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The Druid turns around and his head is moving in slow motion. His head is transfigured with a fiery halo as his deep green eyes swing onto mine, landing with a weight so heavy I stumble back.
“You know nothing, Quinn.” My name comes off his lips like a curse. “This life? All these concerns? Lies. Illusions and you don’t see it.”
“My dad is sick,” I shout back, unwilling to back down.
“Is he?” He arches one bushy eyebrow, making the already deep wrinkles of his forehead become canyons.
The instant he asks, something in me rejects his question, but the world feels wrong. I don’t belong here. This isn’t my reality. Everything seems, I don’t know, thin. The weight of my phone in my hip feels like an anchor, grounding me. What right does this dumpster diving bum have to question my life?
“Yes. He is. And my mom needs me. My friends need me. This world,” I wave my hand around wildly, “it needs me here.Here.”
“Your mom? You’re sure about that?”
“What?” I shake my head. He keeps pulling one piece out of my rant and it stops my building tirade. Everything is wrong, feels wrong, deep in my heart. “What do you mean by that?” He snorts, shakes his head, then looks off to the side. He sighs heavily before turning and shuffling down the alley. “Wait. Where are you going? What did you mean by that?”
“She’s not ready,” he says to no one I can see without stopping.
ChapterEleven
The alley isempty except for the Druid, me, and the rescued cat who has laid claim to me. The Druid is twenty feet away and shows no signs of stopping, while the cat, for her part, is softly purring across my shoulders.
“What do you mean I’m not ready?” I yell at his retreating form. “I don’t have time for this. For any of whatever this is. Or for stupid games that don’t make any sense.”
The Druid continues his shuffle away without another word. I should walk away. I don’t need this stress or hassle. But what if he knows something? What if he can help? I curse under my breath and run after him.
“Hey! You can’t leave me standing here. You’re supposed to be a trainer. What is this?”
I reach a hand to grab his shoulder, but before I touch him he whirls around. His face is in mine, his nasty, rotten meat breath passing over my face making my stomach turn. His green eyes are alive with a dancing flame like a magical candle that burns emerald.
“Supposed to, must, demands. Who are you, Quinn, to demand? You who can’t see? You who are blind to the truths all around you?”
I try to respond with some witty remark, but my mouth won’t work, and even if it did I’ve got nothing. His mouth moves in a chewing motion. The yellow teeth look sharper, more like fangs than they did before, and the scent of his breath isn’t rotten meat, it’s fresh meat. Fresh with warm blood. Fear causes goosebumps on my limbs and ice to form in my guts. I shudder and take a step back, ready to flee.
Then the cat digs in her claws. The pain is fast, sharp, and most importantly, focusing. It’s like her claws cut through the fear. The world around me becomes sharper, somehow brighter, and more real. A ball of warmth forms deep in my belly. Mentally I reach for the heat, like I’m blowing on a spark to encourage a fire. The warmth flares and spreads through my limbs.
“No.”
In that single syllable is rage. Frustration. Hate. All the anger and even the despair that my life has become for the last couple of months compressed to one word. I square my shoulders and straighten. I’m burning as power rushes through. It’s an electrical charge, lightning that I ride through my own body and soul.
I meet his fiery eyes with my own fire. His bigger size, awful smell, and haggard features loom over me. The fire burning in my core flares, fueling itself on my doubts, fears, and eating the despair that’s gnawed at my thoughts since I returned to this time. The more it rages the bigger I grow. I meet his size and exceed it until he’s forced to look up at me.
“No?” he asks, craning his neck back to maintain eye contact.
“No.” I barely recognize my voice, it’s deep and rumbly.
“No what, Destroyer?” he asks.
His voice is calm. There’s no hint of anger in his tone but only an open curiosity. His question cuts like the blade of a Michelin star chef. As it slices, the rage fueling the fire is gone and the power drains as if he pulled the plug on a tub. I grasp for it, clinging to the power as it rushes away but, in a moment, its gone and there’s nothing left but me.
Exhaustion covers me like a warm blanket. His eyes are back to normal, bright, too intelligent for the face they’re set in but there’s a kindness in them that’s new. I take a deep breath and have to suppress a yawn.
“No,” I sigh, shaking my head. Anger flickers, but it’s the dying ember of a fire that’s burned itself out. “I’m not blind, I’m in the dark.”
“And that is different?”
“Of course it is.” I raise my voice, stepping closer despite the odors that assault my senses and make my eyes water. “Blind means Ican’tsee, being in the dark is different. I don’t know where to look. I don’t know what to look at. I don’t know how any of,” I sweep my arm grandly around, “this works. None of it. I’ve been sucked into this and jerked around like a puppet on strings I didn’t know existed.”
“Good.”
