Trevor and Aline decided to go back to her house. They had to take the bus again, so it was a good while before they arrived at her front door. Her cellphone was still dead and she was imagining all sorts of important calls that she may have missed from her dad and her friends. She hoped that nothing bad or worse had happened to any of them while she was off exploring the woods.
She showed Trevor the way to the bathroom so he could clean up a bit, then she used the landline to call her dad's cellphone. She just got his voicemail again so she left him another message asking him to please, please call her back, then she contacted Meran. Her friend sounded quite angry when she realized Aline was the one calling her and she demanded an explanation for why Aline skipped school earlier without telling any of them. Aline then made some lame excuse and promised to talk to her about it again tomorrow and hung up before the conversation could get more awkward. She thought about calling Cassie, too, but ultimately decided against it. However, she did make sure to check up on Sam and find out how Gracelyn was doing. Sam said her cousin was in a coma though doctors couldn't figure out its cause and that she was getting weaker by the hour, and Aline felt just awful that she hadn't been able to drop by and see her friend’s condition for herself. She also felt incredibly guilty because now she knew it was her fault why Gracelyn had gotten caught in the spell that was currently threatening her life. She said goodbye to Sam, then she heard Trevor calling her name and she went to go see if he needed anything.
He was standing outside the bathroom, looking quite uncomfortable as he clutched his dirty shirt to his chest. Aline then realized with a nervous little jolt that he was practically half-naked and, to her complete embarrassment, she felt her face turn red.
"Uhm," he said, and his voice sounded oddly pinched. Then he cleared his throat and spoke in a more normal tone. "My shirt is kind of a mess. Do you maybe have something that I can borrow?"
It took a second before she was able to make a sound. "Y-yeah, absolutely. Just wait here, okay?" Then she ran for her room as fast as she could. "Holy–" she breathed out once she had closed the door behind her. She leaned against it for several minutes while she desperately tried to censor the sudden porno that had popped up in her head. "So. Not. Happening!" she scolded herself. "Get him a shirt and get your mind out of the gutter!" Then she tried to ignore the little mental voice that said it was a very comfortable gutter, with a big bed and maybe a fireplace. "Stop it!" she commanded herself sternly.
Keeping her mind carefully blank, she pulled a black t-shirt out from her closet then went back to where Trevor was waiting for her. "Here." She held out the shirt to him. "It should fit you. It's really large and I normally only use it when I'm going to bed." She bit her tongue as soon as the last words came out of her mouth. Immediately, her head was filled with images that would horrify her dad and, judging from the way Trevor himself reddened, more or less the same thoughts had popped up in his imagination.
"Thanks," he managed to choke out before he grabbed the t-shirt from her hand then hurried back inside the bathroom. She thought she heard a click as he locked the door firmly shut behind him.
Well, that was really awkward. As if she didn't have enough trouble already, she now had to deal with all this tension between Trevor and herself. But she really couldn't afford to fixate on it right now so, with an effort, she pushed away the distracting thoughts. "Hey," she spoke loudly so he could hear her through the bathroom door, "I'm heading downstairs to the kitchen. Just come down when you're done."
"Okay!" he called out.
Aline glanced at the clock once she reached the bottom of the stairs, and she was a bit alarmed when she saw that it was seven minutes past five already. Night was drawing nearer, and she still had no clue how she was going to fight off the Prince once he tried to magic her into being his long lost Princess again. She did feel sorry for the guy because of what he had gone through, yes, but not enough to give in to him. As far as her feelings were concerned, especially when the enchantment wasn't currently working on her, he was just this sad person who didn't know how to let things go. But then, whenever she was dancing with him, there was just the feeling that he was someone familiar and dear. However, she wasn't ever going to acknowledge that out loud. Rosamund may have loved him, and she may be the dead Princess’ reincarnation or whatever, but she was different. Her life was different, her heart was different. Now if only there was a way to make the Prince understand that.
She was ordering some Chinese takeout for dinner when Trevor finally came down and showed up in the kitchen. Then she realized that she didn't even know if he liked Chinese food, so she put the woman she was speaking with on hold for a few minutes to find out. Fortunately, he was okay with her dinner selections and she quickly finished ordering the food. Aline then called her dad again after that and still got his voicemail, but she didn't bother leaving a message anymore. At this point, she was starting to get the feeling that it was hopeless. Trevor correctly guessed that she was upset about it and he said some comforting things they both knew were ineffective, but she appreciated the effort he made anyway. Then he asked if he could take a look at her feet.
"What? Oh. Oh, yeah," she nodded. "We keep another first aid kit in that drawer over there." She pointed to the right spot and he went to get the supplies. He knelt down before her as she sat on a stool and tensed in anticipation when he slid off the soft shoes she was wearing and unwound the bandages on her feet.
They both grimaced when they saw the dried blood that had crusted in ugly streaks and spots on her skin. As Trevor began to gently clean off the blood, he said, "I can't believe you can still manage to walk around."
"Well," she shrugged, "it hurts all the time so I guess I've built up some kind of tolerance for it. If I don't think about it, I can almost not feel anything anymore."
He just frowned and, for the next few minutes, he was silent as he tended to Aline’s feet. After he had applied fresh bandages on them, he glanced up at her. "Now your hand."
"Oh, but it's fine. It hardly hurts," she protested.
"All the same, I'd like to take a look at it," he insisted. So he checked on her hand, too, and he gave a little approving grunt when he saw that she was right and it was healing along nicely. Of course, after he had done all those things, she just thought it would be fair to offer to help tend his wounds or cuts as well. Soon, all injuries the two of them had were taken care of just in time for the food to arrive. Trevor carried the bags into the kitchen and she laid out the different dishes on the table then refrigerated her dad's share. Before they started eating, she tried to call her dad once more and still got no answer.
"Is he normally so busy that he doesn't answer his phone?" Trevor asked quietly.
"Just sometimes," Aline replied. "But he always lets me know if there's something big going on in the office." Left unsaid was the fact that he hadn’t done so this time.
"What does he do, by the way?" Trevor asked to distract her from this thought.
"He's some kind of consultant. He works for this printer manufacturer and he specializes in creating these really great proposals that get them big clients. He used to work from home, but when I turned thirteen, I insisted that he didn't have to hang around all the time, so he moved back into his old office." She choked a bit, then she made herself say it. "What if something has happened to him? What if the Prince has hurt him?"
Then she finally told Trevor the full story she had learned from Raven. When she was done, he looked really grim. He reached out across the table to take her hand in his and he said, "I promise, Aline, I'm going to do everything I can to help you beat this. You're going to be okay, along with your dad and everybody else."
"This is all just crazy," she sighed. "Things like this aren't supposed to happen to people, you know. All this magic stuff and crazy dangerous fairy tales. They're all just supposed to be things in books that I stopped reading years ago." She took a deep, steadying breath. "I'm scared what's going to happen tonight. What if he wins and
I'll lose everything?"
"He's not going to win," Trevor assured her.
"Why not? He's got all the power."
"He didn't win the last time either, remember? We'll find a way to stop him somehow."
"Promise me something, okay?" she said, sounding quite desperate. "When I try to go to him tonight, stop me. Do whatever you have to do, but don't let me leave this house. I never wanna go back to that ballroom." She was starting to sound hysterical. "I don't want to forget myself and become some Princess who died a long time ago. Promise!"
His hand tightened on hers. "I promise," he said.
After dinner, they sat together on the couch in the living room. Her dad had not called her back and he had not come home either, and Aline was now certain that something dreadful had happened to him. She felt defeated when she hung up the phone for the last time and Trevor enfolded her in a hug. They didn't even bother turning on the lights as the night became darker and darker. Trevor pulled her close and continued to hold her in his arms without a word, and she clung to him. They stayed that way for a long time before they realized that they could hear music. Silently, Aline began to cry.
"No," Trevor whispered urgently. "Don't listen to it, Aline. Ignore it. Just don't listen."
She tried. She really tried. But even when she covered her ears with her hands, the music was still there. She could hear it thrum all throughout her body.
"Trevor!" She gasped out in despair when she could no longer resist the pull of the enchanted music. Before she completely lost herself, she felt him hold her as tightly as he could and then give her one last desperate kiss.
~~~
Chapter 14