Chapter 14 (Kylie)

I tried talking to her but the woman insisted it wasn't my fault. I was young, teenagers always did dumb shit, was the way she saw it.

The fact that my brother is even calling me after I ripped his heart from him means one thing. Whatever it is has to be life or death.

Ever heard someone say a day can change your whole life? For me, for my family we don't require an entire day, we just have to answer a phone call and that takes seconds.

“Jace is missing, David and I are heading to Liston Hills now, get Diamond, she's needed. Kevin and Storm will be joining you two. I have the jet waiting at the University you got twenty minutes.”

The phone goes dead, which is no surprise there, Michael hates idle chit chat.

Growing up around him I got used to what other people considered 'not normal' behavior. They weren't lying when they said it, they weren't talking smack when they said he was rude either.

But that was, and will always be Michael Stone. He isn't a peoples person, he lives to make the world a better place. His drive to succeed in doing that has always been at full capacity.

Michael once said that people wasted too much time thinking about doing something instead of just doing it.

Michael believes in positive time consumption, he is a genius just like Diamond but different.

His outlook on life is not appreciated. He knows when to hold his tongue when to pretend and lie but most of the time he just doesn't care.

One time I was sitting by his desk waiting for him to finish off his work and take me for tacos when he got up and came to see what I was doing.

I told him I was watching inspirational videos because they made me feel good. He took my laptop away from me and set it down on a pile of papers on his desk.

I recall thinking how much trouble could a sixteen-year-old me get into if he knew I was watching porn and the only inspiration I was getting was that I needed more yoga classes.

Michael luckily didn't look at my screen, but somehow I knew he knew I was talking smack. I was Kylie ‘the trouble maker’.

Michael took me by my shoulders making me stand and looked me dead in the eyes, my own burned as our gaze connected. He said something to me that day, that I haven't forgotten. He said that there were only three types of people on the earth,

the thinkers, the doers, and the in-between ones and those three types of people were separated by two different mindsets, acceptance and ambition.

Michael said it was how we understood ourselves that counted the difference. He said the ones who accepted could be greater than those driven by ambition as the ones who were accepting were doers. And the ambitious ones could be greater because they were the in between ones.

He said the entire world worked like this. They just didn't realize it yet.

Michael said even I was one of the other and the mind could always change. He said the mind was so strong that an accepting person can swap and turn to an ambitious person and back again. He said that was how time worked, that was the circle of life. It was an on going tyrant of choices, swapping, changing, turning.

Michael said that the only inspiration I needed was when I looked in the mirror in the morning. The rest was just a waste of time, life, and oxygen.

I remember his emerald dark gaze as it stared me down, there was that spell-binding need to listen to him, to understand what he was saying.

I wanted to make him proud then, and as my mind rallies on what he just said on the phone a minute ago, I want to make him proud now too. So though my brain is reeling from those three words, ‘Jace is missing. Jace is missing,’ I don't freak out like I want to.

Instead, I take a deep lungful of air, ignoring the knots twisting my stomach, making me nauseous and the ache penetrating through my beating heart, and the clogging burn in my throat. I ignore all of it because I have to.

“What was that?” The toneless voice behind me does nothing to me at this moment besides serves as a reminder of a big fact - my baby brother is missing and there is nothing more important than my family. I don't stare into nothingness, I don’t perform and scream.

I flip into overdrive. I am Kylie Bray and my brother is missing. My family needs me and in twenty minutes I am going to be getting on that jet.

I don't spare Vincent a glance as I turn around and start toward Diamond. My fixation and hang-ups toward Vincent are too overshadowed by my loyalty and love for my family.

I thought it then, but I had no idea of how the two would one day hold my life in a war of wills.