The Last Alignment: Cry of the Scorpions (3 page)

“
You know why,” said
Victor. “We didn’t want them to know about what we had to do, all
that we went through, and all that we’ve seen. We hoped to never
have to tell them anything until later because we figured they
wouldn’t have a need to know. It was felt by everyone to be the
best way to go.”

“
And now, they will in all
probability face worse than any of you ever have. Judgment making
at its finest,” Hektor said peevishly.

“
I know, Hektor. I know,”
said Victor kindly. “But, you have to remember-”

“
You all thought that I
was gone and that it was over. I understand. I may not agree with
the decision, but I regrettably understand.” Hektor suppressed his
anger and irritation. He learned centuries ago that trying to
protect people from their destinies by keeping them on a “need to
know” basis was disadvantageous in the end. It always ended with
the untold coming out in an undesirable way which shook any trust
that previously existed. On top of that, they were sixteen which
meant that complication was unavoidable once they learned their
history and what they must now do. “I…”

Hektor lost his train of thought and
squinted at the porch floor. An image of a scorpion carved in stone
fleetingly flashed in his mind, and then he noticed that a gold
band was now on his left ring finger that hadn’t been there before.
He looked up to see Victor staring at him concernedly and decided
to move on to his second objective to skirt around the moment. “We
have to take care of Justine.”

“
I would like to do that
alone if you don’t mind.” There was a distinct drop in Victor’s
voice. “I know you loved her too, but I need to do this on my own.
I’ll contact Ravi and the rest of my Alignment afterwards. I
promise.” Reluctant, Hektor nodded his assent and turned to go back
inside of his house. “I have more questions as I’m sure you do,”
Victor called at his back, “but that can wait. We’ll have plenty of
time to talk. At the moment, I think it’s more imperative that you
sleep and work on getting your strength back so that we can get
things in order here. If tonight was any indication, you’ll have to
start training them soon.”

“
I know. Before her
birthday, I think.” With that, Hektor left Victor on his patio and
gratefully retreated to his comfortable but doubtlessly unhygienic
bedroom.

Chapter
2

Awbrey

She sat at her cluttered desk with her legs
crossed while lightly running a ballpoint pen across the tops of
her bottom row of teeth. She was required to write an eight-page
essay on a book that was assigned to her a week ago by her honors
literature class that was due on the first day back at school. Even
though she was still in full-blown summer-mode, Awbrey went ahead
and read the book but hadn’t bothered with the essay until that
afternoon. It was now early evening and she had only managed to
squeeze out three pages, unsure of what else she could write.
Awbrey supposed that she could go back and “fluff” it up a bit, but
she hated having a bunch of meaningless crap in her papers that
served the sole purpose of making them longer.

“
Fuck it,” she said
passively as she set her pen in her lap. Awbrey impatiently typed
up a quick conclusive paragraph that barely extended her assignment
to four pages and was about to open her cell phone when she heard a
distant shout. She stood up, tossed her phone onto her bed, and
then quietly walked over to her open bedroom door to stick her head
out. Once she realized who was doing the shouting, she quickly made
her way down the hallway and tiptoed down the stairs, careful to
avoid all of the ones that creaked. The bellowing was coming from
the kitchen, so Awbrey snuck over to the door and pressed her left
ear against it even though there wasn’t a need to.

“
O’Ryann, it was
your
responsibility to
tell her the same way it was your mother’s responsibility to tell
you! You should be the one, not Oren!………I can’t! It’s not my place!
This is probably the one thing that I can’t be the mother
and
the father
with!..........What do you mean you’re too
busy?! With what?! This is the type of thing that you make
time to do, you asshole! Do you realize what this means for your
daughter? Just think back to-”

Click
.

“
Awbrey
!”

“
Mother.”

Hallie’s face was flushed with anger as her
chest rose and fell; Awbrey had walked into the kitchen, snatched
the phone, and then slammed it down onto its base. Awbrey, on the
other hand, was calm as she returned her mother’s identical bright
blue-eyed gaze. There had been a little surprise in her mom’s voice
when she yelled, but Awbrey overlooked it assuming that she must
have scared her. The only reason she interfered was because she
heard Hallie curse; Awbrey considered her mother to be the epitome
of class and strength, so hearing her speak like that provoked her
from her post of eavesdropping.

“
Why do you keep arguing
with him like that? It’s been twelve years, but over the last few
days you two have been fighting like you’re still married,” Awbrey
complained. Ordinarily she would never spy or sneak around, but
over the past week Hallie had been acting odd and refused to tell
Awbrey why. She took to trying to listen in on her mother’s
conversations whenever she was on the phone, although Awbrey never
got any information from them until just now and was surprised to
learn that whatever the issue was, it had something to do with
her.

“
This is a very different
situation, love,” her mother apologized. “This isn’t one of those
things where I can just let it go and allow your father to not be
held accountable.” Hallie was shaking as she spoke. “Of all the
times for him to step up and be who he’s supposed to be, you would
think he would find it in himself to rise to the occasion with
this.”

“
Well, what is it? What
does Grandma need to tell me that Dad won’t?” Out of nowhere, tears
swarmed Hallie’s eyes and so Awbrey sat down in a chair next to her
and draped her long red hair over her shoulder. Aside from Hallie
being a brunette and she a ginger, the two had a startling
resemblance that Awbrey loved. She completely and utterly idolized
her mother and it was because of this adoration that Awbrey was now
fighting back the urge to cry herself. “What is wrong with you,”
she asked placing a hand on her mother’s arm, but then she wished
she hadn’t because Hallie had started sobbing. Awbrey quickly got
up and grabbed a roll of paper towels off of the counter. “Here,”
she said ripping one off and handing it to her. Hallie took it and
then buried her face in it in an attempt to quiet herself
down.
Okay
,
Awbrey thought, refusing to tear up.
Enough is enough
. Empathy was in no
shortage when it came to her mom and while it hurt her to see and
hear Hallie weeping, how could she sympathize with something that
she knew nothing about? She had her moments, but she wasn’t that
dramatic. “Mom, I can only ask but so many times what the deal is,”
Awbrey said nicely.

Hallie took a deep breath, lowered her paper
towel, and rested her head in her palm. “You’ll know what’s going
on when you get there.”

“
Where is ‘there?’ Wait,
are we going to Grandma’s,” asked Awbrey. “You do know that school
starts tomorrow and that it’s a four hour drive to her house,
right?” Awbrey couldn’t say that she enjoyed going to Vancent E.
Redding High School so she was happy to prolong having to return
for her junior year, but her mother was huge on education and
perfect attendance, so much so that Awbrey hadn’t missed a single
day of school since the fourth grade. Doctors’ appointments,
dentist visits, and the like all took place over weekends for as
long as Awbrey could remember. And yet, here was Hallie. Not only
allowing her to miss a day, but the very first one. “Mom, what
exactly is going on? Why can’t you just tell me and be done with
it?”

“
Awbrey, you know my
policy on honesty,” Hallie said betraying some of her frustration.
“If I could tell you…if I could properly explain things to you and
answer any questions you would ask, then I would. But I can’t, and
it really isn’t my place. Your grandmother can tell you all you
need to know. Hudson will be there too.”

That last sentence was all that Awbrey
needed to hear and it clicked. “So, all of this is about our
powers?”

Her mother, seemingly hesitant, nodded but
didn’t look at her. Another question was at the tip of Awbrey’s
tongue, but she kept it in. Hallie said that she couldn’t explain
anything to her and she looked stressed enough as it was, so Awbrey
let it go. She looked down at the house phone; she could call her
father and ask what was going on, but knew that in the end it would
be stupid of her. She bit her bottom lip, thinking. Her mother
wasn’t crying over her father; that ship had sailed a long time
ago. That could only mean that Hallie was in tears over whatever
the information was that needed to be given to her, and that
information was related to her gift.

For a long time now, Awbrey wondered if
there was more. She found it farfetched that she, her father, and
her grandmother could all do the things that they could “just
because.” She felt like there must be something there, some type of
back story, and had pondered for what felt like ages how and why
they had the abilities that they did. But whenever Awbrey tried to
ask any questions, she was always either ignored or politely
brushed off and the subject was changed as if she hadn’t tried to
probe.

Oh
,
my gosh
,
Awbrey thought.
This is
it
.

Excitement started to build in her chest as
she thought about what it was that her grandmother was going to say
to her, and she couldn’t stop a smile from surfacing. “I’ll go and
get ready, then,” she said standing up, but not before brushing a
lock of hair off of Hallie’s face and tucking it behind her
ear.

Her mother, red-eyed, looked up at her and
gave a fake grin or the best one that she could muster. “Your
brother too, please. We need to leave as soon as possible.”

“
Yes, ma’am,” Awbrey said
leaving the kitchen.

She ran upstairs and knocked on her
brother’s door three times to let him know that it was her and then
gave a short pause before she pushed it open. Andrew was sitting on
his bed attempting to fix one of his toy airplanes with a small
tube of superglue. He looked up at her and smiled in
acknowledgement before turning his attention back to his
ornament.

“
Hey, you have to pack a
bag. We’re going to Grandma’s house for a couple of days,” Awbrey
spoke and signed at the same time. Andrew was mute and was a
spitting image of their father; handsome and hazel eyed, only
Andrew had blue rings around his pupils and brown hair like their
mother as opposed to the red hair of their father that Awbrey
inherited. Though Andrew couldn’t speak, he could hear perfectly
well, and while it was uncommon amongst mute people who could hear,
Andrew decided that he wanted to learn sign language as opposed to
having surgery, writing down what he wanted to say, or having to
mouth his words. Awbrey and Hallie both learned how to sign along
with him and while it was an unnecessary skill, Awbrey still
enjoyed communicating with Andrew that way because it was the most
comfortable for her younger brother. Plus, it was a way for them to
converse when they didn’t want anyone to know what they were
talking about which got them in trouble occasionally.

Andrew set his airplane on his bed beside
him looking concerned. “Why,” he signed back. “School starts
tomorrow. Is Grandma sick?”

“
No, Grandma is fine. Mom
isn’t,” Awbrey signed as she sat down next to him.

“
What is wrong with her? I
heard her yelling at Dad.”

“
I’ve asked her again and
again. She won’t tell me,” Awbrey said lying back across the foot
of Andrew’s bed. She loved looking at his ceiling mainly because
she had painted it and was very proud of her handiwork. Andrew
loved airplanes and everything else that had to do with flight, so
she painted his ceiling to look like a sky and then bought him
stuff to hang from it like birds, jets, skydivers, and other
toys.

“
I asked her a couple of
days ago if she was okay,” he signed turning to sit on his left
hip.

“
And?”

“
She grabbed me and hugged
the life out of me while she cried,” Andrew signed. “I couldn’t
handle it. I‘ve been avoiding her ever since.”

Awbrey snorted. “I’m not sure what’s making
her upset, but I know it has something to do with me. Oh, and
Hudson will be at Grandma’s house too.” Andrew brightened up at
this news. Hudson was Awbrey’s best friend and had been ever since
she could remember. He and Andrew were also close; he served as the
big brother that Awbrey couldn’t be.

“
So, this has to do with
the both of you,” Andrew signed before jumping up and opening one
of his dresser drawers.

“
Yeah,” said Awbrey. “It’s
about our powers, but Mom won’t spill or give me any information.
She says that Grandma needs to be the one tell me.”

“
Go and get ready,” he
signed smiling. Andrew threw one of his backpacks onto his bed
almost hitting Awbrey in the stomach, and then he carried over an
assortment of clothes which he untidily shoved inside of it. “I
want to know what’s going on too.”