Endless

Home Again

When I returned to Juniper Landing, I was at the foot of the bridge, standing right behind Joaquin, who was standing right behind Tristan. It was as if no time had passed between the image my mom had shown me in the Light and this moment. Overhead, the clouds were starting to break up and disperse, giving way to small, jagged pieces of blue sky.

“Hey,” I said. “Who died?”

Joaquin whirled around, so startled he almost lost his footing. “Rory?”

Tristan rose to his feet. He kept his back to me for what felt like an eternity before finally turning around. His face looked haggard, like he hadn’t slept in days. There were purple shadows under his eyes, and a tear clung to the underside of his chin.

“Too soon?” I asked, biting my bottom lip.

“Oh my god.”

In two long strides, he closed the distance between us and pulled me into a deep, passionate kiss, his arms locking around me and bending me backward. As I held him, the heavy velvet bag my mom had given me rested against his back. I felt the warm sunlight against the side of my face and laughed even as I was kissing him.

Finally Tristan pulled away and looked into my eyes with wonder, brushing my hair back from my face. “I thought I’d lost you,” he said. “I thought you were gone forever.”

“I know,” I said as the clouds continued to part. “So did I.” I glanced at the deserted area around the bridge, the dozens of muddy footprints peppering the ground. “Where is everyone?”

“I sent them down to deal with the crowd,” Tristan told me, holding on to my hand. “Hopefully they’re getting things under control.”

“What the hell happened in there?” Joaquin asked, hovering to my left. “Did Darcy and your dad get out?”

“Yeah. They’re fine. Everyone’s fine,” I told them. “They were released to the Light. Me, my dad, Darcy, Aaron, Jennifer…everyone. We ended up there.” I cleared my throat. “Everyone except Krista.”

There was a quick pulse of sadness, of dread. Until today, Krista had been one of our own, someone worthy of protecting, of loving. It was going to take a while for any of us to accept what she had tried to do.

A crackle split the silence. Bea’s voice rang through our walkie-talkies. “Tristan? Are you there? Over.”

He tugged his radio off his waistband and hit the button to talk. “I’m here. Everything okay? Over.”

“Not exactly,” she responded. “We managed to subdue part of the crowd, but the twins are on their way to you with about a dozen others, and they’re not happy. Over.”

“Damn,” Joaquin said. “What’re we gonna do?”

I felt the velvet bag hanging heavily from my wrist. “We’ll use these.”

I held the bag up, and Tristan’s eyes widened. Joaquin leaned over and opened the knot cinching the top together. Dozens of gold coins glinted in the sunlight. Joaquin took the bag and held it with both hands.

“Where did you get these?” he asked.

I smiled, my eyes shining with tears. “From my mom.”

“You saw your mom?” Tristan was stunned.

I took a deep breath. “Yeah. She gave me a choice: stay in the Light, or come back here and be with you guys.”

In the distance, a truck engine roared. The visitors were coming. My heart thumped with trepidation, but I knew it would be okay. It might get a bit messy, but we would calm them, we would usher them, and they would go to the Light. Everything was going to be fine. For the first time in forever, I truly believed that.

Tristan held our hands up between us and kissed the backs of my fingers as he looked into my eyes.

“You could have been with your family,” he said as he slowly processed the gravity of what I’d done. “But you chose to be here.”

“I chose to be here,” I replied, “because you are my family now. And this is where I belong.”

The sun broke over his handsome face as he smiled and pulled me to him, holding me against his chest so I could feel the solidness of him, revel in the perfection of the moment.

We were together now—together in our world, together in our mission, together in our love—and nothing was ever going to tear us apart again.

Rory and Tristan.

Forever.

The first car appeared over the ridge, and Joaquin stepped up next to me, squaring off as if readying himself for a fight. I stood between him and Tristan and plucked a coin from the velvet bag with a small, determined smile.

“Boys.” I flipped the coin and caught it as two car doors slammed and the twins marched toward us. “We have some work to do.”