Chapter 59—Earth
John appears in the doorway, bleary-eyed in his superhero pajama pants. His eyes widen when he sees Jesse. I place my hand on Jesse’s sleeping forehead and breathe a sigh of relief. He doesn't feel hot to the touch anymore, either. I make a shushing sound with one finger and climb down from the bed.
I’m surprised to find that I’m still wearing my Terran knee-high black boots, tight black pants, and linen shirt. John and I tiptoe out and pull the door shut. Before I've even taken two steps, John pulls me against him, and I relax into his arms.
“You're safe. I was going crazy, worried that you'd die on Terra. That you weren't coming back.”
“I'm safe.”
“I’m glad.” John’s eyes spark, and I realize he likes me. Not in a general flirting, casual way. There’s real concern in his eyes. My lips part and his eyes shift toward them.
Too many things in my life right now, too much going on. And Kahn. What do I feel for him? I pull back, and John releases me immediately.
“What happened?” John settles on the corner of a chair.
I sit down on the edge of his plaid sofa. Plaid? Really?
“Terra still stands?”
I nod.
“And you saved Jesse.” John beams. “That’s amazing. You were able to come back and drag someone with you.” He shakes his head. “My dad would be beside himself right now if he knew.”
“Actually, something strange happened at the end there.”
“At the end?” John smiles. “Every single part of this has been strange.”
True. “But someone. . .sort of followed me back.” I scrunch my nose.
“Who?”
“Someone you know.” I cough into my hand. “Kahn.”
“What?” John scowls. “Then where is he?”
I shrug. “He kind of. . .peeled off when we got close. Maybe his soul from Terra went to his real body? I’m not sure. I didn’t bring him, he just sort of tagged along.”
“No way. He can't do that. Only you can go back and forth.”
“How do you know that? It doesn't say that in the prophecy.”
He shrugs. “It's in the stories.”
“What stories?” I groan. “I'm so tired of knowing nothing.”
“I grew up with bedtime stories, except mine were about the Blessed, the people born with powers in the beginning of time. Unfortunately, the Blessed didn't honor their abilities and used them instead to get what they wanted. As you know, the women came to see that it had to be stopped. People with powers couldn't simply control everyone and everything.”
“Except that kind of happens, even without powers involved.”
“True enough. Although a lot of the people in power you know about do have abilities. They just aren't open about them anymore, because our powers are hard to access and they’re weakened. As you know, these Blessed people set up Terra, intending to free the world from the rule of the less ethical among them. Only the bridge could bring the Blessed back to the Earth, and only if she deemed them worthy.”
“I don't know any stories, but I didn't bring Kahn. I tried, actually, but I couldn't shift him at all. He followed me entirely on his own.”
John’s eyebrows draw together. “So you did try to bring him back.”
I explain everything that happened, as quickly and clearly as I can. Although, I don’t mention that Kahn kissed me. I’m trying to figure out why I left that out when there’s a knock at the door.
John freezes.
Then he stands up and walks toward the door. A second knock pounds before he reaches it. He turns to me and motions for his bedroom. If this is Amun, or Isis for that matter, I don't know why I'd be safer in his bedroom, but I go.
I glance at the clock in the family room on my way. It's showing the time as 3:07. Based on the pitch black window, I’m guessing it’s a.m.
A third knock bangs, more insistent than the last two. John yells, “Coming. Geez, it's the middle of the night. Give me a minute.”
I'm ducking into the bedroom when the door opens. The voice of the person who walks through sends chills down my spine. “I needed to make sure you're okay. The Warden just unleashed an insane amount of power in Terra, killing nearly ten thousand people. You didn't answer your phone.”
“Dad, I’m not even on Terra. Remember?”
“Erra and Terra are connected. You know that.” Devlin Rochester stands not twenty feet away, pulling his son into a stiff embrace.
I should stay hidden in the bedroom. I should wait for John to get rid of him, but I'm suddenly drowning in a fury so great that it engulfs me. I regret killing those men over the past few days, men forced by Devlin to attack my father's castle. I regret each projectile that ended a life. I feel sick about them, actually. But today? I don't regret killing the men I did before I left. They were dark, twisted, and evil, every single one.
My only regret from tonight is not killing the man who managed to destroy half of my brother's soul. I should have diverted more of those shafts his way.
I shouldn't have left Terra until I pulled him apart, one wriggly filament at a time.
“Declan Rosenbaum,” I say.
John turns sharply in my direction, shaking his head furiously, but it's too late. I know Devlin recognized my voice, just as Moriarty would know Holmes' voice anywhere, anytime.
“So you do answer to your fake name.” My nostrils flare. “I wondered.”
“What're you doing here?” His smile isn’t even icy. It looks almost genuine. “I've been looking for you everywhere, and you were hiding right under my nose?” Devlin’s smile grows until it stretches from ear to ear. He turns toward his son. “I didn't give you enough credit, clearly.”
“You're telling me you didn't know Jesse was working for me?” John asks.
His father scoffs. “Of course I knew. I just didn't realize she had figured out. . .”
Devlin looks from his son's pajama bottoms and no shirt, to where I’m standing in the doorway to his bedroom. “Wait, you didn't capture her for me.” He frowns. “You're conspiring with her against me.”
John squares his shoulders. “You've always been a terrible father. Are you really surprised?”
“That you turned out to have a backbone after all?” Devlin asks. “Yes, I am. You were always too much like your mother.”
“I hope that's true,” John says.
Devlin rolls his eyes. “You want to be like your mother? A woman so weak that when things became complicated, she shattered?”
“Better than someone who kills people in the name of a stupid, vague prophecy,” I say.
“You killed ten thousand people in a split second tonight,” Devlin says. “How do you justify that?”
“I only killed wicked souls,” I say. “Every single person I ended had dark thoughts and evil intentions. John's just and good. I would never kill him.”
“You can’t see his soul on Terra. Can you see it here?”
I scowl.
“I thought not. You don't know a thing about him, not really.” He glances at his son, and then turns back to face me. “Would you like him quite as much if he were ugly? If his face was pockmarked and his hair thinning?”
My scowl deepens.
“Life’s not as simple as you want it to be. You killed men with evil intentions on Terra. How do you know what kind of people they are here?”
“People are the same,” I say. “My brother was good here, and he was good there. Henry was weak here, so he's weak on Terra.” Even as I say it, I realize I’m not sure it’s true. I didn’t know Devlin or Henry on Terra, not really. My nostrils flare and I double down. It must be right. It feels right, anyway. “It stands to reason that if they're evil there, they're evil here.”
“You're unbearably naive.”
The door behind me cracks open, and Jesse pokes his head out, awakened by the shouting.
“Go back, please. I'll explain later, I swear,” I whisper. He ducks back into the room, but it's too late.