“Well, isn’t this a strange dream?” I comment to Seline.
I stand in what appears to be an office. A big, fancy one. Bookshelves line the walls from floor to ceiling, and a huge gold desk sits in the room. All whites and gold. Everything is filled with light.
A huge, round fountain sits in the middle of the room, and Seline is leaning over it, staring into the water. She looks up at the sound of my voice, and I notice two smaller fountains beside it.
“Kat?” she asks, almost alarmed. Not to be a buzzkill, but is it me, or did she really not expect me to be here? But if she didn’t call for me, how the hell did I end up trapped in this dream?
“Hey, what’s up? Why did you pull one of your dream things?” I ask her, still glancing around the office and admiring every little thing I can notice.
“How did you get here?” she gasps, standing up straight and looking confused.
This clearly isn’t the ‘hey, I’m so glad to see you’ welcoming I’d expect, but I guess I have to take what I can get. I raise an eyebrow and stare at her. “What do you mean? You pulled me here,” I remind her.
“No, I didn’t, Kat,” she shakes her head in denial. “What is happening on earth? How did you get here? I didn’t bring you here.” my eyes follow her as she rushes towards me and asks the questions.
Once she stops in front of me, she grabs my arms and searches my eyes, as if she can pull out the answers to questions even I don’t have.
Still confused, I decide it’s for the best if I don’t let myself freak out ahead of time, so I smile at her. “Ah, I was sleeping, Seline, you brought me here,” I prod her, and she shakes her head again.
“Kat, I didn’t bring you here. Something must have happened,” she says, letting go of me and rushing back to her huge bird feeder fountains. She dips her fingers through the water.
The water ripples in the fountain even though she barely touches it. I furrow my brows as I watch her and wonder what on earth is happening.
“You shouldn’t be here. There is only one way to get here, Kat. Something is wrong,” she announces, swishing her fingers through quickly. A loud, and I would even say shocked, gasp escapes her.
I sneak over to the fountain and peer in. It isn’t a fountain at all but a portal or something where I can see Ezra and Mateo, and me. I am sleeping as Mateo and Ezra both jerk awake, clutching their necks when I notice it. Black tendril-like veins spread across my face, chest, and arms. Ezra jumps up and shakes me by my shoulders. It looks like he is shouting, trying to wake me up, but I remain fast asleep.
“No, something is wrong, you shouldn’t be here,” Seline repeats, splashing the water and more images of me appear. Like from when I was at Andrei’s and when I was dizzy earlier.
“What do you mean, Seline? What’s going on?” Worry gnaws away at me. This wasn’t some joke, whatever was going on, she wasn’t responsible for, and that scared me more than anything else.
“Kat, if you’re here-” she stops herself and looks away. “I need to get you back there. The fates are fiddling with my prophecies.”
“Get me back? What are you talking about?” I ask her, and she turns, grabbing my arms, and clutching onto them tightly.
“Kat, if you are here, I have done something wrong. I need to figure out what’s happened. You shouldn’t be here! To be here means you are dead,” she stresses, turning back to the fountain and splashing more water.
Now I understand what she is doing as she moves the water, she’s searching the past in its depths.
“What have I done? Where did I go wrong?” She whispers, her eyes frantically follow the images on the water’s surface. She goes through my memories the same way I went through Sages.
“I made you a Goddess. I did everything right. But I don’t understand,” she whispers. I can’t move or bring myself to look at the images she can see. I don’t want to see this mistake she made to send me straight into the arms of death.
Mateo was right. I shouldn’t have ignored the moment I got dizzy. My heart pounds at her words. I died, but how?
“You can get me back there, though, right? What about my babies?” I ask her, as I absentmindedly place my hands over my belly to protect them.
Suddenly, her head snaps up and she stares at me, her eyes widening. “The Gemini twins,” she gasps, muttering to herself, repeating the words she used when she blessed me and brought me back to life as she paced. Then, she stops and looks at me. “They need to get those babies out now,” she orders.
Ezra
I am so focused on replying and sending emails that I don’t notice how much time passes as my mates fall asleep. This isn’t the first time they rested while I work, but it’s so worth it and way better than locking myself away in my office.
A few minutes of more emails and some quick chats pass until I promise myself I will get some rest as soon as I get to the last email and answer it. However, the idea fades when my neck burns.
I look down at Kat, sleeping beside me. Her head is still on my chest, and I shake off the feeling for a brief moment, assuming it has to be my imagination.
Not long after that, the burning grows intense, I rub my mark. I try to stop the fiery sensation, when suddenly I feel deathly cold. As if ice is filling up my veins and freezing the blood in my body. Even my fingertips feel like they’re freezing.
Mateo jumps awake, and gasps and Kat’s skin loses its warmth against mine. I roll her off, yet she is unresponsive. My eyes widen at the sight of black veins wriggling beneath her skin. I press my hand to her forehead and exchange a panicked glance with Mateo. Kat’s temperature is falling and rising dramatically.
“Get Mathias,” I order Mateo. There’s still no response from Kat, no reaction at all, so I grab her shoulders and try to shake her. She’s unresponsive, so I grip her chin. “Kat?”
I lightly tap her cheek. Nothing. I put my ear to her chest. While I can hear the thudding in our babies’ chests, her heart stops.
I immediately start chest compressions.