Escapism (The Escapism Series) (20 page)

  “One jasmine green tea coming right up,” I replied, playfully.

  In his absence, I ordered two large teas and chocolate biscuits. I looked in his wallet, accidentally unveiling a sleeve of pictures. The first picture instantly caught my eye.

  “That’ll be six twenty,” said the young cashier. She twisted a lock of bright red hair between her fingers.

  “Huh?”

  “Your total is six dollars and twenty cents,” she raised her voice, annoyed.

  “Oh right, sorry,” I said, handing her money and shifting to the side.

 
It couldn’t be.

  Kiran returned and gestured for his wallet.

  “Who is that photo of?” I pointed, unsteadily.

  “My sister,” he responded, tucking his wallet into his black leather jacket.

  I stirred some honey in my tea.  

  “What’s her name?” I asked, warily.

  “Corlissa.”

  “Does she have a middle name?” I had learned that could be useful.

  “No—why’d you ask?” he said, furrowing his brow.

  “No reason,” I mumbled, imitating a smile. “Listen, I completely forgot, but I really have to be somewhere. Do you mind?”

  “It’s cool. Ditch me for your boyfriend,” he said, rolling his eyes.

  “I’ll explain later,” I whispered, vaguely.

  “Go—scamper off,” he winked, amicably.

  I did just that. I left purely on a whim, heading down a secluded road—each step brought me closer to Styx. I was pushed into an alley by an abrasive gust of wind.

  She suddenly appeared before me.

  “Daisy?” I called out, shivering. My breath crystallized before my eyes.

  She sat on the pavement, playing with her doll, seemingly unaffected by my calls.

  “He hasn’t found me,” she said, as though she were conversing with someone other than me. “But, I’ve found him.”

  “Are you Daisy?” I asked, kneeling beside her. She turned to face me. Her eyes beamed with sparks of electricity.

  “I’m Corlissa,” she said, giggling. Her bouncy blond curls fell across her porcelain skin. “
This
is Daisy.”

  She held up her doll proudly.

  “Come with me and I’ll restore you,” I whispered, worriedly.

  She placed her doll aside, seemingly amused. “We do not seek restoration.”

  “
We
?” I asked, bemused.

  “You, I, and the others…” she spoke, cryptically.

  “Why do you seek for me, if not for restoration?” I asked, mystified.

  She paused, examining me.

  “It’s not I that seeks you, Xenia. You summoned us,
the eleven
,” she hummed, serenely.

  Her little eyes flashed from bluish-gray to solid black crescents. She cocked her head, waiting for my next move.

Endeca

She stared idly while a cold vicious breeze struck, whipping her long blond curls across her seemingly docile face.  Corlissa’s patience dwindled, evident by the escalating howls and vibrations from the earth beneath us.  Her big black crescent shaped eyes flared colossally, emitting electrical grey sparks of fury.

   “Xenia, Xenia, Xenia.  I’ve grown restless,” she sighed, deeply.  Her child-like embodiment eerily shifted, as if adjusting to its form.  “It’s time.”

  I edged backward unsteadily, grazing my fingers across the cool red brick wall for guidance. “Time for what exactly?”

  She edged closer and without so much as a single blink, her crescent eyes transformed into a swirl of gray and black once again.

  “What are you?” I stuttered, troubled by her very existence. It definitely was the year of strangeness, though I thought the quota had been met.

  “You and I…we’re one of a kind, sister,” she whispered, pleased.

  “I highly doubt that,” I retorted, nervously looking past her as a diversion. While she looked over her shoulder, I hurried down the alley.  My racing heart struggled to keep up with my reckless body midway before I was halted by the wave of Corlissa’s small, yet powerful hand. 

  I gasped, frozen in place as she appeared beside me in a flash.

  “I’m here to enlighten you.  Relax,” she demanded, releasing a soft chuckle. “See? Look for yourself,” she said, offering her tiny, horrid hand. 

  As soon as our hands met, floods of images illuminated through the darkness between us.  I saw disjointed visions of a life foreign to me.  Even visions of my infancy, resting in my mother’s quivering embrace—the look in
her
eyes was distinctly fear.

  I released her hand, unsettled.

  “How can you do that?” I sighed, rubbing my tingling hand.

  “It’s a gift,” she replied, cheekily. “Xenia, you and I’ve both suffered a great loss but great sacrifices don’t come empty handed.  Why not reap the rewards? Our pasts have brought us all together for this very purpose.”

  “I wasn’t sacrificed…my mother never sacrificed me,” I hissed, guardedly. “She was protecting me, shielding me from the ESOM.”  This was the first time I uttered the words.
She was protecting me.
Although a big part of me, deep down to my core felt abandoned.  I wasn’t about to shed light on my bruised psyche to her.

  “Never said it was your mother,” she hissed back, raising her brow. “Let’s face it, Xenia. We were both sacrificed, each for different reasons.  They can temporarily change our path, but they can’t change our destiny.”

 
My Father? That couldn’t be.  Marlon wouldn’t harm me but was he even my biological father? Would it even matter at this point if he weren’t? I loved both my parents...the one’s that raised me, tricked me? Maybe even kept things from me? Oh god.  Anxiety bared its ugly head and the tachycardia trumped my state of consciousness, fetching me back to the situation before me. My pupils dilated, preparing for yet another attempted skedaddle, but my rational mind warned against it. Corlissa’s unfathomable power reined me back, immobilized and alert.

  “You’ve no idea how much power is in the air, I can smell it,” she said, elated. She wrapped her tiny arms around her doll, completely enthralled in the moment. “
The eye is the window to her soul. You’ll see,”
she hummed.  I could only imagine what her ghastly eyes were envisioning. Just thinking about it gave me the heebie-jeebies.  

  I noticed the surge of energy, however thought nothing of it.  I attributed it to the full, wacky moon.  Corlissa froze in place, sensing something I initially could not.  I got the feeling we were no longer alone.

  His presence preceded him, but by far more vigor than usual. Nicholas appeared, followed by Orion, Kiran and six other strangers—all of whom appeared disoriented. 

  I bit my lower lip nervously, nearly drawing blood.  I uttered, “What the—”

  “Hell? No, it’s only
The Eleven
, Xenia. You see, you’re the missing member that we’ve all been waiting for. The one who’ll bring forth the new age.”

  “Me?” I croaked.

  “Yes,” said a tall, broad stunning man.  He stood bare and bronzed with ash-blond hair and a striking resemblance to someone I knew.

  Nicholas nudged Kiran, who unwillingly tossed his jacket over to the naked man.

  He heaved a sigh, exaggeratedly. “
Here
, something to cover that—I mean your business because it’s in the open...
wide
open.”

   The stark-naked man held the jacket close to his pelvis after realizing what the fuss was about.

  “Keep it—no biggie. It’s only a designer leather jacket, not that anyone here cares,” he scoffed in annoyance. It took Kiran a moment to register his environment, and all the others around him once—what I liked to call—the travel fog subsided. 
I still had difficulty acclimating to the muddled effect from traveling between worlds. Maybe I’d never get used to it.

  “Corlissa?” he whispered, walking toward her in disbelief.

  She raised a hand, initiating a halt in Kiran’s path. He stood, frozen and perplexed by her eerie presence. “Not now, brother. We have more important matters at hand,” she snarled, impassively.

  Kiran’s eyes reddened and his defeated body followed suit, bowling over ever so slightly.
Without a doubt, the doings of Corlissa’s unwavering, magical hand—at least I wasn’t the only one subjected to her wrath.

  The sublime man held the jacket loosely to his body, while intently staring in my direction. “It’s because of you that I am here.  You’ve brought me back to life,” he said heatedly, while black vines branched all through his skin, starting with his hands then his forearms. He kneeled before me, slowly lowering his head in what appeared to be a moment of reverence before he craned his neck, displeased. 

  In mere seconds, he stirred the air around us sending my conciliated body back into an alarmed state. The rest of the lot unnervingly stood still, gripped by the turn of events.

  “Hello,
brother,
” he vehemently hissed. His vine engrossed hand anchored Orion’s neck to the crumbling wall. “It’s been too long…hope you kept out of trouble.”

~