“Oh, my god! Hayden! I had managed to convince myself you weren’t coming back! This is great!”
Shawn gave me a hug of his own before turning to Jasper. “How are you doing?”
“Quite honestly, I’m not sure how you’ve done this for five years.”
“Believe it or not, it actually gets better. The hard to breathe part I still feel. But after a few weeks it doesn’t feel like your ribs are being pulled out of your chest anymore.”
“Well, that’s good to know.” Jasper glanced at me and took my hand. “I’m fine, Shlova. Really. And you heard Shawn. It gets better.”
I wanted to cry. Here he was, feeling like his chest was being broken open and he was comforting me. I hugged him close. “Lest allais dernaugh.”
I felt him shake his head. “We’re not going back.”
“We could just stay at the clearing by the waterfall. If anyone we don’t know wandered near, we could just come here.”
“You want to live at the waterfall for a year? Through the winter?” He chuckled. “Hayden, you complain you’re cold when you’re in the house and the fire is going.”
“I know. It’s just, geez, Jasper. It’s in your eyes. They have that same look as when we rescued you from the cave. Maybe even worse.” I swallowed hard. “It is worse because here I can’t help you.”
He squeezed my hand and brought it up so he could brush his lips over my knuckles. “You do help me. See?” He stepped away from me and I saw him take a quick breath. His eyes narrowed ever so slightly. If I hadn’t been looking for it, I wouldn’t have seen the change. He took one step toward me and I reached out and touched his chest. I felt him relax; his breathing seemed deeper, like he was getting more air. He took my hand and started leading me toward the door to Rider’s. “Now, let’s go get some of these Wranglers you and Shay seem to be so excited about.”
Shay winked at him and I laughed.
We spent a half hour browsing the store, getting Jasper into some new jeans, a pair of lace up boots and some t-shirts.
“Why don’t we grab subs and go sit on the riverbank?” Shay suggested as we headed back to the trucks. “I have tons of questions and I don’t think this conversation will be for just anyone’s ears.”
I laughed. “If anyone was eavesdropping they would think we were on some bad drugs.”
I put the bags in my truck, locked the doors, and we all piled into Shawn’s truck.
At the riverbank, we grabbed one of the many empty picnic tables. We told them our story and answered all of their questions.
Shawn was shaking his head. “This is unreal!”
Shay put her hand over his on the table and I grinned.
“Um, Shay?”
“Hmm?”
“Is there something you need to tell me?”
She frowned. “Ah. No. I don’t think so.”
I reached across the table and held her hand up like she had done to me the last time I had crossed back over.
She laughed. “Oh. That! With finding out that you were here and getting Jasper to model all those jeans, I totally forgot!” She took the engagement ring off and handed it to me. It was a beautiful white gold band with a raised diamond in the middle of two smaller emeralds.
“Very nice.” I handed it back to her. “So, did you set a date?”
Shawn nodded. “April twenty ninth of next year.”
I looked at Jasper. “A blond girl in a white dress when the snow melts. That’s when we have to cross back. The night of the wedding.”
“We’re sending out the invitations next week. I was going to give yours to your mom. I thought that maybe she could send it your way with your little blue bird. I wasn’t sure if you’d be able to come, though.”
I smiled. “Of course I would have come.”
“But this is even better! I would love it if you could be my maid of honor!”
“Really?”
“Definitely! Do you think there’s a way to get Tara here so she can be a bridesmaid? We’re going to be keeping it pretty small, and the two of you have always been there no matter what.”
I nodded. “We’ll send her a note. The bluebird said she would keep contact during the next while that we’re not over there. She won’t miss this for the world.”
Shay was grinning from ear to ear. “Awesome!”
We spent the rest of the afternoon catching up and trying to explain anything and everything to Jasper so that nothing he ran into while he was here would be too much of a shock.
*****
“I still don’t understand how they did that.” Jasper took my hand as we left the movie theater and headed back to the truck. “How does the camera know to… record?”
“Well, there’s the power source, right? So when you turn on the machine, it starts to record and inside the camera are mirrors and stuff that capture the picture.” I glanced at him and smiled. “I think.” Having Jasper here was showing me exactly how I had taken things for granted growing up. Just trying to explain something as common as cell phones and cameras had me feeling pretty ignorant. “Do you want to stop at Quick’s Corner and grab some wings on the way home?”
“Alright.”
I put the truck in gear and headed toward one of the small restaurants where I liked to eat. They had some of the best take out wings in town. I pulled into the parking lot and we headed into the restaurant to order.
“Hey, Bruce.” I gave the owner a wave. The short grey haired man behind the counter looked up. His grey eyes met mine and he smiled. He was in his fifties but could have passed for a forty year old.
“The usual, Hayden?” Bruce, the owner, manager, and employee scribbled down a few notes at my nod before heading back to the kitchen. Jasper headed to sit at one of the tables while I went to use the washroom.
“Hey, Bruce, someone used a permanent marker on the walls again.” I looked behind the counter as I walked back to the table and almost fell to the ground as a tall teen, the only other customer in the restaurant, shoved into me with his shoulder. His hand caught my arm. I turned to thank him for catching me and stopped at the look on his face. He spun me around so that my back was against his chest. He had a knife against my throat before I had a chance to react.
Jasper stood with a growl. The teen turned us in his direction then pulled us a few steps back.
“Bruce!” The yell almost blew my ear drum.
Bruce came running to the front and stopped short.
“Open the cash and put it in the bag!” He kept angling me back and forth between Jasper and Bruce.
“Vais sil faur sant?” Jasper was looking from me to the young man behind me.
Will he do it? I got myself to calm down and focused on the teen’s body language. His arms were too tight around me. His body was shaking. The way he moved around made me think he was extremely nervous. He was scared and had obviously not done this before. I didn’t think he would kill me if it came down to it.
I looked at Jasper. “Brut.”
“Alright, then.” He sat back down and leaned back in his chair. I felt the teen jerk in surprise.
“He doesn’t seem too concerned for you. Not that great of a boyfriend if you ask me.” As the teen talked I felt the knife move away from my neck a bit.
I laughed. “He’s my husband.”
“Well, either way.” He jerked me back toward Bruce. “Hurry up!”
He made the mistake of pulling his knife away from my throat to wipe his hand on his pants. I pushed back against him as hard as I could and reached back along his arm until I had his wrist in my hand. I turned and pulled him toward me, lifting my knee so that it connected with his groin.
He inhaled sharply and dropped to the ground. The knife fell and I kicked it away. By this time, Jasper was beside us with a table cloth. He tied the young man’s hands behind his back, picked him up by the shirt and dropped him onto a chair.
“Good job, Shlova.”
I grunted. “One scared teenager isn’t exa
ctly a challenge after everything we’ve been through, hun.” I was thankful that the only ones in the restaurant at the time had been us.
He chuckled. “What was it you told me before you crossed back here the first time? Ah, yes. I think it went along the lines of ‘geez, Jasper, it’s way safer over there than it is over here!’” His sky blue eyes were filled with amusement. “The last time you crossed, I found you on the verge of being raped. Now this time around, we’re here just over a month and you manage to get held up at knifepoint.” He shook his head.
“Hayden, are you ok?” Bruce had made his way back around the counter and held me out at arms’ length to look me over. He pulled me into a hug. “I’m so sorry!”
“About what?” I laughed. “This was hardly your fault.”
He let go of me and turned his attention to Jasper. “How long has it been since you’ve crossed?”
My heart jumped and Jasper’s eyes widened. Both of us tensed. Bruce waved away our concern.
“What I mean is, if I call the cops, is proving your identity going to be an issue?”
“Oh. Umm, yes. The person we were told to contact hasn’t gotten the proper documents back to us yet.” I wasn’t sure how much I should be telling him.
Bruce nodded and motioned to Jasper. “Care to give me a hand?” He grabbed the teen by the shirt and pushed him toward the kitchen. Jasper and I followed behind them.
“Ow! You’re hurting me!”
Bruce didn’t loosen his hold on the thin arm. “Sit down!” He pushed him down into a chair. He turned to the only cook, his wife. She frowned and waited.
“This young man decided he should hold Hayden at knife point so that I would empty the cash register for him.”
Her light blue eyes widened. “Oh, my.” She made her way over to the counter. “Well, we can’t have that, can we?” She pulled two large chef’s knives from the block and tossed them to Bruce and Jasper.
I’m not sure which eyes were bigger, my green ones or the teen’s hazel ones.
“You come in here quite a bit. There’s a whole group of you.” Bruce tested the sharpness of his knife on a tomato. The tomato didn’t stand a chance. “It’s Eric, if I remember correctly.”
Eric, if that was his name, refused to acknowledge.
“So, Eric, here’s what’s going to happen. I won’t call the police today. You will use your get out of jail free card this time around.”
Eric stood and made to run away. Jasper grabbed him by the back of the neck and sat him back down roughly.
“I’m not sure running is such a good idea, Eric.” Bruce shook his head. “You see, I happen to know that my friend, here, is extremely experienced with knives.” He turned to Jasper. “Maybe Eric would like a demonstration of what might happen should he try to run away before we were done with him. Eric? Do you see that bag of flour by the far wall?”
I was sure Eric’s eyes were going to pop out of their sockets.
“Imagine that bag of flour is you.”
Jasper followed Bruce’s lead, tossed the knife in the air a few times to get used to the weight of it then threw it at the bag of flour. The knife slid into the bag noiselessly right to the hilt.
Bruce pushed Eric’s chair back against the desk and brought the knife down where it stuck into the wood by the teen’s shoulder with a thump. Eric stared at it and his lip started to tremble.
Jasper stood him up roughly, a smaller knife already in his hand. He pressed it against the teen’s throat.
“Oh, god, please! I’ll never do it again! I promise!” Eric’s words were hard to hear between his sobs. I was actually starting to feel bad for the guy.
“What do you think, Bruce?” Jasper looked over the teen’s head and smiled, his blue eyes full of amusement.
Bruce chewed on his lip thoughtfully. Eric looked at him pleadingly, tears running down his face.
“Ok.” Bruce nodded. “Eric, run along home.”
Jasper pulled the knife away from his throat and untied his hands. “I think you owe Hayden an apology.”
Eric wiped his arm over his face. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t going to hurt you. They dared me I wouldn’t do it.”
“How old are you, Eric?”
“Sixteen.” He turned his attention to Bruce. “Sorry.”
Bruce patted his shoulder. “Everyone makes stupid decisions. Make sure you learned something from this one.”
Eric nodded. “I did. Quite a few, actually.” His eyes met Jasper’s. “How did you do that? With the knife?”
“I’ve had a lot of practice.” Though he kept his face serious enough I could see the smile glinting in his eyes.”
Eric stood in front of us awkwardly, looking at the ground. “Can I go now?”
Bruce nodded. “You can.”
I waited until he was out of the restaurant before I started to laugh. “Oh, god, that poor kid!” I shook my head. “You guys are mean.”
Jasper smiled. “Mean? The boy had a knife to your throat, Shlova. He’s lucky I didn’t kill him.”
“Had we been back home, he wouldn’t have walked out of here.” Bruce shook his head.
Madge gave him a pat on the cheek before turning back to my wings, which were almost ready. “We were told we can go back now that Hayden has found her way home. You’re the one who insisted on staying.”
He smiled. “What can I say? After twenty years, it’s hard to leave this place.”
“You’re Wedelves, aren’t you? Tara told me there were other Wedelven guards sent to watch over me!”
The two of them nodded.
“Anyone else?”
“No one knows who the others are.” Bruce grinned. “Top secret, you know.”
I laughed.
“How did you know I had just crossed?” asked Jasper.
He shrugged. “I can pick out a shifter from human. There are small hints to watch for. The eyes are the most important. There aren’t that many humans out there that need to hide the amount of pain you guys have to go through.” He went to the front door and put up the ‘closed’ sign. “Do you guys have a few minutes to catch us up on everything?” He smiled at our nod.
Madge brought over the wings and waved away my money. “It’s on the house tonight, dear.”
The four of us sat and talked until the small hours of the morning.
*****
It was midsummer and the weather was beautiful. Jasper and I were sitting by the horse trailer, watching the two horses I had brought to the horse show. The grey shook his head lazily to get rid of some flies and the bay blew out of her nose.
“What time is the first class again?” Jasper pulled off his baseball cap, ran a hand through his hair, and put the hat back on.
“Ten.” I looked at my watch. “We’d better warm these guys up.”
We saddled the horses and led them to the ring. I swung onto the grey and watched as Jasper hopped onto the bay. He pulled the horse’s head around and had her moving nicely off of his leg. Due to his experience on horseback and his catlike balance, it had taken no time at all before he had caught on to the style of riding required for reining.
“Are you sure you don’t want to ride the bay in one of the classes?” I pulled slightly on the reins and asked the grey to give me his head.
“No. I’ll just watch. Carl is paying you to ride these two, not me.” He looked at me and smiled. “Besides, she slides better for you.”
I looked around the ring at my competition. “Well, here’s hoping it will be enough. There’re some nice moving horses here today.” I glanced toward the concession stands for Shawn and Shay. My heart jumped in my chest.
“What’s wrong?” Jasper followed my gaze.
I frowned. “I…I’m being paranoid. It’s nothing. I thought I saw Dave standing over there.”
“He’d better hope he’s not dumb enough to show his face around you again.” Jasper’s jaw clenched and I knew he was remembering how he had crossed over and found Dave trying to rape m
e. The bay sensed his change of mood and tensed.
“Jasper, breathe. You’re making Tika nervous.”
I saw him relax and Tika followed suit.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I’ll ask you to please exit the ring. Those of you in the open class, please make your way to the holding pen.”
We rode the horses to where the other riders and their mounts were starting to congregate.
“If you do see him, don’t do anything.” I glanced at Jasper to see his reaction. “You can’t just beat the crap out of people here; you’ll get thrown in jail. Understood?” We had already gone over what was and was not acceptable behavior here, but I thought I had better remind him just in case.
He nodded. “You should have just let me kill him when I had the chance.”
“Maybe.” We watched as three riders took their horses through the pattern.
“Next up, number fifty-six, Hayden Carlson riding Poco Shadows Prince.” I nudged Shade with my legs and proceeded to enter the ring.
“Good luck, Shlova.” Jasper smiled.
And good luck we were having. Shade ran through the pattern with very few faults and ended the production with a slide that took my breath away. We made our way back to the holding pen.
“Holy crap! Did you see that second spin to the left? I don’t think his pivot leg moved an inch!” I patted the little grey horse on the neck.
Jasper grinned. “That was impressive.” He looked past me and his eyes narrowed. I glanced back and saw Dave staring back at him. He had his arm around a young blond woman. His free hand held a beer. I heard the low growl that escaped Jasper’s throat and my heartbeat quickened.
“Jasper.” I put my hand on his leg.
“What?” His eyes never left Dave’s.
“Get that look off your face.”
He blinked and the killer look slipped away. He took a deep breath. “That’s as close as he gets, Hayden. If he gets any closer than that, he dies.”
It was my turn to take a deep breath. “Fine. Here. Switch me horses. I’m up right away.” We made the exchange and I moved closer to the in gate. I looked back at Jasper to make sure he was alright and almost laughed out loud. Shade was now standing between a sorrel horse and a black one. Their riders, a couple of pretty blonds that looked to have just gotten out of high school, were both laughing, leaning slightly toward him. He smiled, shook his head then pointed to me.
Journey 'The Chosen One Trilogy: Book Two' Page 25