Meg Cabot - Awaken

Even with me standing right there beside him holding his hand, John looked extremely uncomfortable. He wore an expression similar to the one he’d had on when my uncle Chris had confronted him (in this very same room) about kidnapping me. His dark eyebrows were furrowed deeply, his silver eyes glowing defiantly, his free hand clenching and unclenching at his side as if he was going to punch the world.

“The ships will be provided, as they always have,” he said in a low voice, “by the Fates.”

“John, the Fates are gone. They left before you died. And I don’t see any sign of their speedy return. You’re here, the storm’s over, the sun is shining, but Hope’s not back.” Saying it aloud made my throat feel sore. But I couldn’t pretend it wasn’t true. “She knows where I live. She’s been here before. But she isn’t here.”

“Hope will be back,” John assured me. “And so will the Fates. I know they will.”

Before I had a chance to point out that Mr. Smith had never believed the Fates were distinct entities — he believed they were the spirits of human kindness, which made it sort of understandable how they’d be few and far between on Isla Huesos — my father began shaking his head.

“Son,” he said to John, “maybe it’s time you realized that these Fates of yours don’t exist.”

“Dad,” I said, my throat tighter than ever. “You’re not helping.”

“Most of us have been making our own fates for a long time,” Dad went on, ignoring me. “Some of us didn’t grow up getting everything we wanted handed to us on gold platters by invisible fairies —”

“Neither did I,” John interrupted, his eyes flashing dangerously.

“Where I grew up,” my father went on, as if John hadn’t spoken, “there was no such thing as fate, or luck, or wishing on a lucky star. There was only hard work and being ready to seize whatever opportunity presented itself. Now, I’m not criticizing you. I appreciate what you did, looking out for my daughter when things weren’t going so well for her. I wish I’d been a better listener when she came to me with her problems. I’m glad you were there for her. To me, that’s fate … being there to give other people a hand when they need it, not being a stubborn ass —”

“Zachary,” my mother said in a warning voice, her eyes wide.

“No,” Dad said. “It’s all right, Debbie. He knows what I’m talking about. He’s not going to set the carpet on fire again. Are you, son?”

John regarded my father with a narrow-eyed stare from the center of the room. I did not share Dad’s faith that John wasn’t about to do something reckless. His breathing was shallow, and his fingers holding mine were clenched so tightly, I half expected that the next time I blinked, I’d open my eyes to find myself back in the Underworld.

It was difficult for John to trust strangers when he’d lived for so long in one place amongst a handful of people he knew so well. It had to be especially difficult for him to trust a man who was in so many ways like Seth’s wrecker great-great-great grandfather.

But my father hadn’t meant for anyone to be hurt in the oil spill that caused so much damage to the shoreline. My father had been trying to help. William Rector, in contrast, hadn’t been trying to help. He hadn’t cared how many lives he ruined in the wrecks he caused.

I squeezed John’s hand. I love you, I love you, I love you , I thought, gazing up at him.

I don’t know if he heard me, but something in either my father’s words or my grip seemed to get through to him, since he said, his voice carefully controlled, “Please call me John, not son. I won’t be your son until your daughter agrees to marry me, which she says she won’t do for now because her mother would want her to graduate from high school first. Pierce says no one our age gets married anymore.”

A high-pitched sound between a scream and a sob escaped my mother. When we all turned to look at her, she’d slapped a hand across her mouth.

“Deborah,” my father said curiously. “Are you all right?”

She nodded, her hand still riveted in place, and made a motion with her other hand for us to go on with the conversation. I noticed her eyes were wide and unnaturally bright.

“I’m not sure you’re right about the Fates, Mr. Oliviera,” John said. “But I’ll welcome any help you’re willing to give us.” He held out his right hand.

This time, my father walked across the room and shook it.

“Great, great. But Mr. Oliviera is my father. Call me Zack. I’m right about those fate things, though,” he said. “You’ll see.” He dropped John’s hand, then pressed the name on his contact list. “Gary? Hey, Gary, it’s me, Zack Oliviera, how are you? Yeah, I know, me, too, that was some storm, huh? How’d you make it through? Any of those ferries of yours left?”

John sent me a long-suffering look as my father wandered into the dining room, his cell phone pressed to his ear.

“Thanks,” I said, slipping an arm around his waist. “I know he can be a challenge.”

“A challenge?” John echoed in disbelief. “That’s not how I tend to describe someone threatening to shoot me.”

“I know.” I flinched. “Sorry about that. But you see how amazing he can be when he tries.”

“Perhaps,” John said, sliding one of his own arms around my waist. “But, Pierce, even if your allegedly amazing father is able to acquire those ships, how am I supposed to get them to the Underworld?”

“Can’t you just blink them there?”

He raised a dark eyebrow. “You do know that the heaviest thing I’ve ever transported to the Underworld is Frank, right?”

I toyed with the diamond at the end of my necklace. “I’m the one who has to get rid of all the Furies somehow. Talk about challenges. You concentrate on yours, and I’ll concentrate on mine.”

John shook his head, pulling me closer. “No. We’ll work on our challenges together.” He glanced at the kitchen counter. “What are we going to do about her?”

I gazed with concern at my mom, who had her head buried in her arms again. “She can be amazing, too,” I whispered, “but I think I’m going to need to spend a little quality time with her in order to help her adjust, especially now that you dropped the M word in front of her.”

John looked puzzled. “The M word?”

“Marriage. Between that and the revelation that this is about demons and not drugs, I’m pretty sure she’s having a nervous breakdown.”

John’s expression went from puzzled to as concerned as mine, but not, I soon learned, for the same reasons.

“I wish we had that kind of time, but we don’t.” He released me to dig into his pocket for the tablet he’d retrieved at the same time I’d snuck back upstairs to brush my teeth, wash my face, and run a brush through my hair. “Mr. Liu says the number of newly arriving souls has slowed down since the storm moved out to sea, but the situation is still beyond critical.”

“I’m not the one causing the imbalance, then,” I said, still fingering my necklace. “I’m not there. It wasn’t Thanatos, either, since I destroyed him. Something else is. Only what?”

There was a loud rattling sound on the other side of the French doors, all of which my mom and dad had unshuttered and thrown open to let in the beautiful morning sunshine. It sounded as if someone was letting himself in by the side gate where my mom and I kept our bikes and the trash cans.

My heart gave a sudden swoop inside my chest.

“John,” I whispered. “What if it’s the police, come to arrest us?”

John reached out and took my hand. “They’ll never lay a finger on you,” he said.

I knew what he meant. We’d be gone before the police ever got inside the room.