I wanted to scream. This felt like a trick, a cruel joke, being stuck in the place where everything started. A place that reminded me so much of my Mother.
No one was in the kitchen, and I didn’t hear any sounds. I looked hopelessly toward the door that would eventually lead me to Ryland’s room. The front was grey and seemed to be covered by what I could only explain as rotting marshmallow. I took a step and stopped, hating how everything affected me. Without thinking, I turned toward the black door, the door that would make me wake up. Everything thumped inside of me, begging me to run through it. I squared my shoulders and ignored my fears; I needed to find out what was going on.
I had been told that Ryland remembered me. I just needed the boy to remember me too. I needed him to tell me what was going on. I walked across the kitchen and swung the marshmallow covered door open wide to reveal the little five year old boy I had grown to love on the other side. The hallway behind him was just as deteriorated and neglected as the space I stood in.
He looked up at me with dark blue eyes and a hard set jaw. I had never seen any child look so angry.
“You can’t have him.” He said, stronger than I would have expected him to.
“Have who?”
“Your friend. The one you are looking for. The man told me you knew he was here, but you can’t have him. I won’t let you.”
“My friend,” I couldn’t ignore the overdrive my heart was experiencing right now. “He’s here?”
“You can’t have him,” Ryland spat, his little voice laced with hate.
“Why... why not? Ryland, you have to tell me...” I kneeled down to get close to him and froze, hate and anger the only emotions that looked back at me.
“You can’t have him. If I give him to you, then I die.” His eyes grew wide when he said the last word. It looked more like he enjoyed it than he was scared of it.
“Who told you that?”
“The man.”
“What man?” My nerves jumped once, something inside triggering me to run.
“The man with the black eyes. He told me you wanted me dead. That’s why you want your friend. Because you hate me.”
“I don’t hate...”
“LIAR!” His yell rocked the air and I lost my balance, and toppled backward into the kitchen. “You hate me. And I hate you too.”
Ryland took one step forward and looked down at me. I cringed away from him, seeing what he was planning a second before he did it. His little hand made contact with my cheek, his hit hard against my skin. I closed my eyes and turned away from him, knowing instantly that Ryland had pushed me out of our T?uha.
I opened my eyes to dim light seeping through the blackout curtain that covered the tiny window. I could tell I had only been gone a matter of minutes because the light hadn’t changed. I could feel Ilyan’s weight on the bed and heard him talking on the phone.
“Tell no one where we are, Talon. You cannot tell Wyn or Ovailia. This information is for you alone.”
I twisted on the bed to face Ilyan who sat with his back to me. He turned at my movement, his expression dropping to see me awake. I am sure my face told the story of what had happened because Ilyan’s expression only dropped further.
“We will be here a week. Then we will be moving.” Ilyan’s eyes dug into me as he silently asked me what had happened. “I will tell you our next location when we get there, Talon. The less information you have the better.”
Ilyan reached out with his free hand and moved some hair that had fallen over my face, his hand resting against my cheek for a moment before he turned back to his phone call.
“I don’t care how much damage she causes, she is officially out of the loop, Talon. She cannot be Ochrana on this. Call me if you find anything out. I don’t care what time it is, just let me know.”
Talon spoke for a few minutes before Ilyan clicked the phone shut and turned to face me. I stared at him. I wasn’t sure what I was going to say.
“How bad was it?” he asked, softly.
“Bad.” I pushed myself to sitting, cursing this tiny space and wishing I could escape it. I looked away from Ilyan before I began to explain it to him, not trusting myself enough to look at him.
By the end of it, Ilyan had frozen in place. I could feel the waves of his energy ripple around the room, the kinetic anger of it scaring me.
“First my dreams, and now the T?uha? I’m not… I’m not safe anywhere. How am I supposed to save Ryland and be of any use to anyone if I am a danger to them? How is he doing it, Ilyan?”
“I don’t think the question is how, I think the question is with who.”
“Who?” I asked. I didn’t like how he had phrased that. “What do you mean?”
“Ryland has made it quite clear he would rather die than hurt you, so I don’t see him letting them use the connection much. Cail made that clear in the dream. He believes Ryland’s bond is weak, but I have seen how strong it still is. Ryland is masking it somehow on his end, which means they would need a blood connection to increase its strength.”