The MORE Trilogy (69 page)

He stood a few feet away, watching her carefully. “Ava, are you all right?” he asked. “Your nose is bleeding again.”

Ava raised a shaking hand. Her chin and lips were wet. She stared blankly at the red smudges on her trembling fingertips.

What? Why?
 

“It doesn’t matter,” Emma said, pulling a napkin from her coat pocket. “It will be fine.”

“It’s fine.” Ava nodded slowly, Emma’s dark gaze calming her fears.

Emma cast a glance over her shoulder at the bear. “You can make it go away now.”
 

Ava didn’t look at the bear, only into Emma’s hypnotic eyes, visualizing the empty space where the dead bear used to lie.
 

Emma looked over again. “Good,” she said. “You’re doing so well, Ava.” She rubbed a palm over Ava’s head again, smoothing her hair. “It’s going to be okay.”

“Ava, what’s going on?” Caleb asked, stepping forward slowly. He seemed worried. In fact, he looked almost . . . 
afraid
of her.

“I was practicing,” she said. Her throat felt raw and she swallowed thickly.

“In the middle of the night?”

Ava shrugged. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“You don’t have to explain yourself to him.” Emma patted her arm. “He doesn’t understand.”

“Understand what, exactly?” Caleb asked, turning his attention on Emma. “And why are you here?”

“I’m helping.”

“Yeah. I can see that.” He looked around at their ravaged surroundings and focused, wide-eyed, on the twisted pile of fallen trees.
 

“She’s very powerful,” Emma said. “You can’t hold her back.”

“I don’t want to hold her back!”
 

Ava felt a wave of irritation at how he was talking about her as if she wasn’t standing right there.
 

“I also don’t want to see her hurt,” he said.

“I’m not hurt,” Ava said quickly. “I’m fine. Emma’s helping me.” Her head throbbed and she rubbed absently at her temple.

Caleb came toward her, his face softening. “You’re not fine, Ava. You’re pale as a ghost, and you’re covered with blood. Something’s wrong. You’re pushing yourself too hard.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Emma snapped. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

She turned to Emma, confused. “I don’t understand.”

“I know.” She squeezed Ava’s shoulder gently. “It’s all right. I’m going to help you. But you have to see, Caleb is only keeping you down.”

Ava glanced at Caleb, a tingle of worry twisting in her gut. “He wouldn’t do that.”
 

Would he?
 

“Not on purpose, but people fear what they don’t understand.”

“Ava, don’t listen to her.” Caleb stepped forward, taking her hand and holding it firmly. “She’s doing something to you. You can’t trust her.”
 

“Of course you can trust me,” Emma said in her low, reassuring voice.
 

Ava couldn’t keep herself from looking into the girl’s eyes. They pulled at her . . . comforted her. They told her that Emma understood her. She wanted to help her.

“He doesn’t want you to reach your full potential,” Emma said sharply. “He’s afraid of your power.”

“Caleb?”
 

“Come with me, Ava,” he begged, tugging on her arm. She didn’t move, and Caleb glared at Emma. “Let go of her.”

Emma laughed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I don’t understand . . . what’s happening?” Ava swayed a bit on her feet. Emma turned back to her, giving her power a boost, and Ava steadied.
 

“He wants to take you away from me,” Emma said. “He wants to keep you for himself. Keep you weak.”

“That’s not true. Don’t listen to her, Ava.”

Emma continued as if he hadn’t spoken, and Ava couldn’t look away. “He’s afraid of you, Ava. He knows you’re going to become one of the most powerful people on earth. Much more powerful than him. He’s jealous.”

“Ava, she’s twisting your mind.” Caleb’s voice came to her as if from a great distance and then faded away.

“You have to show him,” Emma said, her eyes piercing and black, that little sliver of pale green the only lightness in her gaze. “Show him he can’t keep you from what’s rightfully yours.”

“Mine?”

“He’ll put you at the mercy of the Council. Or worse, the humans. You’re better than that, Ava. You deserve more than that.”

Ava blinked. She didn’t like the sound of being at anyone’s mercy. She turned to Caleb. “Why?”

“Ava, no.” His face crumpled. “You can’t believe that. You need to come with me. I can help you.”

“Help me how?”
 

“We can run some tests. Find out what’s happening to you.”

“I heard him talking with Gideon.” Emma brought a hand up to cup her cheek, her fingers pressing in hard. “They want to take you to New Elysia.”

“Is that true?” Ava asked, feeling sick with betrayal at the expression on Caleb’s face.

“Only as a last resort,” he said. “And not against your will, Ava.”

She shook off his hand. “How could you?”

He reached out to grab her again, and her gift flared up, throwing him backward.

“You can’t trust him, Ava,” Emma said, standing next to her.
 

“She’s the one you can’t trust!” Caleb shouted, getting to his feet.
 

“You know that’s not true.” Emma took her hand, and Ava relished the feeling of Emma’s power surging through her, making her stronger. “There is something I didn’t tell you Ava, because I wasn’t sure you were ready. I think you are now.”

“What? What is it?”
 

Emma raised their joined hands, and Ava caught sight of her tattoo—the curved lines, parentheses facing opposite directions, a line crossing both in the center.
 

Like a sideways H.
 

Ava turned Emma’s arm slightly.

Like the H on the corner of the baby blanket back home.

“Yes,” Emma breathed. “You know it. Don’t you?”

“It’s . . . on my blanket.”

Emma nodded. “You remember what I told you?”

Ava stared at the symbol, now so obviously the same. How had she not noticed it before? “It’s the symbol for Pisces,” she said, her words slurring a little. Her head throbbed as she tried to understand what was happening. “Your sign.”

Caleb started toward her, but Ava held him back without conscious thought, her gift protecting her.

“Not really my sign, no,” Emma told her, tilting her head with a slight smile. “In the Zodiac, it’s the twelfth sign.”

“Twelfth?” Ava’s mind whirled.
 

The blanket. The symbol. Destiny.
 

“The Twelve.”

“Yes.” Emma smiled. “I’m one of The Twelve, as well. My father is Elias Borré.” When Ava continued to gape at her, she added with gentle touch to Ava’s cheek. “We’re sisters, Ava.”

Sisters?

Caleb pressed his palms against the invisible barrier keeping him from Ava, feeling his way along it in hopes of finding a hole—an opening of some kind. But no. Ava didn’t even seem to be paying attention to him, but she was somehow keeping him at bay. Her gift, it appeared, had developed the ability to work without her direct control.

And Emma, it appeared, had control of Ava.

He could feel her presence inside Ava, a foreign presence mingling with her gift. A thick black stain tainting what had once been pure. What had once been
his.

“Ava!” he shouted. She paid him no heed, though, absorbed in Emma’s words.

“I wasn’t hidden, not like you,” she told Ava. “I was the last to be born. The one who put the blocks in place was killed by Protectors, so Father needed me, you see? You all needed me. And Father kept me close so I’d be ready when it was time to bring you all home.”

“Home?” Ava swayed on her feet a bit, blood trickling from her nose. She wiped at it absently, and Emma caught her wrist, brandishing Ava’s red-stained palm.

“Once we get home, back to Father, it won’t hurt anymore,” she said, wiping Ava’s hand with the bloodied napkin. “He helped the others. He’ll help you too. You’ll see.”

Ava said something incomprehensible, and Caleb shouted, pounding against the invisible barrier impotently.

“He won’t stop,” Emma said with a warning glance his way. “He’ll take you to the Council, and they’ll keep you imprisoned, drug you, dampen your gifts—anything to keep you under their control. You know they’re afraid of you already. If they knew what you could really do, they’d never stop trying to get their hands on you.”

“He wouldn’t
 . . .
” Ava shook her head slowly, but her eyes, wide and almost glazed, remained focused on Emma. “Caleb wouldn’t do that. He loves me.”
 

The wall wavered, and Caleb took one cautious step forward and then another.

“No,” Emma said firmly. “He’ll never let you use your power. He’s afraid of it.”

Caleb took another step toward Ava silently, afraid to shift and startle her.

“I’ll never betray you, Ava,” Emma said, her palms on Ava’s cheeks. “We’re sisters. We’re family. I only want what’s best for you.”

Caleb reached out and took Ava’s wrist.
 

She turned on him, her eyes flashing as she ripped her hand from his grip, threw it up, and threw him away. He flew through the air, slamming into a half-uprooted tree.

“Ava, no,” he pleaded, panting as he tried to center himself. “Please. Come back to the Colony with me. Let me help you.” He started toward her once more, but she threw him again, and he landed in a heap on the ground.

“No!” she shouted. Then in a quieter, uncertain voice, she said, “No. You can’t
 . . .
”

“That’s right,” Emma said with an icy smile in Caleb’s direction. “No one can stop us.”

Caleb got to his feet, staggering a little as he held his hands up in what he hoped was a placating gesture. “Ava, you know me. I
love
you. I would never hurt you.”

She slammed him against another tree and held him there, the bark cutting into his back, his feet dangling above the ground.

“Stop, Ava. Please.” His voice cracked as Ava’s hold tightened. “Remember what Emma can do. She changes memories, twists your free will. She’s manipulating you. She’s using you like she used me.”

Ava took a step toward him, her head tilted as she watched him fight against her invisible bonds.
 

“She’s a Rogue, Ava. You can’t trust her.”

“No,” Ava whispered, tightening her grip even further.
 

Caleb couldn’t breathe; his ribs cracked under the pressure.
 

“It’s a lie,” Emma snapped. “Finish this. He can’t be trusted.”

“Ava, no.” He gasped for breath, his head swimming at the lack of oxygen. “I love you.” Darkness crowded in at the edges of his vision, shadows taunting him with images of his death.

“Please . . . Ava. I love you.” And Caleb couldn’t tell if the words actually made it out of his mouth or simply echoed in his head.