by Morgan Wylie
Kaeleigh instinctively let go of the pressure that had been building inside her petite frame and directed it at Daegan. He gave the barest flinch. She wasn’t even sure what had happened. Apparently, neither did he as he looked down at her with confusion then instinctively took the smallest step back. She had won. He looked even angrier but she knew it wasn’t at her, but at himself. Not wanting to pursue a challenge, she too took one step back. Daegan acknowledged her with the curtest nod. His eyes found hers and she felt her breath hitch. There was connection. She had never felt that before. She could feel the energy surrounding her—his energy—reaching out and pulling her closer. Kaeleigh didn’t think he did it on purpose. When she remembered why she approached him, the connection broke. She felt empty and confused.
“I don’t completely trust you, but right now you are the only thing leading me to hopefully something that will help me understand who I am and what I’m searching for. So I’m trusting you with our protection, which you have offered. I’m sure we are an inconvenience to your traveling, but I wanted to say... I appreciate it,” she said, not really even sure why she did. Oddly, he stared at her with even more confusion and possibly anger. “Why are you so angry with me?” she said. “I don’t understand why you are so hostile toward me. Are you always like this?”
To her surprise he answered her. “You may not ever understand who you truly are and you must be prepared to be let down.” He turned his head to gaze out past her. “Yes, I am pretty much always like this. And I am not angry with you.” He closed his mouth, done discussing it. She wasn’t entirely sure his answer was in regards to her at all.
Kaeleigh looked up at the small opening in the tree canopy that was above their little clearing. Stars were bursting everywhere. It was the most beautiful sight she had ever seen. “Everything is so much more vivid here. The night sky is unbelievable!”
Suddenly, Kaeleigh looked around frantically. Daegan stared at her in confusion but reached for his sword instinctively. “What? Do you hear something?” Daegan asked quietly, looking all around them.
“Don’t you hear it?” Kaeleigh asked, now holding a hand over one of her ears. “It’s getting louder, what is it?”
Daegan, staring in bewilderment, then looked to her other friends. “Do you hear anything over there?” They both shook their heads and headed toward them. “We don’t hear it Kaeleigh. What do you hear?” Daegan said close to her ear, not sure if she could even hear him. She had both hands over her ears now and was starting to crumple to the ground. The anguish etched in her face showed obvious pain. It made him cringe and tore at something deep inside him.
“The buzzing, it’s getting louder! Make it stop... head hurts... dizzy... who are they?” Kaeleigh said breathlessly, trying to get words out. Finn and Chel each grabbed one of her elbows, guiding her gently to the ground. Worried, they looked at each other and then at Daegan.
Finn yelled, “What did you do to her?”
Daegan’s eyes widened with instant fury and stepped toward Finn. “I did nothing to her!” he spat.
Finn started to yell something back at Daegan when Chel grabbed his arm and looked between them. “STOP IT! Both of you. Kaeleigh needs help, what do we do?” Chel yelled and pleaded at the same time. A trickle of blood began to run from Kaeleigh’s nose.
Daegan, not knowing if he could do anything to help, instinctively reached out and touched the side of her face with just the tips of his fingers. Kaeleigh stilled at his touch. He hadn’t realized that she had been shaking from whatever was happening to her. Daegan wasn’t a healer. He didn’t know what to do, but this seemed natural. From his contact with her, through a gift of his, he was picking up some kind of static, LOUD static. Tremors crept up through his arm coming from his connection to Kaeleigh. His eyes widened, but Daegan added his other hand to meet the opposite side of her face, trying to get a deeper read. She began to relax little by little into his hands.
Peeking out from under heavy eyelids, the first thing she saw were deep chocolate-brown eyes boring into hers. She locked on to their strength and intensity. Daegan was straining with his head tilted slightly to the right. Eyes still open, always on alert. Chel’s expression had gone from fear for her friend to amazement at what she was seeing. Finn, on the other hand, was looking on with skepticism and protection, standing tall now with his arms folded at his chest, watching and waiting.
Kaeleigh’s whole body suddenly relaxed as the buzzing ceased. Daegan removed his hands and took a step back to give her room. She could barely raise her head, but uttered an almost inaudible “Thank you.” Her world tilted on its axis before she collapsed and passed out.
✾✾✾
Slowly, Kaeleigh began to wake up. She had no idea how long she was out. It was dark now but that only told her it wasn’t morning yet. The fire still crackled and Chel was huddled close to her, asleep. Light from the fire danced off the large boulder that sat at their back, making interesting shadows to look at as she lay on the ground covered in a duster-style jacket that she recognized as Daegan’s. She slowly raised her head, rolled to her side, and then pushed herself up to sitting but got woozy and almost immediately lay back down.
Daegan’s voice, quiet but across the fire from them, carried to her. “Go easy or you’ll just pass out again.” She was sure there was a smirk at the end of that sentence.
Slowly, Kaeleigh tried to sit up once again. “How long was I out? Where’s Finn?” she asked, noticing that he wasn’t by the fire. Her head was pounding from a headache but not near the pain from last night or whenever it was. She sat cross-legged, rubbing her head and pinching the bridge of her nose.
“Not too long, maybe a few hours.” Daegan’s voice sounded strained and tired. “Finn is getting more firewood. He is keeping watch for a while.”
Kaeleigh noticed Daegan’s head was down, resting on his arms as he sat with his knees propped up. He didn’t look too good. “Are you all right?” She was sure he wouldn’t like being asked, but she had to ask anyway.
He lifted his head to look at her, gave a short smile. “I will be fine. The question is how are you?” He stretched across the space separating them and handed her a flask of water then leaned his head back against the rock that was holding him up.
Kaeleigh took a sip of the water, soothing her parched throat. “My head still hurts, but more like a headache and less like whatever happened before. I’m not sure what you did, but... thank you,” Kaeleigh said remembering his hands, rough and calloused, but gentle on her face, easing the tension as soon as he touched her. “Are you some kind of healer?” She passed the flask back to him.
“A healer?” he laughed out. “No, I’m not.” He closed his eyes and relaxed for a whole minute—something very unlike him. He seemed softer. Kaeleigh wished she could see more of that side of him. She didn’t think he would say more, but then he did. “It is more an absorbing of your emotions to feel what you are feeling, not unlike an empath, but it seems I can also provide a little relief as well. I—I did not know I could do that. It has never happened that way before.” Daegan seemed confused, or trying to work something out as he said it.
“Could you hear the buzzing? Do you know what it was? Are you sure you’re okay, because you don’t look too great. Did what you did for me weaken you somehow?” Kaeleigh rambled out some of the questions that had been rattling around in her brain without taking a breath.
Daegan sighed. “So many questions,” he said with only half the amount of exasperation that he usually showed with her.
“I’m so...” she started to say.
He held up a hand to interrupt her. “You do not need to be sorry, Kaeleigh, I’m just not used to it.” He paused, considering which of her many questions to answer. “I did not really hear your buzzing, but I could feel it. I am not sure but I think I could hear something else... something under the static, almost like voices, but gibberish. I could not decipher it though.” Daegan took a deep breath. “It sounded like something
I too recently experienced. I’ll recover soon; I can already feel my body strengthening. I must have absorbed some of your weakened energy from the pain or maybe from giving my own energy. Like I said, it has never happened that way before.” He raised his head and looked at her with a corner of his mouth turned up in a lazy smile that made those damn butterflies in her stomach jump around again. “No more questions?” Daegan asked sarcastically, looking surprised.
“Oh, I have plenty more,” Kaeleigh bantered back, “but I didn’t want you fainting from exhaustion before Finn got back to witness it.”
“HA!” Daegan grunted out with a hint of laughter. “He’d like that, wouldn’t he?”
Kaeleigh smiled. “Yes, he would... probably too much,” she added. This Daegan is playful. I like him.
“My turn,” Daegan said simply. When Kaeleigh looked up at him, confused, he added, “To ask the questions.”
“Okay, fire away.”
“Do you have any idea what that buzzing was?” he asked, a little more serious.
Kaeleigh shook her head, immediately wishing that she hadn’t. Putting her hand to her head she groaned, “Should not have moved my head like that.” She held her head as if she could stop the feeling just with her hand then looked up at Daegan and was surprised at the concern she saw in his eyes. What was his question? Oh yeah... buzzing. “Um, no I don’t know what it was... although for some reason it felt familiar but I don’t know why. Why would something that made me feel crazy and sick with pain like I have never felt before feel familiar? That’s messed up!” she said, now suddenly deep in thought.
“Okay. Next question.” Daegan paused to make sure he had the go-ahead. Kaeleigh nodded gently and gestured be my guest with her hand. “Why are you here?” Kaeleigh looked at him, confused at his question. As she was about to say something, he cut her off. “Let me rephrase. Why did you come with me not knowing where you were going or what you might encounter, especially to a place that you do not understand—a realm outside of your own, with magic you should not even believe in?”
Kaeleigh gazed at him seriously and cynically before she decided that she wanted to trust him with her answer. He waited patiently, encouraging her decision to trust him. “I have been looking for some answers to questions I have had about my life, who I am, who and maybe where my parents are... why they gave me up.” Almost whispering the last part, she looked at the ground while trying to find the words to what she wanted to say.
“I have always felt different, like I don’t fit in.” She looked down at Chel, her best friend, lying asleep next to her on the ground. “Don’t get me wrong, Chel and her family have taken me in and loved me like their own, but I’m missing a connection and have all these little holes in my heart that long to be filled.” Taking a deep breath, Kaeleigh was surprised at her vulnerability with this stranger. She was sharing things she hadn’t even fully expressed to Chel or Finn, but something in her made her want to keep talking to Daegan. “I don’t know where else to look back home—which has never felt like home. Then all of a sudden you, a stranger, presented me with this completely asinine and unbelievable alternative. So, of course, I jumped at it, thinking, why not? It couldn’t offer me any less than what I know now.” She laughed a little self-consciously and looked at Daegan.
Daegan looked a bit caught off guard, then narrowed his gaze at Kaeleigh. “That was very... honest of you.” He looked confused and maybe shocked at Kaeleigh’s frank vulnerability. “I noticed that you didn’t say ‘Why not? What could it hurt?’ because it can hurt and it might hurt you, Kaeleigh,” he said with a speck of torment flashing across his face.
Kaeleigh saw the look in his eyes. She recognized it. She was intimate with it. It was something that reverberated deep in a closed-off chasm of her heart that she dared not open for fear it might drown and suffocate her into oblivion. Her heart instantly hurt at the knowledge that he knew deep pain and loss as she did.
Just as she was about to say something, there was a rustling in a patch of small trees and bushes beyond the boulder where Daegan was sitting. Finn jumped out from behind the bushes; well, more like tripped out. He stumbled and dropped the armload of wood he had been holding, which woke Chel up with a start. Everyone jumped up, which considering Kaeleigh and Daegan’s current condition was more of a feat than it should have been had there been a real threat.
Finn was obviously pissed off at something if the expression on his face said anything at all. “Sorry... sorry, Chel, didn’t mean to wake you. I got tripped up in those stupid vines,” he mumbled as he began to pick up the dropped pieces of wood to add to the fire that was slowly beginning to die. He stopped and looked up at Kaeleigh with his intensely warm hazel eyes. He was more flustered than Kaeleigh had ever seen him, but all her nerves were on edge from his sudden appearance. She was still reeling with words she wanted to say to Daegan, adrenaline pumping from Finn’s clumsiness, not sure if she should be getting ready to run or bracing for a fight, and concern over Finn’s apparent unease about something she only wished she understood. He must have seen the confusion and fear in her eyes because he looked over at Daegan’s eyes and flinched, seeing nothing but anger and the readiness to fight. Finn relaxed and slowed what he was doing.
“Everything is all right, Kaeleigh. There is no fight,” Finn said more for Daegan than Kaeleigh. He knew the instincts in a warrior to fight and guard at all costs. Daegan was recovering from having helped Kaeleigh and had his guard down. He appreciated what Daegan had done for Kaeleigh and didn’t want to start something for Kaeleigh’s sake. He could tell Daegan was caught off guard, which infuriated a warrior with a charge to protect; he had needed to diffuse it. Finn still didn’t trust Daegan, but he understood that part of him.
Everyone stood facing the fire yet staring beyond it out into the woods, ensuring themselves that there was indeed no fight while trying to calm the adrenaline rush that had overridden anything previously. After what seemed like forever, Chel grabbed Kaeleigh’s arm and tugged her toward the opposite direction of where the boys stood in what looked to be another stare-down.
Daegan, not missing anything, but refusing to remove his stare from Finn, said, “Where do you think you two are going?”
Kaeleigh and Chel flinched at the anger in his voice, but then both regained their backbone quite quickly, and Chel jumped at the chance to counter Daegan. “We are going to find the little girls’ room AND we are going alone AND perhaps we will look for some water while we are out!” Chel growled, her eyes big and saucer-like. Kaeleigh had never seen her friend so commanding before, but oddly it suit her so she backed her up with a nod and folded arms, daring the two overprotective male egos to try to stop them. The greater concern at hand broke the spell between the two warriors and they shifted their penetrating stares to the girls. Finn frowned, but Daegan assessed the look in Chel’s eyes and, seeing something there he approved of, cocked an eyebrow and nodded.
Kaeleigh and Chel turned and walked quickly away from their camp and into a part of the forest they had not yet been, giggling with the relief over their small victory and a moment for a few minutes without boys.
“Score one for Chel!” Kaeleigh giggled out.
Walking for not much more than a minute, they grew silent, both heavy with things they wanted to share with one another but each not knowing how to begin. There is a point even in the deepest friendships when it becomes hard to share things if moments of lost or failed opportunities kept getting passed over. A rift begins to form and a bridge needs to be rebuilt, but sadly that was not this time.
Chel sighed and said in hushed tones, “You know they are following us, don’t you?”
Kaeleigh nodded. “I knew they wouldn’t let us get too far without them.” She gave a tired laugh. “It was nice for them to give us the illusion for a few minutes at least.” Then she shrugged. Kaeleigh knew they could hear them too, or at least Daegan could. A few minutes later Chel pointed to small gathering of thick bushes that would work n
icely for doing what needed to be done.
“Well, anyone following us better leave us be for a couple moments... for REAL,” Chel playfully grumbled loudly enough for them to hear. They laughed, used the bushes, then headed back to intercept the guys on their way back.
Chapter Twenty-three
It was too late when Kaeleigh and Chel realized that they may have “turned back” the wrong way. Surrounded by the darkness the canopy of the old forest provided, Kaeleigh could feel dawn quickly approaching. It tingled under her skin, even though it was still very dark. With only the light from the makeshift torch they had brought with them from the fire, they stumbled around, tripping on fallen twigs and branches.
Kaeleigh jerked on Chel’s arm and both froze where they stood. Chel looked at Kaeleigh, who pointed one finger to her mouth for quiet and the other hand to her ear, signaling Chel to listen. A twig snapped behind and to their left, and both their heads swung in that direction. Each looked at the other, simultaneously mouthing “the guys,” then relaxed and rolled their eyes.
“SNAP!” A louder snap from the opposite direction. Kaeleigh’s heart began to race. Chel’s eyes got big, then angry as she put her hands on her hips and began to stomp off in the direction of the last sound. Grabbing Chel and jerking her back against her, Kaeleigh mouthed, “What are you doing?”
Chel whispered back, “They are playing a joke on us and it’s not funny in the dark!” She looked pissed.
Kaeleigh slowly shook her head, still listening for sounds. After a third noise, more subtle than the first two, but in an entirely separate direction, Chel went white as a ghost and mouthed, “Not them?” knowing what the answer would be.