Chapter Twenty-Nine

When I opened them, I was floating above Merak. I could see the shimmer of RaCO from the lights that seemed to pop up like beacons in the middle of a large ocean. It was beautiful. I looked over and saw the Napoleon floating off in the distance. I closed my eyes and felt my body transport inside the ship.

When I opened them up, I saw the familiar white walls that I had been looking at not too long ago.

"Hello again," I mumbled to myself as I began to slowly walk through the hallways. I closed my eyes and thought about Marie. When I opened them, she was standing right in front of me.

"Hello Esadore. I see you've learned how to travel on Merak."

I ignore her statement. "Where is my medallion?"

"You don't need it."

"But I want it back. It's a part of me."

"Don't be silly. There is no need for the medallion up here. It simply became a part of your flesh."

My body didn't feel any different. I looked down at my torso. It didn't feel as if the medallion had become a part of me.

Marie shook her head and pointed her finger at me. "Esadore, the RaCO is inside of you. Once we landed back on Merak it became activated again and simply disappeared into your body. If you want your silly medallion, then you have it."

"Why did you really bring us back here?"

"To save Merak."

"Are you sure about that?"

"Yes. Completely. I know you've been talking with the Regency. I can see it on your face. Don't believe a word of what they have to say—"

"I don't believe a word that comes out of your mouth."

"Well, that's too bad for you. I'm telling you the truth. It's always been about coming back here and repopulating Merak to help provide extra support for when the Evil returns. It's headed this way. We know it will be here shortly and we are not ready."

"Of course we're not ready! I keep hearing about this so-called Evil thing coming towards the planet, but no one has really told us what we are facing. How can we prepare when we don't even know the true enemy."

Marie rubbed the base of her neck. Her eyes stayed locked on mine.

"What did you do to Aurora?"

"I took care of her when she needed family the most."

"What did you tell her about me?"

Marie paused. I could tell she was thinking about her next words. "You probably should let me talk with her first."

"What? Why?"

"Because she doesn't know anything about you."

My eyes narrowed as anger built up inside. "How does she not know anything about me?"

"The same way you didn't know about her—"

"What did you do to us?"

"It was to save us all. I couldn't have you worried about Theo and Aurora. It was already making you a very weak soldier. I needed you all to focus on our mission so that we could test the RaCO in human bodies to see if it would work. This has been my greatest accomplishment."

I stood my ground. She still hadn't answered my question and with each second, the silence made me grow more and more angry. "Marie, what did you tell Aurora about me?"

Her head snapped up. "Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Aurora didn't need to know about you. I only told her about the things I needed her to know."

"Like?"

"You will just need to talk with her yourself."

My body flew towards her as my hand reached out and grabbed her throat. I wanted to turn her body into ash just like what happened to Erik so that there would be no way for her to ever come back and hurt anyone else. I felt the electricity inside of my body grow stronger. It was the first time in a while that I had felt it at this level, but before I could grab onto her again, my body was pushed backwards towards one of the walls. The force caused a loud yelp to escape from my lips as my bones came into contact with the hard surface similar to what I had heard many dogs sound like when they had been injured.