The Guardians - Between the Worlds (Book 2)

After Lily has explained Brook about the Dragon’s Sign, she was looking in a different way at her. She had sworn to keep it a secret and to support her no matter what she decided. When Lily was stepping in the hallways, the Guardians were looking up to her now. They admired her. The office was hers, for Tamara didn’t set foot in there since Lily was elected a leader.

Lily liked to spend time in the office because she was thinking of a very ingenious plan, which she hadn’t shared with anyone. After she had lived in the battle with the monsters, she had decided to show Dean that she wasn’t a child, like he had thought. She was the Great Guardian and, secretly, the Marked One. The blood of her ancestors made history flow through her veins, and she was so proud of it.

When her lips sensually touch the wine glass, she hears a beat in the door. She doesn’t wince like she used to do, and she remains to stare out on the window.

“Come in”, she finally says.

Tamara walks inside wearing high heels on the floor that’s shining from cleaning. It’s a smell of burned in the office, and she looks suspiciously around.

“Sit down”, says Lily pouring her some wine.

“It’s burning something in here.”

“Yes, I know. I’ve burned some stuff”, Lily replies lifting the metallic cover from the bin.

“Oh, put it back!” says Tamara waving disturbed by the smoke.

“Can you guess why I called you in here?”

“I don’t have the smallest idea.”

Lily smiles with the corner of her mouth, but not too much, so she won’t betray her intentions. Her look is cold, and she calmly touches the glass with her nails.

“You shouldn’t have stepped back. This was and it continues to be your office too. You were here before me. I need someone wise as my right hand, and I will step on my pride and say what I never thought I would say. The only thing Dean was right about was leaving you in charge of this place.”

“I don’t want to be the one who takes the decisions anymore. If you want to, I will guide and give you advice.”

“Partners?”

“Partners”, says Tamara and shakes hands with Lily.

Under the tough woman mask that Lily was wearing now, some sparks appear in her eyes.

“I think that we’ve waited enough for a message from Dean. It’s clear that he has made his decision. Now it’s my turn to react, and I will never agree to dance how Leonor and that Ray monkey guy are playing.”

“They said that other Bases have joined them.”

“So, how do we find out what are the Bases that support them?”

Tamara puts her brain at tough work, and the years of experience next to Zoltan seem to be helpful.

“Zoltan had people infiltrated in the Bases. All we have to do is to send an energetic message to every Base. When we will get the answer, I will know if that Base was affected or not by Leonor, because I know the way the ones who are on their side reply.”

“See? We’re partners for a reason.”

“What are you planning?”

“To send messages for now. When we will get the answers, we will know who we have on our side. Who fights for freedom is welcomed to join us. We will get the Bases together. We will do what we always wanted to do.”

“And what if Leonor has corrupted all of them already? What if they plan to destroy us already?”

“I will still stand against her. Who wants to join me, very well. And I won’t force the ones who don’t believe in my odds to come with me. But, in a way or another, I will be the one who will kill Leonor, even if I have to pay the price. And I strongly believe that if she had the means to destroy us, she would have done it by now. She’s waiting for something.”

Tamara feels shivers when she hears her speaking. Something’s changed inside this being, for she doesn’t seem to be the fragile and innocent girl she had known for such a long time.

“Is it right that this is not only about killing Leonor and bringing the justice among the Guardians?”

“What are you saying?”

“It’s something more. You’ve changed.”

“Of course that I’ve changed. People grow up, learn from their mistakes, and don’t repeat the old ones.”

“Was Dean really a mistake?”

Lily doesn’t answer. She takes a sip of wine instead.

“Silence is an answer too.”

“I don’t want to talk about what I’ve lived with him. I’m getting sick when I’m thinking that I believed all his lies. How can a person act for so long? But let’s talk about something else”, says Lily clearing her voice.

Behind her tough voice was still hiding the pain. She was still wondering sometimes why did things turned out that way, why her soul needed to be pulled through mud, and her heart broken so many times and in so many ways so she could finally be who she was today.

Tamara doesn’t talk about that anymore, but she’s experienced enough to read between the lines, and she feels the pain from her voice. Lily’s thoughts are well fortified, so no one could ever read them again.

“I will take care of the messages tonight. What I will do is to send them as they were from another Base, so they won’t figure us out if they already are on Leonor’s side.”

“I thank you for everything, Tamara.”

When Lily answers her sincerely, her eyes have a bright yellow spark, and they make Tamara fearful.

“You haven’t talked about what happened to you.”

“I don’t know either.”

“You died under our eyes. And then you just got up without a scratch and started killing all the monsters around. You flew, for God’s sake! Your eyes started shining!”

“And this is how I left Lily the child behind”, she replies coldly.

Tamara stops asking questions because she starts feeling a little afraid of Lily. She realizes that something more had happened there with her, but she was grateful that she had saved all of them from slaughter. They were too few Guardians to face an attack, so they needed a bigger number of fighters.

Lily leaves Tamara in the office to send the messages, and she goes straight to Isaac’s room. She meets Addison and Alice on her way there, and they don’t throw her mean looks anymore, but curious, just like the rest of the Guardians. They both avoid her because they are afraid too somehow. Alice is ashamed too, for since Lily had practically given up her life to save Isaac, throwing him into her arms, she hadn’t even asked her how she was feeling.

“Girls, a word?” she asks them when she catches their eyes.

They approach her, and Alice begins to talk with a husky voice.

“Sure.”

“Alice, we haven’t spoken lately, and I realize that for a certain reason you started hating me. Maybe that Addison had a certain influence…”

“I don’t…” says Alice, but Lily covers her up.

“… on you, but I want you to know that I understood you somehow. You are attracted to Isaac and you didn’t think it was fair what I did to him. Believe me, it wasn’t easy for me, and I know that it wasn’t the right thing to do. But I respect the fact that you put yourself at risk and you pulled him out of there, keeping him alive. I am grateful for that.”

Alice remains speechless, while Lily turns her eyes at Addison.

“And you, even you want to be the biggest bitch, I heard that you were among the people who shot at the monsters when they had surrounded me. I don’t know what made you do that thing, but I thank you for it.”

“Why are you so nice to me after all the tensions between us?” asks Addison.

“People change. After all, we’re all fighting the same battle here. There’s no need to create tensions between us now. It’s time to look beyond our pride and to prepare for what’s next, for we need to be united.”

Addison looks skeptical at her, thinking that there must be something more in the meaning of her words. Lily hears her thoughts and barely keeps herself from laughing. She walks away from them, under Alice’s insecure look, who would wish to explain a lot more to her. But she has no idea that Lily has already been inside her mind, and that she was controlling this power very good, especially when the person’s psyche was low.

Lily finds Isaac on the large balcony, leaning on the edge of the railing. He turns around when he hears her shoes on the floor. He has in front of him a new image. A Lily dressed up in black, in the Guardian’s suit, her hair tied up in a tail at the back, but it still shines when the rays of sun come across it. So do the eyes, which let some yellow sparks escape from time to time.

She puts her hands on his shoulders and uses a faded smile to cover the tough appearance.

“Are you okay?”

“You started asking me this too often”, he says.

“You are the only person who I have left, besides Brook. Really, I mean. And you’re the only family I have. Of course that I ask you.”

“You know my answer. What about you?”

“The same.”

“I would like you to talk to me about what happened up there.”

“Someday, when I will understand myself, I will tell you. I promise.”

“I will remember this promise.”

“All that I can tell you is that Lily the childish one has remained somewhere up there. The demons probably killed her.”

“I see. I have in front of me a woman who knows what she wants. And I feel terrible that you have grown up so fast.”

Isaac would have wanted to say more, to blame Dean for Lily’s twisted change, but he knows that he won’t make her any good, so he comes down to only thinking it.

“Why did you always choose that wretch who destroyed your innocence? I look at you and I see a tormented soul, a heart full of vengeance, a cold face, and I want to see him in front of me so I could show him how much damage he has done, to teach him a lesson, for I can’t stand seeing you destroyed because of him. But, regarding all of these, I still love you and I will always have your back.”

“I love you too”, Lily says putting her palms on his face.

“How…”

Lily smiles more than usual, and she kisses him on his cheek. Their eyes meet, and they both feel like they’re looking in the mirror. Lily had heard his thoughts, and she was amused when she saw him struggling for him, but especially when he thought about kicking Dean’s ass and threatening him.

“I know that you’ll always have my back. I will have yours too.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t take this so seriously. Honestly, what you did back then…”

“It’s passed. And I will do it again, anyway”, she says.

Isaac puts his arms around her neck. It’s quiet now, and they’re both looking in the horizon. The silence before the storm. Lily feels at peace anyway, in the arms of the only man she feels that she can trust in this world, and who she loves with all her soul. She puts her fingers tight around his waist, for she never wants to let him go again. Somewhere deep in her soul, she regrets her past choices, but she thanks them anyway, for she wouldn’t have wanted to get further than she already had with her own brother. She believes that everything happens for a reason, and she’s thinking deeply in silence at her plan against Leonor and, at the same time, against Dean, for she hates him with all her heart for the humiliation he had put her through, but she loves him equally as he hates him, without admitting this truth even for herself.

But a humiliated and hurt woman is one who plans the best revenge. And Lily doesn’t stop here, and she wants it all or nothing, and she’s ready to put her life at stake to prove the man who has believed she was a child that she is capable of doing much more than he had thought. So, she feels invincible when she looks ahead next to Isaac, and she sighs long, in the pale light of the sunset, which was taking away with it her last thoughts of that day.

At the same sunset looks Dean as well, from the office of what’s about to be the next Unity, which was promising the change of the Guardian’s World. Next to him, Ray and Leonor are tasting some alcohol, with their pleased faces by the choices they had made.

“We already have five”, says Ray proudly.

“Then let’s drink for it”, speaks Leonor.

“For many allies.”

“So be it.”

While they’re drinking for a new beginning, Dean tastes the last drop of red wine, which brings back too many memories. His green look mirrors an ocean of memories when the sun finally sets. Only the office where they’re standing now has a view outside, for the rest of the Base is under total control. Metallic walls and Guardians controlled by chips. And Leonor thinks that’s a huge accomplishment.

Dean looks like a cold soldier, careless, sitting stone cold and without a reaction at the bad joked of the two so-called leaders. He feels the light on his face, lets it flow through his thoughts, and walks outside on the small balcony created especially for them.

They’re breathing the same air, looking at the same sunset, sending each other feelings and tensions, without even being aware of that. Something’s changed though, a thing that Dean notices fast enough. When he looks in front of him, in the direction where the Redfeed Base is, the sky looks gray. He gulps, remembering the blue from Lily’s eyes, and he realizes that a part of the blue of the sky was stolen from her eyes. But he has no idea what had happened with her, that their blue was lost among yellow sparks, sparks that were going to face him and show him that she wasn’t the child he used to know.

When she was looking back, Lily saw herself as a scared and insecure girl, but a brave one. Now she saw a woman when she was walking down the hallways of the Base she was leading. She was thinking differently, feeling differently, analyzing things differently. The experiences between the worlds had changed her a lot, but more have changed her the ones she lived in this world. And she was grateful for the bad things, for they had helped her to become what she was now. But was it right? Lily, the innocent one, has been lost on the road, making room for a vengeful and angry Lily, who was controlling these feelings carefully, balancing them in a certain way.

She knows well that the day she had stopped crying was the day she had freed her soul. The day she had decided that she was enough for herself, and she was perfectly capable of proving this. She is proud when she sees Lysa and Jasmine running on the corridors, and they are the only ones who can steal a large smile from her.

“Lily, what do you think about the ones who leave?” asks Lysa, pointing at a little boy who was walking away from Jasmine after an argument.

Lily laughs and bends near Lysa.

“The strong ones never leave, even if they realize they’re wrong. The weak ones run and never look back”, answers Lily with a sea of memories in front of her eyes.

“Boys walk away”, completes Jasmine when she arrives near them. “Real men stay. This is what my mother used to say.”

The two girls walk to the fountain in the middle of the hall holding hands.

“Do they remind you of something?” asks Brook surprising Lily.

“Of us. Only that we make our blood bond, while they already have it.”

“When something is made to stay, it resists regarding the obstacles.”

“I’m glad that you stayed by my side”, says Lily.

“Always.”

Past, present, and future. Lysa and Jasmine, Lily and Brook, and Artemis with Tamara watching over them from the upper floors. They were all different stages of life, without even knowing the view they created from a distance. They all had learned the same lesson though, but ones earlier than others: the day that breaks your soul is the day that makes you who you really are.

Regarding these, there was only one of them with dancing demons and dragons in her eyes, on shining yellowish notes just like the dragon’s blood, killing in her mind every single person who would have stood against her. Lily Hunt, the Great Guardian, the Marked One and, the newest, the chosen leader of Redfeed Base.

The End of Volume II