Beautiful Warrior by Sheri Whitefeather Page A

at least to some degree, that my sister didn’t exist . Yet that didn’t stop me from trying to help her and Seven be together.
    Regardless of my loyalty to his cause, he didn’t seem to like me very much . I wasn’t overly fond of him, either. Our personalities clashed from the start. I assumed it was because I wasn’t fawning all over him the way Abby did. My nonexistent sister was his biggest fan.
    “ Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked.
    “I was just wondering how you perceive Abby.”
    He stopped walking . “What do you mean?”
    “ Do you believe that she’s real?” 
    He blew out a breath . “When you believe she’s real, so do I. Whatever stage you’re at in your illness, that’s how I get my information.”
    “ So at this particular moment, you know that I made her up?”
    “Yes . I know. Abby knows, too, but she refuses to believe it. She’s as sweet and stubborn and delusional as she’s always been.” 
    I was well aware of what my little sister was like. I’d created her as a scapegoat, making her the crazy one so I could pretend that I was sane. “Maybe your chances of being together are better now that I’m completely aware that both of you are hallucinations.”
    “ You’ve never believed that I was real.”
    “ Have you ever believed it?” I was curious to hear how he perceived himself.
    “No, I haven’t . But I just told you that I attain my information from you.”
    Right . From my schizophrenic mind. I glanced down and saw a tiny red lizard race past my aching feet and scurry into the clay-tinged dirt. “I’m just trying to get everything straight.”
    He chuckled . “Good luck with that.”
    I rolled my eyes . Did he have to be such a smartass? But when I looked at him again, I saw an ache in his expression. I suspected that he was thinking about how much he loved Abby.
    “You miss her,” I said.
    “Yeah, I do. But I’m not sure if what you said matters.”
    “What do you mean? ”
    “About Abby and me standing a better chance. I think we could be fucked regardless.” 
    I understood his pain. But I couldn’t let him discourage me from continuing my mission. “I’ll make it work. I promise I will.”
    “ You can’t promise something like that. If you stop having hallucinations, Abby and I are toast. You’ll stop caring about what happens to us.”
    “No I won’t.”  I couldn’t bear to lose my affection for my sister. Or give up on her and Seven.
    He frowned again . Clearly, he didn’t trust me. But why wouldn’t he? His relationship with Abby hinged on me being sick. That was a dilemma for me, too. In order for me to better manage my illness, I wasn’t supposed to cling to anything associated with my hallucinations.
    We came to a fork on the dusty road we were on , and I asked, “Which way should we go?”
    “ That way.”  He gestured to the left.
    Once we took the path he su ggested, the terrain changed. The desert morphed into a forest, with acres of gnarled trees. As if on cue, the sun slipped behind clusters of leaves and twisted branches, and I got an immediate chill.
    I wished that I’d brought a sweater . The wind kicked up, riffling my white blonde hair. I was a fair-skinned girl with blue eyes and long flowing locks. I stood about five feet two inches tall. Seven towered over me, but not compared to the trees. They dwarfed both of us.
    “This i s creepy,” I said. Shadows danced across the sky, creating ominous shapes.
    “Y eah, it’s kind of like the part where the trees throw apples at Dorothy and the Scarecrow.”
    I shook my head . “Will you quit with that movie? Besides, that was child’s play compared to this.”
    “You’re right . This is more like the Dark Forest in Oz the Great and Powerful . Personally, I thought James Franco made a pretty cool wizard.”
    I shot him an annoyed look. I could only take so much of the Oz stuff.
    Seven laughed and resumed his silly warrior song. He was full of himself, enjoying