Beautiful Chaos

Hybrid

I was standing on the top of the white water tower, with my back to the sun. My headless shadow fell across the warm, painted metal, disappearing off the edge and into the sky.

I’M WAITING.

There he was. My other half. The dream staggered on like a movie I’d seen so many times that I started to cut and recut it myself, as it erupted into flashes—

Hard hitting.

Chucks kicking.

Deadweight.

Falling…

“Ethan!”

I rolled out of my bed and landed on my bedroom floor.

“No wonder Incubuses keep showing up in your room. You sleep like the dead.” John Breed was standing over me. From where I was lying, he looked twenty feet tall. He also looked like he could kick my ass better than I had been kicking my own in my dream.

It was a weird thought. But what came next was weirder.

“I need your help.”

John was sitting in the chair at my desk, which I had started to think of as the Incubus chair.

“I wish you guys could figure out some way to sleep.” I pulled my faded Harley Davidson shirt over my head. Ironic, considering I was sitting across from John.

“Yeah. That’s not really an option.” He stared up at my blue ceiling.

“Then I wish you could figure out that the rest of us need to—”

John cut me off. “It’s me.”

“What?”

“Liv told me everything. The One Who Is Two guy—it’s me.”

“Are you sure?” I wasn’t even sure I believed him.

“Yeah. I figured it out today at your aunt’s funeral.”

I glanced at the clock. He should have said yesterday, and I should’ve been asleep. “How?”

He got up and paced across the room. “I always knew it was me. I was born to be two things. But at the funeral, I knew this was something I had to do. I felt it, when the Seer was talking.”

“Amma?” I knew Aunt Prue’s funeral had been emotional for my family, the whole town really, but I hadn’t expected it to affect John. He wasn’t part of either of those things. “What do you mean, you always knew?”

“It’s my birthday tomorrow, right? My Eighteenth Moon.” He didn’t sound too happy about it, and I couldn’t blame him. Considering it was bringing on the end of the world and everything.

“Do you know what you’re saying?” I still didn’t trust him.

He nodded. “I’m supposed to make the trade, like the Demon Queen said. My pathetic screwed-up experiment of a life for a New Order. I almost feel bad for the universe. I’m getting a bargain. Except for the fact that I won’t be around to see it.”

“But Liv will,” I said.

“Liv will.” He dropped back down in the chair, holding his head in his hands.

“Damn.”

He looked up. “Damn? That’s the best you can come up with? I’m ready to lay down my life here.”

I almost couldn’t imagine what was going through his mind—what would make a guy like him willing to die. Almost.

I knew what it felt like to be willing to sacrifice yourself for the girl you loved. I was going to do the same thing at the Great Barrier, when we faced Abraham and Hunting. At Honey Hill, when we faced the fires and Sarafine. I would have died for Lena a thousand times over.

“Liv’s not going to be happy.”

“No. She’s not,” he agreed. “But she’ll understand.”

“I think things like this are pretty hard to understand. And I’ve been trying for a while now.”

“You know what your problem is, Mortal?”

“The end of the world?”

John shook his head. “You think too much.”

“Yeah?” I almost laughed.

“Trust me. Sometimes, you gotta trust your gut instincts.”

“So, what does your gut want me to do?” I said it slowly, without looking at him.

“I didn’t know until I got here.” He walked over to me and grabbed my arm. “The place you were dreaming about. The big white tower. That’s where I need to go.”

Before I could tell him what I thought about him digging through my dreams, Incubus-style, I heard the rip and we were gone….

I couldn’t see John. I couldn’t see anything but darkness and a silver streak of widening light. When I stepped through, I heard the ripping sound again, and saw her face.

Liv was waiting for us on the top of the water tower.

She stormed toward us, furious. But she wasn’t looking at me. “Are you completely insane? Did you think I wouldn’t know what you were up to? Where you’d come?” She started to cry.

John stepped in front of me. “How did you know where I was?”

She waved a piece of paper in the air. “You left a note.”

“You left her a note?” I asked.

“It just said good-bye… and some other stuff. It didn’t say where I was going.”

I shook my head. “She’s Liv. You didn’t know she’d figure it out?”

She held up her wrist. The dials were practically exploding off her selenometer. “The One Who Is Two? You didn’t think I would instantly know it was you? If you hadn’t walked in on me writing about it, I would never have even told you.”

“Liv.”

“I’ve been trying to find a way around this for months now.” She closed her eyes.

He reached out for her. “I’ve been trying to find a way around you.”

“You don’t have to do this.” Liv shook her head, and John pulled her close against his chest, kissing her forehead.

“Yeah. I do. For once in my life, I want to be the guy who does the right thing.”

Liv’s blue eyes were red from crying. “I don’t want you to go. We only just—I never had a chance. We never had a chance.”

He put his thumb on her lip. “Shh. We did. I did.” He looked out into the night, but he was still talking to her. “I love you, Olivia. This is my chance.”

She didn’t respond, except for the tears running down her face.

He took a step toward me, pulling me up by the arm. “Take care of her for me, will you?”

I nodded.

He leaned closer. “If you hurt her. If you touch her. If you let anyone break her heart, I will find you and kill you. And then I’ll keep hurting you from the other side. Understand?”

I understood better than he knew.

He let go of me and took his jacket off. He handed it to Liv. “Keep it. To remember me by. And there’s something else.” He reached into one of the pockets. “I don’t remember my mother, but Abraham said this belonged to her. I want you to have it.” It was a gold bracelet with an inscription in Niadic, or some other Caster language only Liv would know how to read.

Liv’s knees buckled, and she started sobbing.

John held her so tight that the tips of her toes were barely touching the ground. “I’m glad I finally met someone I wanted to give it to.”

“Me, too.” She could barely speak.

He kissed her gently and stepped away from her.

He nodded at me.

And threw himself over the edge of the railing.

I heard her voice, echoing through the darkness. The Lilum.

The Balance is not paid.

Only the Crucible can make the sacrifice.