Return To Pandora: Book 1 in The Pandora Series (9 page)

That earned me a chuckle from Zack as he came up behind me and wrapped me in his arms. This little show of affection was all I needed to wipe away all of my worries. With him I can handle anything.

I poured myself a nice large glass of hot chocolate and sat next to the fireplace. I needed to get this cold out of my body. It felt like it was seeping into my bones. I chugged the hot chocolate and rubbed my hands up and down my arms to try and warm myself up. I had tears streaming down my cheeks, I hadn’t noticed until Zack wiped them away.

“I thought I had finally had my dad back,” I said sobbing into Zack’s arms. “He was right there and then he was gone. I mean he spoke to me in my dream and told me that my mother and I are his reasons for living, that we are what keep him going. How is it possible to feel this much anguish over not even knowing the man?” I asked as I wiped off my eyes.

“You will be reunited with him and if he visited you in your dream, then he is fighting the spell more than he is letting on. That is a good thing, it means we can save him when we finally find him,” he said making me feel a little better.

“Your right,” I said not sounding very convincing. “But I just need some time to get over whatever this mood is that I’m in.”

“I understand,” he said and got up and pulled me up with him. “Let’s go for a walk,” he pulled me outside with him without even waiting for a reply.

We walked around the block a few times before he brought me back home. I didn’t want him to go, but I also didn’t want him to stay. Although he comforts me, I just needed some time alone to think about everything that happened today. Time to cry and time to write it all down in my journal, to get it all out of my head. Tomorrow will be better.

Progress

Today is the start of week four of our training. Some of the kids in our group are starting to show signs of their powers and when I say some I mean Josh and Leah. They are able to slightly lift things into the air but not to high off of the ground. Olivia has been trying to get them to push out so that the things they are lifting will be pushed away from them, but they haven’t gotten that yet.

I also saw Shanieza briefly lift her bag into the air and it fell just as quickly. If I wasn’t there I wouldn’t have known it happened. Now I’m trying to coach her and Elizabeth on how to lift and push. It isn’t going so great since Liz has barely shown any signs of her powers coming in.

We were on the field, all close enough to touch one another, when we felt it. That change in the air that signaled someone was close, not just anyone, someone with powers. This feeling was putting me on edge. I knew everyone around with active powers felt it, since I saw their facial features change from carefree to on alert for danger. I quickly glanced around my shoulder and put myself in front of everyone else. That didn’t go over so well for the adults with powers, since they took stance in front of me, to protect all the kids.

I thought about standing up to them, but then thought better of it. I need to keep my extra abilities a secret for as long as possible and this would not keep them hidden. Then out of nowhere a woman appeared. She was strikingly beautiful with her auburn hair cropped right below her shoulders and ice blue eyes that shinned bright compared to anyone else’s I have seen before. She wore dark red lipstick and her black dress flowed elegantly around her and formed perfectly around her curves. The adults all stiffened when they saw her and I had to believe that she was someone to be reckoned with.

“Well I never expected to see you here.” The woman spoke to someone who was protecting us, I just couldn’t tell who. “What is the price for treason?” She asked as she circled us.

I had to force myself not to use my powers as she got closer to me.

“You do realize you are in the presence of your Queen? Why haven’t any of you bowed down before me?” 

“With all due respect
my Queen,
we are no longer your subjects, since we do not live in
your
realm,” John spoke up after what seemed like forever. “So therefore we do not need to bow before you, since you are no longer our Queen.”

That earned him a swift kick in the face by one of her minions I hadn’t even noticed before. That kick sent him flying and I used my mind powers to help ease him to ground, without much notice. The only ones who noticed were Olivia and Zack.

“As I was saying, I am your Queen, no matter which realm you live in. When the Queen comes to pay you a visit you respect her and by respecting her you are to bow!” She hissed out barely containing her anger.

“No!” I said and received an elbow in the ribs from Olivia. I eyed her skeptically before I continued, “I will not bow to you, no matter who you think you are. I am not some peasant from Pandora you can scare into respecting you. I am…” Think, you can’t blow your cover dumb ass, what the heck were you thinking? “A sixteen year old girl who is just enjoying a day with friends, who are not a part of that world you come from. We were raised here and we don’t have Queens to dictate us and make us run in fear,” I said and chastised myself for even trying to stand up to her.

She was menacing looking and the snarl on her lips told me I didn’t fool her. She knew exactly who I was and that was where things turned bad.

She stepped right up to me and grabbed me with one hand, fingers on my right cheek and thumb on my left cheek. She gripped tightly and lifted me up high enough that my feet dangled.

Then she said very low and menacing in my ear, “I know exactly who you are Jacquelyn and that is exactly why I am here. You see I never received word back from my shape shifter that things were or were not ok over here, so I knew you and your mother had something to do with that. I just didn’t expect to see such a big welcoming committee upon my arrival to find you.”

Then she flung me and if it hadn’t been for John I would have crashed into a tree and knocked out from the blow. He caught me and had me land gently on the ground.

I was thankful for his help because I was on the verge of using my powers, but I couldn’t have her see what I could do just in case she got away.

“How the heck did you find us here anyway?” I asked her.

“Simple. After I realized you guys were still alive all I did was a tracking spell using something of your mothers. Then when I got here I was able to get something of yours,” she said holding out my hair brush, which I lost about a month ago. “That is when it got easier to track you, because now I will know where you are whenever I want to just by saying this little spell. Don’t you even think about trying to alter it, because there is no way you can.” She said.

Then I did the stupidest thing I could have done. I used my powers and swiped the brush away from her. It was half way to me when she realized what I had done and she pulled back on it with her powers. She pulled harder than I have even been equipped to handle but I wasn’t going to go down without a fight I used all of my power that I could without using the elements and called the brush towards me again. This time I made it come faster to me so she wouldn’t be able to get it away from me. After I got the brush she vanished, as if she was never really here to begin with.

“Very good job, Jackie,” Destiny said stepping away from the rest of the group.

She was a bigger lady, about one hundred and seventy pounds and had bleach blonde hair with pink, blue, purple and orange highlights dispersed evenly around her head. She was taller than me, about Zack’s height. Her eyes were a light ivy color and she had lightly tanned skin that made her ivy colored eyes stand out on her face.

The only ones who seemed to know anything where she and Jenny, the rest of the adults looked oblivious to what they were talking about.

“What do you mean? You all just witnessed the same thing. She was trying to spy on us. What aren’t you telling me?” I demanded.

“Calm down. We just did a little spell that creates an illusion. We made it be the illusion of Christina to see how you would handle yourself around her. Now you know what she looks like and sounds like. You also have an idea of the strength of her powers. You need to work harder to be able to pull that brush away quicker and harder than she can. When you can get whatever object she holds away from her in one shot you will be ready,” Jenny said as she circled the group.

Jenny was Destiny’s sister, but they couldn’t look any more unrelated. Their hair, although Destiny died hers, were different colors. Jenny had ash brown hair and her eyes were spring green. They were the same height and had the same colored skin and same high cheek bones, but other than that they looked like they could be friends not sisters.

Olivia seemed to be on board with it when she responded sounding very enthusiastic. “I think this is such a great idea. I wish I would have thought about it. But, yes I agree. The illusion will hold almost all of her strength since we carbon copied it, to use for this exact thing, back in Pandora. She will be a little more powerful when you actually go face to face with her, since your strength always grows when you do, so her power will be stronger, but not much more than this. I think you and Zack should try fighting the illusion daily,” she said directing her gaze to Zack and back to me.

John nodded his head in agreement and there you had it, were now going to be fighting the carbon copy of the evil Queen on a daily basis.

“Will there be a different scenario every day? Because I really can’t do the same thing every day I’ll out smart it and you all know it,” I said looking pointedly at my aunt.

“Yes we all know that and yes, there will be a different one daily,” she said with a smile on her face.

I thought for a moment and realized that I couldn’t possibly strengthen my powers with the whole group here, for the simple fact that I can’t trust the whole group.

“Ok, so twice a week we will do this, I can’t afford to miss out on the training with the others. If you want to do it every day we can do it at my house, but I really want to be a part of the whole groups training. Also I want to be separate from the others when we do the twice a week training because I don’t like everyone staring at me while I’m being ‘confronted,” I said using my fingers to create quotation marks on the word confronted.

This was the only excuse I could think of to not do this exercise in front of everyone and Olivia knew the truth, so I didn’t need to lie to her, just the others.

She nodded her head at me in understanding and then addressed the group. “I will train Jackie with the illusion at her house daily after our training is done, so she can be here to help you all. When she is sure she has it and is strong enough I will do a surprise one on her here in front of you all. Until then we will continue as usual.”

With that she walked away to talk to the other adults and I sat alone eating and drinking. I should have expected it by now, but I was still surprised when Zack came and joined me.

“It was smart of you to use that excuse, especially since Olivia knows you a lot better than I would have thought. You two seem very comfortable around each other, I thought you said you couldn’t trust her?” He asked.

It sounded like a cross of jealousy and protectiveness at the same time and I had to keep my temper in check so I wouldn’t blow up on him.

Calmly I explained to him everything she was doing for me. Going back to the day she helped me with my fire when I almost burnt down the warehouse. She has become to me the kind of person I looked forward to being around. I know my mother believes she betrayed her and my father, but I don’t think she would have, especially after getting to know her and her helping me with everything.

She’s told me stories of my father and how I have a lot of his abilities and all the ways he used to calm himself down are what I do now. She has become my rock, and I really could use his support in this decision, but if he didn’t want to support me I would manage fine on my own. I could handle myself.

The whole time I told my story he just listened with interest as if it was the most interesting thing he’s heard all day. “I don’t ever want to make you feel like you have to choose between me and anyone else, but I think your trusting her too quickly. I will support you in anything that you choose, but it doesn’t mean I will agree with you. Keep in mind that we do have enemies within our own group and just because we didn’t see her there doesn’t mean she isn’t involved.” He sounded so sure of himself. It was hard to argue with that.

“She already knows what I’m capable of, it doesn’t matter anymore. She will be training with me at my house after were done here every day,” I said asserting my authority.

I didn’t need him putting doubt in my mind about the one person who knew how to handle my abilities better than anyone here.

“I’ll take her help and I will train with her. If it comes to it, which I don’t think it will, I will fight her too. But like I said I really don’t think it will,” I said and walked away to join the rest of the group who looked to be getting started on the rest of their training.

I met up with Olivia and asked her how they were doing and who needed what as for training.

“They are where we expected them to be if not further. We can’t rush this more than we already have. It’s bad enough that we have made their powers come out before they were ready. All this training is going to help, but we can’t take it to quickly, one step at a time is plenty. Trust me when I say that they are doing fine,” she answered.

She’s got a point, but still I want them more than ready and we only have a few more months to get there before we have to go back to Pandora. Back to Pandora, as if I remember what it’s like to be there. My mother is more than ready to go back, she says this world is completely different and she misses the smell of fresh air that you couldn’t smell there no matter where we lived. The air here has a foul smell as opposed to the fresh sweet smell of the air in Pandora. I don’t know what the big fuss was about. I was happy living here, even before I found out who and what I am.

I just nodded my head and walked around them aimlessly as if I was studying their posture and how they reacted to their opponent, instead my mind was back to my conversation with Zack and on Pandora. This magical world, where I am the Princess and everyone has to obey me and what I want.

He should know not to put those thoughts into my head. I can’t afford to think badly of her, I need her. I need him. I need them both and without one of them I’m lost. I just have to make do with what I have for now and get as much knowledge and support from her now, before she does turn against me. I was right when I said it was too late she knows too much. So if she is going to betray me I’m as good as dead now, I might as well get as much as I can out of it.