I have never seen her but I know exactly who the girl is. She is an Aiedeo.
A rush of shock and rage pumps through me so hard that I feel as though I am going to explode. I tremble to my core.
“You bitches.” I seethe as I glare at the girl.
“Violet, is that any way to speak about your family?” the girl asks in a voice that sounds much older than she looks.
She doesn’t speak English and I sure as hell don’t speak whatever language she is speaking, but somehow, we can understand each other. Although maybe the Aiedeo’s version of Google Translate is hinky because the girl comes off speaking with an antiquated stiffness that is in stark contrast to her youthful, punkish vibe.
She’s squat and compact like a bulldog. Except for the fact that she has big moon-pie eyes like me, it’s hard to believe we come from the same bloodline. I don’t know how many Aiedeo there are in total, but the ones I’ve seen all vary greatly in age, size, and coloring. If you rounded us all up, I bet we would look like that mystical rainbow of diversity that my sixth-grade health-sciences teacher, Mrs. Flores, used to go on about.
“I almost died with that Dr. Jenkins stunt!”
“Yet here you are, dearest. Alive and kicking,” she says as she gives me the once-over. “I’m happy to inform you that you passed your shama.”
“I am not an Aiedeo!”
The girl sneers. She’s got a gold stud in her upper lip; it matches the piercings in her nose and eyebrow. “That stunt you pulled three years back by using your powers against us was clever. And we have been very patient, giving you this extended hiatus so that you could contemplate your feelings, as you Americans would say. But did you really think we would just let you go forever?”
“Yes! You stripped me of my powers, so I’m useless to you!”
“No, Violet, you denied your powers and stopped believing you had them.” She takes a step closer to me. “But we never took them away. You’ve been in a three-year slumber and we cannot afford to wait any longer for you to wake. That’s why we had to force the shama on you tonight.”
I hear what she’s saying but none of it is registering. I’ve had my powers this entire time? It can’t be true.
The girl continues. “We need to prepare you and time is running out.”
“Prepare me for what?”
“A war greater than we have ever known is coming,” the girl answers. “We need the strength of all the Aiedeo to fight together and destroy the destroyers.”
I shake my head vehemently. “Uh-uh. No, no, no.”
The girl doesn’t hear me and she keeps on going on about a break in the Ultimate Reality and creators versus destroyers. I just want her to stop talking.
Before I even know what I’m doing, I charge at the girl as hard as I can. Her head slams back against the wall, tearing a hole in the middle of my Breakfast Club movie poster. Now I’m really mad. I try to punch the girl but miss.
“Do not let the anger control you, Violet,” the girl says calmly. “Work through it and find the center.”
My whole body tenses. That sounds like the wannabe-samurai kind of crap the Aiedeo spewed back in the day. I’m not having any of it. “Shut the hell up!”
I swing my fist but the girl catches it. “If you refuse to listen, then I will have to show you what I mean.”
She grabs both my hands and stares into my eyes. Her grip is firm but not painful. I try to free myself but it’s like I am locked into place. Within seconds, my calves weaken. Then my legs buckle and I fall to my knees, banging against the hardwood floor where the rug doesn’t reach. I try to stand up but my entire body feels too heavy to lift and I topple over. I can’t do anything but lie on the ground.
“Your fighting skills will need to improve.” The girl stands over me. She’s wearing a triple-stranded gold chain around her hips with tiny skulls hanging from it; it looks like it was stolen from Furiosa in Mad Max. She unwinds it and drops it next to my head. “Nevertheless, the Aiedeo say you earned this for your performance with the shama tonight.”
I grunt. I grab the skull necklace and try to fling it back at the girl but I am too weak. “Screw you. I don’t want anything from the Aiedeo.”
“Oh, my great-great-great-great-great-granddaughter, you have no idea what is waiting for you.” She laughs.
Before I can say anything else, the girl turns around and walks to the spot where the now torn poster hangs. Then she steps into the wall and disappears.
I sit on my floor in a dazed stupor. The Aiedeo have come back for me. The near-death shama they set for me with Dr. Jenkins just proves that those bitches are still shady as hell. I don’t know how but I’m going to have to get rid of them. For good this time.
* * *
Lukas ducks under the leaves of the elm tree in Violet’s backyard. He crouches down lower on the crooked, fragile branch that extends closest to her bedroom window and gives him a completely unobstructed view of the girl. Naresh has equipped every part of his house with some kind of elaborate security device. Even the most skilled criminal would have trouble getting anywhere close to Violet. But Naresh can’t shield her from forces well beyond his imagination.
Everything about Lukas—his clothes, skin, and hair—are blue-black to match the starless sky. Everything except his eyes, which glow in the dark. Neither nature nor the neighbors, all of whom turned off their lights before going to bed, have been much help to him tonight. That’s why he’s had to turn his eyes into torches. But Lukas has been here for several hours, and his retinas are burning. He needs to leave or he’ll surely wake up blind tomorrow.
Yet he stays.
Lukas has sat in this exact spot nearly every night for the past month watching Violet. He checks in on her during the day too but not as much as he’d like. His cover at the funeral home is turning out to be more work than he expected. Not that he minds. He’s always been more comfortable with the dead than the living.
But tonight has been a revelation of sorts. He didn’t know what the Aiedeo were planning when they requested he bring Dr. Jenkins’s body from the morgue. Even as he watched the shama play out in front of his eyes, Lukas wasn’t quite able to believe it. Did the Aiedeo intend it to go that far? At one point, Lukas believed that the Aiedeo were trying to kill Violet themselves. That would certainly make his job easier, though less fulfilling.
Lukas rubs his eyes. As far as Violet is concerned, from the shama to her destiny, the Aiedeo control everything. The sooner she grasps that, the better it will be for her and everyone around her. There is no free will in their worlds.
A light breeze rustles the leaves. Lukas still can’t believe how astonishing it was to see Violet fight back in that shama. She’s much stronger than he initially estimated. Besides, even if the shama was Violet against Dr. Jenkins, wasn’t the real test with Jyoti? She was the Aiedeo that battled Violet at the end.
Lukas stares through the window at Violet, who is trying to crawl from the floor to the bed. Although she is moving slowly and with what looks like much pain, she isn’t dead. Yet.
Lukas doubts the Aiedeo will return tonight. His eyes are burning so intensely that his head feels like it’s on fire.