667 Issue #10: "Old Wounds"

I just wanted to hide—even if it wasn’t good for me. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, save for Angelica, and I really didn’t want to have any sort of human interaction.

It wasn’t healthy, that I knew, but the thought of losing someone that I cared for kept creeping its way into my mind whenever I laid eyes on any of my friends…let alone Adam.

I tried to focus my time on writing while simultaneously remembering to eat and take care of myself, but the thoughts had become intrusive and I couldn’t think straight when I was with anyone but myself.

Angelica made it easier on me by keeping me somewhat social, but half the time when she was with me, I just wanted to be alone in my room with a computer screen and music that made me forget about what I had witnessed.

I had hoped that the shock would have worn off back in January, but it had stuck with me and I just couldn’t shake the image of Adam being brutally murdered in front of my very eyes.

It was starting to get to people, I was sure, but I couldn’t bring myself to talk about it with anyone else…

“Come on Felicity; what’s your next move going to be?” I stared at a half finished sentence on my screen and willed it to make sense. I knew where I wanted to go with this story, but the protagonist wouldn’t agree with me.

“Goddammit.” I cursed, shutting the laptop, “Maybe I need to do something else.”

I slicked my hair back, that hadn’t seen shampoo in almost a week, and just stared at the vacant wall. I could step out of my self-confined prison (how ironic) and try to socialize, but just the thought of it was exhausting. Instead, I decided to flop on the bed and dangle upside down for a moment. The different perspective didn’t give me any answers either and it only made me lonelier for human companionship.

“Okay, brain. I’ll do it.” I flipped myself back over and decided I needed a shower before I tried to face anyone.

After bathing, I piled my snow white hair on top of my head and made my way downstairs.

The living room was vacant, save for the TV that was on, and I called out, but no one returned my question.

I peered in the kitchen; no one. Sun-room; no one. Upstairs…still no one.

So, I went back down to the living room and flounced on the couch, thinking that it was rather sardonic that I finally wanted the interaction and no one was around.

I picked up the remote and began flicking through the channels, my mind wandering to more important things—like how we were going to discover more of our own kind. It seemed almost impossible as we had nothing to go on but old files and not much else.

I mindlessly paused on BBC Two while I was still pondering where everyone was when a news story caught my attention.

“Millions are wondering what happened two nights ago at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Edinburgh. One of the holy relics of St. Andrew has mysteriously gone missing and authorities can’t seem to figure out why—or how.

CCT cameras caught this footage in the wee hours of Tuesday morning and it has everyone baffled.” The news anchor paused in her speech as a clip of the video footage played.

It showed the High Altar in the chapel of St. Mary’s, the reliquaries visible to the north. There was no one in the chapel and definitely no one near the altar, but the footage showed one of the artifacts being lifted from the wall before floating off towards the camera and disappearing out of sight…all on its own.

“What the hell?” I uttered, getting up from the couch to crouch in front of the TV.

“As you can see by the footage, there is no plausible answer as to what happened in the cathedral. Some are calling it an act of God, a miracle of sorts, while others are calling it theft, pure and simple. We will have more on this story as details arise.” The newscaster finished and I just sat down flat on the floor.

“What was that?” I hadn’t heard the front door open, but Adam was standing behind me.

“Did you not see that?” I scrambled for the remote and rewound the footage to show him.

“What did I just see?” Adam looked puzzled as he came around the sofa and squatted down close to me.

I felt myself go rigid before I spoke, “That relic just lifted off the wall of its own volition and wandered off.” I pointed at the screen as I rewound the newscast once more.

“That’s not weird or anything.” He scrunched up his face as he paid close attention to the footage.

“Just like we aren’t weird?” I finally got the courage to turn towards him.

“You think it was one of us, don’t you?” I slight smile crept across Adam’s face.

“Possibly. Who else would be able to do something like that? If it isn’t one of us, it’s something else supernatural.” I muted the program so we could speak.

“We should tell the others then.” Adam got up from the floor, leaving me still sitting there.

“Speaking of which, where is everyone?” I wondered aloud as I scooted back onto the couch and wrapped my sweater around me.

“Henri and Naomi are at work, Khaine and Salome went to go pick up some groceries, and Jackie is off with the Council,” Adam informed me.

“And Angel?” I hadn’t seen her in two days.

“I think she’s out with Nate.” Adam was eyeing me strangely as we conversed.

“We need to see if we can find the newscast online to replay for them when they come back.” I quickly averted my gaze from his and wandered off to the kitchen for a glass of water or something else to occupy my restless mind.

“How’re you feeling?” Adam followed me with a question.

“Good.” I lied, opting for a beer instead of the water.

Adam stood close to me, nodding his head with pursed lips, “That’s good.” He was acting just as awkward as I felt.

I wanted to run. To just sprint off to my bedroom, lock the door, and hide in a corner. That wasn’t the right thing to do, but it’s what I wanted at the moment nonetheless.

“Violet—” Adam started, but I cut him short.

“I’m fine.” I stared at him with wide eyes and trembling hands, my beer clanking noisily against the rings on my fingers.

“I wasn’t going to ask how you were again; I know how you are.” He started and I wondered what he was talking about.

“You do?” I returned with a question.

“You can talk to me.” Adam stepped closer to me and a flash of his face back at the trial made me flinch and step back.

“I—I can’t.” I shook my head violently as I backed into the counter.

“Vi, I know what happened. Angelica told me.” Adam spoke words that I hadn’t wanted to hear.

“Of course she did.” I sighed loudly, still shaking.

“I kind of forced her to, but she’s worried about you; as am I.” Adam came a bit closer and it took all I had not to fall to my knees in a sobbing mess.

I swallowed hard, turning my face from his, “Don’t make me talk about it.”

“I won’t if you don’t want me to. I just want you to know that I am aware if you ever want to talk about it.” He approached the subject and I tried to center myself so I could respond.

“Th—thanks,” I replied meekly, finally taking a good long gulp of my beer.

“Uh, why don’t you go rest and I’ll let you know when everyone gets back if you want to talk about what we saw on the news.” Adam offered and I nodded my head.

I tried to bypass him without another word, but as I stepped around him, he reached out his hand slightly and grazed my arm with his fingers.

I thought I was going to literally explode as I broke into a run, swallowing the sorrowed scream that I so desperately wanted to let out.

(*)

It felt good to just let go.

When I got back to my room, tears were threatening to pour from my eyes as I threw myself onto the bedspread and literally screamed until my throat was sore. I beat the pillows with my fists and threw my lamp to the ground before kicking a huge hole in the wall right by the dresser. I didn’t give a fuck who heard me, but I needed the release.

“It didn’t happen, Vi. It technically never happened.” I tried to give myself a pep talk.

I was right too. It hadn’t technically happened, not in this new timeline anyway. Adam was still alive, as was the rest of my friends, but I couldn’t shake that macabre image from my head. It didn’t help that I saw everything from that blasted third eye so it was that much more detailed and seared into my brain.

“Fuuuuuuuuck!” I cried out, holding my head between my hands. I wanted to curse everything and blow the room I occupied into pieces when a knock sounded at the door.

“Vi, honey. It’s me.” Angelica’s voice reverberated through the door.

“Yeah, what’s up, Angel?” I wiped the tears from my puffy cheeks and tried to make my hair look presentable as I answered the door.

“Everyone is here. Adam said you wanted to talk to us about something.” Angelica stood in the hallway as I tried to mask the look of pure insanity that I was sure was plastered all over my face. But she’d see right through that.

“He could have told you.” I spat, not meaning to sound so harsh.

“Right, he could have. But maybe you need to talk to everyone.” Angelica suggested and I wanted to scream all over again.

“Fine,” I responded with one word and pushed past her out into the hallway and down the stairs.

Everyone was waiting in the living room, all talking in hushed tones as I entered.

“Hey, Vi.” Salome greeted me and I forced a lopsided smile.

“What did you need to talk to us about?” Naomi was sitting closely next to Henri as every eye in the room was upon me.

“Um,” I began, wringing my hands together, “I caught something on the news earlier.”

I didn’t have the news clip though, and I wasn’t sure that I could regale everything that I saw without losing it again.

“Here.” Adam grabbed a tablet that sat next to him and typed on it before handing it to Henri.

The whole team watched for a moment before looking towards me for an explanation.

“I think whoever did that, may be one of us.” I mustered the courage to finally speak.

“Seems like a reasonable deduction.” Jackie took the tablet and replayed the video again.

“So, what do we do then? They said Edinburgh in the video and that’s clear across the ocean. How are we going to get there?” Khaine pointed out.

“Anyone here have a passport besides Violet?” Jackie asked and everyone just shook their heads.

“Well, it’s going to be rather difficult to obtain one, don’t you think? There are people, more or less, that know what we are here in the city, possibly the state. You think they will just give us a passport?” Naomi asked.

“They haven’t deemed you all a threat just yet, so there is a possibility,” Nate suggested.

“Doubtful. We may be the saviours of New Orleans, but we could still be the downfall of the world to other people.” Naomi didn’t think we’d be able to obtain passage out of the United States.

“But we have Violet.” Adam postulated and my head snapped to face him.

“What is that supposed to mean?” I furrowed my brow in question.

“You can travel through time and space.” He suggested and I cocked a brow in his direction.

“Well, sort of. But that was from one side of a wall to the other.” I recalled getting us into Lafayette Cemetery with an impromptu tag line from an unwritten story.

“You did travel clear across the country too.” Salome pointed at me.

I had, but that was totally accidental.

“My dreams took me to you; that wasn’t intentional at all.” I shook my head.

“Intentional or not, you still did these things. We’ve seen you pop back and forth numerous times.” Jackie added.

“And you did travel a bit while in jail.” Angelica brought that bit up and my mind flashed back to that alternate timeline.

Angelica noticed the bite that her statement had made and winced.

“Okay, so let’s say that I can blink myself across the pond, but I have never done that sort of thing with a group of people and I’m not going alone. What if I mess it up and we all end up in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean?” I brought up a good point.

“Well, don’t do that!” Nate joked with me, but I cast him an acidic glare.

Jackie thought about it, “That could prove to be a problem.”

Adam was just staring at me as everyone mulled over the prospect.

“Well, how many of us are planning on going if we do this?” I asked, now considering it.

“I would assume, at the very least, those of you with powers.” Jackie proposed.

“And me.” Angelica raised her hand.

“So, six of us then.” I thought about toting six bodies, one of which being Khaine, across the ocean to Scotland.

I desperately wanted to go since it was the closest that I would have come to home in almost a year.

Adam could tell that I was quite nervous about testing this and came up with a suggestion, “What if you made a trial run on your own?”

“That would make me much more comfortable. I’d rather kill just myself than all of us.” My choice of words caused the room to go silent and Adam’s expression was one of concern.

“I’m not going to kill myself,” I mumbled and heaved a heavy breath.

“That’s good to know,” Adam replied and I averted my eyes from him.

“I’ll make a test run this afternoon then. If it goes well, then I can try and take the rest of you.” I looked down at my feet as I spoke.

“Sounds like a plan, but what about when you all get there?” Jackie wanted things to be formulated a bit better.

“Yeah, because I know nothing about the UK, as I am assuming the rest of us don’t either,” Khaine chimed in.

“I know quite a bit about the historical pagan side of the country.” Naomi corrected him with pursed lips.

“I’ve been there quite a few times myself.” Angelica smiled at me. A few times was probably an understatement.

“I know enough; I went to see the vaults a few times. I know where the chapel is too and I’m from the UK, so I could probably navigate it better than most. We will need to arrange a hotel and a rental car most likely to get around. Oh, and if you don’t have international calling on your mobile, your phone won’t do you any good.” I pointed out.

“I will handle all of that; you just work on getting everyone there in one piece.” Jackie pointed at me and stood from his seat.

“Now that that is settled, I’m hungry. Anyone want lunch?” Khaine asked, rubbing his hands together.

The others nodded and broke off to head towards the kitchen while I still stood in front of the sofa, staring out the window.

Adam lingered behind and startled me when he opened his mouth to speak.

“You going to be okay with this?”

“Hm? Yeah, I’ll be fine.” I never took my eyes off the window as I replied.

“You sure?”

“It’s forcing me to get out of the house…plus it’s helping me remember that I have a job to do. If this does indeed involve one of our kind, we have to figure out whether or not they are for us or against us.” I finally let my eyes fall on Adam with my words.

“Good. Being positive about all of this is good.” He nodded.

“Yeah, well—I’m going to go mentally prepare myself to travel clear across the ocean with nothing to carry me but my own anxiety. Let everyone know that I should be ready to head out no later than four.” I gave Adam a half smile before brushing past him to head back to my bedroom and prepare myself like I said.

I was anxious, but not so much about the travel. I didn’t know if I was ready to handle being so up close with everyone just yet, but I had work to do.