“Your brain isn’t weak, but your body is compared to ours.” Those eyes that suddenly seemed even more clear than Alex’s zeroed in on me. “I’ve seen what you are, and I’ve seen who you will become. You wondered if it was fate that your life has brought you into ours, and it isn’t. I had a dream of you the night you were born, and I’ve followed you loosely over the years, child.”
My leg started shaking.
“I’ve had visions of my children and their children’s mates.”
Did she say the word “mates”？
I had thought she’d wanted to meet me because of my great-grandmother.
Her fingers curled over the giant rock on her cane, and I’d swear her eyes glowed pure fucking white for a moment. “This is my one offer,” she went on. “You are under my protection, blood of Ximena and granddaughter of Felipe. My mother once owed your great-grandmother a debt, and it’s my responsibility to repay it. If you need me, say my name and I will be there,” she finished, like I knew what in the hell was happening.
I could feel my eyes getting bigger by the second. By the syllable. I was pretty sure I couldn’t breathe.
Because the old woman had started to stare me right in the eye, and I saw…
I saw…
I saw something in those glowing white-purple eyes that was timeless. Power like I’d never experienced before and would never experience again, that had nothing to do with superhuman strength or speed or telekinesis covered my soul. For one brief moment, my body felt like it was floating in space.
And I saw it.
I saw it in her eyes.
The future.
A brief glimpse of it.
There and gone in the longest second of my life.
Taking my breath away and then sucker punching me back within its span.
And in the greatest feat of strength I was capable of, I didn’t allow myself to look away. If this was anyone else, I would ask if she was sure, but I knew this wasn’t the moment or much less the person. My nose started watering. I wouldn’t have been surprised if it’d started bleeding.
“Do not forget my offer,” she said, the glow dwindling. “You are important to our future, and an Atraxian always repays a debt.” She stared, hard. “As you already know.”
My voice shook as my brain managed to think just enough ahead. My voice wobbled and cracked. “What’s your name?”
Her smile was glorious and disturbing at the same time, and I understood what Alex had mentioned and what she had implied.
She was unstoppable if she chose to be. The fa?ade she seemed to show to the world was a fucking ruse to make her slightly less intimidating. Her skin might not be butter smooth anymore, but this woman could destroy the planet if she chose to.
Where The Primordial was good and radiant, this woman was life and death equally. The sun and the moon. The beginning and the end.
Whatever The Trinity were, she was so much more.
There was a reason this woman was the last full-blooded Atraxian, and I couldn’t begin to fathom… to picture there being more people like her. More beings like her. Where she came from, what she was… good god.
I didn’t want to think maybe it was a good thing she was the only one left, but…
The name she told me was lyrical and beautiful, and I knew I could never say it out loud unless it was an absolute emergency. The end of the fucking world. Or at least the end of my world.
Maybe it was fear that made me delusional or some kind of high from the power she’d just imbued me with that was completely different than what I’d picked up on earlier. Or maybe I was just dumb as hell. But I asked the last thing I had any business asking.
The absolute last.
“May I ask why you hurt Alex?” Even I could barely hear my voice. “Why did you take his power away?” I wasn’t positive how she’d done it, but I knew, I knew in my bones that she was capable of it. “Why did you do it then?”
It was like she was expecting the question because it didn’t faze her even a little bit. If anything, she looked nearly pleased. “It had to be done.”
I was smart enough not to make a crazy fucking face, because why the hell had it needed to be done? How was hurting her grandson necessary? How the hell had she done it?
“He should have met you the day of the incident with the fire. I’d had a vision of you meeting at a post office in Albuquerque, and I had finally convinced him to look for you. That was why he was in the area in the first place. I didn’t anticipate how hard he would take the situation, the blame. I had to get his life back on track since he wouldn’t do it himself after that. If I had waited any longer, there was a chance he was going to make a decision he would regret. Alexander wouldn’t have been the same person afterward. He needed to be reminded about why we do what we do. It took me much longer to find you than I had expected. I knew you were somewhere in New Mexico, but I only had a vague idea of the area. You were very smart to live so secluded,” she explained in a tone that didn’t leave room for questions or arguing. “I left him in good hands.”
And with that, her fingers closed around the cane she was clearly using as a prop, and she headed to the door, opening it, then continuing to move on out.
And then Alex was there. A hand on each side of the doorframe. His expression wild.
And I ignored the four faces that lingered behind him. Odi, Athena, Agatha, and their scary mom.
I lifted my exhausted fingers at him. “So that was intense.”
Alex looked pale.
Me too, buddy. “I think my brain just exploded,” I told him weakly. “Can you tell if it’s hemorrhaging?”
The faces behind him went straight stricken, and for some reason, that made me feel better.
There was a reason for me to feel the way I did. I hadn’t imagined it.
“Are you okay?” he asked in a raw, raw voice.
I nodded.
My friend licked his bottom lip and took a step forward. “It felt like a nuclear bomb in here.”
I nodded, my heart pumping just a little harder than normal it felt like. I clenched my hands into fists. “Alex… when did you figure out it was your grandma who hurt your back? How did her breaking it take away your powers?”
He didn’t seem even a little surprised. “A few days after I got there. When I was able to think about how Alana and Robert couldn’t have done it… wouldn’t have done it. When I realized most of my abilities were drained. Only one person is strong enough to do that kind of damage quickly. I was in too much pain when I got there. Then I saw your eyes, that cat clock on the wall, and I knew it had been my grandmother. I hadn’t sensed her following me, and all I saw was a bright light before I think she punched me in the back. She had to have carried me all the way to your house, and banged me up along the way so you would feel sorry for me. She’s smart like that.” His chest rose and fell. “We don’t understand how it works completely, but Agatha thinks that an injury to our spinal cord of that magnitude, doesn’t allow our brains to send those important signals to the rest of our body until we’re healed. It’s the same idea as vertebrae damage in a human body. It takes time to heal from that kind of thing, even for us. When did you figure it out?”