Elysium's Love Triangle (13 page)

If they hear us it is all over, for all three of us.

He gets another key from his pocket and unlocks the door.

Freedom is suddenly right in front of me.

“Come with us,” I say to
Greg.

He refuses.  He is going to guard the basement as if I’m still locked in there, to fool the others.  This will buy me and Daniel
some
extra time to get away.

Besides, Rejon doesn’t like when his followers run away.  He can’t imagine the punishment he would get for both freeing captives
and
deserting.

It would
be better to just be guilty of
one
crime
, he thinks.

He sounds very solemn. 

I really don’t like leaving him in the firing line like this.

“Now, get going,” he insists, gesturing outside.

I am about to argue but Daniel grabs my hand.  Next thing I know we are outside, running as fast as possible away from here.

I just follow his lead.  We climb over a fence into a field at the back of the house.

We don’t stop running.  We have no idea if they heard us.

A few fields away we finally come across his car and jump in.

He parked it here earlier, he tells me. 

Quickly he turns the key in the ignition.  We find the road in no time at all.

I almost tell him to speed up.  I just want to get away from
there
as fast as possible.

There are so many things going through my mind.

How close I came to being at Rejon’s mercy.

All the new things I know about Greg.

The fact that Tanya is one of
them
.

I can suddenly understand why Angelica doesn’t trust
anyone
.

“Are you okay?”  Daniel asks softly, noticing my long silence.

I still can’t believe it.

I try to keep my voice from betraying my surge of emotion, “They were going to kill me.”

Daniel glances over at me, before answering sadly, “I am so sorry for bring
ing
you into this horrible world of ours.”

I don’t blame him for that.  It was my fault.

I want to tell him this. 

Instead I find myself
say
ing
, “Thanks for saving my life . . . Twice.”

I wouldn’t have survived today, or the night I was changed, without him. 
Nate’s group wanted to kill me as well
.
  Danny
was the one who’d changed their minds.

Daniel smiles, “It woul
d be nice if you stopped getting
yours
elf into perilous situations.
”

I answer seriously.  I tell him
that
I’m sorry for putting him in danger today.

Saving me isn’t exactly a very safe hobby after all.

He tells me that it’s fine.  He did have to use up one of his ten spider-transformations to get inside but it was worth it.

He knew I was in trouble when my mobile phone went out of service.

That’s when he left school to look for me.  Angelica put a tracki
ng device on Greg’s car yesterday
.  She does this to all her sort-of boyfriends.  This way she knows if they’re sneaking off to see another girl, or if they’re lying about where they are.

Daniel had told her recently to stop doing this.  He
was so glad, today, that she had
n’t listen
ed
.

The device s
howed him exactly where Greg
had
brought me.  He would’ve had no idea where to look without it. 

There is a new fear, alongside being buried alive, in his mind.

He fears losing me.

He is so completely afraid of something happening to me.  It’s stronger than his fear for himself.

It takes me a few moments to process this.

I just don’t understand what this boy sees in me.

What if I lose him?

He just saved me from Rejon
, whom
was
already
sending him death-threats before.

My boyfriend is in so much danger.

This thought fills me with dread as I look at him now.
 

He’s become my constant in this world of craziness.  The one who I know will always be there for me.

A song on the radio takes my notice now.  It has just begun.

The same one I heard earlier with Greg.

Daniel comments that this song breaks his heart.  The poor country singer missed his wedding to his ‘sweetheart’ after all.  She
never
comes back.

It’s very sad, he thinks.

I think of the words Greg sang to it earlier, especially the double entendre about the ‘big’ surprise the man got on his wedding night.

I can’t help it.

I find myself in the fits of laughter.

I am pretty sure Daniel thinks
that
I’ve gone delirious.

After this I find myself getting quite tired.  It has been a long day after all.

Daniels presence makes me feel safe, protected.

I fall asleep.

*

Daniel wakes me up when we arrive back at school.

He tells me that it is nearly time for our group
’
s meeting. 

I know
that
we have to attend.  It is vital for us to get an update on our group’s knowledge of Rejo
n.  We also need
to find out about
our plan of attack against him.

I haven’t fed for a while either.  I don’t think I could go another day without doing so.

I get out of the car and the cold air of the night hits me.

The moon is shining and full tonight.  The sky is lit up with stars that enchant me at first notice.

It is truly a wonderful sight.

Daniel smiles and takes my hand.  We eventually sit down at the fountain in front of our school.  It was sculpted two hundred years ago by ‘the best sculptor who ever lived’ according to school literature.  They never do mention his name.

His creation was wonderful though.  The fountain itself is shaped like a tree, only this particular tree has diamonds instead of leaves.  The clear water is pouring into it now, calming me further with its constant re-assuring sound.

Daniel surprises me when he takes a small black camera out of his pocket. 

He holds it up so that both of us will be in the picture.

Then he puts his other arm around my shoulder, bringing us closer together, “Smile!”

“What’s all this?”  I ask when the photo’s been taken, “You into photography?”

He explains bashfully.

Today, back when my life was in danger, he realised that there wasn’t a photo of the two of us together anywhere in existence.

He didn’t have a single memento of our relationship, albeit a brief one.

He promised himself that, if he found me, he would take a photo every-day.  The two of us would be in them and we would both write a comment
,
or message
,
on the back of the picture.  This would be for the other to read, and to help us remember how we felt on that particular day.

It is his hope that it will grow into quite a big collection.

“Danny, that is so sweet
,” I say, falling even more for him.

He shrugs it off and smiles softly.  The photo prints out straight away from the camera.

Daniel looks at it first. He keeps it concealed as he scrawls his message on the back.

He laughs at my repeated attempts to peer over his shoulder to see what he’s writing.

I can’t help being curious
, it’s in my nature
.  My Mom
always used to
say
that my curiosity
was
a trait I got from my father.  I
used to inves
tigate everything that I’d find in the
garden
at home.  I used to bring all types of bugs into the house, back when I was very young
.  I’d always ask Mom what this creature was called.  Then she’d shriek.

With Dad it was different.  He’d tell me calmly that it a ‘snail’ or a ‘beetle’ or whatever.  Then he’d tell me that this
kind of creature ‘preferred’ to be
outside.

I remember I dropped a spider one day.  Uncle Riley stepped on the poor thing, killing it. 

Then he laughed.

I dramatically called him a ‘murderer’ and cried for hours.

Eventually he agreed to hold a funeral for the thing.  Mostly to shut me up I’m sure.  He still didn’t look very sorry.

I am distracted from this memory when Daniel hands me the photo.

He looks pretty hot in it.

I still look like a stranger to myself. 

“I still can’t believe how different I look,” I comment.  “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the eyes.”

Daniel begins to say something but then, at the last minute, refrains from doing so.

“What?”  I ask.

He glances away for a moment, “Well, I just was just gonna tell you . . . Nah, never mind.”

“Go on, what is it?”  I urge.

He smiles shyly
and continues, “Do you remember, on the plane?  You had your eyes closed when I first turned to look at you.  I could sense your fear, you see, that’s what got my attention.  You only opened your eyes when I asked if
you were alright. . . I was completely stunned.  You had the most beautiful eyes I’d ever seen.  Looking into them I almost felt like I knew you, for ages, already. . .
Anyway I’ll stop opening up like an idiot now and go back to being normal.”

He looks at me,
hesitantly
, to see my reaction.  I don’t know why he’s always so reluctant to open up about things.

I tell him straight, “Danny, if our relationship was a normal one, you know without the whole black widow thing, that last speech would so have gotten you laid.”

How shocked he looks at my straight-forwardness is rather comical.

Then he shakes his head and laughs, “Circumstance is a bitch.”

I agree.

Then I remember the photo.

I turn it around to look at the message he wrote.

It consists of one simple word.

Forever.

I’ve never felt an emotion like this before.

Happiness just swells up in me.

It’s a feeling I’m not used to and it’s rather overwhelming.

“Daniel,” I say
,
as he eager
ly awaits my reaction.
“You would probably have gotten laid twice tonight.”

He groans in frustration, “You’re killing me here, Katy, you are killing me!”

I laugh.

I begin to think about what to write myself.

I don’t exactly have a way with words at the best of times.  Now my mind just goes blank.

All I want is a way to describe to him what he means to me.

No words seem good enough. 

There aren’t words for it.

In the end my message is one word, just like his.

Soulmate.

I think tha
t word implies a lot, when you
think about it.

He smiles when he sees it.

This is when the Aracne
s begin leaving school for our meeting.

They seem to all come at once.

They just swing out of their
bedroom windows, using webs shot from their shoulders.  Then they use these webs to abseil their way down the wall.

It is an amazing sight.

Now I know why Angelica didn’t need to use the door.

She eventually wanders over to us.
 

She is glad that I am alive, she tells me.

Rejon will pay for the kidnapping, she assures me.

Then she begins talking to me about our room.  She thinks we should paint it red.

Daniel and I exchange glances.

His sister likes showing emotion even less than he does.

I give her a hug.

I know that she has her own ‘personal space’ boundaries.  Still
,
she
does manage to reciprocate
the hug.