Episode 213: Revelations (Emily)

Irresponsibility bred problems. Emily didn’t want to view her twins as problems, but they were. They were the cause of her imprisonment in Calseasa, they were the cause of her involvement in things she had hoped to never be exposed to, and they were the reason she was of interest now.

She would terminate the pregnancy, because their lives with the United Realms would be nothing more than experiments and games and, if they were lucky, death.

There was nothing about the order of events that gave Emily confidence. It hurt, to think that she would have to lose the future and the hope she had for the babies. It was necessary. She needed to break all ties with Rhyss. He was her past now, and if she was going to operate within the intricate web of power and schemes within the United Realms, she needed to be unencumbered by more kids.

She already had her three boys, her genetic offspring but something else when it came to their souls.

She sat on her bed, plotting the termination and ensuring she had everything, when she heard a knock.

She stood and opened the door, revealing Cecil once again.

“Yes?” she said in the most floral and whimsical way possible. She almost batted her eyes, but she wasn’t in the mood to vomit.

Cecil was her enemy. Cecil was the man behind her imprisonment, the man who couldn’t just let her go.

“I need you to help me dispose of something.” He turned and began to walk down the hall, without giving her the chance to respond.

Emily slipped her white shoes on and shut her door behind her. It took a few extra steps, but she caught up with Cecil so she was more equal with him. He picked his pace up, leading her deeper into the building. He led her to a place she hadn’t been before, a dark hallway that led down into the depths of the facility.

“You killed some of them.” Her stomach lurched, but she walked as tall as she could, with as much pride and composure as she could. This was why she was giving her kids death now, the best way out of a life of misery.

“It’s what we do, Emily.” He continued to walk, no word games this time.

She followed him. This was her life, being stuck watching boys full of potential marched toward their death. She would have given her life for any of them, if that would have been worth something. She knew better, knew that her only chance at helping anyone was to stay alive and not make any additional decisions that lacked foresight.

Despite how long it felt, the walk wasn’t that long. Something with Cecil felt off, and so Emily was silent during the walk.

She was right, and so he was silent too.

In the basement, three floors below her own room, Cecil opened a large steel door. Behind it, machines churned with grinding gears and pistons fired. They were in the heart of the complex.

It was hot, too. Too hot. Sweat beaded on Emily’s skin almost as soon as the door opened.

She stepped inside, prepared to see the bodies. The heat must have been a cremation chamber. In wicca, they burned bodies. She could do this.

Sure enough, Mikail, Jayden, Osmund, and Therrien lay on the floor beside a steel tunnel filled with fire.

A tear fell for them, as her stomach lurched in relief that neither Brendan nor Neron were there. She knew better than to have favorites, she cherished their lives, but it was a relief nonetheless.

“Can I trust you?” Cecil rest his hand on her shoulder.

She straightened and turned to look at him, uncertain what he was asking. The obvious answer was no.

“If I take you somewhere,” Cecil continued. “You’ll come back with me regardless of what you see there? Other lives are at stake.”

She stared at him, his low shoulders and his sunken eyes.

Not really sunken, but more sunken than days ago.

“Under one condition,” she stipulated.

“Yes?”

She tried not to smile. She’d been wrong, so wrong, about Cecil.

“I get to see Rhyss, for one minute.”

Without a flinch, or a smile, or anything, he touched her arm. “That’s likely.” He lifted Mikail’s body and transported them.

“Emily?”

She turned, and there was the kid she’d seen in the allies. The running mate for Rhyss. The gay Lavesque. Spence.

“It’s nice to meet you, Spence.” She hoped that creeped him out.

He didn’t react, which was unfortunate.

She was free, free of the United Realms.

She had agreed to go back. Her boys were still there. Brendan and the class were still there.

They set Mikail’s body down in the center of a pentagon. The spell supplies were lacking. Cutting boards and measuring spoons and cups, bowls, pestels, but no plants.

“Is Rhyss available?” Cecil asked.

In a silly way, her heart beat harder in her chest and she felt her stomach become weightless. Rhyss was coming.

“He’ll be here in a few minutes,” Spence said.

As they stood there, a blonde spiky haired guy, with an over-toned body, came in. He was silent, but waiting.

Emily tried to ignore them. They must have been extra hands, and Cecil wasn’t concerned. If anything, he knew them. She tried to ignore her desire to see Rhyss too. Mikail was lifeless before her and Cecil had shown he might be someone she could trust, not proven himself.

“Do you have the ingredients?” Emily asked the three men in the room.

“No, but I do.” A voice rang from the hallway, and with it a tawny haired woman walked into the room with a large basket full of jars of ingredients.

They smelled fresh, her hands were dirty, but they were prepared.

“Your dad says hi,” the woman said to Spence. It must have been his mom or step-mom.

Cecil held his hand out, pointed to the top of the pentagon. “I thought the boys would be more likely to return with you at the head.”

Rhyss and another blonde boy with wild hair came in.

“You made it?” The blonde asked.

Em couldn’t take her eyes off of Rhyss. He was taller than she remembered, which seemed impossible. His hair was sort of brushed, less wild than it often was.

“I’m only here for a little bit,” she told the blonde.

She moved to Rhyss and wrapped her arms around his neck. She let herself kiss him in front of Cecil, Spence, the crowd. She didn’t care.

“I missed you so much,” she told Rhyss.

Rhyss kept his arms around her, but looked at her, their eyes locked. “You’re leaving?”

He was warm, comfortable. She didn’t want to leave.

Cy, Oscar, Max, Brendan, Neron, Asa, Thayer, and Ian were still there.

“I have to.” She glanced to Cecil. He nodded. It was all she needed to see – there would be no negotiation, not that there was ever a chance for it.

Just seeing Rhyss was a gift. Saving the boys a gift.

She knew she should be grateful.

“We’re okay,” Emily promised Rhyss. She hugged him one more time and let him go. “I need to do the spells.”

“Why can’t you stay?”

His arms held her closer.

She was carrying his twins and she couldn’t stay because she wasn’t allowed to stay.

She didn’t want to ask herself if she would leave the boys, if there was a choice. She wanted to say she never would, but standing next to Rhyss she felt like she should never go back.

“They need me there,” she replied.

“Okay.” Rhyss stepped back toward the wall. “Are you okay?”

Emily kneeled beside Spence and helped him finish preparing the spells.

“There are thirty-four to get through,” Cecil stated.

“I don’t want to be sure,” Emily said, while she worked. “But this isn’t about just me.”

They had the spells ready, thirty-four jars filled with equal parts of every ingredient. There wasn’t more than a trimming here and there of excess.

Emily stood and brought the first jar to the head of the pentagon. She looked down at Mikail. He looked the most adult in the group, with caramel blonde facial hair starting to grow in along his jaw and lip.

“Do you guys need help with this?” Rhyss asked.

Emily looked up at him, sorry she had failed to be what he needed.

“Emily at the head,” Spence directed. “Ach and I will be on one side and you and Cecil can take the other.”

Cecil moved to one of the feet. “We may have to be forceful.”

Everyone fell into their places, Rhyss next to her at Mikail’s hand, Spence across from him at the other hand.

They stood together, and Mikail woke.

Thirty-three left.

Emily kneeled beside him. “It’s okay, Mikail. You’re somewhere safe. You’re free.” She ran her hand across his forehead. “Take a deep breath, because we need some help.”

She hoped a mission would focus him. Thirty-three young boys would mean the older ones would have to take the lead. It wasn’t too much to ask, given their training, not for a few minutes. After that, Emily hoped someone there was prepared for the boys and what they had been through. They’d need support.

She couldn’t be that support.

Maybe Rhyss would. He had to know how much these people meant to her.

Mikail’s eyes flashed around the room. They locked on Cecil, then floated back to Emily. She kept massaging his shoulders and soothing him.

“Yeah,” Mikail said after a moment. “I can help.”

It should have taken him longer to recover. He had died. He had been revived.

She helped him stand.

“This is a safe place.” Cecil moved to Emily’s side. “They’re giving you sanctuary; no more games.”

“And school,” Spence added. “We’ll get you settled.”

Mikail took in the prison cell again, but kept his breathing steady. “Yeah, okay.”

“You’re safe,” Cecil assured him.

That was worthless, coming from the guy that had killed him.

“See that guy?” Emily said. She pointed to Rhyss. “That’s my fiance. I promise you’re safe.”

Cecil transported them back to the room of bodies. Next was Therrien.

After several revivals, with the older boys helping the younger ones funnel out of the room into another space to wait for rooms, Rhyss spoke up. “Are any of Greg’s sons here?”

“Greg?” Cecil asked.

“He has missing sons with you guys: Oscar and Philip,” Spence stated.

The girl with tawny hair almost bounced, her hands clasped and a grin spread wide.

“I’m afraid not,” Cecil lied. Emily could hear the lie, the passive in his voice.

“Why not,” Spence demanded to know.

She liked Spence, as it turned out. If she could get Brendan to him, he would be a good role model.

“They’re not candidates for culling,” Cecil stated, revising his lie without admitting he had lied to begin with. “We can only bring the ones we can justify.”

Emily tried to figure out which one was Greg’s.

There was only one student Cecil would refuse to cull.

“I’m watching one,” Emily told Spence. “We call him Asa.”

In a short clipped tone, Cecil replied: “It isn’t Asa, it’s Neron.”

“I know we agreed no questions,” the spiky blonde, with too many muscles, said.

Emily didn’t say anything.

There were more bodies, and if she didn’t save them she was going to have to face Cecil in battle.

She wasn’t ready for battle, but she suspected she had allies in this new place.

She wanted to trust Cecil, to have him be better than she had expected, to have him help her save the other boys.

She didn’t respond to the spiky blonde, she took Cecil’s hand and transported instead.

She had a long night ahead: Finish saving boys, say goodbye to Rhyss, find a way home to him.

Somehow, in all that, she had to talk to Cecil. It had just been an hour or two, but everything had changed.

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