Shadow's Dangers (19 page)

“Nothing, obviously!” she laughed.

She was the only one able to make me smile in the worst moments.

“Come on. Tell me why you don’t want to talk to him.”

My smile faded.
What a miserable diversion. Epic fail, Deliah...
I could not decently tell her the whole story. It was impossible for me to tell her the Wates had dark secrets--including a false identity--some of them related to me. Not to mention that I had to deal with an imminent danger, which had led me to discover Garreth in my room when I woke up in the middle of the night, a few days earlier. She would be worried and she’d force me to call the police or she’d do it herself.

At that moment, I realized that I should be worried. But I wasn’t. This wasn’t normal at all. I should have been anxious about the mysteries Garreth had about his true identity or the threat hanging over me, but all I felt was anger and misunderstanding. However, I wasn’t afraid, as if something inside of me was convinced that everything would be alright with the Wates protecting me. It was insane...and I was definitely crazy in the end.

“Hello Earth, we have lost contact with Deliah Morgan. I repeat: we have lost contact with Deliah Morgan.”

I came out of my thoughts. My best friend looked at me, an amused smile stretching her lips.

“Sorry, I was a little... lost in my usual procrastination.”

“A little lost? You were drowning in the ocean of your mind, you mean!”

“Okay, okay...can we talk about something else now?”

I begged her with my eyes to stop this discussion about Garreth and everything that had to do with him, near or far. She stared at me before sighing in surrender.

“Let’s talk about something else but first, I will give you some advice and you would do well to follow it, by the way: you should really talk to him. You can’t solve problems by fleeing. Instead, you must face them to overcome them.”

She was right but it was easier said than done. Because in a sense, it was not me who was running, it was him. And unfortunately I could not force him to do otherwise.

***

When I left my last class of the day, I met Travis, leaning against the wall in front of the French class. I frowned, puzzled. Why was Grumpy here?

“What’s he doing here?” Hayden inquired when she came out of the room after me.

“I have no clue...”

“Maybe he wants to speak with you about his brother?”

I looked at her strangely. If there was someone who didn’t care about the love affairs of his brother, it was Travis. However, I couldn’t help but turn my eyes on him, curious to know the reason for his presence. His unfathomable eyes were on me. I felt a shiver of fear run through me. I was sure it was the effect he wanted to have on me. I cursed myself for playing his game, because after all, he was a mere high school boy. Okay, maybe he wasn’t just a mere high school boy and that might be the whole problem.

“Ah, too bad that I have to go if I don’t want my mom to come shouting my name all over the school. You’ll tell me everything tomorrow, huh?”

“Yes, yes. See you tomorrow, Hayden,” I replied, my gaze not dropping from Travis’s eyes.

“Yeah, see you tomorrow.”

I waited until everyone had deserted the hallway. After all, who knew what was going to be said here? Even if I was cold with Garreth, I didn’t want to cause problems for all the Wates or, if someone heard our conversation, to appear crazier than everyone in this school already believed. I breathed quietly to give me some courage before I moved in his direction. Once planted in front of him, I waited for him to speak. He gave me a caustic smile and I said to myself that I definitely didn’t like that boy one bit. How could he be the brother of Garreth and Leighton? It was a mystery to me...

“What are you doing here?” I asked, getting impatient because of his silence.

He wore this impenetrable air that made me feel uncomfortable, even scared me. The worst part was that it was just me getting my abundant imagination working. His only goal was to have fun with me. There was no real threat behind all his attitude, just a little obscene game he liked to play. Living up to the poor opinion that I had of him, in fact.

“I came to hear from you since you’ve made yourself rare lately.”

Intonations remained intact to those he had in my memory. It was still cold and dismissive.

“As if you cared.”

“You’re right,” he agreed, his expression showing he even felt a certain pride in his behavior. “You don’t interest me at all; I’m not going to lie. However, I must say...you have impressed me.”

I stared at him suspiciously. What were we talking about?

“What do you mean?”

“I thought you’d be like all these empty-headed girls who get caught in the game of the great and mysterious Garreth Wates. You’ve probably heard the usual refrain: “You’re in danger. I’ll protect you. All I want is you to be safe. I can’t tell you what all of it is about but be assured that I am watching over you, blah-blah-blah...” Usually, even if it’s quite absurd, the verse about the valiant knight in his white armor protecting the precious lady works just fine. But not this time, apparently. I admire that in you. You didn’t fall into his trap. You even got away from him of your own will and you didn’t come back falling to his feet afterward. Yes, really, I admit that I was wrong about your intellectual abilities. You’re not as stupid as you look.”

I tried as best as I could not to slap him hard. Not only did he openly call me an idiot but in addition to that, he dared to tell me that everything Garreth had told me was false, either about his feelings or the risk I was running.

“Obviously, you underestimate me again because I know that everything you just said is not an invention of Garreth’s, even if you try to convince me otherwise for whatever reason. But, given the idiot that
you
are, it doesn’t surprise me at all that you don’t know how to judge me and imagine I’ll swallow your nonsense so easily,” I retorted with as much sarcasm as he put in his words.

There was a moment of hesitation before he asked me in a disembodied voice:

“What did you just say?”

“I said that—”

His hand came up around my throat in a blink of an eye. Surprised, I gasped, his body pinning mine against the wall, preventing me from moving. He didn’t squeeze my neck; however, judging by his amber eyes glaring at me, I could guess that if I tried to fight back, he wouldn’t hesitate to do so.

“Just so you know, no one insults me without suffering the consequences,” he whispered in my ear while I held my breath in response to this gesture.

His face was suddenly in front of mine again and he added:

“You can’t imagine how dangerous I am and believe me, it’s better not to have me as an enemy. So listen carefully to what will follow.”

He paused and offered me a cold smile before continuing.

“For your sake, you better get away from our family as much as possible. Our universe isn’t good for you. Don’t push it. Just drop it while there’s still time. You have no idea what kind of secrets we hide and trust me, you don’t wish to know. Garreth will bring you nothing but trouble and the same goes for Leighton. Keep your distance from us while you can still can.”

As if the threat wasn’t clear enough, his fingers tightened imperceptibly around my throat. Adrenaline and fear glutted my mind and veins. I was really scared for my life now.

“One last thing you should know about me. I am a
Zegerae.
You obviously don’t know what it is, but if I’d translate it, it would mean something like
chimera maker
.”

“A...a what?” I stammered in utter shock.

“A chimera maker. I grant you, the translation isn’t particularly alarming. Yet, it is. A better description is
reality’s transformer
.”

My eyes were literally out of their sockets after that.

“I don’t--”

“You don’t follow? It’s a bit complicated for a little human brain. Especially yours. We’ll proceed more slowly.”

Suddenly, my neck felt like it was caught in ice. The feeling was similar to what I would have felt if thousands and thousands of tiny needles were planted painfully into my skin. It was horrible!

“What are you doing to me?” I exclaimed, alarmed, while trying to fight him back.

I noticed, then, that I couldn’t move, my whole body seemingly held prisoner, as if enclosed in a block of ice. Except that I felt the biting cold only on my throat. Travis laughed.

“It’s painful, isn’t? It could be much worse if I decided on it. So don’t approach my family,” he ordered me too crisply. “Otherwise, you will regret it bitterly and you will only be able to blame yourself for your fate because I did warn you.”

Internally, fear and anger mingled and I didn’t knew if I was frightened, horrified or even irate because he was threatening me and hurting me right now. All of a sudden, the cold feeling disappeared and I could move again. I violently pushed him away with both hands, which almost did nothing to him. His eyes let out a flash of surprise before returning expressionless.

I tried to get away, but to no avail because he immediately noticed my attempt to escape. Bluntly, he grabbed my arm and pulled me hard against him. Was it really me who had thought a few minutes earlier he wouldn’t hurt me, that his attitude was just a dubious game? What a joke! This guy was a real psychopath.

“You stay here,” he decreed. “I have not finished.”

“Let me go.”

Although I felt fury against him, my tone was pleading, terror taking precedence over everything else.

“Oh, you’re scared of me?” he said with irony.

Rhetorical question, because my fear was oozing from miles away. It was a miracle I could keep my legs from shaking after everything that had happened.

“You know,” he said, “you have nothing to fear. I won’t do anything to you. The only way that something happens to you is if you do the opposite of what I just told you. But you won’t do it, will you?

Having the complete inability to articulate a word, I merely nodded. A satisfied pout took place on his face.

“Very well. Now that all is said and everything is clear, you can go.”

I fled at full speed until I was no longer able to run. Then, I literally collapsed on the floor and began to cry, my mind confused like never before and the fear tightening in my stomach due to this reality and the danger that I had become aware of only now.

***

In the days following my disastrous encounter with Travis, I avoided the Wates like the plague. Whenever Leighton tried to talk to me, I ran away or began talking with Hayden or Spencer, as if I hadn’t heard her speak to me. It killed me to do that to her. She was so kind and compassionate with me, but I couldn’t do otherwise. Even though I no longer had contact with Garreth, he also had noticed my sudden change of behavior. Something was wrong and he felt it, like his sister did. I saw their suspicious gaze on me from time to time. Of course, when they weren’t there or had their back turned on me, Travis didn’t fail to send me eloquent glances, as if to say: “Don’t forget what happened and what I told you. Hold your tongue and stay away from my brother and sister.”

As if that wasn’t enough, since that moment, kinds of flash assailed me again without warning. Strange images of my childhood, my father, my mother and little Annabelle. Things that seemed familiar and foreign at the same time because so far, I never had any recollection of it. And there was also the beast of my old nightmares and the Wates, of course. While I was running away from this family and all the things having a connection to them, my subconscious was trying to convince me to discover more about them.

Nothing was right with me. You could say that, given the return of horrible headaches accompanying these kinds of visions, the intensity increasing with each passing day. Nothing could remedy to it. Neither drugs nor a lot of sleep. Yet it had to stop one day. Because it was becoming truly unbearable and I was about to get really crazy because I had no moment of peace.

“You okay, Del?”

I looked up from my lunch tray and fixed my gaze on Hayden. Spencer and she were scrutinizing me, looking worried.

“Yes,” I replied with a smile I wanted to be reassuring.

“I don’t want to be rude, but you seem off.”

“Seriously, I’m fine,” I replied.

“You really don’t look well,” Spencer added. “You sure you don’t want to go to the infirmary?”

“It’s just a headache. It’ll pass,” I lied.

Unfortunately, ten minutes later, after having another strange and brief vision of my parents, I yielded, feeling drained of all my energy because my migraine had worsened. Spencer and Hayden each took me by the arm and then forced me to go see Mary. We got up and went out, the eyes of the whole cafeteria upon us; from the corner of my eye, I saw Garreth and Leighton looking really worried about me. However, they didn’t wait before catching us as we walked down the hallway to the infirmary.
Ugh. As if I needed them when I have to avoid them at all costs...

“What’s going on with her?”

It was Garreth who asked Hayden and Spencer, though his eyes were glaring at me. His concern and his sister’s sincerely touched me but I didn’t want them to stay here. Travis might think that I had told them about his threats or worse, I didn’t take them seriously. This was anything but the case. At this moment, I wondered if the danger Garreth had mentioned was his brother or something else. My headache manifested again with a vengeance and I forgot all my interrogations. I suppressed a grimace.

“I’m fine. I’m just a little tired,” I told them all, laboriously.

“Please, a corpse looks better than you,” Leighton retorted a little dryly.

I felt in the tone of her voice her vexation over the distance I had taken with her and her brother. I didn’t answer and added nothing.

Finally, we crossed the threshold of the infirmary. I soon found myself facing an anxious Mary, who asked me to sit on the examination table. She placed her chair near me and sat on it.

“You’ve become a regular customer. I adore you, Deliah but I would prefer if you came less often to see me. Or at least, not because you feel bad.”