“Do you have a car?” Colt asked as they started walking back through the field towards his truck.
“It’s back in town,” Selene answered.
“How did you get here then?” Tara asked. “Not that it’s out of the norm. You did see our other friends. But I’m curious,” Tara said as they all climbed into the truck.
“I flew,” Selene said easily. Something told her that Tara had a few tricks up her sleeve as well. After all, she had shot a ring of light out earlier.
“I can fly too,” Tara said eagerly.
“You can?” Selene asked, curious. “What else?”
“I’m strong. Like, really strong,” Tara said.
“Check.” Selene nodded.
“I can sort of shoot light…” Tara held up her hand and created a small ball of light.
“Nope.” Selene shook her head. “Cool, but… She reached over and snuffed out the light. “I’m more into darkness. I sort of fold it around light.”
“Okay, that’s cool,” Tara said with a slight frown as they parked in front of the hotel.
“I can’t get hurt. I’ve never been sick a day in my life,” Selene admitted after getting out of the truck.
Tara was silent. “Seriously?”
“I’m… going to go check in,” she said, feeling stupid suddenly. She’d never told anyone about her powers. Except Scott. Even he didn’t know everything that she could do. She’d fooled herself into believing she was protecting him in some way. But she knew it was only to protect herself.
After she had gotten a hotel room, she followed her sister into their room.
They were so different in appearance, but deep down, Selene knew that they were connected. Just as she’d known the moment that she’d looked at Scott all those years ago.
Tara was your typical California goddess with her blonde hair, tan skin, and blue eyes. She appeared very comfortable around people, as if she had no issues with fitting in. Unlike Selene.
They talked briefly about a few things—their parents, what visions she’d had about what was going to happen—then Tara hit her with a shocking revelation.
“You mentioned back in the field that you’re the goddess of darkness. Why?” Tara asked her.
Selene glanced down at her hands remembering what the father of monsters, her father, had said to her in one vision back when she’d been ten.
“You, my daughter, are made with the darkest of dark material I could find. I traveled to the Beyond and gathered as much of it as I could to form you.” The giant serpent man had smiled at her, showing fangs as long as her legs. “No light shall ever reach or penetrate you.”
Selene shook the memory from her mind and looked at Tara.
“It’s what Typhon has called me from the beginning. Another gift of mine is that I can’t be seen in the dark. No matter how bright the light, it won’t penetrate the darkness that surrounds me.”
“Where I come from, Selene and Tara were twin moons,” Tara said, and Selene frowned at her words. “They were beacons in the night sky, watching out for and protecting all below.”
“Where you come from?” Selene shook her head, not understanding.
“I’m from another world. I think Mason called it a parallel universe. That’s the best way to describe it. Another planet, similar in almost every way to this one. Rhea hid me there, or so she claims, with a man I believed was my father. I had a normal life until my sixteenth birthday, when I appeared here. In this world.”
“In your ruined prom dress,” Selene added, understanding so much more now. Then she remembered the other people Tara had met with in the field. Did they all have powers too? “Your friends,” Selene asked after a moment, “are like us?”
“In a way,” Tara answered.
Selene’s eyes moved to Colt, even more curious. “And you?”
“Nope, normal boring human with no extra powers,” he answered with a smile.