“Becky,” George said. “Blake almost died.”
“I know, but she doesn’t!” she yelled back.
“No, Becky is right. If I remind her of the one who did this, she will never forgive me. I think I know who she is talking about.”
“What do you mean you think?” Becky’s tone rose.
“Easy Becks,” George said and looked at me. I nodded and sat back down on the couch wiping my face just thinking about all of this. Trying to put myself in her shoes. I couldn’t.
“Blake is still connected with Elena in some way. When she dreams, it’s like he’s there, experiencing it with her.”
“What?”
I sighed.
“You know what they look like?”
“Not all of them, but I know what one really looks like. He sure seems the psycho type.”
She came to sit down and just stared at me. “Make her see, Blake, that you do care.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know how.”
“Fight with her. Hold her down.”
My head snapped at her. “No! I will never put that type of fear into her again just because I want her to hear me out.”
“Becky.” George sounded shocked too.
“That’s not what I mean. I just want her to know the truth.”
“You think I don’t? You think I like being that ass she thought I was a couple of months ago? I don’t, Becky, but I have no choice at the moment.”
“Then let me talk to her.”
“No, she doesn’t trust you like that anymore.”
More tears welled up in her eyes.
“I have a month alone with her. I’ll think of something. She has to talk to me sometime, right?”
They all just looked at me. I knew Elena was stubborn but to not pretend I was there for four weeks…. she would speak to me eventually. “I’ll show her then that I will never put her in harm’s way, ever again.”
HEN I CAME back, Becky was sleeping. I should never have sprung that on her. Ever. Thinking it over again, I felt terrible
I took a bath, and didn’t want to close my eyes because I knew I would only see Seymour and Billy. The night Clive died seemed to be playing over and over in my mind a lot as well, especially when he’d seen James’ body broken like that.
How had Seymour found out about James and his dad? Clearly, I hadn’t played my role convincingly enough. Even if Leo had shown me that they were all evil, for someone to want me like that was too shallow of a reason for why the man who had protected me for almost three months needed to die.
I also couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t find this Wyvern city. I’d looked through almost every map in the library by now and I still couldn’t locate it.
It didn’t make any sense, and only confirmed my initial theory that they didn’t know what the Wyvern city names were, let alone where they were located.
Still, the biggest problem for me now was Blake. Now they were forcing me to go on a mission with him. Just the two of us, alone. It was going to be a long agonizing month, that I was sure of. What upset me still the most was the outcome of what everyone was expecting this trip would deliver. Me accepting Blake as my dragon again. That was never going to happen. I would never trust him, I would never feel safe with him.
I climbed out of the bath and into my bed. Sammy was still not in hers and the clock read seven o’clock.
I looked at Becky’s still body, breathing in a slow rhythmic pattern. I should’ve never told her. If she told George, he would tell Blake, which wasn’t all a bad thing as I wanted him to know that my revenge was coming.
I wanted him to know that I would never forgive him for not being there. Not that I thought he cared at all, but my friends sure did.
George would’ve never let anything like that happen to Becky, ever.
As I closed my eyes, sleep struggled to come. Thoughts and worries made me lie awake. I pretended to be asleep when Sammy eventually came in. I could feel her hand stroking my cheek softly and she planted a sweet kiss on my head. She didn’t say anything and I knew Becky had told her.
She climbed into bed a couple of minutes later and I listened to her fall asleep.
I must have dozed off because I woke with someone breathing in my face. At first I thought it was Becky, wanting to talk more, but when I opened my eyes it was Seymour.
Wake up, Elena, wake up, I kept telling to myself.
“Hello, my beautiful bird,” he said and gave me that wicked smile. Then our window burst into tiny pieces. It happened so fast and the shrill, agonizing scream Seymour let out when the Rubicon tore him to pieces pulled me out of the nightmare.
I was breathing loudly and started to cry again.
“It was just a dream, Elena.” Becky was at my side and I could feel Sammy wrapping her arms around me too.
“I’m so sorry.” Becky’s voice broke. “For everything.”
I grabbed the arm that was awkwardly around my neck and cried softly again. I was never going to escape the nightmares, even if the Rubicon was changing them. I still didn’t know why I’d dreamt that. I wanted nothing to do with him. It wasn’t real, it would never be real.
“What woke you?” Sammy asked and this time Becky stared at her. Their roles had reversed.
“It was this psycho guy. I keep finding him next to my bed. It’s as if he is looking for me and it’s only a matter of time before he finds me.”
Becky’s face hardened. “Good, I want him to find you because I promise you, he will die a gruesome death.”
I hugged her again. I knew it wasn’t what I wanted but knowing that she was there, knowing that George would help – not that Becky needed it as she was vicious all on her own – made me feel slightly better about my fear of Seymour finding me.
I nodded and she tucked a strand of hair from my face behind my ear. “Nothing will ever hurt you ever again.”
I huffed. “I wish I could take you with on this trip.”
They both stared at me and then Sammy looked away. “I wish I could be there too. It’s so unfair,” Becky said and Sammy just looked at her. I hugged Becky again. She’d finally come back, she was on my side again.
I sniffed hard.
We decided that sleep was for the birds and watched reruns on T.V. The girls laughed at everything and later on, one character did something extremely funny and I laughed with them. It carried on like that the entire night until an interview with Blake addressing the public about our trip to Etan came on. It was one he did in his first week the campaign started, that they played over and over.
Ever since Master Longwei told us about that, he spoke through every single form of media, interviews, radio, newspapers, you name it, about us going on a trip to Etan.
The interviews always got cut short the minute they asked him how I was doing. He never replied, just turned around and walked away.
Becky switched off the T.V the minute he started to speak. “I think we should call it a night,” she said and we all went to bed.
He was never like this, and I sighed thinking what it was he went through after that kiss in my room. It definitely wasn’t the same thing George had experienced, that much I knew, and I was really glad for that too.
Still, I was glad that I had my friends back, well one, as Sammy would never see her brother as one of the bad guys, not now. Maybe not ever, but she was here and not disappearing like she had the past couple of weeks.
We had fun tonight and a part of me wished that every day could be like this.
THE NIGHT BEFORE our departure, Blake wasn’t in any of our classes. I figured he was either busy with other interviews, or he was preparing to find his orbs, whatever it was they could do.
Later, I was called in to Master Longwei’s office alone.
“Sit, Elena,” he said and smiled softly.
I sat and stared at him. “I’m sure you know by now that this mission is mixed with something else. Please, I’m begging you, when Blake feels that one of his orbs
is close by, just be patient with him.”
“So what? I’ll be camping somewhere while he saunters off trying to find it?”
He squinted. “No, Elena. Under no circumstances should you be left alone. You have to stay close to him, you hear?”
I huffed. “I hope he gets that memo, Master Longwei. You know what he is like.”
“Oh, it’s not my memo, Elena. It’s his.”
Wait, what?
“And yes, I do know what he is like, Elena. It’s you who seem not to have got that memo, yet.”
I stared at him. He hadn’t changed, well not that much.
“I’m not one of your friends, so I’m not going to lie to you about certain things that happened and it’s not my duty to correct you either.”
“Wait, what are you talking about?”
“Something that you are going to find out about soon enough, and when that happens, I hope that forgiving yourself is as easy as it is going to be to forgive him.”
“What?” I didn’t have to listen to this. “Do you have anything else you want to add before I leave?” I sounded rude.
“No, that is it,” he said and I left.
Now I was sitting on my bed, not knowing what Master Longwei meant by any of that. ‘Forgive myself as easily as it was going to be to forgive Blake?’ Never in a million years.
The fact that he wanted me close to him whenever he was going to find one of his precious orbs was nerve-wracking. Dangerous scenes of flying with him and climbing mountains kept popping up in my mind. He was going to kill me on this mission, that much I was certain of.
I didn’t like Master Longwei’s choice of words either, the ones about my friends lying to me. About what exactly I didn’t know, although I had a feeling that it fell into the Blake category.
Could it be the reason why Becky had forgiven him so easily? How was I ever going to find out? Would Blake tell me? I was sure I would never believe him even if he did.
The door opened and Becky and Sammy entered in high spirits. They were talking about something that had happened at dinner. I didn’t go because I was not hungry.
“Hey, Chef sent this. He said that he refuses to take no for an answer and you have to get something in that stomach of yours before the big trek,” Sammy babbled and put down a plate of food covered with a silver lid.
I took off the lid and found Coq au vin – my absolute favorite!
I smiled. “Remind me to say thanks to him.”
“Oh you will. He’s preparing a breakfast just for you and Blake tomorrow, early before you leave.”
I wanted to grunt but Sammy loved her brother. They would seriously push him on top of me if they could.
“Then I’ll thank him tomorrow.”
It was silent for a while.
“So, you all packed?”
“Yeah.” I looked at my backpack. “I got a note saying that I should pack light.”
“You’ll need more clothes than that, Elena,” Sammy said as she got up from my bed and took my backpack. “You can borrow mine.” She went to her closet and took out the most beautiful traveling backpack I’d ever seen.
“When did you get that?”
“My dad bought it for me for that stupid camping trip.”
I knew the stupid camping trip she was referring to. It was the weekend that I’d freed Blake, the weekend that he kissed me. There was no denying that the kiss fell into the slightly perfect category, but it was that kiss and its consequences that had set the events of the past five odd months in motion and I doubted I would ever be able to get over what had happened to me a month ago.
Becky helped and we took all the clothes I owned and chose from there what to pack.
“Can I ask you girls something?”
They both looked at me as I folded one of my shirts to put in the bag.
“Shoot, what is it?”
“You guys have been honest with me, right?” I asked.
Becky squinted and looked at Sammy. “Honest about what, Elena? You need to be specific.”
“Blake-related.”
Sammy looked down immediately and put my trousers in the bag. I looked at Becky.
“Why are you asking this? Did someone say something?”
“You could say that,” I said.
“Who, Elena?”
“Master Longwei.”
She closed her eyes.
“Becky, what are you hiding? I need to know. I’m leaving with him tomorrow and if something is going to happen that I should know—”
“It’s not like that,” Sammy interrupted. “My brother might be a huge douchebag Elena, and heaven knows he has seriously fucked up any chance he had with you, but he would never ever hurt you like that.”
I swallowed hard at her choice of words. What did she mean by any chance he had with me? It wasn’t like that. We were never going to become anything like that.
“I’m sorry, I just get upset that you always think the worst of him. I know what he did, okay. He hurt you more than any guy here, and yes, it’s unfair that they’re forcing you to go on this trip with him, and he will probably never be enough, but he does deserve a chance to tell his side of the story, Elena.”
“His side? What are you…” I looked at both of them. “This is what Master Longwei was referring to wasn’t it? What are you not telling me, Sammy?”
“Don’t ask me that. I promised Blake I wouldn’t say.”
I squinted. “You promised your brother you wouldn’t say what?”
“Tell you the truth,” Becky interrupted. “Sammy can’t, she is taking her promise quite seriously.”
“As it should be, Becky,” Sammy snapped back. “You promised him too.”
“I refuse to leave with him if you don’t tell me what the hell is going on here.”
“We can’t Elena. It’s not our story to tell.” Becky had that look on her face. The same one Master Longwei had had when he’d uttered that stupid line about forgiving him.
My arms were folded. They were my friends, but still, I meant what I said and I turned around and left. If they were not going to tell me, someone else would.
I KNOCKED ON the infirmary door a bit louder than I intended.
I could hear Constance walking around and then she opened the door slowly.
“Elena!” She sounded surprised. “I wondered if you were going to come by.” She stood in the doorway blocking my view.
“Can I come in?”
“I’m really busy, but give me an hour please, then we can talk.”
“It’s fine.” Blake’s voice came from inside as his figure appeared behind his aunt’s. “I’ve said all I wanted to say anyway.”
He kissed her on the cheek. “Just be careful, Blake,” she said to his retreating figure and he laughed. “Everyone, except Elena, seems to forget what it is I really am.”
She smiled and I just stared at her. “Come in.”
I entered and went to her office. I took a seat and waited for her to sit down too, after she switched on the kettle.
“You want some tea?”
“No, thank you. I need answers.”
“Okay, what sort of answers?”
“Nobody wants to tell me, Master Longwei said something to me and now I can’t seem to stop wondering about it.”
“What did he say?” She sounded worried.
“It was Blake-related. He said when the time came and I discovered something, that he hoped forgiving myself would be as easy as it will be to forgive him.”
She closed her eyes and shook her head.
“Constance, please. Becky and Sammy didn’t want to say anything, they promised – which is seriously messed up by the way.”
“Is it?” She squinted.
“Just tell me.”
She shook her head slowly. “I can’t. I made a promise too, Elena.”
I fell back into the chair. “So what, I have to leave with him tomorrow, not knowing anything?”
“I didn’t say that, yo
u can always ask him.”
I took a deep breath. I hadn’t spoken to Blake directly since I’d come back. Well except for that day with the barcode.
“I can call him back, if you like?”
I had to know so I nodded my head. She smiled, picked up her Cammy and spoke his name.
I didn’t watch his holograph appear on the tiny screen. His face still reminded me of Billy.
“Everything okay?” he asked when he saw Constance’s face. “Yes, you need to come back, Blake.”
“Constance, I was basically done when Elena knocked. I don’t—
“Yes, you do,” she said and put down the Cammy.
I sighed. The waiting was excruciating.
“Just be open-minded and if you want to ask anybody else if what he says is the truth, ask Emanual.”
“Emanual?”
“It’s a long story, Elena. But I know you still trust Emanual.”
I didn’t, not really. He was on team Blake too.
The knock on the door made me flinch and Constance got up. I listened as she opened the infirmary door.
“I really said all I needed to, but if you don’t want to part with me yet…” he joked.
“It’s not that, Blake, come.”
“Okay, what’s up? Elena okay?” he asked in a worried tone that didn’t belong to him at all. I hadn’t expected that.
Constance giggled softly before she entered.
Blake froze at the doorway when he saw me still sitting in the chair. I didn’t look at him.
“Sit, Blake.”