“Concentrate, Ru. I know you can do this.” Cutter’s voice cut through the darkness, but Ru wasn’t as convinced as he was. After weeks of trying in every venue and under every sort of conditions they could come up with, Ru was still struggling to slip out of her human form. Cutter had described it to her a million different ways, but she just wasn’t getting it. At all. At least with the light, she could now conjure it to some degree whenever she wanted to, though it never seemed to grow to the extent it had when she’d knocked Thanatos into the air in the forest when they’d last met. But the spirit realms still evaded her.
They were sitting in a dark room, one Rider had constructed for this purpose. The floor was padded, and all of the walls were surrounded with black fabric, as was the ceiling. She couldn’t even see her hand three inches in front of her face. Cutter had thought it might help if she was already close to the blackness slipping into one’s spirit state first created, but so far this hadn’t helped either, and she felt a little bad that Rider had gone to so much trouble to make this place for her when it wasn’t doing her any good.
Cutter sat next to her on the floor; he may as well have been in another room. She couldn’t see him, and his directions weren’t doing her any good. “Imagine yourself floating away, leaving your body, traveling into the blackness.” He’d said those words, and variations thereof, dozens of times, and still she had no luck. In frustration she opened her eyes and cradled her head in her hands.
“Don’t give up, Ru. You’ll get it.”
“Ha, that’s easy for you to say,” Ru snapped back. Not being able to see his face to tell if he was offended was a plus, but she still felt bad. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bark at you. This is just so… frustrating!”
“I know. I mean, I can imagine. The rest of us learned to do this when we were so young, it just came second nature. I can’t imagine having to learn it now.”
“Must’ve been nice,” Ru muttered. Cutter and the other Keepers were raised in a small community where everyone knew about Keepers and Reapers. They were brought up understanding their purpose and learning to hone their skills so that they could take out the evils of the world whenever called upon to do so. Ru had missed out on all of that when her mother had left her, and it turns out, placed some sort of a cloaking spell on her so that none of the other Keepers or Reapers would be able to find her. Cutter’s superiors had finally gotten past all that through years of searching, and he and his team had been assigned to acquire her, which sounded very inhuman to Ru, but then, they were all only half-human anyway, and most of the people Cutter answered to weren’t humans at all….
“Ru,” Cutter said reaching through the darkness to place his hand on her knee. As usual, there was an exchange of electricity, which Ru had initially taken as attraction, but now that she knew they were both Keepers of the Light, she realized it was actually electricity. “Think back to how you felt when you were in the woods and you had to call upon your powers to save you from Nat. How did you feel then?”
“I felt terrified,” she admitted. “I felt… angry, like I wanted to fight back.”
“Okay, now how do you feel when you are trying to slip into your spirit form?”
“I feel… frustrated,” she admitted once again. “And angry.”
“Why does it make you angry?”
“Because I can’t do it.” She thought that was obvious enough.
“Is that the only reason you’re angry?” he asked.
“Yes.” Why else would she be angry? But then, on second thought, she realized it wasn’t the only reason. “No.”
“No?”
“No. I’m also angry… because… it’s not fair.”
“What’s not fair?” Cutter asked, egging her on.
“It’s not fair that I didn’t get to learn this when I was a little girl, like all of you got to learn it when you were young.”
“Good. What else?”
Ru could feel the fever within her beginning to rise. “All of you got to grow up with your parents, knowing who you were, what your own damn names were. I didn’t get any of that.”
“Right. Because?”
“Because my mom left me. She abandoned me. And the person she left me with was—is—a horrible mother who never loved me.” If Ru had ever admitted any of this to anyone, she couldn’t remember doing so.
“And that makes you angry?” Cutter asked, pushing her harder.
“Of course it does! I didn’t deserve that, any of it. It wasn’t my fault I broke things. Even if I didn’t have this power coursing through my body, I still was just a little girl. And… and… I deserved to be loved! She never loved me. As a matter of fact, I’m not sure anyone ever has.” Her anger turned to sadness for a moment, which made her even more irritated. “Now, here I am, the Keeper you’ve been looking for for so long, and I can’t even make this shit work!”
“Okay, that’s good, Ru. You’re getting all of this off of your chest. You have every right to be angry and upset. What else are you feeling?”
She had to consider his question for a moment. Besides the frustration and anguish, there was another emotion welling up inside her. It took her a moment to admit it. “Fear,” she finally said in just a whisper.
Cutter must’ve moved even closer to her, because she felt his breath on her cheek. “Fear of what, Ru? What are you afraid of?”
“I’m afraid… if I slip out of my body I’ll never get back in.” It was true, even though he promised her he’d be right beside her and would get her back.
“What else?”
She let out a deep sigh. “Fear that I’ll never be what you expect me to be, that I’ll disappoint all of you. That I won’t find my mother. Or the portals.”
His hand was on her shoulder now. He brushed her hair back, over her shoulder. “What else?”
“I’m afraid… I’m afraid that, if my own mother couldn’t even love me then maybe… maybe no one else ever can.”
The words shocked her, and they must’ve shocked Cutter, too, because it took him a moment to respond. “Ru, you don’t have to worry about that. You don’t have to worry about any of that.” His voice was quiet but full of sincerity, and she wished she could see his face right now, because she wanted to look into his eyes and know that it was true.
“How do I know that you’re not just manipulating my emotions the way Thanatos did, the way that you sometimes calm people? How do I know you’re not just saying that?”
“Because, Ru, you are an amazing person, and so many people love you already. There’s no need for me to lie to you about that. Your students, your friends, our team. And I know that your mother loved you. I’m sure she still does. She didn’t give you up because she didn’t love you; she gave you up because she does loves you.”
Ru wanted to believe his words, but it was a struggle. While it was nice to think that all of those people loved her, that wasn’t exactly what she’d meant. She had thought Kyle was falling in love with her. What if there was never another man who made her feel the same way, genuinely, with no manipulation?
“I’m scared, Cutter,” she whispered. “I don’t know… I don’t know if I can do this. And I don’t know how I can help anyone else if I can’t help myself. I don’t know if I’ll ever feel like I belong.”
“You belong here, Ru.”