Kristie Cook - Purpose

Awake at 5:28. I lay in bed, though, the aberration of last night still frightening me. The state of my mind seemed to be deteriorating and the council’s demands had apparently been too much for my fragile psyche. I felt even closer to the edge of that abyss—my toes curling over its lip, my body leaning forward for the fall. Only Dorian and that wispy thread, frayed and in danger of snapping, kept me from the plunge. That tiny bit of hope.

Please, baby, I need you. I need you, not anyone else. What if they…? I couldn’t bear to complete the thought…but then I couldn’t help it. Would they force me to mate with someone else? Could I do that? Could I ever be able to tuck this part of me away and force myself? I didn’t think so. Not without undeniable proof that Tristan was…gone, really gone. But what if proof never came? Time alone seemed to be enough proof for the Amadis. When Rina joined our souls, though, during our wedding ceremony, she said nothing and no one could ever sever our union. Not distance, space or…time.

The more I thought about everything, the less any of it made sense. Rina said we were made for each other. The Angels had specifically created our souls to unite with each other. How could there ever be anyone else? Such an idea went against everything the Amadis had been banking on since I was born. Were they wrong? Were our souls not really one?

Physical pain shot through my chest, taking my breath away.

The pain answered my questions. Of course we were meant for each other. Of course our souls were united. There could never be anyone else. So…what on earth went wrong? Why was I here, alone with no daughter and a son who supposedly shouldn’t exist? Why did I feel like I was losing our connection, my love’s memory? Why was all of this happening?

Nothing made sense and I would drive myself even more insane trying to figure it all out, so I stopped trying. At least for now. I literally rolled out of bed, nearly falling to the floor. I glanced at the bag containing my new running clothes and shoes, untouched since I bought them. They held no interest for me now. What a waste of money. I knew that urge to run was a fluke. Yesterday’s strange burst of energy had dissipated, but my mind felt wide awake.

So I trudged into my office, turned my laptop on and plopped into my chair to wait for it to boot up. As soon as it did, my email opened. I didn’t want to even look at my inbox. No one emailed me but my agent and my editor at the publishing company and right now, their emails would only be complaints or demands for new chapters. Chapters I still didn’t have. I moved the mouse to click the X and close the email program, when something caught my eye. A new message from Rina.

Very strange. I couldn’t remember ever receiving an email from Rina. She wasn’t exactly the technological type. I knew she used email out of necessity with Mom, but only rarely. So this must be important. I double-clicked the message.

“Alexis, I understand it is difficult for you to try to move on and I truly wish your situation was different. I wish I could make it better for you, but, unfortunately, there is nothing I can do. I do hope I can help you get past this, though, because it is in the best interests of the Amadis and humankind. I believe the attached video may help you let go of your past and accept your future.”

I stared at the message for several minutes, trying to understand it. The words didn’t sound like Rina’s and I just couldn’t believe she would actually deliver such a message in an email. This was all out of character. It must be really bad. A lump grew in my throat with this realization. Whatever the video showed, it was something she couldn’t tell me on the phone or even deliver through Mom. So bad, neither of them could even voice it. I instantly knew I didn’t want to watch the video. Yet, acting on its own accord, my trembling hand moved the mouse to the file and double-clicked.

Ian, the ugly Irish ogre who’d dropped the bomb on me about the Amadis plan for my marriage, appeared on the screen. He stood in a darkened room, a spotlight trained on him, wearing black leather pants, a black trench coat and no shirt. His red hair provided the only real color to the scene. His lips pulled back, exposing his crooked teeth, whether in a grin or a snarl, I couldn’t tell.

“We know ya want to go to the media,” he said in his Irish accent, “to protect your lil lassie’s reputation. But ya might want to think twice ‘bout that. If you do, if you acknowledge Seth’s existence in any way, heads will roll.”

He cackled his disgusting laugh as the recording cut to another scene. This one had all the appearances of a group of terrorists with a hostage, just like those seen in the early years of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Several men dressed in Middle Eastern tunics, sabres hanging from their leather belts, stood in a circle around someone unseen. Those in front of the camera moved to the side. My breath caught.

“Oh, no,” I gasped.

The shirtless hostage knelt on his knees, a burlap sack over his head. One of the terrorists—a Daemoni, I assumed—held his sabre to the hostage’s neck. I had no way of knowing for sure without seeing the face, but the build seemed close to right, too close, from what I could remember. And then I saw it. My hands flew to my mouth. The blood drained from my head, coagulating into a ball in the pit of my stomach.

Just below the curve of the knife, on the hostage’s chest, barely visible over his heart, a darker pigmentation against the rest of his pale skin. When our souls were joined in marriage, it had burned bright red. The Amadis mark. Choking, gasping sounds gnarled in my throat, the scream unable to pass the huge lump.

“You tell the world anything, we show them this,” Ian spoke in a voiceover.

“Alexis!” a voice screamed. A very familiar voice. One I had heard only in my dreams for over seven years. It careened into a wail of tortured agony.

Then the Daemoni with the sabre jerked his arm. The camera’s view dropped, but unlike the news producers who cut away from the gore at this point, it angled in on the burlap sack, now rolling on the floor in a pool of blood.

I felt completely numb. I sat completely still, only my finger moving on the mouse to click the Play button over and over and over again. My brain refused to register what I saw as I watched it replay, as if I watched some amateur video staged in Hollywood, fake blood and all. But slowly, the reality of it slithered its way into my mind. And all I could think was, It’s not him.

“Mom?” Dorian asked, running into my office sometime later and making me jump.

I slammed the laptop shut. I couldn’t let him see that. He couldn’t know about the video at all. Because it wasn’t real. And that hostage wasn’t his father.

I opened my arms and he climbed into my lap. I held him tightly against my chest, the pressure of his body like a catalyst to keep me breathing.

“Alexis,” Mom called from down the hall. I could tell she rushed toward us with each syllable sounding closer. “Rina’s email account’s been hacked. Don’t open—”

She cut herself off as she charged into my office and saw me. Something on my face must have told her I’d seen the video because her own face crumpled with what should have been my pain. I simply shook my head. She pulled in a deep breath and rearranged her expression.

“Come on, Dorian, honey, Uncle Owen’s making you breakfast,” Mom said. My arms fell numbly to my sides as she pulled Dorian off my lap. He ran off for the kitchen.

“It’s not him,” I whispered.

Mom closed the door, came over to me and swiveled my chair around to face her. She squatted in front of me, her hands on my knees.