The Paradox Read online

  Dad is quiet for a moment, then finally he exhales again.

  “Are her parents home?”

  “No. I mean, they were. They left for work, first thing this morning. Gone before we woke up.”

  “And Loki?”

  “Safe. He’s with me, drinking in all the extra attention and enjoying endless doggie treats as we speak. He’s probably in doggie heaven. They have an English mastiff, so the treats are like five times bigger than the little chewies we give him at home.”

  Mel gives me a thumbs-up and Ya-Ya looks at me, unimpressed. Behind her, Jinx is on his phone, Sunday is yawning, and Grace is nowhere to be found. Only Rye is watching me, hanging onto my conversation as if I am actually saying something worth listening to. The intensity in his eyes tells me this isn’t over.

  “Just come home as soon as you can. And Sailor?” Dad adds.

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t ever do this again.”

  “I promise I—” I start but Dad interrupts.

  “We will discuss this face-to-face. I have another call coming in and I need to alert the authorities that you are okay. Just come home and try to stay out of trouble. Love you.”

  He hangs up and I drop the phone into my lap, sighing in relief. While my head is still spinning, and nothing is making sense, at least I know my dad is no longer worrying himself sick over whether or not I am alive or being turned into someone’s lampshade in a crazy underground murder bunker.

  Okay, maybe my dad was right. Maybe I do have an overactive imagination. But that might be a good thing. It might be why I can listen to all of the crazy talk around me and not go completely insane.

  “That had to be the most vanilla conversation I have ever been granted free access to. Thank you, Sailor. You are officially the most boring human I have met,” Jinx says as he plops down beside me.

  I ignore his jab. My head is too full to worry about what some stranger thinks. Ya-Ya picks at a cuticle. Grace goes away again and returns with a tray of cookies and a pitcher of water, while Mel and Sunday take a seat in a pair of recliners, picking up PS4 controllers and turning on the big system. Are they seriously going to game at a time like this? My world is crashing down and they are going to play video games?

  “Not now,” Rye orders, before they even get past the loading screen. “And if you even think about sitting here wasting time playing, I will destroy that console.”

  “Great. As if eternity with your ugly face isn’t punishment enough, you would take away the one good thing humans created.”

  Sunday puts down his controller and crosses his arms. Mel follows suit. So, I was definitely right earlier. Rye is the leader. They all snap to attention under his command.

  Mel and Sunday seem a bit goofy, Grace is very motherly, and I can’t quite figure out Jinx and Ya-Ya. Plus, Aziza just seems to think I am more of an inconvenience than whatever the others seem to think I am. And they think I will save the world? Who are they kidding?

  I jump up and call for Loki.

  “I think this whole thing has been a huge misunderstanding. I can’t possibly be the Paradox or the one to save, well, anything really. So, thank you for saving my life and washing my clothes. But I’m going home. You heard my dad. He needs me, we just moved here, and I am about to start my senior year, so I really can’t be involved in whatever this is. So, bye.”

  “No, Sailor, wait,” Rye starts.

  Jinx, Sunday, and Ya-Ya all start talking at me in unison.

  “Please, just stay. Have a cookie and some water. It’s not going to take too long to explain,” Grace adds, but even she has concern in her eyes that doesn’t give me a lot of confidence.

  Aziza doesn’t say anything or even try to jump in.

  “Aziza, a little help please?” Rye insists.

  She rolls her eyes and squares off at me.

  “You should stay, but I don’t think it will really matter.”

  “Aziza!” Rye snaps.

  I am already almost to the door when Mel’s soft voice stops me.

  “Look, Sailor, if you let us tell you everything, all that we know, and you still don’t think you can be a part of this, okay. You will be free to go. But, just, please, at least let us explain before you walk out that door.”

  My curiosity gets the better of me and I know I can’t just go now. Not without a full explanation. Isn’t that what I’ve been begging for since the demon in the forest? Isn’t this exact scenario what I’ve been begging for my whole damn life?

  I reluctantly turn back to Mel and give her a small, silent nod. She smiles and I move back to the center of the room. After a few brief glances around the room, we all seem to both stiffen and relax; it’s honestly the strangest sensation. Like, we don’t really want to be here together, but we also don’t want to leave this spot. Something big is about to happen, or so the tingles in my fingers seem to be saying.

  “Anything you want to say before I jump in, Rye?” Mel asks.

  He shakes his head and retreats from the room. My heart drops. I was really hoping he’d be here. I tell myself to get a grip, stop acting like such a flake, and listen to what the group has to tell me.

  “The first thing you need to know is that the supernatural world does in fact exist,” Mel begins.

  “Yeah, got that part,” I reply as I flash back to the fight in the forest.

  Trust me, that is forever imprinted in my brain.

  “Beings with powers are actually known as Avo. Some Avo look like humans while others look like creatures from a Brothers Grimm novel. But what they all have in common is that they have special abilities. The most powerful of all Avo are the gods. They reside in Mensa, the hidden city. In Mensa there are gods from all different faiths and belief systems. There has been a long-standing argument among the gods as to the fate of humans. Half of the gods thought humans were selfish, a self-centered race that never learned from their mistakes. The other half were more sympathetic and felt that because the human race was so young they could still find redemption.

  “The argument came to a halt when a sorceress named Imelda plotted to end the human race. As a child, Imelda was given to a human family that tried to repress her powers. When she was a teenager she was sent to a mental institution because she spoke about the supernatural world. As she grew up, her hatred of humans didn’t diminish. She longed for a way to bring humanity to a fiery end. She traveled across the globe, siphoning powers from other supernatural beings, hoping to gain enough strength to bring about the end of humanity.

  “Soon, she had amassed enough power that she was actually a threat. The gods had to decide if they were going to help the humans or let them face the evil alone. They couldn’t agree, so it was suggested that humans should have a chance to prove themselves.”

  I shift uncomfortably then take a cookie, trying to digest what Mel is saying.

  “Let me guess, they sent some poor human on some impossible quest?” I ask.

  “It wasn’t impossible. You humans just suck at most things,” Jinx replies.

  “Hey!” I scold.

  “What? It’s true. You guys don’t do anything well,” he replies.

  “Don’t listen to Jinx,” Mel says, “In fact, here, look at this shiny object and be quiet.”

  Mel hands him her keys. At first Jinx rolls his eyes but then he catches a glimpse of himself in the surface of the silver keys. Like a cat, he is enamored with his own image and I shake my head in disgust and disbelief. I think I like him being cocky about Tinder on his phone more than staring at his reflection as if it’s a juicy rib eye.

  “Now, as I was saying,” Mel begins again, “the gods gave humanity a test to see if they could be redeemed. They picked a human by the name of Thomas Dell. He was accomplished and had been hailed by his community as a respectable leader. They told him about the Avo world and they invited him to enter the city of Mensa.

  “The original Seven Gods, known as the Sacred Seven, the most powerful of all, threw him a feast i
n their home. Every inch of the mansion had priceless treasures. They told him that he could stay the night so long as he didn’t take anything with him. The gods were attempting to test Thomas and see if he could resist temptation. But what the gods didn’t know was that Imelda has consulted with a powerful Avo who had the gift of foresight. So, she knew the gods were going to invite Thomas to their lair, the place that housed all their powers. So, she went to him and made a deal. She said if he helped her, she’d give him immortality. With her guidance he was then able to open a portal to Mensa and allow Imelda to enter.

  “Once in the city of gods, Imelda entered the great dining hall and cast a dark curse that turned the seven gods into gemstones. She went back to her lair and there, she embedded the stones into what would become the ‘crown of the sacred seven.’ With the crown, she was able to harness the power of the seven gods. She began working on a curse to bring about the end of mankind.

  “The Avo world, along with the remaining gods, waged a war against her. It was a bloody war and many lives were lost but, in the end, they killed Imelda. Unfortunately, the war destroyed the city and the few gods that remained had to come live on Earth. What’s worse, they could not undo the curse she’d created for humanity. Imelda had a twisted sense of irony. She created the curse so that the one group that couldn’t possibly stop the curse was the only group that could try—humans.

  “For the longest time it was believed that humanity was doomed and there was nothing that could be done. But then Roma Buckland, a powerful Avo with foresight, spoke of a prophecy. Only one human stands a chance of stopping the apocalypse.

  “A human who is both.

  “Innocent yet guilty.

  “Courageous yet fearful.

  “Strong yet broken.

  “The Avo world referred to that human as the Paradox. There was a lot of talk about finding the Paradox and helping them defeat the impeding curse. The curse is tied to the fate of the city of gods. So long as the curse is alive and humanity is in danger, the city will remain in rubble. And the longer the gods are away from the city, the less power they will harness.

  “So, the last remaining gods, called the circle, banded together and gave much of their power to the seven of us because we were the strongest. They sent us here, to where the curse began, Imelda’s hometown, Whisper, Idaho. We were sent here to wait for one that could face the curse. You, Sailor. The fact is we figure you are the one because, well, we’ve been here before and no candidate has ever passed the seed test, until you.”

  Mel’s big eyes engulf me, but it isn’t only hers that are on me. I avert my eyes but anger swells in my chest.

  “First, you guys need to stop looking at me like that, okay? I’m not the freaking Paradox.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Jinx asks, signaling toward my new tattoo.

  “Yeah, I’m sure. My name is Sailor Monroe. I can’t be the savior of all mankind because I’m taking advanced calculus this year and I don’t know if you know this but it’s not an easy class. It’s not like I’ll have time to go off fighting gods or whatever,” I assure them, because obviously my GPA is more important than all of humanity.

  “Seriously, I can’t even get to the next level in Call of Duty. Last year, I took the stupid online quiz to find out which Harry Potter character I was, and you know what my results were? Dobby the house elf.”

  “I love him! He was so sweet and brave. He was actually their saving grace,” Mel says.

  Rye returns, looking as if he ran a marathon. His hair is pulled back and sweat drips from his brow.

  “What are you guys talking about?” he asks.

  “Oh, your favorite. Harry Potter,” I tell him, and he gives me that very same far-off look.

  “He has no idea what we are talking about, ignore him,” Ya-Ya clues me in and turns back to Mel to say, “I know, when Dobby died, I cried. Or I would have cried but I wasn’t wearing waterproof mascara that day. Still…sad.”

  “Hello! Trust me, nobody loves Harry Potter more than me, but can we get back to this Paradox human thing?” I demand.

  “Oh, sorry. You were about to protest what you already know is true. You know, just like Harry Potter did. I thought that’s why we were talking about him. My bad. Go ahead,” Jinx replies.

  “No, I don’t know that it’s true,” I protest, but my protest sounds weak, even to my own ears.

  “From what the team tells me, you placed yourself in danger to help a woman you didn’t even know,” Sunday says.

  “You people are wrong,” I counter. “I did that out of instinct. I’m not a fighter.”

  “See. Your instinct was to help,” Mel says.

  “There’s a way out. If you don’t want to do this, there is a way out for you,” Rye says quietly, cutting through the rest of the chatter.

  “Rye!” Aziza scolds.

  “She needs to know her options,” Rye replies.

  “We have never told the candidates they can get out of it until some time passed and they had the chance to really think,” Sunday joins in, looking ready to punch Rye.

  “Well maybe she already made up her mind,” Rye says. “Look at her. Aziza is right, she’s weak. She’s small and has no strength whatsoever.”

  It hurts to hear what he thinks of me. But I push that aside. I don’t care what he thinks. Mostly. His words anger me though. He said there’s a choice, and then he tried to make the choice for me. Screw that.

  “Fine, let’s say for the sake of argument, this is real. What exactly does this curse I’m supposed to stop entail? What’s supposed to happen?” I ask, working hard to push Rye’s assessment of me to the farthest reaches of my mind.

  “You don’t want to hear how you can turn this thing down?” Rye demands.

  “What I don’t want to hear is you telling me I’m weak,” I bark at him.

  “Hey, I’m trying to help you,” Rye says.

  “How are you trying to help me? By crushing my confidence?”

  “This isn’t a school dance, and you are not Wonder Woman. There’s no invisible plane or a lasso. You got that? You agree to this, you die.”

  “Since when do we deter people?” Grace asks Aziza under her breath.

  “Good question,” she says as she glares at Rye.

  “Jinx, tell me about the end of humanity. What’s it supposed to look like?” I ask, avoiding Rye’s heated glare.

  “The classics: mass death, fiery skies, and demons that rise up from below. And other fun things,” Jinx says, looking at his phone as he lists off the world’s impending doom nonchalantly, as if he is ordering dinner at McDonalds.

  “How do you know that? I mean, how do you really know that this Imelda chick’s curse isn’t dead, just like her?”

  “Have you ever heard of the Four Horsemen?” Ya-Ya asks.

  “Like of the apocalypse? Yeah, I’ve heard the stories. They are supposed to bring hell on Earth. Each one represents something awful, right?”

  “That’s right. When the end of humanity comes, it will do so with the Four Horsemen: War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death,” Mel says.

  “You’re saying the Four Horsemen are coming?”

  “No. I’m saying, they are already here...”

  I have to get out of here. They think that the Four Horsemen are here and I am somehow linked to it all. These people are clearly on acid.

  Mel steps closer to me, touching my arm and then my forehead.

  “You don’t look so good,” she says and turns to the others. “Humans never seem to stomach the inevitable well. Talk of fate, destiny, and paradoxes. Someone get our little Paradox a cup of water with ice.”

  Rye disappears the second Mel says water, and I stretch back into a La-Z-Boy and wait for the room to stop spinning.

  “Before you possibly crash and burn, there’s more you need to know,” Jinx adds, and if I wasn’t about to hurl, I’d gladly jump up and punch him in his teeth.

  “What else do I need to know?”

&nbs
p; “For one, you are going to have to find the Four Horsemen, all of them.”

  Mel puts her hands on her hips and looks at the floor instead of my face.

  “Find them, then what?”

  “You…well…you have to kill them,” she whispers.

  “I’m sorry. Maybe the floor is about to suck me into a swirling vortex, but I am pretty sure you just said find them and kill them.”

  “And…,” Mel begins and stops as Rye comes back in with a bright red solo cup and some Tylenol.

  “Seriously,” I scoff and groan, pinching the bridge of my nose.

  I take the solo cup from Rye to sip on the cool water inside. He offers me the painkillers, and I gladly accept. For the cocky god he was earlier, he is being really sweet now. Kinda sexy.

  Stop it! You can’t seriously think of him like that, not now. Not with all of... whatever this is.

  “You have to do it before the next solar eclipse. It’s scheduled to happen one year from today. We have some time to prepare at least,” Rye finishes what Mel was going to say before.

  “Oh, well thank goodness for that, you have a plan,” I say sarcastically, dramatically throwing my hands in the air like all is saved.

  I know I shouldn’t be so touchy, but this is my life last time I checked and right now, I just want it to be normal again. But when was it normal? My mom killed herself, my dad can’t cope with the loss, and I am talking to a room of gods. Honestly, I think normal checked out on the five o’clock bus.

  Because I can’t help myself, I have to ask more questions. I mean, if I am going to save the world and all, with the help of some hot gods—I glance at Rye—then it will be nice to have all the facts going in.

  “What if the eclipse happens and I only take out three, or even just one of the horsemen?”

  They all share a look just like earlier.

  “Stop doing that. You guys are making me nervous every time you look around the room like we are sitting in a funeral home and our dearly departed has come back from the dead.”

  “That’s a colorful imagination, Sails,” Grace says and chuckles.

  Mel glares at her but continues her end of the world as we know it explanation.