Page 86 of Shadow & Stars
I mustered as much strength as I could, which wasn’t much, and crawled over to the teenager.
“Are you okay?” I asked, wincing under the relentlessness of the Lemon Drop.
He groaned, pushing himself up onto his knees. His cheeks were smeared with dirt, some dead leaves in his drenched hair.
I stopped crawling, rolling onto my back again. Breathless. Spent.
“Think we’re in Hyde Park,” Roman said.
“You do?”
“Yeah. Looks like it. And… What the hell is that?”
I lifted my head to see him pointing at the sky. About twenty feet or so above him, a golden pool-like spot rippled in the air.
“Is that another time door?” He got to his feet.
Tanith sat up, pushing wet hair from her face. The jewel on her choker glinted, sending pain into my skull. I moaned, my head far too heavy to lift now.
“Shit. What’s wrong?” The boy loomed over me, rainwater dripping from his face onto mine. I couldn’t let him die. I couldn’t lay here and fail him. I’d lived a life of too much failure, never the hero, always too late.
You are there for him…the distant Xavier spoke.You must get that back.
“Is this your doing?” Tanith hissed at me.
Roman’s Synth magic came to life, lighting up his face in a menacing scarlet.
“What do you want me to do?” he whispered.
Excellent question. “Break the jewel on her neck.”
“Got it.” He spun and blasted her with a Synth beam. It crackled and exploded with an aggressive fizz, Tanith’s screams equally loud.
“Bingo!” Roman yelled, pumping a fist in the air.
The suppressing energy of the Lemon Drop fell, my strength returning in a rush.
“Good work,” I told him, getting to my feet.
Now I could push through the throbbing in my spine.
“You little shit!” Tanith spat. “I will choke you until—” She swallowed her words as a figure stepped out from behind a tree, taking us all by surprise.
The man wore a dirty green raincoat along with a black beanie hat on his head. Grubby green jeans clung to his legs, his black trainers caked in mud. The scent of an unwashed body wafted at me.
“Who is that?” Roman said, moving closer to me.
White buttons covered the man’s eyes, stirring memories of the future in the strange cauldron of my mind.
“What are you doing outside in the rain?” the man asked.
Buttons where his eyes should be, which stirred my unease. This man wasn’t safe to be around.
The button-eyed demon,my distant voice whispered.
A demon. A big part of the future. Indirectly to me, yet a massive spoke in the wheels of fate. Complicated.
Wasn’t everything?
