Natural Selection (21 page)

“
We'll give you a free pass
since you're bringing our sister to us, but then you must get the
demons out of here. I don’t care for your assurances, gaia. I
trusted your husband, and you and your true daughter are welcome in
our circle anytime. But their kind is an abomination!” She
practically spat the last word. How much hatred and malice went
into that one sentence shocked me. I finally understood what my
parents told me about hostility between the different races. I
remembered Xander making me promise to run if I ever saw a demon
other than him and Sariah, and I felt goose bumps on my arms. I
suddenly felt very cold.

“
Keep her safe,” Mom said.
She spoke to the witch, but her eyes met Evelyn’s as she spoke.
“She'll be a powerful witch one day, but she has been led astray.
Her parent’s blind hatred has warped her understanding of the
Otherworld. In the end, her heart won out and she protected our
family—maybe even saved my daughter’s life.” She walked to stand in
front of Evelyn. “For that you will be remembered fondly.” Mom
hugged her and climbed in the car. Nate and my brother and sister
followed right behind, leaving me alone with her and the strange
witch.

“
You are dear to my sister,
I can tell. You should know she didn’t mean to do you harm, but she
tapped into powers she didn’t understand. The spell she did will
have no lasting harm for you.”

Words escaped me as I cocked my head
at her. I hadn’t even considered the idea that the spell could have
lasting effects. With no idea what to say to her in response, I
turned my attention to Evelyn. She’d been my best friend for so
long, And despite the hatred her parents had tried to spoon-feed
her, she risked everything to protect me. Earlier today she had
saved my life and probably not for the first time. I couldn’t
forget she was capable of murdering people like me, but I was
finally able to forgive her. There was no way I would allow us to
part on bad terms since we would probably never see each other
again. There was too much good between us to let it end that
way.

“
I forgive you, Evelyn,” I
said quietly as I took her in my arms.

“
I never stopped caring,
Lia.” I felt her tears on my neck as she clung desperately to me.
“You'll always be my best friend, but I know you can’t forget what
I did. What I helped
them
do. If it takes the rest of my life, I will make
it up to you.”

“
You take care, Evey.
Remember, no one can tell you what to think. Don’t blindly accept
anything just because it’s all you’re told. You have a good heart,
and you need to learn to trust it. I’ll miss you.”

I gave her one last hard squeeze and
stepped back, grabbing her hands. Something strange passed through
her watery eyes. Her face went blank and emotionless as if she was
no longer there. Her eyes rolled up in her head, and she fell to
the pavement twitching and bucking like she was having a seizure. I
gasped and jumped back, not sure what to do. The witch knelt beside
her, and I saw that strange shadowy outline as she knelt next to
Evey. She laid her hand on my friend’s forehead. Instantly the
convulsions and Evelyn went still.

“
Someone is attempting to
draw too much on her. Her spirit is weak and cannot fight this.
Feed me your strength, earth sister. I will help her.”

I didn’t pause to think. I took the
woman’s hand. I reached to the soil beneath the parking lot and
began to pull that energy through me, sending it out through the
palm of my hand into her. I watched the shadow that surrounded the
witch begin to engulf Evelyn. As it did, I saw what looked like a
glowing cord stretching off into the distance. I understood the
cord would point directly towards Monica. She was still far away
and not coming any closer at the moment.

“
She draws too strongly.
She will kill her daughter if she does not stop.” What was Monica
doing that took so much energy? I was afraid, and my mind was
moving sluggishly. “Send your mother for the rest of the coven,
sister. It will take all of us to sever the tie before the girl
dies.”

I was reluctant to release her hand,
but she pulled away and gave me a shooing motion. Dashing to the
van, I relayed the message. Mom hurried into the building as I
rushed back to Evelyn. I dropped to the ground hard taking the
witch’s hand. Monica had a serious grudge and there was no way to
know what her response would be to us taking Evelyn. Perhaps she
thought we’d turned her daughter against her, or maybe she just
didn’t care. Who knew what she was doing with all the energy she
was drawing, or what sort of nastiness she had in store for us? All
I knew was we had to stop her, and I would pull the energy from
this whole city if it would do that. I couldn’t lose any more of my
family. Anything to help was a sacrifice I was willing to make. I
suddenly understood the man from the story my mother told me last
fall. I wondered what they would call the desert I was prepared to
create to help stop this.

“
You do not need to kill
the mother, earth sister,” the witch looked at me with a smirk. “We
will save your friend. Just a trickle of the mother’s power will
sustain me.”

I realized what I was doing was the
equivalent to shoving a watermelon through a hose. I’d only pulled
energy a few times, and it had always been massive amounts. I never
tried working with smaller amounts. I found it was simply like
drinking through a straw—the harder you pulled the stronger the
flow. After a moment of adjustment, I fed her a small trickle and
the witch gave me a smile.

Mom came out of the building with
several other witches. Some obvious and some I wouldn’t notice if I
passed them on the street. They instantly knelt around Evelyn, and
the shadow engulfed them to the point that I could barely make out
their individual forms. The cord faded, but as it did I realized
Mrs. Matthews stopped drawing from her daughter and was drawing
closer. It took forty-five minutes to drive here from Lincoln, so I
didn’t feel too urgent. Despite that, I prayed it wouldn’t be too
long until they disconnected Evelyn from her mother.

I lost track of time as the sisters
worked. A glow began in between them. Slowly Evelyn’s body began to
rise, floating in the center. The cord stretching into the distance
contracted and swelled for a moment before it snapped. In that
moment, I felt something unnatural wash away, yet I could still
feel it in the distance like a storm approaching. She was coming
too fast. If she was driving, she had to be doing a hundred easy. A
green flame suddenly engulfed one of the witches. She shrieked and
fell to the ground, but no matter how she rolled the flames didn’t
go out. One of the other witches muttered a few words and waved her
hand over the screaming girl. The flames extinguished and the poor
thing stopped moving. I wasn’t sure if she was still alive or
not.

“
How is she still doing
this? I saw the tie with Evelyn sever! Where is this power coming
from?” I looked at my mom, who knelt on the opposite side of the
circle feeding energy to another witch. From the horrified
expression on her bloodless face, I could tell she knew the answer.
“Mom? What’s going on?

“
It’s Peter. He must have
survived. She used that massive pull of power to draw from
Peter.”

“
Our brother is very
strong, one of the most powerful warlocks I’ve ever met.” The
leader stood next to us, her muddy colored eyes wide. “We cannot
defeat her. We can hold her off because we are too many for her to
take. But I fear she will turn to follow you as soon as she
realizes she cannot take the young one from us.”

My mom nodded, her expression grim.
“There’s only one solution. I have to stay here. We need something
to keep her here while my children get away. The time it takes her
to kill me should be enough.”

THERE WERE NO words to express my
shock. I stood staring at her shaking my head. My eyes were wide
and my mouth agape, horror building inside me. How could she offer
to sacrifice herself like this? Didn’t she know I needed her? Mom
grabbed my hands and led me off to the side.

“
There’s one last thing you
need to know, Amelia. One last thing every gaia needs to know. The
bond between two gaia is a Life Bond. You are truly committing your
life to his. Why had she held this information back from me before?
I was a little angry with her since I thought she had already told
me everything. But it was buried beneath a massive block of
confusion and fear. It must have been plain on my face because she
smiled at me and took my hand. There was an elephant in the room
and she wanted to talk about the chairs? Maybe I was being
deliberately obtuse, but I simply didn’t understand what she was
trying to say to me.

“
It’s a
Life
Bond, girly. As in my life was
over the minute your father died. I’ve felt my strength fading
since he died. I won’t live to see the dawn. You have to stop
whatever it is you’re doing. It’s not that I’m not grateful for the
strength you gave me, Amelia. It let me get us this far, and it
will make my death stand for something. But now you need to
conserve your strength for what is to come.”

“
I don’t know how!” A tear
slid down my cheek. “I didn’t do it on purpose. I have no idea what
I’m doing or how.” I tried to feel for energy flowing out of me the
way it had when I was helping my father or the witch, but there was
nothing like that.

“
Ok, it’s ok, baby.” Mom
put her hand on my cheek, her fingers laced in my hair. “We will
not defeat Monica tonight, so you guys need to run. Prepare. Trust
your brother and sister—and Nate. He will take care of you, baby, I
know that. You have more strength in you than anyone I’ve ever met,
and I'm so proud to have gotten to see hints of the woman you will
become. I love you.” She kissed my forehead and turned away, but I
knew she wasn’t done with me just yet.

Xander and Sariah climbed out of the
car, either because of what they heard or because they knew. The
three of us faced her in silence. Mom met each of our eyes with a
weak smile. “My children. Do you have any idea how much I love you
three? I can’t begin to express how proud of each of you I am. It
breaks my heart I won’t be there to see all your accomplishments.
But I want you to promise me that no matter what happens you will
stay together and look after each other. Family must always come
first. Don’t let anything ever change that. You too, Nate. You’re
family now. I don’t think anything could have kept you two apart
from the day you met.” Xander scowled momentarily then placed his
arm around his friend’s shoulder pulling him into the
line.

Sariah stepped forward and hugged Mom,
clinging to her in a way I hadn’t seen her do since she was young.
Mom said something in her ear and she nodded. As she turned away, I
watched her face go from pain and grief to the eerie blankness.
Xander stepped up, all the goofiness and stoicism he used as a
defense mechanism were gone. The vulnerable boy terrified he would
be rejected clung to the one person who had made him feel
redeemable. He backed up kissing her hand before turning away, and
another thought hit me. They’d known. I was the only one who had
been kept in the dark, and I didn’t understand why. I expected
grief to overwhelm me, but instead I was angrier than I had ever
been in my life.

“
Why Mom? Why did you keep
all this from me? There is so much you haven’t told me! Why?
Because of some stupid fear from something that happened years ago?
But it wasn’t too horrible for Xander and Sariah, just me? Why?
What make me so damn different? Why didn’t you trust me? I am
strong, you said so. I am strong enough to take it!”

My mom gave me a sad smile, placing
her hand on my cheek. “Amelia, I never for one second doubted your
strength. We all kept secrets from you because we wanted to spare
you this burden. Think of everything you’ve had to shoulder in the
last two days. Every moment I could give you without that was worth
every bit of your anger now. But we don’t have time, Lia. Monica is
coming, and she’s not going to stop until someone makes her. These
witches will protect Evelyn, and they will help me hold her mother
here. But you have to go! It’s all pointless if you don’t get a
good head start.” I stood looking at her a long moment, letting the
confusion and exasperation paint itself on my face. I sighed and
shook my head. Wrapping her in my arms, I clung to her then backed
up to hold her hands. There were so many things I needed to tell
her, but I couldn’t get it out of my mouth. All I could do was
study her, trying to commit this moment to my memory as I gripped
her hands with every fiber of my being. “I love you,” I
whispered.