Cecy Robson - Cursed By Destiny

My head jerked toward the bedroom. “Um . . .”

“And, well, Ying-Ying, too.” Emme’s blush deepened.

Tye appeared ready to vomit. “Ying-Ying can’t fight, either?”

Shayna held her hands out. “No, man. But her yoga skills are . . . superb.”

“She’s here to do yoga ?” Tye let out a string of swearwords. “This is a nightmare! How are we going to get the stone if I’m busy babysitting?”

“We’re not inept,” I hissed. “We’ve fought our way out of many dangerous situations.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it, sister.”

“I am not your sister.”

Tye growled. “No. You’re not. You’re just the one I’m destined to be with.”

Tye grabbed a blanket and pillow and threw himself across the couch with his back to us. Turned out he wasn’t so impressed with me after all.

Chang muttered something in Korean as he watched Tye get comfortable. I nodded at him, agreeing. “Yeah, I know. What a total asshole.”

I turned on my heel and prepared for bed. Sometime around one in the morning West Coast time, I woke up. Emme and Shayna lay in bed with me. To my surprise and relief, Shayna hadn’t woken up screaming. She sometimes twitched and whimpered, but she would settle and return to sleep.

I moved slowly to avoid waking my sisters and slid open the window shade. From what I could see out the window, it appeared we’d just landed in Amsterdam. A team of men in safety orange suits rushed to the plane and prepared to refuel the jet. Our captain stepped out and spoke to one of the workers, smiling. His pleasant demeanor reinforced that all was well.

Next stop: Tanzania.

“Why do you sleep with them?” Tye sat on the couch opposite us, his clear blue eyes appearing to glow from the subtle light in the cabin.

I didn’t understand why he was asking, but I answered anyway. “There’s not a lot of room considering Bren and Ying-Ying hogged the back.” I covered Emme’s back with the blanket when she shivered. “Besides, it’s not a big deal. We grew up sleeping together.”

Tye leaned forward, causing the sheet around him to slide to his waist. “Didn’t you have your own rooms?”

“No. Our parents slept in a pullout sofa in the living room when we were little, while we shared a bed in a small bedroom. In our first foster home we were separated . . . but that just made us want to be together more.” I didn’t elaborate and hoped he wouldn’t ask for details.

“You were in foster care?”

I nodded.

“What happened to your parents?”

“They were killed during a home invasion.”

Tye’s frown relaxed into something that resembled shock. I guess no one had bothered to tell him anything about me, except that we should have cubs together. “You said ‘our first’—how many foster homes did you end up in?”

“Just one more. Ana Lisa, our foster mom, kept us and gave us a real home. Her house had only two bedrooms so we went back to sharing a room.” My fingers traced along the sill in an attempt to distract myself from my rising discomfort.

“Four girls in a room together and you didn’t kill each other?”

“No, we’ve always been close.” I scooted off the couch and disappeared into the bathroom, well aware of Tye’s gaze following me.

I waited outside the bathroom door when I finished. Tye now lay across his bed, supporting his weight on one elbow. He watched me, as if expecting something extraordinary. I returned to bed without a word, hoping he’d get the hint that I no longer wished to discuss my past or anything else. He continued to regard me with interest. I ignored him and tried my best to fall back asleep.

Our plane soared through the skies for ten more hours before landing in a small airport in Arusha, Tanzania. It was eleven in the morning in Tahoe, but nine at night in Arusha. Evil, it seemed, had no sympathy for jet lag. We grabbed our packs and hurried off the plane. Just because it was night didn’t mean we could stop to rest.

I rubbed my skin, feeling sticky from the dry heat digging its way through my pores despite the absence of sunlight.

“How far is it to Ngorongoro Crater from here?” Danny asked Tye.

“Pretty damn far. We have another plane ride to the Manyara airstrip and then a two-hour drive on gravel roads to the park.”

Shayna threw her pack over her shoulder and peered at Misha’s jet. “Why don’t we just refuel and keep going?”

“The jet’s too big and too damn obvious. The Alliance greased a lot of palms to avoid stopping at Kilimanjaro International, but we still need to be smart and lie low.”

Emme ran next to me in order to keep up. I placed my arm around her lower back to help her along. We stopped in front of a small white plane, large enough to seat about ten passengers. My eyes scanned the desolate hangar. “Where’s our pilot?”

Once more Tye’s dimple made an appearance. “You’re looking at him, dovie. Like Makawee said, I’m a were of many talents.”

My sisters and I exchanged glances before following him onto the small aircraft. It wasn’t a new plane, nor was it fancy or sleek like the jet. But it seemed in working order and thankfully rust-free.

Tye asked me to ride shotgun. I obliged in an effort to be civil, but didn’t plan on socializing much. I relaxed when I saw how he flipped the switches with ease and adjusted the controls as if he’d done it a thousand times. My anxiety returned as the small aircraft sped down the runway and ascended into the pitch-black sky, leaving the bright lights of the runway behind. I had no clue how he knew where to go. Despite my tigress eyes I couldn’t detect anything in the horizon.

Tye laughed. “You didn’t strike me as the nervous sort until now.”

I disregarded his comment and tried hard to find a landmark. “How do you know which direction to fly?”

“My grandmother used to fly all over the world. She started teaching me around the time I was six. I know my way around the air, sometimes even better than on land.” His fingers fiddled with a knob before turning the control and tilting the plane slightly toward the right. “Africa and I are old pals. I’ve flown here at least a dozen times.”

I watched his motions closely, knowing if it was up to me to fly the small aircraft we would all just have to die. “Why?”

“Because I enjoy it.”

“No, I mean, why Africa specifically?”

“I’m a lion, dovie. I wanted to trace my animalistic roots. Haven’t you ever thought about returning to the motherland?”

“My motherland is Jersey.”

That earned me another laugh. “So there’s a personality deep beneath that tough exterior.”

“I’ll have you know I’m pretty hilarious once you get to know me.”

“So are you saying we’ll get to know each other after all?” He waggled his eyebrows.

“Not in the way Destiny intends.”

“You don’t believe in Destiny?”

“It’s hard to believe in someone who wears a dead weasel around her neck and zebra cowgirl boots.”

Tye grinned. “She’s not so bad. She’s actually a nice girl, just a little quirky.”

“You know her?”

“Yeah, we grew up together.”

It was hard for me to picture Destiny as a child, although she seemed very infantile in her own way. “So in addition to Africa you’re also old pals with Destiny?”

“Yeah, we are.” He smiled fondly as if remembering, but then his smile vanished as he spoke. “My parents are pures and have always rubbed elbows with the elite. Destiny’s parents are famous witches. When she was born, they knew right away she was a Destiny.”

My head angled toward him. “You mean they knew Destiny should be her name?”