” I shouted, desperate for an answer. Desperate to know where Mathias was, to know if he was safe, if he was alive ...

“
They ... they’ve gone to Romania ...” He screamed in pain as I heard a bone snap back into place.

My eyes widened. I remembered vividly the
moment at the lake with Mathias when he asked me to look into the depths of the water and tell him what I saw. The red-eyed boy. I remembered when Hannah and Mom told me who that boy was and that it was my ‘destiny’ to put a stop to him. And I remembered that he — and my father — was in Romania.

Chill bumps crawled up my arms as I slowly turn
ed toward Hannah and my mother.

“
Romania ... that’s where ...”

Hannah nodded.
Mom’s eyes looked huge – scared.

“
Do you think … I mean ... it’s just a coincidence, right? Constantine … there’s no way he …”

My aunt glanced at my mom
, then back at me. She stared straight into my eyes and I saw a look I could have never imagined on her face – she was afraid too.

“
My brother … he had a saying.
There are no coincidences
.”

Thank you very much for reading
Catalyst
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