Chapter Twenty-One
“Look!” Gavin exclaimed pointing out at the ocean. Afraid, I followed his index finger. Jade was standing in the surf she was up to her shoulders in water. Joy filled my heart, but my eyes didn’t understand they could stop leaking so with a weak laugh, I wiped away the river flowing down my cheek.
Jade trudged through the water onto the beach; she looked shaken, but fine. The men who tried to save us walked down onto the beach. Many inspected the crash sites and collected blood samples. Some however went to Jade. “Are you hurt?” Jade shook her head. “Where is this girl, do you know?” The man talking to Jade held up a picture. Panting for breath, Jade pointed our way. One of the men stopped digging in the sand and jogged over to Gavin and I.
“Are you Sruun Borealis?” He asked; he had a deep, raspy voice.
I wiped snot from my nose with my bare arm. “Yes, who are you?”
“I’m Sergeant Cortez of the McLeod Militia. We’re mercenaries hired by Sir Harold; he claims we’re a branch of the Servants.”
“Why are you here?” Gavin asked.
Sergeant Cortez glared at Gavin. “Who’s he?” He jabbed his thumb at Gavin when he asked me the question.
“He’s my boyfriend.” I thought Gavin’s hands on my sides would have been an obvious enough clue. “Why are you here?” I stressed the word ‘are.’
“Sir Harold ordered us to stalk Jade Cataye and Sruun Borealis so that we could protect them from the Catrions. That’s our exact mission.”
“You make it sound so impersonal.” I commented.
“I just do my job ma’am.” He replied. “Now, if you would, please come with us. Our orders were to take you back to McLeod Manor if an attack happened.”
“No,” I stated.
“Pardon? We’ve got to return you to McLeod Manor.” He didn’t appear happy by my refusal.
“I’m not going anywhere until I’m dressed.” I answered.
He sighed. “I don’t have to bring you clothes, do I? I’ve heard how the Servants operate.”
“No, but I do want you to tell Jade to come over here.” I instructed.
He left, and then he, Jade, and the mercenary talking to Jade walked to the mouth of our artificial cave. I tried conversing with Jade when she approached but she was speechless.
Gavin didn’t turn around as Jade and I dressed. He didn’t seem to care anymore. The three of us pulled our clothes on in silence, astonished by what we’d just seen.
When Jade had put on her shirt and zipped her pants, she picked up Krystal’s loosely folded clothing. Walking to Sergeant Cortez, she deposited the pile in his hands, perhaps because he seemed to be an official authority.
Sergeant Cortez was bewildered by the gift, and I was oddly embarrassed. It was probably the thong and baby blue bra sitting on top that embarrassed me, but these were simply the things Krystal had worn before Jade lent her a bathing suit.
Jade pocketed Krystal’s necklace, and when I saw her searching for something, I asked what she was looking for. “The diary—you know, the one she always wrote in! It’s gone! She must’ve had it with her.” Jade croaked out.
“Are you ready?” Sergeant Cortez asked, still holding the pile of clothes with the thong in plain sight.
“You have to let us go to our apartment to pack a few things first. We weren’t expecting to have to leave.” I said after my thoughts came in rapid succession.
“It sounds reasonable enough. We’ll follow you to your apartment, and give you enough time to pack some clothes and things.”
Back at the apartment, Gavin and I dumped the contents of our bookbags onto my bed. My laptop bag was the smaller of the two so I put my laptop in first, then his stacked on top. We decided to use Gavin’s bag for my clothes. “This section of the dresser is mine. Could you cram as much of my junk in your bag as you can get?” Although I asked him if I could use his bag, I expected him to let me regardless.
Meanwhile, I dumped Jade’s backpack on the bed also and rummaged through its contents to find any personal items she might want. After that I tried to recall where she put the stuff which usually fought off her boredom. Gathering everything I thought she’d want proved difficult; most of the time I took her for granted, so remembering what she did during the day seemed impossible.
Gavin stopped packing a few minutes into it. Unsure of the reason and still traumatized by the morning’s tragedy, I asked him why. “What’s wrong? Is your bag full?”
“It’s your underwear drawer!” He hissed as if he didn’t want anyone to know he was going to pick up my underwear.
“So?” I replied, beginning on Jade’s sock drawer.
“So, I’d feel like a pervert if I went through your underwear drawer!” He whispered the last two words quieter than the rest.
“Then imagine I’m wearing them, that way you’ll be looking at me, not picking through my dresser drawer.”
Gavin opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, and said nothing. I didn’t understand what the fuss was; Gavin and I’d been together a few months and in that time, he’d seen me in a bikini, the one-size-fits-all underwear at McLeod Manor, and he had even shared a bed with me when I had worn little more than a bathrobe. I’d have thought he’d be fine packing up a few panties and bras but my assumption was wrong. Boys were so weird.
For the second time in forty-eight hours, Jade, Gavin, and I were on a train beneath the Atlantic. I was getting tired of travelling.
My fatigue could also have been emotional exhaustion. Only hours before, I’d witnessed another Catrion attack and thought I’d lost Jade. A girl who I barely knew had disappeared to who-knows-where, and to top it all off, the Catrions had reminded me of their existence only a few weeks after waving hello at the Arlington Massacre. I was beginning to feel as if something wasn’t right about their behavior.
My thoughts shifted to Jade. She’d just been smothered beneath a bone-crushing black object, not to mention she’d lost a good friend. She seemed to be taking it well, other than the stoic silence she clung to. Plastered to her face was a scared haunted look; her glazed eyes were the worst. Though I’d seen it all, I couldn’t comprehend the terror she’d felt when the Catrions came out of the sky.
“They knew she was pregnant.” Jade’s tone never flickered. She spoke like the emergency broadcast signal.
“They couldn’t have,” I tried to sound convincing but when it came to these beings, I was never sure. “She-she didn’t look pregnant yet so how could they have known?”
“I don’t know but they did; they just did. They go after pregnant women—we’ve seen it in the news!” Jade was in shock, as were Gavin and I.
“Don’t tell yourself that,” Gavin was also trying to calm Jade. “They went after you too.”
“But they took her.” She was so composed, she frightened me.
“They were trying to take you though.” I pointed out.
“I kind of wish they had.” Jade whispered. “She was my best friend; since I’d started attending that—“ Beavers made a homonym of the word Jade used. “—school, I’d talked to her and eventually got to know her.”
“You hadn’t known her long, had you?” Gavin asked.
“We didn’t know it at the time, but we’d gotten to know eachother very well through the integrated networks of our two schools. Her username was Crystalline Thoughts.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Gavin patted her shoulder, trying to be a friend. “We don’t know for sure that she’s—” Gavin croaked like a frog, so he was unable to say the last word.
“That’s what bugs me. I don’t know.” Jade turned in her seat so she wasn’t facing us and pretended to go to sleep.
None of us talked the rest of the trip. Before I knew it, the train had stopped in the garage dedicated to Sir Harold’s nephew; I was so caught up in my thoughts I didn’t remember ever stopping to switch cars.
Sir Harold greeted us at the exit ramp, as if that was all he felt might lift our spirits. Gavin and I got off first, then came Jade, and the mercenaries got off last. To say Jade welcomed Sir Harold’s presence would have been similar to saying the Catrions didn’t kill people.
“Don’t say another word.” Jade commanded in a harsh tone. Upon finishing her thought, she pulled her tense left arm back, clenched her teeth, and socked Sir Harold on the jaw before storming into the house.
An egg in a cushioning contraption being chucked from a third-story roof, Sir Harold plummeted to the ground. He twisted in the fall rapping his forehead against the wood floor with a comical “Oy!” and a subsequent palm clapping to his head before he rolled under the train car. As he tried to come up, he conked his head on the underside of his personal monorail.
Having learned his lesson, Sir Harold lay sprawled out melodramatically beneath the car when he voiced his mind. “Erma thinks Jade’s upset about the events of the day, but I blame the Catrions for my headache.”
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