The Awakening

by Rochelle Southwick

  “Why don’t I give you guys a bit to talk,” Jake said. I had a hunch that Mitch told him to do as much. “I’m going to take my stuff inside.” He nodded to a small suitcase near the door and a beat up navy blue backpack.

  I nodded, and he went inside.

  “Bea,” Mitch said as he approached me. He was so put together I could see why he was the current leader.

  “Mitch.” I responded by looking up at him. I squinted slightly, the sun was bright in my eyes.

  He knelt down in front of me. “Bea, you can’t just disappear like that. Especially after… after what happened. Delia said, I drained your magic.” He looked down, not wanting to look me in the eye.

  “Mitch, seriously it’s fine. I’m fine. I feel great.” I didn’t want him feeling bad, he was only trying to help.

  “I knew better Bea, I could have killed you.”

  He wasn’t wrong, draining someone’s magic could kill them, but it took a lot more than what he did to kill someone.

  “You weren’t anywhere close to killing me.” I retorted.

  He looked up at me, his eyes hard. “You didn’t see the way you looked when we got to Delia’s. You were pale and gaunt. You looked as though you hadn’t eaten in months. Your skin was pasty and papery, you were freezing cold. The light was nearly gone from your eyes.” As he told me, his eyes softened again.

  Reaching out to him, I placed my hand on his as I focused and used my magic to pass some of my warmth to him. “Mitch, I am right here. I’m okay, I promise.”

  He took my hand and pressed my palm to his face; he leaned into the warmth that was there. His breathing was slightly haggard and I could tell that he was trying not to get emotional.

  “I’m okay, everything is fine,” I reassured him.

  He was acting strangely; he rarely responded like this when someone disappeared or got hurt. Usually, his foremost concern was finding the next person who could take their place.

  He released my hand after a few more seconds. “Please Bea, just be more careful. We can’t afford to lose you.”

  “Why because I can shift into a jaguar?” I asked him.

  His eyes met mine and I could see that wasn’t it. “Bea, please.” His eyes were moist, and he looked like he had slept little the night before. I couldn’t decide what was going on inside him. He looked like he was under intense turmoil. “We can’t lose you.” He reiterated.

  I nodded, holding my breath for a moment. “I will try to be more careful.” I knew going to see Zeeda wasn’t dangerous, but the others may think it was.

  He reached his hand out to mine again. I could feel peace in his touch. That was all he needed from me, was the reassurance that I wouldn’t be reckless.

  “Thank you. Jake has promised me your safety. I trust that nothing else will happen to you. If it does, he will meet his fate.” My eyes shot to his face. It was hard again.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means he’s already faltered once. He would be wise not to do it again.” Mitch said this with the most menacing voice I had ever heard from him. He wasn’t kidding. There would be blood-shed if I got caught again.

  Six

  For the first week that Jake was with mom and me, I watched and observed what he did if I moved. If I went in a different room from mom, he would follow me at a distance. If I went to my room he went to his, his room was right next to mine. With the paper-thin walls, it wasn’t hard for him to hear what was going on in my room.

  In the mornings when I went for my run, he was right there behind me, even though he could easily outrun me. His breathing easy, mine sounded as though I just finished a 5K. He didn’t push my pace or make me work for it. Which was fine by me, I hated running, but after our experience in the woods, I figured it wouldn’t be a terrible idea to get my stamina up.

  The only time I had a moment was if I was in the restroom. Bonus time if it was in a restroom away from home. I went more often than I normally would just to get a few minutes alone.

  It wasn’t all bad though. He did what he said he would and stayed out of my business as much as he could. He was quiet, which helped with study time for me and rarely would he interrupt me. Right now I was trying to study everything I could about dragons. This was also something I had to keep away from him. I would angle my computer screen away from him. Even then when I knew I was being cagey and secretive, he would keep his promise and not look.

  As time passed, I noticed him opening up to me more. One morning on our usual run once again he was behind me, running just fast enough to stay behind. Glancing over my shoulder at him, I rolled my eyes. That was all it took for me to trip over my foot and fall on my face.

  Jake hurtled over me. When he landed, he took a few more steps and turned to look at me. The look on his face was hilarious, I broke out in laughter. Jake followed suit. It was the first authentic smile that lasted more than a few minutes that I had seen.

  Once we were both done, he came over to me and reached down to help me up. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I sort of deserved that.” I brushed myself off, and we continued.

  One week exactly from when I had been put on the leash, Mitch let us know he would come to stay tonight.

  I didn’t know how I felt about that, Mitch still had been acting strangely since the day we had talked on the porch. When we would get together to practice our magic as a clan, he would treat me differently than he had before.

  He was nice and polite to everyone, but to me, it was more. He spent as much time as he could watching me, an amazed look on his face, and holding me in his sightline. He would spend more time around me offering help when I didn’t need it. I didn’t understand why suddenly I had changed in his eyes.

  It couldn’t just be because my magic seemed to be stronger. The energy work that Zeeda had done on me hadn’t worn off, so my abilities were much stronger than I was used to. I had to intentionally hold myself back so as not to draw too much attention to myself.

  I even went so far one day to act as though I was worn out like I should have been after performing several protection spells. Which should have taken everything out of me, but didn’t. I felt nothing, except exhilaration from being able to actually perform the spell to its full ability.

  Jake packed his things and seemed more distant than normal as we waited for Mitch to show up.

  When he got there, he was all smiles. He pulled in a nice suitcase and a cot. I raised my eyebrow at him.

  “We will see you tomorrow, Jake,” Mitch said as he walked Jake to the door. He more or less pushed him out the door and then turned to me. “Hey, Bea.” He smiled at me that same strange smile that had been going on all week.

  “Hey, Mitch.” I was still eyeing his cot. I didn’t understand why he had it, seeing as we had an extra bedroom.

  “Lead the way,” Mitch lifted his arm towards the stairs.

  “To where?”

  “Your room, I will set up my cot outside your door so I am nearby in case anything happens.” His smile was broad.

  “I’m sorry, you’re doing what? What if I need to go to the bathroom?”

  “I won’t be blocking it, just to the side of it. Don’t worry Bea,” he said with a wink. Which didn’t help reassure me.

  I clenched my teeth as a thousand jumbled thoughts filled my head that I wanted to spit into his face. Taking a deep breath, I did the best I could to shove those thoughts and feelings down. Sighing, realizing that I would not win this argument.

  Shuffling my way up the stairs, I grumbled every step of the way. Which he either didn’t hear or completely ignored.

  I couldn’t believe he would be right outside my door that was beyond creepy. I stopped in front of my door. He smiled and set up the cot. It nearly took up the entire width of the hallway. Rolling my eyes, I walked into my room. He followed behind me and took a seat on my computer chair.

  He spun it in circles a few times and then stopped, facing me. “So! What are we going to do t
oday?” he asked with way too much enthusiasm.

  “I was going to go to the library to do some research.” I tried to keep my voice even though I was seething inside.

  “It’s summer vacation, what do you have to research?” He asked with a laugh.

  “I like to stay ahead on my studies.”

  “Okay, library it is.” He stood with a smile. “My lady?” he said, reaching out for my hand.

  Even though the notion of taking his hand made me want to vomit and his weird behavior was seriously throwing me for a loop. He was the leader of the young ones so I had to do as he asked, but I felt as though this was pushing it.

  He didn’t drop his hand after watching me for a moment; he grabbed mine. “There we go, let’s go!” he said, pulling me towards the door.

  Dragging me forward, he opened the door for me and then the SUV door. He took the long way to the library; I sighed as I watched the town pass slowly.

  When we arrived, I opened the door before he could get it for me. He seemed slightly annoyed but let it go quickly, racing to open the library door for me. This would get old fast.

  We perused the stacks, looking for the books we were interested in reading. I pulled out several on dragons and Mitch looked at me with a raised eyebrow.

  “Dragons huh?” He said picking up one and looking at the beast on the cover. “No one has seen a dragon in years. They are extinct,” he said, tossing the book on the table with an annoyed expression on his face. He pulled the chair out for me and then went around to the other side.

  I sighed and sat down.

  “It’s a marvellous thing too, I heard they were really dangerous. I heard they went extinct because people killed them off after they killed hundreds of our kind.” He leaned back on the back legs of the chair.

  I said nothing.

  “Good riddance, I say.”

  Again silence from me.

  “Why are you looking into this stuff, anyway?” He asked me.

  “Morbid curiosity,” I said without a flicker of emotion, with a slight flick of my wrist I sent a blast of magic towards the back legs of the chair. Knocking it and him off balance, I did my best not to laugh as he pulled himself up off the floor.

  “Well, don’t get too wrapped up in it.” He set the chair back up and sat back down. I noticed he didn’t lean back again. “We don’t need your head in the clouds,” he said tapping his fingers on the table.

  “We?” I asked, narrowing my eyes and scowling at his arrogance.

  “Yes, the Elders, myself, the clan.” The way he said ‘myself’ made me wonder what exactly he thought was going on.

  “Where exactly do you need my head to be?” I asked. My irritation with him was building by the second.

  Shrugging, he said, “here, you know, in the real world. Where unicorns and dragons no longer exist.”

  If only he knew. By now I no longer had to try to hide my thoughts from the clan, I could selectively let them in on what I wanted them to know. Which was nice given my current plight.

  “So what if they weren’t extinct?” I asked trying to ease the conversation into what if’s seeing what he would do if he knew they were around?

  “Well then hunting we would go!” He said with a broad smile on his face.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Well, we don’t know what they can or would do. So it would be wise to wipe them out while we still had the chance. While they were babies instead of letting them grow up and take over. They would do the same to us, they would eat us for snacks,” he said, tipping his chair back on two legs once again. Clearly he hadn’t learned his lesson.

  “What makes you think they would eat us? You act as if you know they would be savages.”

  He grabbed a book from my stack and showed me the front cover. It portrayed a dragon open-mouthed, teeth bared. He tapped it with a finger. “You are telling me you think he will eat a salad for lunch?”

  Once again, I said nothing. He wasn’t wrong, but I knew that wasn’t what Zeeda would do. These aren’t actual dragons, anyway; they were fictional. I just wondered if there was any truth behind them.

  It didn’t take long for him to ruin my desire to study for the day.

  My eyes darted around the library for a moment and then I stood. “I need to use the restroom.” I hurried away from the table, praying he wouldn’t follow.

  I could hear him slide back his chair and stand. ‘Ugh.’ I thought. Slipping into the bathroom, I looked for a window that I could sneak out of. I couldn’t handle anymore of him right now.

  To my dismay, there wasn’t a window in the bathroom. I sighed, assessing myself in the mirror, I could see the irritation written all over my face. Taking a few deep breaths, I tried to relieve myself of the negative feelings around me.

  After waiting a few extra minutes, I exited the bathroom, not thrilled to find that he was leaning on the wall right next to the door.

  “Now where?” He asked me.

  “I don’t know, I don’t have any other plans.”

  “All right, then! Let’s go!” He reached for my hand again and this time I didn’t give it to him or let him take it.

  “Where are we going?” I asked as I matched step with him.

  “You’ll see,” he responded with a smile.

  Before long we stopped and got a large pepperoni pizza at the local pizza place and then he drove to the drive-in movie. This was feeling suspiciously like a date. He backed into a spot and opened the back hatch on his SUV.

  Coming around to my side of the car, he opened my door and led me to the back where he had the back seats laid down and blankets laid out.

  “Were you planning this?” I asked him, shocked.

  “I ... Yes ... I have been seeing you in a ... fresh light lately,” he said as he helped me into the back of the SUV. “Now what would you like to drink? I will go grab some drinks and popcorn from the snack shack.”

  “Uh, pink lemonade,” I said, not knowing how to handle the situation.

  I looked around the back of the SUV. I was still shocked and surprised he had done all of this. He had never looked at me the way he had been before. This was bizarre.

  I watched as he headed to the snack shack, talking politely to the girl behind the counter. He handed her some money and then came back to the SUV with a drink holder containing two drinks and a large popcorn.

  His face lit up when he realized I had been watching him. He set the popcorn bucket and the drink holder in the SUV and then hoisted himself inside.

  I watched him cautiously; he opened the pizza box and inhaled deeply. “Nothing better than pizza, popcorn, and a movie with a beautiful girl!” He placed a slice of pizza on a plate and handed it to me.

  Part of me wanted to be pleased that this handsome guy was paying me attention, but a bigger part was confused and concerned about where this had come from.

  I nodded and took the plate, not knowing what else to do. I said a quick protection spell to myself. It was something I had recently learned was using spells without actually saying them out loud, another thing that was strange for us. I waited until he served himself a slice and then we both took a bite.

  The movie started, and I tried to focus on the screen ahead of us.

  Our pizza was delicious and despite my doubts, I eventually settled down a bit and stopped being on edge. Maybe he was just trying to be nice to me. It wasn’t the first time he tried to get people within the clan to hang out together. We were stronger that way.

  My thoughts wandered back to what he had said earlier about dragons, and once again frustration built a bit.

  We laughed at the antics of the characters on screen. After we were finished with the pizza, we moved the box and laid on our bellies watching the rest of the movie.

  ***

  I came home more at ease with Mitch than I had felt in a while and ended up going straight to bed. I checked my phone when I got in the privacy of my room and noticed a text from Jake.

  “Hey, I
didn’t want to interrupt, but I wanted to check-in on you and make sure you were doing ok. It’s been a weird week.”

  Part of me felt bad for not responding sooner but I was with someone in the clan so he should know I was fine.

  “All is well, it was an interesting day on my side but not bad interesting. I will see you tomorrow.”

  As I set down my phone, I realized how much I had missed Jake today. I hadn’t spent this much time away from him since before everything had happened and he started staying with us.

  As I got ready for a bed, a thought crossed my mind. The only way to keep Jake from getting in trouble was if he wasn’t on duty when I went to see Zeeda in case I got caught. Mitch couldn’t throw a fit and go after Jake if he was the one responsible for keeping me safe.

  I thought about how I would sneak out and the ways around Mitch. I could always use my magic against him, but our laws prohibited that. I could lose my magic indefinitely if that happened. Or be banished, I shuddered at the thought. I couldn’t imagine having mom lose me too.

  I could just sneak out the window again. No one knew that was how I got out the first time. It wouldn’t be that hard to turn on my fan in my room. Under the pretense, I needed it to sleep and then use it as cover to slip out the window.

  The only problem was I couldn’t risk taking the truck again. I was positive Mitch would hear it and come out right away. No, I had to be more stealthy than that.

  I paced quietly around my room. I decided the fan was the way to go. I turned it on and then waited for nearly an hour. I couldn’t just leave right after I had turned it on.

  Waiting until I saw the light under my door shut off I knew my chance was coming. Twenty minutes later, I slipped quietly out the window. I sat on the roof for a bit, worried that he heard me and would come check on me.

  When nothing out of the ordinary happened, I slipped down the tree and grabbed my bike. It had been a while since I had ridden my bike once I got my license it seemed useless until tonight.

  I didn’t have much time and didn’t want to waste any of it. Luckily the town was small enough I got to the mountain fairly quickly despite the chain catching more than the last time I had ridden it. My thighs screamed with the exertion of riding so far, but I didn’t care. I didn’t go as high as I normally did, knowing that the rough terrain would slow me down.