Salvation: The Geminae Duology

By Lynette DeVries

Hazel Stone is beginning to accept her birthright—and the extraordinary powers that come with it—but she's still a long way from understanding her connection to a stranger's troubled life.

With the help of her friend, Max, she continues her desperate search for answers, but the trail leads them deeper into dangerous territory. They encounter some unlikely allies along the way—and cross paths with a fanatical doctor who seems hell-bent on hijacking Hazel's abilities, no matter the cost.

Will they uncover the truth and find salvation—or will they lose everything? 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Diamond Lil Press
• Release date: Mar 21, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393110132

Lynette DeVries

Lynette DeVries spent countless childhood hours at her manual typewriter creating choose-your-own-adventure stories and mysteries inspired by the Nancy Drew series.After college, she began writing scripts for various shows on Americana Television Network, and later she wrote episodes of the nationally syndicated Could It Be a Miracle, hosted by Robert Culp. She also wrote for print news and magazines, radio and advertising, but her first love is fiction. Her published novels include The Geminae Duology (Book One: Synchronicity and Book Two: Salvation), OtherLife, The Scars That Remain, Bygones, Grift, and her newest release, Punchline.

Book preview

Prologue

Peter stared at the yellow wall and heaved a sigh of frustration.

The relaxation room was painted the color of butter—a shade meant to promote tranquility—but something had him agitated.

In the midst of his morning meditation, his gratitude mantra had been disrupted by four pesky words: it’s not your fault.

It was an intrusive thought, one it had taken him fifty-odd years to tune out, but it was back, louder and more insistent than ever.

Outside the window, a mockingbird called—a shameless display of variety and vigor, a refusal to be walled in by routine the way Peter had.

You’re one to talk! Peter knew the bird couldn’t hear him—these windows were reinforced by bulletproof glass—but damn it, it had gotten under his skin.

Coming here all those years ago hadn’t been his idea.

He’d never asked to share headspace with his twin brother, Gerry. He found no joy in being the bigger one—the stronger of the two.

As they’d grown older, so had his brother’s resentment.

Peter couldn’t help that girls had been drawn to his sober eyes and quiet voice. They’d mistaken his brooding as confidence, a quality that had only spurred them on.

His parents had responded to his emotional fragility with pampering and special treatment, a fact that made his twin seethe with envy.

Peter had retreated into his own mind—partly to appease his brother, partly because he needed a safe space to wallow in his sadness, a self-imposed time-out.

After high school, he’d gone deeper still, but the psychological tether between them held, as stubborn as the moon’s gravitational pull. His brother revolted with tantrums and threats, but the invisible shackles held.

Peter’s pain flowed out—and his brother’s rage flowed in—an unstoppable give and take.

Then his brother had figured out a way to cut off their psychic connection.

He’d convinced his parents to have Peter put away, to numb him with medication.

It worked. The steady drip of guilt and despair slowed, then dried up altogether.

Peter had grown old inside these walls, his days carefully portioned out and regulated.

Recently, something had changed. Someone out there needed him.

The girl’s cries for help had been subtle at first—like a song caught between radio frequencies—but lately, her desperation had started breaking through, loud and clear.

She was suffering just as Peter had suffered at that young age. The gift she’d inherited from her mother, and her mother before her, had the power to imprison her.

Or it could set her free.

It was up to Peter to show her the path to salvation.

He hated to leave the confines of these safe yellow walls, but he had acquiesced long enough. The war his twin brother had waged against him so long ago wasn’t over.

As far as Peter was concerned, it had just begun.

one

Indigo had met her twin sister fewer than twenty-four hours ago.

Now she stood beside Hazel in the coffee shop line, trying to pretend her universe hadn’t been up-ended like a snow globe.

She knew what Hazel’s coffee order would be even before she spoke the words. I’ll have a matcha latte, please.

The barista did a double-take when she spotted Indigo behind her in line. She wondered if she would ever get used to that.

Iced or hot?

Indigo leaned in and held up two fingers. Make that two. Hot, please.

Max bounced on his toes and gave the barista a timid wave. He’d been hovering between them like an amateur referee all morning.

One more of those, please. He flashed a smile at Hazel. Great minds think alike, right?

When Hazel reached for his hand, Indigo felt an unexpected twinge of envy.

She considered the couple beside her, two total strangers who had shown up unannounced on her doorstep last night. Their arrival felt like a surprise ending to one of those choose-your-own-adventure books she’d loved as a kid—you can either enter the bear’s cave or attempt to swim across the alligator-infested river, what’s it gonna be?

How many nights had she laid awake staring at her ceiling, aching for something she couldn’t put a name to? She’d assumed those moments of vicarious otherness had been brief glitches in consciousness, a side effect of stress.

Maybe she’d been wrong.

Maybe they were sneak previews of the reunion to come—with the twin sister who had been conceived thousands of miles away to a different set of parents. It was an impossibility she hadn’t even begun to process.

She shoved this latest thought to the back of her mind. Right now, she needed to focus on not freaking out.

Max handed Indigo her latte, a simple kindness that made her blush. It was weird; she felt as though she’d known this boy intimately in another life. Everything about him felt familiar—the chivalry that seemed like a carry-over from another era, the penchant for trivia, the laundry list of phobias.

There was no mistaking the shyness in his blue-green eyes when he looked at her. She wondered if he could see through her flippant comments, the façade of indifference she’d put on the moment they’d met.

She had a feeling Hazel could.

Her sister sipped her latte and peered at her from beneath her bangs. The geometric symbol was completely hidden beneath those bangs, but it was all Indigo could think about this morning.

When Hazel had revealed it to her the night before, her first thought had been pity—a forehead tattoo meant a lifetime of regret—but then she had seen the fear in her sister’s eyes. This was no tattoo. It was a marking—one that looked like it had been meticulously etched there in delicate ink, a perfect overlapping of circles.

She’d seen the symbol somewhere else, but she couldn’t remember where, or what Hazel had called it.

Now her own forehead felt weirdly exposed. She didn’t have bangs—it was one of the few differences between her and Hazel—but the skin there had been crawling with a strange tingling for days, and now she found it impossible to tune out.

According to Hazel, her marking had erupted just a few weeks after her life-swapping episodes had begun. There was an unspoken prediction in Hazel’s eyes: it was just a matter of time before a matching emblem would rise up through the layers of Indigo’s skin, an outward sign of some mysterious defect.

Hazel smoothed her bangs with her free hand and leaned in to speak in a confidential whisper. It’s called the seed of life, by the way.

Indigo felt her cheeks flame with color. The seed of life. Sounds very new age.

Hazel smirked. Stick with me and you’ll learn more about sacred geometry than you care to know.

It was an attempt at humor, but Indigo grimaced. She could think of plenty of words to describe geometry—the subject she’d flunked her freshman year—but sacred was not one of them.

She sipped her latte, determined to ignore the fact that Hazel was standing the same way she was: one leg bent, hip thrust to one side, one hand tucked into a back pocket. It was like glimpsing an alternate version of herself in a parallel universe.

For all of their similarities, there was something different about her sister, a crunchy Pacific Northwest vibe that seemed exotic to Indigo.

There was something else about Hazel that felt foreign—a childlike innocence that Indigo hadn’t felt herself for as long as she could remember.

Envy flared inside her again.

Are you sure he’s coming? Hazel asked, her eyebrows drawn together with worry.

Indigo couldn’t imagine anyone being afraid of her elderly boss, Mr. Bleeker, but then she remembered what Hazel and Max had told her last night. His real last name wasn’t Bleeker at all. It was Walsh, the same name Hazel’s grandmother Faye had adopted when she’d married him.

Leonard’s appearance in Indigo’s life had been no accident. According to Hazel, he was their biological grandfather. But if that was true, why hadn’t Susan told Indigo anything about him? Why, after a lifetime of absence, had he recently started following Hazel from a distance?

It was all stranger than fiction, but Hazel insisted she had proof of his identity. The man in Hazel’s wedding video and photos, the man who had resurfaced in Olympia while Indigo thought he was escaping the Florida summer heat, was the same man who owned Musica Geminae, the store Indigo worked at and lived above.

Meeting the old guy at the café, striking up a conversation about classical music—it had all been carefully orchestrated. Indigo didn’t know whether to be flattered or pissed off by the truth.

She couldn’t understand why her own grandfather would pretend to be a stranger. The fact that he’d stayed away from his own biological daughter, Susan—the one who lived just a few miles from him—was unthinkable.

He’s definitely coming. Indigo let her eyes linger on the coffee shop door again. His plane landed a couple of hours ago. He might be a pathological liar, if what you say is true, but he’s punctual.

You didn’t tell him what this was about? Max nibbled the side of his thumb, another habit that felt familiar to Indigo.

She had shown him and Hazel the text conversation twice already, but she sensed that his obsessive tendencies got worse with stress.

Indigo couldn’t blame him, but she was tired of repeating herself. Please. I may be a high school drop-out, but I’m not a dumb-ass. When Max dropped his eyes to study his shoes, she knew she’d taken it too far. She was usually better at keeping her snarkiness contained. Sorry. I guess I’m more nervous than I realized.

At least you know the guy. Hazel twisted her hair around one finger. I’ve never even spoken to him before. Was that jealousy Indigo detected in her sister’s voice?

You’ll love him. Indigo felt like a fraud the moment she said it. She’d just found out the same man who had rescued her from a hellish home life had been lying to her about his identity. Was that her pathetic idea of lovable?

Do you think it was a mistake having him meet us here instead of at the music store? Max dropped his thumb and surveyed the coffee shop, which was humming with the conversations of a dozen patrons.

When Hazel reached out to touch his dark hair, Indigo forced herself to look away.

I don’t know, Hazel said. Public feels safer.

Then the bell above the coffee shop door jingled, and the former Mr. Bleeker walked in.

two

If Hazel hadn’t set her cup down on the nearest table, she would have dropped it.

She turned to face the man who had been stalking her and Max on the West Coast for weeks, her heart thumping. Anger welled up inside her, but then she realized it wasn’t her anger at all—it was her sister’s. She took a deep breath to push it down, to quiet the shivering that had taken over her limbs.

Leonard stopped in his tracks, his face frozen with shock before his features softened into flat resignation. He nodded, and Hazel thought she saw his chin quiver.

Hazel. His voice was thick with emotion. You made it.

Hazel heard Indigo scoff beside her. She watched her sister advance toward Leonard, her eyes blazing. For a dreadful moment, Hazel thought she might slap him, but she crossed her arms instead.

"You expected Hazel to show up here? She shook her head, disgusted. You could have saved everyone a lot of heartache and just invited her. I mean, what is this—some sort of sick game?"

Max wedged himself between them, his eyes frantic. Could we maybe sit down, all of us?

The barista behind the counter watched them with a mixture of curiosity and concern.

Hazel touched Indigo’s arm in an effort to take things down a notch. Good idea, Max.

They found a table in the back of the coffee shop, and Hazel saw her grandfather wince as he sat down. She recognized his unsteady gait from the Olympia sightings, but until now it hadn’t occurred to her that the old man might be in significant pain.

She and Indigo started to sink down onto the same chair, then caught themselves.

This is pretty weird, huh? Hazel looked from Leonard to Indigo, whose eyes smoldered with unspoken accusations. Together again after all these years?

The humor disappeared from Leonard’s face. He sat forward, his face haggard in the window’s light. He looked much older in person than Hazel had expected.

The truth is, you and Indigo have technically never been together in the same room before.

Hazel had a disjointed thought—earthquake!—before she realized Max was bouncing his knee under the table. His eyes were wide, the blue-green of his irises standing out.

Hazel turned to her grandfather. What are you talking about? I know it’s been years since Indigo and I were separated—almost eighteen years, I’m guessing—but we’re identical twins. Obviously—

"Obviously does not apply here—not when it comes to you and Indigo! The urgency in Leonard’s voice made Hazel shrink back against her chair. Max stopped his knee bouncing and stared at the old man. Forget obvious, kids."

Even Indigo had abandoned her death glare. She reached across the table—Hazel thought she might seize his wrinkled hand—but instead she plucked a napkin from the dispenser and balled it up, a contingency plan for the tears that threatened to spill over.

Mr. Bleeker— Indigo caught herself, and Leonard flinched. The guilt on the old man’s face seemed to fuel her. "Whoever the hell you are. We didn’t invite you here for a cup of coffee. I think we deserve to know what’s going on."

A tear rolled down Indigo’s face. Hazel swiped at her own cheek, but it was dry.

We saw you, back there in Olympia. She locked eyes with her grandfather and thought she recognized her mom in them. It took us a while to figure out that you weren’t a serial killer or something.

Max chuckled at that, an effort to defuse the tension that had settled over their table. Hazel thought she saw Leonard relax a little, though his clasped hands were still trembling.

I wasn’t trying to scare you, Hazel. And I’ve been agonizing about how to explain everything to you without sounding crazy. When I tried to tell your mom what happened to her years ago, she was scared, and rightfully so. But then she decided I was dangerous and ended up getting a restraining order against me, and that was that. I can’t tell you how many times I wanted to approach you—restraining order or not—but I told myself that I would be no good to you in jail.

Leonard paused to catch his breath, then leaned in to whisper. I confronted him myself a long time ago, and I have a bum leg to show for it. I believe he’s capable of much worse.

Hazel cut him off. Who’s he? The man in charge of the study my mom was involved with?

Leonard shook his head and frowned. I can’t get into that here.

Indigo flattened her hands on the table and glared at the old man. Here’s your chance to explain everything, Len. Why you lied to me for months about who you are, why you came into my life—sort of—but kept a safe distance from Hazel. Why Kate told Hazel I was dead all these years, and why my adoptive mom thinks Hazel is now back from the dead.

Hazel reached for Indigo’s hand, and she responded with a reassuring squeeze: I’m fine.

Leonard glanced at the coffee shop door, and a terrible thought crossed Hazel’s mind: he’s going to run.

Max cleared his throat. Mr. Walsh. Sir. You’re not on trial here. We’re just looking for the truth. Whatever it is, I think we can handle it.

Hazel and Indigo nodded in tandem, their eyes on Leonard.

The old man cast a furtive glance around the room.

When he spoke again, his voice was hushed. I didn’t even know you existed, Indigo, until about a year ago when I ran into you at the café. He paused to let that sink in. That’s when I realized I was way out of my league . . . that this was all beyond the scope of my understanding. I managed to track Susan down, but she was in no condition to help me figure things out. I’m not sure she even remembers our conversation.

Indigo stared at Leonard, her hand over her mouth.

Leonard held his hands up, defensive. She struggled even as a teenager. There was risky behavior, drug use. She ran away from home when she was sixteen, and after several months, we called the search off. Now I know why we couldn’t find her—she’d managed to hitchhike across the country to Florida. When I first saw you—saw how much you looked like your sister—there was no denying it.

Indigo blinked at him, incredulous. So you pretended to be a total stranger and . . . offered me a job? Some twisted ploy to milk me for the information my strung-out mom couldn’t give you?

Leonard took a deep breath. "Listen to me, girls. When I told you earlier that the two of you have never been together before, I meant it quite literally. Hazel, your mother didn’t lie to you—your sister did pass away shortly after you were born. I was at her funeral, for God’s sake. And Indigo . . . Susan didn’t adopt you. She’s your biological mother."

Indigo laughed—a sharp, humorless sound—but Leonard ignored her.

His eyes bounced between the girls. Your mothers, Kate and Susan, were identical twins, but whatever bond they shared as infants was broken a long time ago.

His eyes roamed to the door again, and that’s when it hit Hazel. He wasn’t thinking about running. He was scared—but not scared of them or their interrogation.

Hazel nodded calmly, afraid to spook him with her need for the truth. Broken? How, Grandpa?

A flicker of disgust passed over Indigo’s face at her use of the title, but Hazel ignored it. She was desperate to keep him talking.

Leonard’s mouth trembled. Your mothers weren’t ordinary twins—and their mother and her twin weren’t ordinary, either. It’s the reason he did it to Faye, and why he tried to do the same thing to Susan and Kate.

Indigo scooted her chair back suddenly, as if the old man’s craziness might be contagious. Stop right there, Len. If you were at my funeral, how am I sitting here in front of you today? What am I—Indigo version 2.0?

Leonard shushed her and scanned the coffee shop with wild eyes. Careful, child! He may not be working alone!

Max resumed his knee bouncing, the color drained from his face. Leonard, are you worried someone followed you here?

Leonard tented his fingers, as if in prayer. When he looked at them—first Max, then Hazel, then Indigo—his eyes were dark and serious. There was no sign of fear in those eyes—only steely resolve.

I wish I was the only one in his crosshairs, Leonard said. I’m afraid we’re all in danger—each and every one of us. We need to work together to find salvation.

Indigo gave him a dubious look. Salvation? Sounds like something my holy-roller mother would say. What’s next on the agenda, Len—speaking in tongues?

Leonard glared at Indigo until her smirk dissolved. He pointed a shaking finger at her. Your mother did the best she could with the hand she was dealt. She deserves nothing but respect.

Hazel thought of her own mother, who had died suddenly a few months back. Kate had cut Leonard out of her life long ago—before Hazel had formed any memories of him—but she’d kept the details of their falling out quiet.

Was it true that she’d gotten a restraining order against her own father? If so, why?

A new possibility occurred to Hazel. Maybe Leonard was mentally ill—or worse, maybe he was dangerous. Had she put herself and Max in harm’s way by agreeing to meet with him? What if the person they should fear the most was sitting right here in front of them?

Max had been silent, but now he set his mug down hard. With all due respect, Mr. Walsh, I’ve had enough of the cryptic bullshit. He raked his hands through his dark hair, his nostrils flared with the effort of breathing in, breathing out—an attempt to keep his anxiety at bay. You say they’re all extraordinary—Faye, Susan and Kate—and now Hazel and Indigo. What are we talking about here? Why would a genetic trait put anyone in danger?

Leonard held his hands up again, another warning. Keep it down, young man. You’re getting ahead of yourself.

Max sighed, then rummaged in his messenger bag. When he found what he had been looking for, he held it up.

Hazel recognized the ornately-carved, wooden pipe—the one she had found at the bottom of the hotel stairwell in Washington, D.C. She shot Max a baffled look—what does an old pipe have to do with any of this?—but he failed to notice.

Leonard studied the pipe with dazed eyes. So that’s it. He knows about you. And he’s gotten too close for comfort.

Indigo grasped Leonard’s arm, her eyes wide. "Are you ever going to tell us who the hell he is, Len?"

Max set the pipe down and sent it skidding across the table, as if somehow this small, inanimate object was responsible for all of their troubles.

I knew it, he muttered under his breath. "Back in Washington, D.C. The man with the fedora. He was there in