{Reipon}
Push. Push. Push.
Fingers laced, Xelan stood over Andrew and compressed into his chest while Pablo checked his pulse. He hated seeing the fear on Tameka’s face in his periphery. The concern in Sagan’s eyes. Lynn joined with an IV catheter ready to insert on their say—
“Now, Lynn. Get that adrenaline in him.” Xelan knew his voice sounded harsh, but this was life or death, and there wasn’t time to school his tone. He didn’t dare stop the compressions, either.
Pablo pumped a milligram of adrenaline while staring at the heart monitor.
“What… what about Kyle?” Sagan asked, strained with her concern.
The doctor checked Kyle’s vitals quickly. “He’s fine. Still catatonic, though.”
What if they gave him too much of the nacre disabler? “Scalpel. Quick.”
Lynn handed Xelan the instrument he then used to slice open his wrist and shoved it at Andrew’s mouth. “Take over compressions, Pablo.”
“Got it.”
Kyle startled beside them and jumped back as if electrocuted. “Oh! Oh, shit! Whoa…”
Sagan and Tameka pulled him back with them. “Are you okay?” “What happened?”
Blue Icarean blood, royal and spiked with a little Gargantuan Tritan, flowed into Andrew’s mouth while their girls calmed Kyle down and Pablo pump-started Andrew’s heart.
Kyle said, “He’s right. A million Probabilities just opened up on us, like we were in an epicenter. And then… and then they collapsed. Because—”
Andrew gasped for the biggest breath. His spine bowed off the bed like the air punched into him. He gripped the sheets, grabbing purchase on this life.
“—He’s alive,” Kyle finished.
Xelan let Pablo help Andrew relax while he checked the girls. Their eyes glistened, and they were so relieved, they pulled Kyle into a hug.
Lynn put her face over Andrew’s, still giving him space. “Welcome back. We worried we lost you for a second.”
Andrew gripped his fists at his sides. “I was right! I died, and it opened more Probabilities. They closed when I came back. I saw… I saw so many things. But… Oh, Elden…”
“Take a breath,” Xelan calmed him. “Give yourself a few seconds.”
Abruptly, Andrew sat up and grabbed both Xelan and Pablo by their shirts, one in each hand. “No. I have… I have to tell you…” He swallowed as tears brimmed. “Every Probability presents various futures, but they all end the same. I can’t see anything, not one thing, beyond Rayne’s death in the Probability Matrix. Everything ends with her.”
Xelan took another sip of his orange juice alone at the bar in the lounge. The juice sloshed in the glass until he stopped his hands from shaking. The girls opted to stay with Andrew and Kyle. Pablo and Lynn returned to prepping for Phase II. Xelan needed a minute alone, and the vitamin C should help with the shock.
“It starts with him and ends with her.”
“Mother, did you mean me and Celindria? Or did you mean Nox and Rayne?”
No answer.
And there never would be because their mother killed herself in a selfish, spiteful act that continues to haunt Xelan to this day—
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
A knock sounded on the door.
When Xelan turned to find Jack Callahan standing there, he realized it was a welcome distraction. This bright, promising star was one excellent reminder of why they fought. Already, he was a better leader than his sister, but that’s because Rayne wasn’t trained for leadership. She was always a weapon. One Xelan had a hand in creating—
“Come in, Jack. Have a seat. Can I get you some O.J.?”
“Sure. No ice.”
Xelan grimaced and chuckled at the reflex. “Ew. Who puts ice in their orange juice?”
Jack took his glass and sat on the stool beside him. “Flight attendants.”
Bewildered, Xelan laughed into his drink while taking another sip.
The young man stretched his glass away from him and played with it across the bar top. “Andrew’s moving around already.”
Of course. “I knew he wouldn’t stay in bed like I asked.”
With a solemn nod, Jack confirmed, “They grew up while you were gone.”
Xelan hated they referred to his death as “gone.” He lost a battle and paid the ultimate price. “I was dead.” At the teenager’s wince, he softened. “But do you want to know a secret?”
“What?”
“I’m glad they didn’t grow up so much that they don’t still need me.” The Prince of Cinder tipped his glass at the King Regent. “Take you, for instance. You’ve come a long way from stealing money out of your sister’s backpack for cigarettes. You know, she left that money in there for you on purpose?”
The teenager’s hazel eyes nearly doubled in size. “Really?”
Xelan nodded along, imparting this one kernel of Rayne’s love for her brother. “She said you needed it to look tough. To survive the people you were hanging around. You don’t need it anymore, do you?”
“We’re learning a lot about each other lately.” Jack frowned and stared hard at his half-empty glass. “Not all of it’s good.”
“Talk to me.”
Sighing, the young man opened up. “Rayne gave me Nox’s Verse to dispense in Story Circle. She lied to me and said it was anonymous. Everyone helped her lie. But you know? I can let that go.”
Xelan placed a hand on Jack’s shoulder and squeezed. “Good. She meant to spare you. Even I’m begrudging to admit there were some effective lessons in his Verse.” He dropped his hand to help steady his glass.
“And that’s fine.” Jack sighed heavier, as if preparing for something momentous. “But what I can’t stop thinking about is why did Nox kiss Rayne on the Volcano Day battlefield. Why do the less redacted copies of Nox’s Verse read like a love letter to my sister and what exactly did she redact?”
Xelan wondered the same thing, and at the same time he knew the answer without asking. “It’s complicated, Jack. Messy, even. More importantly, that part of the Verse is Rayne’s business. That’s why she redacted it.”
“Was she in love with him? The man that destroyed civilization as we knew it?” Jack turned concerned eyes to Xelan, too vulnerable to dismiss.
“I don’t think it’s my place to say, but I hate the thought of you working yourself up with worse assumptions. Rayne confided in me that she cared for a version of Nox which he showed only to her. Now, whether that version actually existed or was part of his machinations, we’ll never know. But you should ask yourself, does it matter? It’s her business, and I think she handled it beautifully. I can’t wait to tell her myself how proud I am of her. Like how proud I am of you, Jack.”
The young man’s eyes stayed heavy with this additional burden, but he smiled brightly with appreciation. “Thanks for talking with me. It’s been on my mind for a while now.”
“I’m here if you need me.”
“In a house full of people who need you, don’t you get exhausted?”
Both Jack and Xelan spun to see Tumu standing in the doorway with a bottle of single malt scotch. He tipped it at the bar. “Thought I’d return it now that Lamassau and I are finished with it.”
Xelan grinned. “The entire house can once more swim in the pool after it’s cycled through the filter.”
“Jealous?” Tumu accused, as he replaced the drink. He smiled at Jack’s snicker before reassuring, “Don’t be, Wingmaster. You and I are the Eternal Bind. We can never part for long.”
Jack’s mouth gaped.
Xelan rolled his eyes and snorted into the last of his orange juice. “You wish.”
“Does he, now?”
Ahh. Drama.
Lamassau leaned in the doorway with his arms folded, glaring daggers at his lover.
Tumu possessed the grace to look embarrassed as he spread his arms wide in surrender. “Lamassau. You know I don’t—”
“Remember this moment the next time I’m playing strip poker with Bones and Twenty-One.” The Chef turned on his heel and quit the room.
Tumu sighed. A good heavy sigh—
“You do love him!” Xelan couldn’t keep the shock out of his voice.
Bewildered, the Tritan looked Xelan over but kept his mouth shut.
Jack broke the tension with a subject change. “How do you impress a girl when you think she’s into someone else?”
Both men stopped staring at each other and looked at the teenager. This was about Ross, but her circumstances with Bethany strained things. With a non-brow raised, Tumu asked, “Well, who is she finding more diverting than our handsome King Regent?”
Fair question.
“Korac.”
The Tritan’s face puckered into a feature-less wince.
Xelan put his hand back on Jack’s shoulder, more consolingly than before. Grimly, he let the boy down easy. “There is no competing with that.”
Tumu solemnly concurred. “Buy a plot, rent a hearse, and bury that dream in the ground, kid, cause you are never getting her back from that.”
“Damn.”