Mar ch 7| Belief Can Make Anything Real

I lie tucked into bed beneath blankets that were once patient yellow and are now a deep, hopeful blue. This difference I can see even in the murky moonlight.

I am exhausted, but my mind will not rest. Mrs. Plunker thinks running was the right thing, but my conscience will not agree. Pungent guilt cakes my skin. I keep seeing those last images of Asher as echoes of Father shout my worthlessness and Nabal laughs.

“I am not worthless,” I whisper to myself. Every muscle shakes, and my voice wavers. A lie, my conscience claims.

I cling to a different memory, one of Dr. Plunker’s lectures as we worked in the barn.

“You’re not a monster, Mar. Change how you view yourself. Belief can make anything real.”

My face twisted, and my hands stilled on the half-oiled saddle. “You mean if I believe I’m a monster, then that’s what I’ll be?”

“Exactly. If you believe no one will accept you, then they won’t because you’ll never give them a chance to.”

If I don’t want to be a coward, I can’t think of myself that way. If I want to be a hero, I must believe I am one.

My heart pounds as if it will escape my chest and confront Nabal on its own if I don’t get up. I know my way back to the facility where I’ll find him. I’m stronger now than when I left, wiser, and with justice as my partner.

My silent feet trek to the window. It slides open with barely a sound, and I slip through. I’ll return to the Plunkers a hero.

* * *

Shadows dance as the wind tickles trees deep in the woods surrounding the Azuré estate. The facility looms ahead, a multi-storied building camouflaged by fast-growing vines and clever paint. A warden walks on either side of me, generous in displaying their weapons. Between the two of them, I count four knives, two pistols, one rifle, and one lightning staff. Why didn’t I bring any weapons?

I am a weapon, and I can take their weapons if I want, but first, they have to lead me to Nabal. Words have been my tools thus far, convincing these watchmen that Master Nabal would want to see me right away. They know who and what I am, of my escape and their master’s desperation to recover me.

They bring me in the same door I left by. I had torn through these halls, lost, pursued, and determined to break free. Only minutes before that, they had again thrown me into the arena against Brute, but I had escaped. Now, that memory prods my heart into racing. I march through these halls in the wrong direction, away from freedom, flanked by gloating wardens. It smells like defeat. Then, another fragrance catches my attention, and I become a statue.

The wardens shove at me, but instead of hearing their taunts and threats, my ears focus on the voice around the corner.

“You think I won’t turn you in, that Uncle won’t investigate because you’re family? You haven’t been family to us for most of my life!”

“Be reasonable, Asher,” Nabal warns. “You know I’ll not let you leave with that attitude.”

“And those who come looking for me? Will you lock everyone away, one by one?” As he speaks, Asher limps nearer. His footfalls are staggered but determined and hurried, aided by a cane. He rounds the corner and stops short, face-to-face with me.

Instinct calls for me to spin circles, tail wagging, or to jump on him. Surely, the latter would be met with more disapproval than before now that I weigh as much as he does. His curiosity sweeps across me. As Nabal appears behind him and calls me by name, Asher’s gray-green eyes widen.

I step toward him, but he stumbles back. The wardens grab me.

Asher’s glare whips to his grandfather. “Mar? What did you do to him?”

“If the great prodigy can’t figure it out, why should I tell him?”

Asher frowns, but Nabal grins.

With a snap of his fingers, he summons another subordinate to his side. “Bring Brute to the arena. I’d like my grandson to meet him.”

As the lackey nods and takes off, my heart sinks to my toes, frozen and heavy with dread. More wardens seize Asher, and I growl.

“Who would you like to bet on, Mar?” Nabal asks. I don’t know if he intends for Brute’s opponent to be me or Asher, but either scenario is unacceptable. Asher is alive, and I’ll keep him that way.

I slam into the warden on my right, and he hits the rough granite wall with a cry. Ripping free of his grasp, I kick his comrade into the opposite wall and lunge at Asher’s captors. I take one to the floor with me as a lightning staff swings over my head. The man I pin slides a knife from his sleeve, and I bash his hand against the stone floor. The granite chips, the weapon bends, and the man’s hand breaks. He cries as I leap at my next target and grab the handle of a lightning staff.

The first two wardens rise and plague Asher. He swats at them with his cane, holding his own. It’s like his fencing lessons, only his left leg can barely support him.

I tackle one of his foes from behind and sink my teeth into his shoulder, evoking an ear-splitting scream. Before we hit the ground, Brute crushes us against the wall. The warden is out before he can acknowledge the pain of whatever broke. I’m not alright either.

The smells of blood and anger clog my nose. Brute’s teeth clamp into my right forearm. I claw at his face, kick at his gut and chest, but he bites down harder, head shaking as he drags me away from the wall. A solid kick to his jaw gains my freedom, but it doesn’t do my arm any favors.

Asher aims a captured pistol at Nabal. “Call them off!”

Brute is on me again. He is big, too tall to stand erect in this hallway. Combining his size, strength, and experience, I won’t survive a direct battle with him.

Squirming free of his hold, I cling to his back and search for Asher in this chaos. I find him at the wrong moment. A knife in his chest, he crumples to the floor. It’s me who screams.

A lightning staff stabs between my shoulder blades. I leap away, trying to run to Asher, but another staff burns my side, and I fall. Another strike finds me, then another, until I can’t feel them anymore.

Continued in chapter 8

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