Shattered Secrets Read online

  “So if someone unlocked the door, I might look out my window and see an army of magical beings marching through my woods?”

  Mr. Crawford laughed. “As the human population grew, we found other ways to travel, ways that do not bring attention, but they are quite dangerous.”

  “But only if the planes are unlocked?”

  “Yes.”

  The bushes rustled. A man and woman in their mid to late twenties appeared, smiling and laughing. He spun her around then planted his lips on hers, their skin glowing warm and golden as if they’d spent weeks on a beach soaking in the rays of the sun.

  “Who are they?”

  Mr. Crawford laughed again. “I see no one, but the fact you do means there is more to your relationship—”

  “With Derick?”

  He nodded.

  The stupid heart in my chest swelled like it did the day Derick kissed me, and the only thing I cared about was getting back to him—

  A shrill scream pierced my ears, sending a jolt of fear right through my swollen heart. I looked at the lush green spot where the man and woman were and saw a flash of black fog pass over them. They fell to the ground, their skin pale and pasty, their mouths crooked and mangled.

  My screams echoed through the forest.

  turned and ran for the house, jumping over logs, splashing chilly mud and muck every other step and caking my jeans in it all. I couldn’t stay on my feet, but I had to get away. Something killed those people… just by passing over them. Whatever Mr. Crawford wanted me to know, I got one message loud and clear: I saw evil.

  “Abby! What are you doing?” Derick materialized on the path in front of me. Breathing heavily, he grabbed my hand and pulled me into him. “Are you okay? Where’s my dad?”

  “Derick.”

  “What happened?”

  I rested my head on his chest, tears streaming down my face. “Something killed… people. In our spot. Black fog or—I don’t even know, Derick. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I—”

  I looked into his bright-blue eyes, wanting my lips to form the words my heart so desperately wanted to shout to the world, but I couldn’t. People died. The timing for me to profess my feelings was horrible.

  His eyebrows rose as though he expected me to tell him I loved him, as though he desperately wanted to hear it as much as I wanted to say it; he drew in a deep breath, his chest heaving.

  But I couldn’t speak. My voice was lost in that horrible memory.

  “Abby has powers after all,” Mr. Crawford said, hunched over and panting.

  A crooked smile grew up Derick’s face, melting my insides. He squeezed my hand. “And what would those powers be?”

  “She can see through a veil to our home plane.”

  My warmth disappeared. I shuddered, then tugged Derick toward the house. “We have to get away. I don’t want to be here.”

  “What did you see?” Mr. Crawford asked, catching up to us.

  “S-some kind of fog. It passed over two people, two people who were kissing and laughing and having a good time, and it killed them.”

  He stopped and looked back as though he wanted to return, grasping for something at his hip but coming away with nothing. “I do want to go back.”

  “Why?” Derick and I asked together, still moving forward.

  “This isn’t our home. We came here to protect you and the other Guardians, Abby. However, at some point, we need to return and restore order to our people.” Mr. Crawford marched up the short hill, walking next to Derick and me. “I assume the man your kidnappers claimed to be your father is Aedan. He’s in power over Kalós and quite deranged. He wishes to control humans here—and inhabitants on the Fávlosi plane—in order to prevent war. But in doing so, he has created a war far larger than you can even imagine. Right now, our people are trapped and angry, and the humans are without guidance; their wars are killing the world. Look around you. Watch the news. Humans are tearing life apart.”

  “I still don’t understand what any of this has to do with me.”

  His face flushed an angry shade of red, and he towered over me with flared nostrils and narrowed eyes, the momentary loss of breath he exhibited a moment ago regained with his fury.

  “Dad.” Derick gently placed his palm on Mr. Crawford’s shoulder. “She doesn’t know. Hell, I barely understand. Don’t take out your frustrations on Abby, especially when you still have so many doubts about how Aedan, Boredas and Ruckus are working together. You don’t even know how they would have met, game or no game.”

  “None of this makes sense. Aedan lived in the out provinces of our home, an area that produced soldiers. He shouldn’t be in charge, let alone in an area with access to devices connected to where we are now. But he is, and apparently he wants Abby out of his way.” Mr. Crawford sighed and relaxed his shoulders. “I’m sorry, Abigail. We should have done more, ignored the warnings and trusted our instincts. As of last week, all but two Guardians had been murdered. That’s not the case anymore. You, Abby, are the only thing keeping the world, as you know it, safe, and at the same time, your lack of knowledge of what you do is dangerous for the world.”

  “But you didn’t think I had any powers until—?”

  “Your ability to guard the planes comes from you being alive. Nothing else. The power is something passed down through blood. I’m not sure how else to explain it; it’s just a part of who you are.”

  “Why didn’t the kidnappers just kill me, then? Is Aedan here, too? They said he wanted to do it in public. “

  “Why would they say Aedan’s her dad or that he wants to kill her in public?” Derick pulled me closer, securing his arm around my waist, his muscles tense and his fingers digging into my side.

  “Why Aedan had them wait to finish his plan for ruthless eradication, or why they collaborated with Aedan in the first place, I cannot figure out. None of it makes much sense, but they will do anything they can to get to her. Lying included. Right now, no one can cross planes because she is alive and has no idea how to unlock the door, but if they kill her, they will be free to come and go as they please. We were lucky you and Mark got to her; otherwise, I fear she’d be dead and we’d be in the middle of an apocalypse.”

  “Why didn’t my parents do more to protect the people they sent here?” I asked, not sure I liked being the literal key to unlocking the planes—or my death being the last in any type of ruthless eradication. It all sounded too big, too unreal—crazy—to be part of my life.

  “Because they were killed before they had an opportunity to send more help.” Mr. Crawford indicated for us to walk with a flourish of his hand and a glance toward the road. “You know, visions and keeping the entries and exits locked are natural tendencies inherited from your parents that you will learn to control, but being able to see through the planes, or through disguises—as you experienced in the restaurant—those are likely your unique abilities. Rare ones at that. I believe your parents’ merging was the best thing they could have done for our home. You are strong, Abby.”

  Derick tugged me closer, as if he were proud of me and loved what his dad said, and my heart thumped wildly. Strong. Powerful. The key.

  Too much.

  We crossed the street, returning to the yard we left what seemed like forever ago. I looked around. My family’s gray colonial, tucked behind a row of tall pines and oaks, appeared less impressive, less like home, not as safe as it was yesterday, or rather, on Friday. Derick’s house didn’t give me the same flutter of excitement anymore, either. The foundation of my world, everything in it, even some of the people, was a lie.

  “You said you came here to protect me?”

  Mr. Crawford nodded.

  “And the Snellings, they came here to protect me as well?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Then where did you live before here?”

  Derick laughed. “You know we lived in Texas. We’ve talked about this a million times. You used to love my southern accent.”


  My stomach churned; Derick was as in the dark as me. His parents may have explained some things, but not everything. Not if he thought they lived a simple life in Texas. “Maybe I should rephrase my question. Why did you move here so long after someone else was already protecting me?”

  Mr. Crawford grimaced, stepping onto the porch. He took a deep breath. “We—”

  “Because he didn’t want you to fall in love with his son’s greatest competition.”

  I jumped at the sound of Mr. Snellings’ voice. He stood on the porch, arms crossed over his chest. Mark was beside him, almost alien, not the guy I’d known my whole life, this guy with his cold, narrow-eyed gaze locked on me. And I realized everyone but Derick and me knew the truth. The whole truth.

  “Come on, Abby. I think you’ve had enough for one day.” Derick tugged me toward the door, but for the gazillionth time in our friendship, I disagreed with him. He’d rather walk away and figure things out on his own, but I preferred learning information straight from the source.

  “I need answers, Derick. Truth. You’ve had three months to figure out some of this. Three months to be played by the likes of your father, Mr. Snellings, and Mark… apparently.”

  “Played?” Mark shouted as he began pacing the length of the porch, his gaze darting from me to Derick and then back. “Derick is the one who plays. Have you asked him what his other abilities are? Being invisible is one thing, but he’s also a Romancer. You think all the time you spent with him reading, hanging out in the woods, the flowers, the notes, do you really believe all of that was from him? Because he was honest?”

  “How long have you known, Mark?” I balled my fists at my sides. Right now, I hated him. Mark was a liar, not a nice guy, not at all the friend he’d pretended to be. Later I’d figure out what Romancer meant. “What are you?”

  “I’ve seen our future, and you end up with the better man.” He stopped pacing and lifted his chiseled chin defiantly, the smug expression just begging to be smacked off his face.

  “Oh. I get it. So, you’ve had visions of our future. That’s why you told me I’d marry you someday.”

  He nodded.

  “You’re an idiot, Mark.” The respect he’d earned from rescuing me quickly fled and turned into disgust. “Is that all? You don’t have some other fancy power?”

  “Call me what you will, but I’ve seen it.” He grinned. “That’s the only power I need.”

  “How long have you known about Kalóans and the planes?” I crossed my arms over my chest, mimicking his proud look.

  “He learned of his true nature and our culture at a young age, though he knew nothing about your part in all this,” Mr. Snellings said. “Mark was pretty enamored with you—”

  “Dad!”

  Derick grabbed my hand, lacing his fingers with mine—an act I didn’t mind one bit. “Unfortunate.”

  “Abby, you can’t trust Derick. You need me.”

  “Why can’t I trust him? Seems like since he learned of his powers, he’s tried to stay away from me. But not you, Mark. You tried to convince me we’d get married. Hell, when we were on our date the other day, you knew what Derick did to make me unhappy. Yet you pretended like none of it happened. You seem like the only one I can’t trust, and I certainly don’t need more of that in my life.” I moved closer to Mr. Snellings, anger bubbling in my chest. “And what did you mean your son is Derick’s greatest competition?”

  He gleamed, revealing a mouth full of perfectly white, straight teeth, and he touched my shoulder. “Calm down, Abby. Things are not as awful as you’re making them out to be.”

  Warmth washed through me. A nap would have been nice, so would a fluffy pillow, a fuzzy blanket, and my favorite pair of wool socks.

  “Mr. Snellings is a Manipulator,” Mr. Crawford said, “capable of calming not only human emotions but ours as well.”

  I took a deep breath. The air smelled like roses and sunshine, tea and books—things I loved—and whisked my imagination to my bedroom, to my comfortable mattress, but then Mr. Snellings shook my shoulder.

  “You and my son were falling in love, and Mr. Crawford didn’t appreciate that. He wanted his boy to have a future with you. You see, because whoever marries you, Abby, will be given an opportunity to create more new breeds of Kal—”

  “Foster Snellings, that is not the truth, and you know it!”

  Daydream over. I swiped his hand from my shoulder. “Breed? That’s disgusting. I’m not a dog, I was never falling for Mark, and this conversation is over. Maybe Derick was right. I didn’t need this today. In fact, I’m pretty sure I don’t want anything to do with any of this.”

  I turned and ran for Derick’s Mustang, sobs overtaking my ability to think clearly. This was horrible and crazy. The supposed good guys didn’t sound any better than some humans, if Mr. Snellings was anything to judge by. How could I be a part of this?

  Derick didn’t waste any time in following me.

  “Let’s get out of here, please.”

  We jumped in the car and then squealed the tires on our escape down the street. I didn’t care where we were going, didn’t care if we ever came back. There wasn’t anything to come back to, besides my parents who seemed caught in the middle, but even they kept me away from the truth; they looked at me every day and hid away the most important details of my life. I was with the only person who mattered. He may have kept things from me, but for good reason, and not for very long.

  Everyone else just lied.

  nterstate 95 stretched from Maine to Florida, and we lived smack dab in the middle. My mother always argued the suburbs around Washington D.C. had the worst traffic in the United States. The current jam proved her right.

  Derick weaved in and out of the barely moving cars, but the NASCAR maneuvers did us no good. “I hate Virginia traffic.”

  “Combine that with how much I hate my life right now, and we make a perfect couple.” I picked at the frayed edges of a hole in the knee of my jeans I’d had on since yesterday; they were damp and cold and covered in filth.

  A half-hearted smile twitched up the corner of his mouth. “You mean that?”

  I stared at Derick, trying to figure out if he was excited, if through all this, he still cared only about being with me. I knew how I felt; the butterflies in my stomach wouldn’t let me forget, but today was too weird for me not to ask questions. “What’s a Romancer?”

  And his white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel let me know exactly what he felt. “What he said, it wasn’t true.”

  “Mark said you played games, but I want to know what a Romancer is.”

  “I never played games with you, Abigail Nichols.”

  My insides swam with nervousness. He held this amazing power over me, but his title made me wonder if it was just one of his natural-born abilities. Passed down through blood like my stupid, never-before-used—at least not on purpose—Guardian and future-seeing abilities. “I’m not accusing you of playing games, Derick. I just want to know. I want to know about everything, and yet, I wish I didn’t know about any of it. I wish we could just disappear.”

  He pointed at the backseat with his thumb. “I brought the book.”

  I glanced back. The book wasn’t the only thing he’d brought. My purse, a duffel bag, food. “Derick?”

  “Hmm?” He slammed the brakes, nearly crashing into the back of a blue minivan. “It’s a cop on the side of the road, not a good reason to go from seventy to zero!”

  I giggled. When he was angry, his forehead creased in the most adorable way, and he always flushed scarlet.

  “What?”

  “You’re cute when you’re mad, but umm, why do you have all this stuff in the back?”

  “A Romancer’s purpose is to influence situations to get humans to act a certain way, to guide them in or out of a decision that would save a life, impact the world and what not. All it takes is charm, wit, and extremely good looks.” Derick batted his long, brown lashes.

  “That doesn’t explain
the duffel, my purse, the book, or the food!”

  He smiled. “Now who’s cute when they’re mad?”

  “Derick!” If he hadn’t been driving, I would’ve punched him.

  “You asked two questions. Just answering in order.” He winked, then sighed. “Look, I don’t want to be a Kalóan, or whatever the hell we are, and I don’t want you to be in danger. You seem to be the focus of everyone’s attention. I don’t trust my parents—I’m not sure they trust themselves either, not after everything that’s happened—or yours, or Mark or his parents for that matter. I trust me, though, and I trust what I feel for you, what I’ve always felt for only you. And with my ability to make things invisible, I think I can protect you.”

  “Things invisible? I thought it was just you?”

  “Nope.” He hooked his thumb toward the back seat again. “Got this stuff out of the house without anyone seeing me.”

  “You planned all this? To get away?”

  “I was merely waiting for the right moment.”

  “And I thought you hated me.”

  Derick reached over, taking his eyes off the road for a moment, then rubbed his thumb across my cheek. “I could never hate you. I knew you would come around, Abby. I’ve seen you upset before; you always calm down.”

  “You make me sound like a pushover.”

  “Not by any means. You may always calm down, but you never forget. And trust? God, through all of this I’ve worried you’d never trust me again. I hid from you out of fear.”

  “If you’d told me any of this, after you kissed me, it would have been worse.”

  “I know.”

  I closed my eyes, soaking in the warmth of his touch, reveling in how alive he made me feel. “So, we’re runaways?”

  He shrugged. “More or less.”

  “Won’t people call in your car when they see it? It’s not exactly easy to hide this flat-black Mustang! And where will we get money? Where are we going? What about school?” Aside from a few camping trips with our friends, we’d never survived without our parents. We were treading on new territory. Territory that meant we weren’t even human, other angry non-humans were after me, and now we had no help from our families who loved us. Even if that love was a little misguided.