Annabeth Neverending Read online

  “That’s for killing me,” I growl.

  “Who killed you? Me or Kha?” he asks between moans. As if there’s any question.

  “We both know you’re one and the same,” I say calmly.

  “I’m not so sure about that anymore. That’s why I had to find you,” says Gabriel, with difficulty, as he stands back up, clearly struggling to stay conscious.

  “Why should I believe anything you have to say?” I ask…in the language of ancient Egypt. I can’t help it.

  “Huh?” Gabriel replies. He glares at me, accepting his fate.

  No matter what I do, no matter how hard I hit him, Gabriel, Kha…whoever he is…he’s still changing back and forth…does not fight me back. He stands there and takes it like a man, one might say, as I beat him repeatedly with my stick, swinging it around, making it sing in the wind as Ana once did.

  Finally, once he’s spent, I do Ana’s most effective move, the leg sweep. Gabriel falls over and smashes into the ice-covered leaves, the sand-blown rock.

  And so Gabriel lies there. Bleeding. Swelling. But he deserves it.

  He killed me.

  C. J. looks Gabriel over. His incapacitated brother’s breathing is strained, but he’s still with us.

  “I do love you, bro, but for Annabeth’s sake, you’ve got this coming…”

  And C. J.’s soft hazel eyes turn hard, cruel. C. J. takes the rough, lumbering stick from my hand and pulls it back into the air. He’s going to crack it into Gabriel’s skull; I can envision it now. It’s so plain. It’s so obvious. He’s going to kill him. On my account.

  To me, his unspoken intentions are abundantly clear. And to add a hint of poetry, C. J. is going to murder his own brother in a move reminiscent of Kha’s.

  At what point is it no longer revenge? Surely, these two wrongs can never make a right…And so my body, my soul, reacts. Even though I was just fighting him myself, even though I’m the one who made him so vulnerable…

  Reservations emerge, pushing their way into my psyche. And once the door to doubt is opened, it’s hard to close. Uncertainty is plaguing me. Needling its way into my thoughts. And much as Gabriel’s death would be a satisfying conclusion, an absolute end to the problem…

  It simply doesn’t add up.

  So I throw myself on top of Gabriel.

  I’ve thrown myself on top of Gabriel?

  He groans, and I try to rearrange myself so that I’m not pressing his injuries, hurting him further. I need to shield him, but gently.

  “Are you in much pain?”

  “It only hurts when I breathe in…or out…But I’ll live…I think.”

  Then Gabriel passes out. Thankfully, his chest continues to rise and fall. His breathing looks strained, but he’s still going. It’s probably a blessing he’s unconscious. I’m sure the agony is too great.

  How could I have done this to him? How could I have wounded him with my own two hands?

  Seeing Gabriel like this, my heart goes out to him. He may be flawed, but there’s something in him worth saving. He’s part of me, part of my progression, part of my story. Even if he’s done bad, even if he’s killed Mrs. Lansing, even if he killed Sethe, even if he killed me. I forgive him now.

  Don’t we all make mistakes?

  C. J. discards his stick limply.

  “After all this, you choose him,” says C. J., dejected, rejected.

  Do I choose him?

  It would be insane to choose Gabriel.

  “It isn’t about that,” I say, getting up to face him. “You could have killed him! I couldn’t have lived with it. And neither could you. I know you. It would be a mistake you’d always regret.”

  “There’s no need to pretend. You choose him,” says C. J. grimly, as I shake my head no.

  “C. J., you know how I feel about you.”

  “Do I?” he asks, glowering.

  “I love you.” But even as the words come from my mouth, they don’t feel authentic; they don’t ring true.

  Is my love simply that fleeting? Or was it never really there to begin with?

  “It’s so much easier to say it than to feel it,” he responds glumly.

  Which is accurate. And the simple act of declaring something doesn’t make it so. From the sorry way he’s looking at me, one would think his world has just ended.

  “Even though you think he’s evil. Even though he makes you afraid,” says C. J., his mouth bending down into an ugly frown.

  “I’m sorry,” I reply…in the words of my ancestors. And this time, I know what I’m saying.

  “Sorry. You’re sorry, you say? Sorry doesn’t change anything.”

  Did he understand what I said? He must have. But how?

  “You picked him, even after I became everything you ever wanted,” C. J. grumbles.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I did it for you. I always…do it for you,” he says, his brow creased in anguish.

  And then, it hits me like a ton of boulders.

  There is charged shock. There is burning anger. There is rushing acceptance.

  “You’re Kha?”

  He killed me.

  “The lengths I go to for you. But you never appreciate all I do. Ana, I’ve worn this skin for the last thirteen years. Do you know what torture it’s been, seeing his face every time I look in the mirror?”

  I gasp in disbelief. It can’t be true. And yet…I know it must.

  “What are you saying? You were somehow able to…switch your souls?”

  He doesn’t acknowledge a word I’m saying, which confirms it.

  C. J. is Kha?

  Gabriel is Sethe?

  Gabriel is Sethe! No wonder I was so confused! No wonder my emotions were constantly in flux. No wonder I wanted Gabriel despite it all.

  I had no idea Kha could be so powerful. And yet the one thing he could never do was steal my heart.

  “This is closer than we’ve been for a long time. This may not be the moment, but you’re getting there, slowly.”

  My mouth is hanging open, and I don’t think to close it.

  “Why did you kill Mrs. Lansing?”

  “She figured it out, and I couldn’t risk her telling you. So she went into cardiac arrest. It was a rather unfortunate coincidence.”

  He clutches his chest as though it hurts and then starts laughing evilly.

  “It wasn’t my favorite. Other lifetimes have allowed me to kill Nefertari more…creatively. But it’s always satisfying.”

  My stomach lurches at the thought of Kha deriving satisfaction, happiness, from her death, my mother’s death, especially knowing it’s happened many times over.

  “Perhaps it was a faulty plan after all. I want you to love me…for me. Someday, you will give your heart willingly. I’ll find a way.”

  I scoff. I’m about to snap back at C. J., tell him that he can wait for all of eternity, that I will never love him, when Kha…starts convulsing, trembling, jittering.

  What power is he summoning now?

  His eyes have rolled into his head, and I get a taste of what I must look like when I’m seizing. Hideous.

  So I look away, to the ground next to me, and notice that Gabriel’s body…is now gone.

  He’s gone?

  I try to manage my panic, even though the fear is becoming unbearable. I can’t lose Sethe again. I hyperventilate at the thought.

  Is there any point in breathing now?

  I turn back to face C. J., who’s no longer rattling around. Now he is standing in front of me, and I see that he has a very different expression on his face. An expression I know all too well.

  “Annabeth? What’s happening? How did I get here?”

  “Magic,” I say with calm. With relief.

  He’s no longer the pale-eyed, black-haired boy f
rom the flea…No, he’s now the hazel-eyed, brown-haired boy from my memories, my past lives. The spell has been reversed.

  Gabriel is Sethe!

  “What are you talking about?” he asks, dazed.

  “You don’t look like you anymore. And yet, you’re more like you than ever before.”

  Gabriel feels his face, unable to truly tell the difference.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You look like C. J. Like Sethe.”

  I pause, trying to figure out the best way to explain what’s gone on.

  “You were never the evil one. We were both duped into believing it was you, but all along, it was C. J. He’s the reincarnated villain from our past. He orchestrated everything! And he swapped both your souls so that I’d fall in love with him.”

  Gabriel…Sethe takes it in, and it’s obvious that he’s struggling with this newfound knowledge. After all, he can’t see what he looks like at the moment. It’s hard to believe that his soul has been transferred into this new body, which is actually his old body. Although that’s a feeling I understand pretty well!

  I walk over and start unbuttoning his shirt with a purpose.

  “Talk about mixed signals. But, all right!” he says with a laugh.

  “Don’t get too excited.”

  I find his scar, looking just as bumpy and misshapen as ever.

  “Here, feel this.”

  I place his hand upon his skin, and his eyes widen in shock. There’s no denying it now. He’s felt the physical proof.

  “C. J.’s scar? But now…but now…My mom knew! The doctors blamed it on her illness. At the end, they said she was hallucinating. She insisted that my personality had changed, that after a point, Connor wasn’t himself. That I wasn’t myself. She could tell we’d been swapped!”

  This seems to give Gabriel some sense of peace, and it allows me my own revelation.

  “C. J.’s name is Connor?”

  “Yeah. Connor James. He’s always preferred C. J.”

  His name is Connor! That figures. There’s a Kha in there. With those who were strongly tied to my past lives, name variation seems to be a continuing thread. Even with places, names have importance. It’s a cat’s cradle, an interwoven tapestry of people, places, and events.

  “Tell me; what’s your full name?” I ask.

  “Seth Gabriel Danvers. But I’ve always gone by Gabriel—mostly because C. J. started calling me that when we were kids.”

  All those hours of research, all that time spent seizing, and it was right in front of me. But I shouldn’t be too hard on myself, because it’s obvious that C. J.’s was a plot that had long been in the making.

  Do memories of Sethe come back to me in every lifetime? Is that why Kha exchanged souls to match? But what about the ankh? Do I always find it? I have so many more questions in need of answers. The most worrisome being—where did C. J. go? To plan his next move, no doubt. I fear that this is far from over.

  I reach out and caress Gabriel’s…Sethe’s cheek. He puts his hand—the one I know so well—up to mine, holding it there.

  My beautiful Sethe. My wondrous Sethe. The love of my lifetimes.

  I’m not much of a soulmate if I can’t even recognize my other half. Hopefully Gabriel will give me time to redeem myself.

  “I’m sorry that I kicked your ass.”

  “Well, I mean, I wouldn’t go that far,” he says with a chuckle.

  “I wasn’t in my right mind.”

  He nods with understanding.

  “So, how does it feel to be a brunette with hazel eyes?” I ask.

  Gabriel sighs, laughing, his decidedly not black or arching eyebrow raised.

  “How does it feel to have orange hair?”

  “It’s auburn, dammit!”

  “Isn’t that what all redheads claim?” he asks, grinning.

  Well, it’s nice to know that he’s still…him.

  “At least I don’t need my glasses anymore. Now I can see you unobstructed. With my very own eyes.”

  I nod, feeling tears of happiness collect in mine.

  “We should leave. He won’t be gone for long,” says Gabriel apprehensively.

  Unfortunately, I sense the very same thing. And so I unhook the ankh with the lapis lazuli and throw it into the woods. I don’t want it now. I’ll never want anything from Kha again.

  I look up at Sethe…Gabriel…And it surges through me. The passion. The desire. The electricity. No matter how hard Kha, C. J., whatever he calls himself, may try to tear us apart, our love is too strong to destroy.

  “Do you feel it? I feel it. Even though I tried so hard to deny it,” I say, intertwining my fingers in Gabriel’s. I pause, allowing the gravity of the words to ring out. “We’re soulmates.”

  And I can tell that he feels it too. That we were meant for each other. Made for each other.

  “If you say so,” he says with a smirk.

  That smirk.

  “Seriously. You have to stop using that expression!” I cry.

  “If you say so,” replies Gabriel, with a shrug. I laugh. Hearing those words coming from that mouth warms me in ways nothing else could.

  This will be the life where we love, where we live, where we save ourselves. This will be the life where Ana and Sethe get their happy ending. The one they always deserved.

  Gabriel pulls me toward him, and in an instant his lips are on mine. I return our first kiss of this lifetime with everything good and kind and loving inside of me. Because he makes me so much more than I could ever be alone.

  And it feels just like it did in ancient Egypt.

  Only better.