Intrinsical - Lani Woodland [111]
Brent and I may not have been able to read each other’s minds anymore, but he could still tell from my expression what I was thinking. “It’s over, Yara. We won.”
I gulped; I had the overwhelming sensation that what we had done wasn’t enough. I’m not sure what I had expected, maybe a fairy tale ending where a magic wand fixed everything, including all the darkness we had been through.
But this was no fairy tale. Nothing could bring back the thirty boys that had died. Nothing could take away the grief that had torn their family’s hearts into shreds. Experiences like this, I realized, are wounds that never quite healed; they stayed with you and no amount of justice would erase the scar.
“Yara? Are you okay?” Brent asked, touching my shoulder gently. “So . . . your grandma’s necklace, huh?” I nodded. “Who
knew?’
“She did.”
“Yeah, she did.” Brent smiled. “She’s sort of my new hero.”
“Mine, too.”
I shook off my previously morbid thoughts and turned to him with a wan smile. He rocked back and forth on his feet as he chewed on one of his nails, contemplating me. We just stared at each other, there not being words profound enough to encompass what we had just done. It had changed us. I felt different, like I had gained something, but been robbed of something as well. In Brent’s eyes, there was a deeper maturity, a travel-worn wisdom and depth that flecked the brown of his eyes. It made him more rugged, more beautiful but at the same time it gave me a pang of sorrow to see.
“I guess we should get back to our bodies,” he offered.
“Yeah,” I agreed shuffling from foot to foot.
Cherie still stood on the edge of campus, frozen in time, her face showing the traces of fear she had been bravely trying to hide. Steve sat beside Brent’s vacant body. I dove back into my body, the familiar icy chill snapping over me as time started moving forward at a snail’s pace. Cherie and Steve began moving, each blink and action slow, like a stop-motion movie. Our times were still out of sync as I crossed the campus divide and grabbed Brent’s body under his armpits. Drag marks cut across the rocky path as I brought him across the barrier line. Brent reconnected with a luxurious sigh, like sinking into a warm bath.
“We did it,” I whispered to Cherie.
Steve sat upright, looking around in confusion before leaping at Brent and catching him in a chokehold in case I had failed.
Cherie jumped to see me no longer by her side but in front of her dusting myself off. “How? Oh . . . is it over?” Cherie asked. “Just like that? Did it work?” She sent a suspicious look to Brent who was yelling at Steve to let him go.
“Yeah, it’s really Brent now.” I answered, fingering my throat where my necklace should have been. The real necklace had snapped with its spirit-twin.
Steve released Brent with an apologetic grin and swatted him on the back with a manly grunt.
“Ugh.” Brent smacked his lips. “What did you give me to drink?”
“A vile concoction of whiskey laced with black licorice and Brazilian herbs,” Cherie said. “Yara’s grandma said alcohol was the best way to dissolve and mask the flavor of the herbs.” Then Cherie launched into the details of our plan, from her fight with Steve to the clandestine meetings with my sister.
“I knew I couldn’t trust you to not do anything stupid,” Brent said half-heartedly. “I think he stretched out my body, it feels different,” he complained lifting his arms and stretching his legs. “It wasn’t meant to house thirty souls.”
Cherie then threw her arms around my neck, hurling questions at me. She finally noticed my monosyllabic responses and got the message I wasn’t ready to talk. She rather conspicuously tugged Steve away, leaving Brent and me alone.
A heavy silence hung in the air but I didn’t feel the need to speak. I picked up the scattered pieces of my necklace, carefully rubbing them across my palm, wiping the dirt from them, and stuffing them in my pocket. Brent grasped the vial in his quivering hands, his head bent.
“You saved my life again,” he