Hope (Other World Protection Agency Book 1) (15 page)

          She could feel the gateway
pulling on her. It was almost as if it was a living, breathing thing. The need
to get home weighed heavily on her, yet those eyes continued to pull at her.

          “Stop.” This time the
order had come from Tara and it too was obeyed immediately.

          “Ariel, we don’t need
that portal do we? You can send us home.”

          “Yes.”

          “But you haven’t.”

          “I was waiting.”

          “Waiting for a gift
that could be a gift or a curse. Are you sure you want it?” Tara knew what she
needed to do now. She just wasn’t sure it was fair to do it to one so young.

          “I am sure my world is
dead without it. They died for me you know. My cousins. They could have lived.
All they needed to do is let one overly curious child die. Me. I was some place
I shouldn’t have been. They saved me, telling me that they would gladly die so
I could live. I want it. I want to atone for what I did.”

          “Atonement is not all
it’s cracked up to be and children make mistakes. You cannot let your mistakes,
your past, keep you away from your future.”

          “Your right, but what
future will I have if my planet is destroyed?”

          “None. Come here.”

          Tara stared deep into
Ariel’s eyes searching for something. It was the same thing she had seen in another
pair of bright green eyes.

          “You are strength and
determination all rolled up into one small package. Your cousins knew this. My
doppelganger knew this. They swore to protect you even with their lives, but
you are more. At your core there lives a thread of hope. When I touch it, it
will spread like the plague you claim me to be, until it owns your body. Then
it will infect your planet once again. I will not do it without your consent.”

          Ariel lowered her head
and nodded.

          “Look me in the eyes. I
want verbal consent.”

          Raising her head Ariel
squared her shoulders and accepted the challenge of being more than who she
was. “I give you Tara the keeper of hope, my consent and my acceptance to do
what must be done.”

          Tara raised her eyes
and stabbed both Ariel’s protectors with her gaze. “She will need you more now
than she ever has in the past. Do you both agree to help her?”

          “We do.” They said in
unison.

          She looked back at Ariel.
“So be it.” She reached deep into her and touched that sliver of hope and
breathed life into it.  “Now you will be hope for your planet. You will stand
strong, even when those around you fall. Your life will not fade from this
planet for many life times to come.” Reaching out she grabbed her protectors,
“neither will your protectors as long as they stay true to you.”

          She watched as Ariel
fell face forward on the ground in pain. Wishing she could help she stepped
back and walked to Paul’s side.

          “Send us home Ariel.”

Home. She was home. If you could
call an old warehouse on its last legs home, but honestly this was more of a home
than anything she could remember. So yeah, she was glad to be here. Paul was
standing by her side with a big smile on his face, looking like he was glad to
be here also.

“We made it.” She walked over to
the couch and just dropped. She was getting the couch dirty and hoped it had
some sort of stain repellant on it. If not, Charon would have to give her a new
one. Heck, he owed her that much. Right?

“Should we announce that we are
back? Shouldn’t there be a welcome home party for us?”

“Well I don’t know about you, but
my mom never gave me birthday parties as a kid, so I wouldn’t hold my breath.”

“Sounds to me like you need a
party. We will work on it, you know, before the next life threatening crises
arises.”

That seemed to strike them both
as funny, so they sat on the couch laughing.

“Forget this. I am going to take
a shower. Charon with his freaky power should know we are back. I need to get
clean.” Tara got up and headed for the stairs.

“Right behind you.”

She stopped halfway up the
stairs. She had gotten a look at her hands and simply stopped. The fight she
just fought went through her mind in slow motion detailing each deadly move.
Looking, she saw her hands shaking. She had killed. It was kill or be killed.
Was it really? Maybe she could have found a different way. They weren’t even Demos,
her official enemy. How could Hope kill? Wasn’t that against the law? She had
to be turned in, judged or…

“Tara!”  Paul’s voice pulled her
out of her thoughts. “Don’t think, just shower. We will talk later.”

Nodding her head, she continued
to the shower. Must get clean was all she was thinking.

She showered, changed and was ready
to face the world. Paul had showered and changed also. He looked good in a pair
of worn jeans and a blue t-shirt. He was making her glad she was a woman. Maybe
he was just making her glad they were friends. That sounded better. Everyone
should have a cute male friend, one that they occasionally slept with,
platonically of course. Ah what the heck. If he had a girlfriend she would be
missing a couple of eyes by now.

“I hear voices downstairs. Are
you ready?”

She nodded and followed him out of
the room. Charon and Dora sat on the couches with untouched plates of food on
both ends of the coffee table in front of the single chairs. That food had
better be for them.

“Take a seat. I made you
something to eat. I thought you might be hungry.” Dora spoke gently, as if they
were children who would break at any moment.

They attacked the food, eating in
silence. Paul broke the silence when he was finished, knowing Tara was not
ready to talk yet. “So what were you two doing while we were fighting for our
lives?”

“Just watching television.”
Charon said, with a no big deal raise of his shoulders.

“Really?” Tara interjected.
“Anything good on?”

I will not kill Charon. I. Will.
Not. Kill. Charon! She kept repeating to herself. She was a killer now. What
was one more body?

“Tara you will not kill me.” The
look on Tara’s face made Charon raise his hands. “It was a lucky guess.
Breathe.”

“Charon stop it. Stop messing
with them.” Dora stood up and glared at him.

Did her mother’s eyes just change
color? Tara rubbed her eyes, but the flash had happened so quickly she must
have imagined it. Human, she thought. We are human. All of us except Charon.
Special humans, but still human.

“Yes Charon,” Paul’s voice was
not as friendly this time. “Give us the truth. We deserve that.”

“While you were fighting for your
life and saving timelines.” He nodded at Tara and gave her a small smile.
“Things have been status quo here. The planet you picked out was perfect Tara.
The fight did not last that long.”

“Tayrel said he changed the venue
for the fight.”

“Tayrel, is not very trustworthy.
He spins his versions of the truth to always favor himself. But he did manage
to divert you both to his timeline. It was not very pretty, was it?”

“No it wasn’t. Then we ended up
in the timeline we thought you were fighting in.”

“Tara, that was excellent
thinking on your part. I am sure he never thought you would end up there. You
instinctively went to the next place you needed to go. How is Ariel?”

“She is a young girl carrying way
too much on her shoulders and I added to her load.”

“Her road won’t be easy, but I
have faith in her.”

Tara wanted to fidget, she was
becoming uncomfortable. Charon had fallen silent simply staring at her. Her
mother was doing the same. She glanced around and looked at Paul. He was
looking back and forth between Charon and Dora also. She felt her stomach drop
and her food try to look for an exit. Something was up.

Charon stood up. “Let’s go
outside, there’s something we need to talk about.”

“Why do we need to discuss it
outside?” Paul asked as he and Tara stood up to follow Charon out.

Tara found herself wondering the
same question as Charon just kept walking. The three of them followed him. He
walked them to the edge of Paul’s shield before he stopped.

“Tara, sometimes in life everything
is not what it seems.”

“Thanks Charon. I am sure I would
never have come to that conclusion without your wise words of wisdom.” She sent
him a smile and almost laughed at his frown.

“Tara,” Charon tried again on the
other side of that shield is something you will not understand. “I need you to
listen to reason before you do anything you will regret.”

“I can’t promise that. Let’s go
out.” Sighing Charon led them out.

Across the street stood Raimel.
His wings were not out and he looked almost civil dressed in a pair of jeans
and a t-shirt. Tara could feel her heart rate pick up as she tensed. Charon was
saying something, she was sure of it, but she couldn’t hear a word of it over
the sound of blood rushing through her veins. She felt her breathing kick up a
notch as her fight or flight senses kicked in.

She stared at Raimel. He was
across the street from her home. Had he planned to invade it? To enter while
she was sleeping and kill her? This ended here. She pulled a weapon out. Before
she could think, she ran across the street to kill her nemesis.

Raising her hand, she shot a
lightning bolt out of the weapon she had borrowed. Raimel raised a wing and it
bounced off having just singed his feathers.

“You have to do better than that
Taraja. Who taught you to fight?” That voice was taunting her.

She ran at him and at the last
moment feinted right to turn and come behind him, landing a kick to the back of
his knee.

“Taraja, don’t you have anything
better than that?” She raised her weapon again and he kicked it out her hand.

Falling back, she took stock of
what was happening. She wanted to kill him, but she was too caught up in
emotion to do any real damage. Taking a deep breath, she calmed herself. If she
wanted to win, she would have to become cold hearted.

She raised her hand to block the
blow he was in the process of landing. He had come closer while she had been
trying to calm herself. Now they were locked in a very physical battle. She
threw a punch, he blocked it. He threw a punch, she blocked it. She kicked, he
blocked it. Then he would do the same. His arm came down, she hit him with a
right handed punch making him rock back on his feet. Before she could bring the
left up, he had recovered and knocked her down.

Tara, jumped up and kicked him
aiming for his groin. She missed, but he didn’t, his kick was aimed perfectly.
She got up again, feeling everything she had learned about fighting over the
years wake up and move within her. The real fight had begun.

She moved faster than she thought
possible as she punched and kicked. Why, she wondered, were they fighting like this?
She was sure he could kill her at any minute. She would get in a lucky shot,
then he would. They were almost evenly matched. She would lose ground, then
gain it back and more. How much longer could she fight like this? Her thoughts
chased each other as she tried to figure out how to end his life.

‘Your life depends on this.’ She
shouted to herself as an opportunity passed her by. Why was she reluctant to
kill him? She was sure she could do it. Was it because she wasn’t a killer
despite what had happened earlier?

“What’s taking you so long,
Taraja? I thought you wanted my head on a platter, just like I want yours.”

She stumbled. How could she have stumbled?
He took advantage of it. His arm was now wrapped around her neck. This was it. She
was a fool to have ever given him a chance. This is what Hope had led her too.

Thea watched as Paul tried to
cross the street with her mother right behind him. They never reached her.
Charon had frozen them on the spot.

“Wait.” Charon’s voice was
commanding. “Let’s see what happens.”

“There’s no help for you now.
It’s just you and me.” Tara tried not to jump at the sound of his voice in her
ear.

He was right. There was no help
for her now. She was trying to breathe around his arm as he slowly pressed on
her windpipe. She could feel her air become trapped in her throat, but she
refused to beg or plead. If she could have, she would have laughed. Life could
be so ironic. Now that she was going to die, she wanted to live.

She looked at Paul. It would have
been good. She was sure of it. She was beginning to see spots and her body no
longer had enough oxygen to struggle. This really was it. She said her mental
goodbyes to her new and old family.

“Raimel stop.” Tara heard a voice
she knew she should recognize before the blackness reached out to claim her.