Arianna Rose: The Awakening (Part 2) (7 page)

She hadn’t been annoyed by his concentration on her bike rather than her.  In fact, s
he had been thankful for his distraction
. 
She had enjoyed watching him work inasmuch as she could,
enjoyed the way the ropey muscles in his arms flexed and bulged,
but did not feel like her
normal
self.  She supposed she would never feel like her
normal
self ever again.  Not with the changes that had occurred, and continued to occur.  And certainly not now that she knew what she was.  She was the Sola, whatever the hell that meant exactly.  Her new title seemed to mean she’d be acquiring new powers at warp speed. 
The most recent had been her heightened hearing
.  She wondered what would come next.  The ability to hear the slightest of sounds had made for an equally
draining
and revealing day
.  Mr. Davis and Mr. Smith’s conversation had been the tip of the iceberg.  She had been involuntarily privy to enough gossip, information and meanness to last her a lifetime.  The only power she could have imagined being more stressful and consuming would have been mindreading. 
And she prayed that that would not come next. 

Interspersed between the nasty and conspiring whisperings she’d been able to hear, the fragments of lectures she had been able to actually pay attention to and the general freaking out she had been doing about the chaotic condition of her life, she’d thought about Lily and Desmond.  She’d thought about them in the
quiet of Luke’
s garage and thought about them still
.

H
ome and alone in her cramped room,
Arianna dug out her cellphone from her bag and
decided to try
Lily’s number again. 
She punched in the ten digits and waited. 
When she was met with the same set of nearly a half-dozen rings followed by a voicemail recording, she hung up
, not bothering to leave yet another message
. 
Frustrated, confused and exhausted, s
he sat on her lumpy bed that did not smell as bad as it had when she’d first sat on it, and allowed herself to fall back.  She stared up at the yellowed water stains on the ceiling still clutching her phone. 
Her
muscles yearned for rest, for revitalization.  But q
uestions swarmed in her mind
and prevented her from
relaxing long enough to drift
off to sleep
.  The question of Lily’s whereabouts was chief among them.  Ordinary people did not simply
stop answering the phone call of friends; they did not
disappear as Lily apparently had. 
Arianna and Lily
had been close when
she
had lived in Rockdale. 
She
had been draw
n
to
the
pale, fair-haired girl two years her junior, had
felt protective of her even, though
she, herself, had been the new girl.  In the months after their initial meeting, she had become close to Lily.  Lily had been the closet
a person had ever been to holding the title of
best friend
in
Arianna
’s
recent past
.  They had spent almost every day together, had confided in one another, and had gained each other’s trust.  Now, Lily was gone.  No fight or falling out had occurred and no indication of their friendship ending when Arianna had moved had been suggested.  Arianna could not think of a logical reason why Lily would suddenly sever all contact with her; unless something else had happened, something far more nefarious. 
The fine hairs on the back of her neck rose at on
c
e as awareness slithered up the length of her spine with serpentine deliberateness. 
She became convinced that s
omething had happened to Lily.  She could feel it shiver through her.  And
with that shiver came
panic. 

A sense of dread forced her to her feet.  Another matter pressed her
, made the notion of sleep impossible.
She wondered whether she was
responsible in so
me way for Lily’s disappearance.
  The question burned inside her
, seared her to her core
.  She needed answers.
She needed to find out what was happening with Lily.
She needed Desmond. 

Unable to be still a second longer, Arianna grabbed h
er coat from her closet and s
lipped into her boots. 

“I’m going out,” she called to her mother to be sure Cathy Rose was not the last to know about it.

Her mother did not reply and she assumed
the woman
w
as either too drunk to answer or
did not care.  Either way, she was not waiting around to find out.  She dashed down the hallway and out the front door. 

Outside, the temperature had fallen considerably.  She pulled her coat closed and wrapped her arms around her waist.  She looked left then right, undecid
ed about where she should g
o exactly.  She just knew she needed to move, to be away from her trailer.  She wasn’t sure where she was going, but needed to find Desmond.  If he had been with her for her entire life, he would not be hard to find.  She
closed her eyes and took a deep breath of the
crisp night air.  As she exhaled, she decided she
would walk for a mile or so to an open field she
’d
passed on her way to school, before her motorcycle had been totaled, and summon him.  She wasn’t sure how to do it, if there was some special witch way of doing it, but was confident she would figure it out.  She had to figure it out.  Lily’s life
could depend
on it.

With a plan in place, Arianna
began moving
. 
She walked out of the trailer development and on to the main road.  Her feet crunched rhythmically on the gravelly shoulder
of the street
, the faint whoosh of the occasional passing car, a soothing sound. 
Dried leaves rustled and stirred and a faint but chill breeze blew.  Overhead, the stars, abundant and
gleaming
against the blackened night sky,
looked as though the
y quivered rather than remain
fixed, shuddering with the same nervous energy Arianna possessed.  She would get answers, answers she might not be ready to hear, but answers, nonetheless.
She picked up her pace and walked more quickly, determined to get to the clearing as quickly as possible. 
Beyond the clearing was a wooded area.  No houses skirted the clearing or the woods.  As far as she knew, it existed as undeveloped land.  She pictured it in her mind, willing her legs to move faster. 
She would go to the woods and call for Desmond.

After nearly twenty minutes of walking, Arianna’s lungs burned.  Despite the burn, however, she wanted a cigarette.  But
she would not smoke
before calling to Desmond. 
She crossed the clearing and stepped into the woods. Around her, barren trees reached skyward with skeletal branches, piercing the navy heavens with their blackened limbs.  The crunch of fallen leaves gave her pause. 
She quickly scanned her surroundings, checking to see if anyone lingered near.  She stilled herself and listened, every muscle frozen, for the sound of movement, human movement.  When none was perceived
and she was confident she was alone
, she spoke Desmond’s name aloud.

“Desmond!” she called and felt
foolish for a fleeting moment.

A section of the air before her became visible, quivering and shimmering like heat radiating off pavement on a sweltering summer day.  She instinctively stepped back, away from it
,
and waited.  She knew she should have been afraid, that anyone else would have been afraid, but felt fearless, her need for answers superseding any fear.  Light burst briefly from the shimmering air
, creating a phenomenon similar to a
camera flash
.  The flare had been unexpected, her eyes hadn’t been prepared for it, and she was blinded briefly.  But when the dark shapes subsided from her field of vision,
Desmond stood before her. 

“Hello, Arianna,” he said in his soothing voice.

The sight of him stole her breath.  She’d forgotten how tall and broad-shouldered he was, how strong he looked. 
How beautiful he was. 
His fair skin, golden hair and
brilliant blue eye
s
shined against the moonless night
and Arianna had to remind herself to breathe.

“Hello, Desmond,” she replied and her reason for calling to him came rushing back
with her breath.

“Is everything okay?” he asked.

“No.  Nothing is okay.  Everything has changed,” she said honestly. 

Rationally, she knew her changes had not been his fault, that whatever defective DNA she possessed, or birthright she was heir to
,
was responsible for it all, yet
could not halt the accusatory tone in her voice.

“
How can I help?
” he said, unbothered by her harshness.

“Well, you could start by answering one of the, I don’t know,
thousands
of questions I have for you,”
she huffed.

“Okay, shoot,” he replied.

“When you told me that the Carl thing was a catalyst to get me and my mom out of Rockdale because someone was getting close, who did you mean?  Who was following me?”

“Howard Kane.  Howard Kane was, and
is
, following you.”

“Who is Howard Kane?  I’ve never heard that name in my life.  Why would he be following me?”

“Because he wants you dead,” Desmond stated as matter-of-factly as he would have said it was nighttime. 

“What?  Why?” Arianna spluttered.  “Why would he want me dead?”

“He knows the Sola
is near, is drawn to her,
to you
, though he does not know your name or what you look like, and he will not stop until he finds you
.  He is the leader of an organization, a church filled with followers who hunt people like us.”

“Hunt people like us,” Arianna echoed his haunting words.  “Like what, like we’re game or something?”

“Yes, just like big game.  Only unlike Bengal tigers or a pride of African lions, we have supernatural powers.” 

“With our powers, how does he manage to kill anyone?”

“
He is a very skilled hunter. 
He
and the hundreds of supporters he has get
us by targeting the ones whose powers are not yet
fully developed, or by surprising us.
 
”

Us
, she thought.  Desmond used the word so casually to refer to her and the witches of the world
, so nonchalantly
.  She still struggled with the fact that she was part of a supernatural order of beings.  Not just one among them, she was their paranormal prophet, designated to unite them in their fight to exist.

“I don’t understand, how does he find us in the first place?”

“
I don’t know how he is able to find us, but he does.  He’s been waiting for your arrival.  He’s been following you for months now
.”

“So he was in Rockdale, this Howard Kane,” Arianna thought out loud.  “And right behind me
, on my trail
.  Lily was left behind.”  Emotion collected in her throat and constricted
it
.  She tried to swallow against it, to speak, but her words came out in a hoarse whisper, “
Was Lily one of us? 
Did
this
Howard Kane, did he kill Lily?” she asked, afraid to hear Desmond’s answer.

Desmond was quiet, pensive
, his face unreadable
.

“Did something happen to Lily?” she screamed, her voice suddenly strong.

“I don’t know,” Desmond replied.  “I left with you, remember.  My mission is to protect you.”

“So you let something happen to her,” she accused more than questioned.  “You let them hurt my friend!”
She lunged at him and pounded her fists against his hard chest.  He did not flinch, just stood stoically, unmoving.

“How can you just stand there?  Don’t y
ou care that a sixteen year-old
girl could be hurt, or
dead
?”

“Of course, I do.  But my goal is to,” he began but she cut him off.

“I know!  Because your goal is to
protect me
; I get it
!  But she’
s innocent!
  She
’s
never hurt anyone,” Arianna said as tears welled then spilled down her cheeks.