Chapter Thirty

I hated her for many reasons. Right now, I hated her because she was stronger than me. I had always thought that I might be able to take her down, but who was I kidding. Theo's familiar face filled my thoughts. Instantly, my body was transported to standing near him.

He walked over towards me and looked at me holding onto my injured arm. "Where have you been?"

"With Marie."

"Why?"

"I was trying to find you."

He nodded. "It's very interesting how we can move. Did you know that they can move through time here, but it's not like how it was on Earth. Nothing has really ever changed. Since they are made out of RaCO, their lives have been the same for the past one hundred plus years."

"How do you suddenly know so much?"

"I was talking with my partner. What about you? Where is Erik?"

I pinched my lips together. Theo almost seemed intrigued by this place, but I had a completely different feeling. It felt like a prison. One that would be very difficult to escape. Nothing made sense here. "Erik is a pile of ash. Not everything has stayed the same over the years. There have been Meradors who have died and others who are now back to living thanks to our human shells."

"Good point," Theo said. "But, it's different. They don't jump back in time to save innocents or grab bodies—"

I looked around the space we were standing in when it dawned on me, Theo was standing alone. "Where's Aurora?"

"I don't know. She disappeared on me. Quite frankly, she's lucky I was off of my game because I would have let her know which of the two of us is stronger."

"How did she disappear?"

"She just left. One minute I was asking her about her life. The next she was gone and then you appeared."

My mind was racing. "Marie grabbed her. We were talking about Aurora and then I started thinking about you."

I paced back and forth trying to collect my thoughts. "Theo, did you tell her how we are connected?"

"No. I didn't have time. I decided to first understand where all she has been for the past few years. Apparently, she was at Artek. She remembers when Marie brought me to the facility."

"Did she tell you anything else?"

"Yeah, I hate to say this, but you need to be very careful around her. Aurora does not like you. In fact, she very clearly said that you were her number one target."

His words caused me to take a step back. "Why would she say that?"

"Probably, because your mother has fed her a bunch of lies."

I agreed with Theo. There was no doubt in my mind that Marie had poisoned Aurora's thoughts about me.

A large, round window on the far wall looked out onto a sea of RaCO. The substance gleamed under the pale light from the sun. Everything was darker on Merak. Off in the distance were several other large planets. I pointed at the closest one. "What planet is that?"

"It's not a planet. It's one of Merak's moons. It apparently has twenty-two moons. Isn't that incredible? Earth only has one moon, but this place has almost two dozen."

"Yeah, that's incredible."

"Esa, what are you thinking?"

"I'm just trying to figure out what all we have working in our favor. We need to start getting ready. The Evil is quickly approaching and I'm not sure who in this place we can really trust. Let's find the rest of the team."

Theo clapped his hands together. "I like this idea. Let's go."

We found Samuel and Audrina first. They were sitting inside what appeared to by their housing quarters. Audrina smiled. "I'm glad to see you guys again. Samuel, needs to tell you all something."

I nodded over at Samuel. "Good because we also have questions, but first let's go get Luther and Gave."

"Give me a couple of seconds," Samuel said as he disappeared and almost instantly returned with our two remaining team members.

"What's going on?" Gave asked. "What am I missing?"

"Let's all sit down. We need to talk," I motioned towards the series of couches off to theside. Each of them followed my lead and sat down.