“So, what does that mean?” Parrish asked.
“It means this goes further than just being put here to save this world,” Karmen said. “It means there’s at least one other entire world full of people that are counting on us to keep them safe, too. Our real home world.”
Parrish took a deep breath, the sudden weight of this impossible responsibility falling on her shoulders. She wasn’t sure why, but she knew that she was supposed to be the one leading this group. She obviously wasn’t equipped for it. She’d never been a leader.
She was an outcast, at best.
And seriously, this was the last hope of two worlds and billions of people? A room full of confused teenagers?
They were screwed.
“Did we wake you up?” Crash asked, his eyes on Karmen.
She shook her head. “I couldn’t really sleep with everything that’s going on,” she said, squeezing Parrish’s arm. “What are we going to do next? And please tell me it doesn’t still involve going to New York City? Because we already had that conversation, and I want to make it clear that I have absolutely no intention of walking into the most obvious trap in the history of the world. Especially not now.”
“I have to go,” Parrish said, her voice catching in her throat. She knew as well as anyone else how stupid it seemed. Having hope in a situation like this.
And how was she supposed to explain why she was willing to risk everything to get to her sister? Everyone in this room had lost their families and their closest friends. What was one more sister?
But to Parrish, it felt like the most important thing of her entire life. Or maybe all her lifetimes.
Zoe was too good for this. She didn’t deserve to die alone. If there was even a small chance Parrish could save her, she had to try. Even if she had to do it alone.
Even if she died in the process.
What that meant for the fate of the world, she didn’t know, but right now, saving Zoe was the only thing that made any sense to her.
They all sat in silence for a moment, Parrish’s words hanging between them.
But then, something strange happened.
Crash began to hum.
But it wasn’t just any song you’d hear on the radio. It was one of Zoe’s songs. The one she’d played that night Parrish and Noah lay on the grass outside the window. The night the infected man had passed out in Parrish’s front yard.
“How do you know that song?” she asked.
Crash raised an eyebrow, as if he hadn’t even been aware he was humming. “Oh, uh... hmm.” He seemed to think it over for a minute before he finally said, “I think I must have been dreaming about it. I actually don’t think I’ve heard this song before tonight, but some part of it has gotten stuck in my head.”
Parrish’s arms erupted in goosebumps. With Crash, a dream was never just a dream. It had to mean something.
“What else can you remember?”
He closed his eyes and hummed more of the tune.
Handel. She’d heard Zoe play it so many times, she had it memorized. It was one of the violin solos Zoe played at auditions.
“Someone in a dark room,” Crash said softly, turning his head as if to see it again in his mind’s eye. “A child, I think. Playing as lightly and softly as possible.”
“Zoe,” Parrish gasped, suddenly noticing that the stone in her hand had grown warm. “What else do you remember? Is Lily there? Or the Dark One?”
He shook his head and opened his eyes. “I can’t explain it, but I feel like someone is watching out for her,” he said. “I don’t know how this makes any sense. I’ve never dreamed of anyone besides Tobias, the three of you, and the fifth. Why would I be dreaming of your sister?”
“I don’t know,” she said, holding back tears. “But maybe it’s another sign that she really is alive, like Lily said.”
“Maybe it’s good that none of us could sleep,” Noah said. “We need to decide what we’re going to do, because once we get back to Tank’s, we might not have a chance to talk in private. So, this is our chance. No one has to go to New York if they don’t want to go. You can stay with Tank, where it’s safe, and there will be no hard feelings. But I think we all know that we have a greater responsibility here than just surviving.”
“I never asked for that responsibility,” Karmen said, sitting up taller. “Why can’t we just stay safe and let someone else deal with it all?”
Parrish squeezed her friend’s hand. She was starting to understand that despite Karmen’s words, she didn’t actually intend to sit back and do nothing. She was just afraid.
Parrish was afraid, too, but that didn’t change what they needed to do.
“Maybe you did ask for it,” Parrish said. “In another lifetime. I think at some point, a very long time ago, we chose this for ourselves. I think we gave up everything to do this, and now it’s our job to see it through.”
Karmen swiped at a tear falling down her cheek.
“Well, I want a do-over,” she said, a small laugh simultaneously joining her tears.
“I don’t think we’re going to get that,” Parrish said. “But maybe whatever sacrifice we made all those years ago can still mean something.”
She met Noah’s eyes across the darkness of the room, and his expression and understanding nearly took her breath away. Yes, they had given up everything to be here, and now it was time to make good on whatever promise they’d made when they first came to this world.
“Okay, so where do we start?” Crash asked.
Parrish leaned forward and placed the fatalis stone in the center of their makeshift circle. Four of its five sides were clearly lit from within by some type of magical power.
“We start with this,” she said. “Somehow, this is what started it all, and I have a feeling that
