by S Gepp
"Well done," he enthused with a broad, dopey grin on his wide-eyed face. A few of the rest muttered their congratulations as well, but the two of them were lost in a private world of their own. They clinked their drinks together and giggled like school children as they drank. Now some of the others did turn away with discomfort; Troy's expression, however, was more intense, and his gaze remained fixed on his friend.
Then Francis asked, "Hang on. You've got a lecture this afternoon, haven't you?"
"Oh, I managed to get my timetables changed," she cooed. "So I've got, now, Friday afternoons off and every second Wednesday as well."
"How'd you manage that?" Sean asked suddenly.
She shrugged. "I just asked nicely and got what I wanted," she said. Then she returned her attention to Francis. "So, I've got the rest of this glorious day to myself." She raised her eyebrows. "I know you do, too. Want to do something?"
"You get the good grades, you get to choose."
She giggled again and kissed him on the cheek noisily.
"Oh, get a room," Troy growled.
Chelsea cast him a curious sideways glance. "Okay, fine," she stated, finishing her drink as she stood. She took Francis by the hand and dragged him to his feet. "Let's go," she said, her glare at Troy dismissive.
"I thought we were going to your place tonight for a few rounds of Risk," Brandon whined.
"Well…" Francis started uneasily. "Maybe later."
"Really?" Chelsea purred, wrapping around his arm like a happy snake.
"Sorry, guys. Some other time," Francis muttered dreamily.
"Yeah, sorry," Chelsea added. "Let's go, Franky!"
He obeyed wordlessly, like an abandoned puppy with a new owner.
"Nice," Brandon muttered.
"Yeah," Troy grumbled. "New friend, new…"
"No, you," Brandon interrupted.
"What? Me?" he was indignant and angrier.
"Yeah," Sean added. "She's got influence here as well. More influence than us. Hell, she's got influence over us."
"Well, over one of us, at least," Troy said coldly.
"Bullshit. If she asked you to get her a cup of coffee, you'd fly all the way to Brazil to make sure she had the best beans ever," Julian laughed, the rest joining in quickly.
"But," Sean went on suddenly, "if she's got so much influence, why can't we have it as well?"
"Because none of us look like a super-model," Julian said, standing and throwing his chest out ridiculously. "Reckon I could pull it off?" The others all burst out laughing—even Troy—but the seed had once more been sown: the power and influence were out there and available. They just had to find a way to take it.
Chapter Twenty
2012
Francis disconnected the phone and stared at it for a long time, then cast a glance at Luke, who was still listening to a person on the other end of his device, before turning his attention to his son, sitting on the couch beside Chantelle. Their bodies leaned in to each other, her hand on his wounded thigh, their faces impassive.
He stared back at the phone until Luke had finished, unable to look their children in the eyes. Finally, Luke dropped his hands to his lap. "I guess you got the same message I did," he muttered,
"Little Kristina," Francis acknowledged, nodding once. "Yeah."
Chantelle's eyes widened. 'That little girl?" she whispered. "Is she…?"
Luke's forlorn expression was all the response she needed. She sobbed once, loudly, and then buried her face in Nathan's chest. He instinctively and immediately placed an arm around her. She pressed herself against him and his hand twisted in her hair, holding her tight. Luke, already starting to lift himself to comfort her, jolted visibly at the response. He dropped back down in his seat, unable to take his eyes from his daughter. Not what he had expected, not what he wanted, but also clearly not the time to comment.
"How's Brandon?" Nathan asked carefully.
Francis held his phone up as if that explained everything. "Shattered," he muttered.
Luke nodded. "Julian's with him. They've got Karyn and Allan with them as well." He tried to smile. "I guess they're not coming over after all."
The humor was lost on Nathan. "So, now what? We just wait for this woman to try again?" he demanded.
"Well, I don't think she can…" Francis began, but he could finish. "What can we do?" he tried.
"First, I think you better tell us what happened." Nathan glared at his father angrily, and the older man winced. Chantelle sat up but kept her hand on Nathan's leg, now staring at her own father with an intensity that made him more uncomfortable than he'd felt in years.
Luke and Francis glanced warily at one another. "Well, let's see," Luke said. "Chelsea was a girl from high school…"
"Dad," Chantelle said evenly, her eyes burrowing right into him, "we're not stupid."
"What do you mean?" he returned, again darting his eyes in Francis's direction.
Nathan took a deep breath, slowly and loudly exhaling from between his teeth. "We know she was dad's girlfriend, and she went to uni and high school with you," he explained. "You were really in love with her, you were one of the last people to see her alive, you…"
"Okay, enough," Francis said, barely keeping himself from yelling to stop his son. He could not help but once more gaze at Luke. "Enough," he repeated, calming himself.
"Yeah," Luke mumbled. "We ended up with two smart-arse kids, didn't we?"
"Ha, ha," Nathan said coldly. "So, what happened to Chelsea?" He glanced quickly at Chantelle, who nodded her encouragement and squeezed his hand. "Now, no bullshit. Something happened to her twenty-one years ago, in 1991, September, and I think you lot had something to do with it."
The two older men looked suddenly uncomfortable. "No," Francis said weakly, dropping his eyes.
"No?" Nathan mocked.
"No," he repeated softly, pathetically.
"Dad, stop the bullshit." Nathan wrapped his arm around Chelsea, almost protectively, and she fell eagerly into his embrace. "Whatever the fuck you lot did at university, it's affecting us, your kids. And I'm guessing after what happened to Chantelle in the hospital, this ain't stopping until we are dead. Dead. Us kids, the children of your fucking Round Table bullshit." Nathan's face was red when he finished, and all Francis could do was stare at him, and all he could think about was what the priests at his high school would think if they could hear their school Captain use language like that towards his own father.
Even if Francis believed that he deserved it.
"I… I… Look, I can't," Francis mumbled, surprised that tears were threatening to burst forth from his tired, itching eyes.
Nathan stood up slowly. Chantelle's hand kept hold of his briefly before dropping to the couch beside her, waiting for him to return. He limped across the room, gritting his teeth through the pain, physical and mental. He stopped and towered above the man who he had looked up to, virtually worshipped, for his whole life, more than any other person he had even heard of. But his expression turned harder and colder and he glowered through narrow eyes. "What did you do to her?" he rumbled, his anger a physical force pushing down on Francis.
"We… She disappeared," he offered weakly.
Nathan threw his head back in exasperation. "You're going to keep your pathetic secret, aren't you?" he hissed. "You care that little about us? Really? It doesn't matter that this woman is going to keep on coming after us until we are all dead. You're just…"
"But it can't be Chelsea!" Francis finally exploded. "It's impossible! You have to be wrong!"
"Why, dad? Go on. Tell me why."
Francis steeled himself for what he knew was coming. "Because Chelsea Hartog did not just disappear," he growled. "She is dead, dead and buried, and has been since 1991."
1991
"Franky, what are you doing?" Francis was at Chelsea's side quickly. "What's going on?"
"This was a…a joke, one that just got way too far out of hand," he whispered, hoping that what he was sayi
ng was going to be enough but knowing deep down that it wasn't. "I am so sorry. So very sorry. I didn't mean for it to get this far. I…"
"This far? This far? This far?!" Her hysteria was rising rapidly. "I'm kidnapped, drugged, tied up, thrown in a bag for how long? Three days? Longer? Then I'm dragged out here into the middle of nowhere by the guy I really, really like and his stupid, fucking, loser high school friends, and you tell me that this is all a joke and that it might have gone a bit far?" She shook her head. "You are such a fucking moron! Why are you…you of all people…doing this to me?"
"I don't know…" The first tears, the first of too many that would come over too many years, started.
She paused as she took them all in, each one of them. "I can see it. You think I'm going to let this pass, don't you?" she hissed. "Well, you think any of you are even going to be allowed to finish uni after I tell everyone what you've done to me? Three days in a bag except when that Washington pervert made me dress in this! Three days! I'm hungry, I'm cold, I've even fuckin' wet myself like a little kid! All of you, your lives are fucked! You hear me? You are all completely fucked!"
"Come on, Chelsea," Francis begged. "We'll get you home. We'll give you money. We'll do anything…"
"And so much for power and influence," Sean muttered.
"What? What the fuck does that even mean?" Chelsea now rounded on him. "What does any of this even mean? Can you tell me? Can you?"
Sean merely cowered visibly.
She spun and faced Troy next, the book still held open in front of him. "And what the fuck are you mumbling about over there? You. Yes, you. The one who raped me. Oh, yeah, raped me. Did you know that, Franky? Your mate here got me drunk, and I think he drugged me and had his way with me. Yep, that's right. That's what I was talking about in the caf' last time we were there. I wanted him to admit it, but the gutless prick wouldn't. That stupid shit fuckin' raped me!"
Francis glared at Troy. He tried to speak, but the words wouldn't come out. He understood now where all of this was coming from. And yet Troy ignored them both and continued with his reading.
"Yeah, you are all going down." She reached into the bag and struggled against the bonds still wrapped around her legs. "All of you!" It became a manic chant. "All of you! All of you!"
Troy suddenly slammed the book shut, threw his arms out and his head back, and then cried to the heavens, "And what we desire most of all is power and influence and the ability to change the world!"
His knife was then in his hands, as if out of nowhere.
"Oh, God," Francis whispered, still not wholly comprehending all that was occurring, but so very sure of what was about to happen before his very eyes. "No. Dear God, no…"
Chapter Twenty-One
2012
Nathan stared at his father for a long time. When the words came out, they were a confused jumble, a mirror of his stricken mind. "You… No… I… No… I can't…"
He turned his back on the older man to look at Chantelle, now lying on the couch in the fetal position, weeping softly. She was suddenly no longer an intelligent nineteen-year-old university student; she was an innocent child whose faith in all she had known and believed had just been shattered so completely it was as though her world had crumbled all around her.
"Look, we…" Francis started to say, but he knew no words would suffice. Not now. Maybe not ever. It had been there in Nathan's eyes before he had chosen to concentrate on the crying girl. It went beyond mere disappointment. It went beyond anger or sadness. It went beyond anything Francis had ever seen before.
Francis had lost his son.
An old saying suddenly hit him: The truth will set you free.
Well, this was not the freedom he wanted, set adrift from his own family.
Francis now let his vision drift to Luke. His old friend cringed in his chair as if expecting a physical blow. The truth hadn't really set him free, either.
The two fathers' eyes met. That simple action was too much for them. That night came back to them yet again, the images so stark and clear. Both abruptly returned their attention to their children.
Nathan squatted down in front of Chelsea, despite the pain in his leg. "Are you all right?" he asked so incredibly tenderly that Francis almost broke down. In the face of all this, his son was still a man. Something he could no longer say of himself.
She looked at him, her face flushed, her eyes red, her cheeks saturated. She shook her head slowly, then the sobs struck her again, jerking through her whole body. Nathan wrapped his arms tightly around her and held her close to him, and she returned the gesture, trying to hide against his body. Her arms did not want to let him go, and she cried against him as he stroked her hair and kissed the top of her head. They looked like they were the last two people left on Earth.
His next kiss was on her sweat-drenched forehead. "You feeling any better?" he asked.
She looked up at him and shook her head once more.
"Me neither," he whispered as their heads touched. She tried to smile, just for him, but the effort failed. He then took her hands and stood, lifting her to her feet as he did so. She did not hesitate to hug him and kiss and nuzzle his cheek.
Nathan then faced Luke, making sure he kept hold of Chantelle as he did so. "Mister Archer, take us there," he ordered.
"Wh-what?" Luke blubbered.
"Take us, the two of us, there, where it happened. Now." His anger was coming to the fore, growing more intense; Chantelle strengthened her grip on him, giving him even more courage and keeping him calm enough to function. They were operating as one, their lives now so intertwined that Luke felt his daughter slip that little bit further away from him.
"I don't… I d-don't th-think…" Luke stammered. "M-maybe Francis sh-should…"
"No," Nathan interrupted, not even looking at his father for so much as an instant. "Not him. You."
"Dad," Chantelle begged. "Please."
Luke grimaced and nodded slowly. "Yeah, maybe we should…" He tried not to stare at Francis but couldn't help it. The lawyer looked like he had aged a decade or more while telling their children about that terrible September night twenty-one years ago.
"I've got a question, though," Chantelle said suddenly, her grip on Nathan holding fast.
"Yes, sweetheart?" Luke could not keep the tone of hope out of his voice.
"What exactly was the ritual for?" She looked down. "Mister Coulter said it was power and influence, but, really, what was it for?"
"To get that which was our greatest desire," Luke offered lamely.
"Your desire?"
"On successful completion of the ritual, the greatest desire would be achieved." Even as he said it, he knew how ridiculous it all sounded. "Ours was power and influence."
"Mine was that it had never happened," Francis whispered sadly, watching his fingers and nothing else.
Nathan's body stiffened, and Chantelle shifted her arm around his waist, trying to get him to relax, if that was even possible.
"Then the fucking thing worked," he stated coldly. The other three all looked at him with some shock, but he only had eyes for the girl with him, and his tone softened as he went on, "Don't you get it? The greatest desire. It wasn't my dad's, it wasn't your dad's and the rest. It ended up being hers."
"Sorry," Chantelle whispered with a shake of her head.
He placed another soft kiss on her forehead, noting that it was not as warm as it had been. "What do you think she would have wanted at that moment?" he asked her gently. "What would have been her greatest desire?"
She looked at him for a long time, then dropped her eyes and shifted so that she could hold him with both arms, tight and comfortable, protected and protecting. She knew the answer, and she could see in their fathers that they did as well. The greatest desire the ritual had promised had indeed been Chelsea's. Not the want for power and influence to be exercised by a group of confused boys, not Francis's want for the past to have been changed; no, it was all for Chelsea Hartog and her deep
est, most desperate and final want:
Revenge.
1991
As usual for a Monday afternoon, the first day of the week, the university cafeteria was crowded. Troy and Francis sat at a table drinking coffee in virtual silence, just watching the people coming and going. September already, and yet the complaints of their first month of tertiary education were still there, topping a list that was being added to every week. They all felt like helpless little fish in a large pond that didn't care if they were eaten or ignored. All their efforts to try to exert any sort of influence like they had at high school had been met by brick walls and withering defeats. They simply did not matter, first-year undergraduate students, several of them still struggling with grades in their chosen courses, despite being deep into the second semester.
They felt their entire lives were at the whims of an overbearing bureaucracy, and, with the possible exception of Francis, they all struggled to cope. High school meant nothing once they were here and studying and attempting to take those first unsteady steps into the real world.
The members of the Round Table missed that control and power they had had, now even more than at the start of the year. The few personal and private things to be discovered about lecturers and tutors were hardly the sorts of things to be used to their advantage. And their increasingly cynical attitude towards everything affected their relationships with their fellow students. This was certainly not how they had imagined university to be.
Francis looked at Troy and scowled a little. The man was in an almost permanent funk nowadays, but there was little he could do to help. And, truth be told, he sometimes felt he could not be bothered. Francis knew he was probably the only one of them coping well, especially with interpersonal relationships. Then again, how much of that was due to his close friendship with Chelsea and how much his own personality even he did not want to actually know.
He shook his head; just being with Troy was bringing him down.
"So, you coming over tonight for a game of Paranoia?" Troy asked casually, breaking into his train of thought.