In Too Deep

Chapter 8

As I sit in my last class of the day, Crystal and Gemstone Magic, my mind starts to drift. I still haven’t found out any dirt on this place, could I be wrong? Or maybe I just haven’t given it enough time yet, I’m not sure how long I can pretend to care about my classes and making sure my grades are up to scratch. In this lesson the teacher, Mr Forbes had already run through a number of uses for different crystals.

“Contrary to popular belief, diamonds are not just for expensive jewellery. Pairing with magic, they can also be used to aid with astral travel, scrying, meditation and intuition.” He explained.

I can’t say I’d particularly want to travel to an astral plane myself, who knowns what you’d find there. Scrying is a type of locator spell to find someone, usually paired with a map. If successful, the diamond will shine brightly over the correct position on the map where the person is located. But I didn’t need this class to tell me that.

“I wonder who could inform the rest of the class the use for Carnelian. Freya, perhaps you could give it a go?” Mr Forbes suggested, clearly noticing I wasn’t paying 100% attention to him. I cleared my throat before answering.

“Carnelian can be used in rituals that involve grounding, as it is associated with the element of Earth. Carnelian also comes in handy for magical shielding, or as a talisman against psychic attack.” I may not have been completely paying attention, but I know enough about crystals to answer correctly.

“Very good.” Mr Forbes nodded at my answer. He continued discussing the uses for Amethyst until the bell rang. I headed to the library to meet Lucas.

We started on our homework, trying to get it done out of the way before the weekend started. Our table was soon piled high with books. Violet had headed home for the weekend as soon as classes had ended for the day. After studying for a few hours my eyes were starting to ache.

“Freya, can I ask you something?” Lucas asked me.

“Of course, what is it?” I asked without looking up from my notebook.

“It’s about that other power you told me I have.” Now I looked up to meet his eyes, he seemed nervous and kept fidgeting in his seat. “Do you think I could ever learn to use that properly? Intentionally I mean.” He asked. I thought for a moment.

“I don’t see why not, why do you ask?”

“I just want to know how it works.” He was keeping the real reason from me.

“And why else?” I prodded, I wasn’t going to let it go quite so easily. I could just read his mind, but I wanted to give him a chance to tell me himself.

“It would just be nice to be able to use all of my abilities.” He said. That still wasn’t the whole answer but it was enough that I knew where he was going.

“And perhaps, to not just being able to control water?” I asked, he nodded shyly. “As we’ve discussed before, there’s nothing wrong with that power. But I know someone who could help you learn how to control it, if that’s what you want.” I told him.

“I’d appreciate that, who do you know that could help?” He asked.

“Smithy has someone working for him that could help you, that’s his job there. His name is Alex.” I told him.

“I wouldn’t want to be any bother, I’m sure they’re busy with their police work.” Lucas stumbled over his words, looking down at his hands.

“Don’t be silly, that’s what they do. They’re there to help out super naturals in any way they can. But only if you want to.” He nodded. I’ve known Alex almost as long as I’ve known Smithy, he’s a good guy and I know he wouldn’t mind helping Lucas. I stepped outside of the library to call Smithy, the phone only rang twice before he answered.

“Hi Freya, is everything ok?” He asked in greeting.

“Hi Smithy, yes everything’s fine, but I was wondering if I could ask you for a favour.” I said to him.

“Yes of course, anything. What do you need?” He seemed surprised, but glad that I was asking him.

“My friend Lucas has a sensing power, I was hoping maybe Alex could help him learn how to control it.” I explained.

“Yes of course, did you want to come by today?” Smithy asked.

“If it’s not too much trouble.”

“Not at all, come by whenever you’re ready, I’ll make sure Alex is available to help when you get here.” Smithy told me.

“Thanks, I’ll let Lucas know, we’ll head over soon.” I said.

“Great, I’ll see you soon.” Smithy said. With that I hung up the phone and headed back in to the Library to talk to Lucas.

“Smithy said Alex should be able to help, and that we can head over there today if you want to?” I asked.

“Wow so soon? That’s great, can we go now?” I was surprised at how excited he was.

“Yeah sure.” I smiled, we packed up our books, dropped them off at our rooms, and met back up at the gates at the front of the Academy. I decided it would be better to take the conventional method of walking instead of transporting us like I would do normally, less questions would be asked that way.

I introduced Lucas to Smithy, and he led Lucas to a room where Alex would try and help him, I left the two of them alone, he didn’t need me there watching him whilst he tried to figure this out.

“So, have you been keeping out of trouble?” Smithy asked me.

“Of course I have, what do you take me for?” I joked with a smile and he laughed.

“Just try not to get in to any more situations where they have to call us in, ok?” He gave me a pointed look, but I knew he was joking.

“Have you got something else you need to be doing or something?” I joked again.

“As a matter of fact yes we do, being the only super natural police force does tend to keep us quite busy you know.” He tried to sound serious but he couldn’t help but smile.

“Alright, I believe you. I’ll leave you to your very busy work load then. Whilst I’m here, can I use your gym?” I asked.

“Not finding the one at the Academy lives up to your needs?” He asked.

“Partly that, and it’s lacking a decent sparring partner.” I said and he laughed.

“Yeah sure go ahead, just don’t hurt anyone ok?” He pleaded.

“I’ll only be testing to see if your officers are up to scratch or not.” I said over my shoulder as I walked out of the room, I could sense Smithy shaking his head at my response.

I headed to the gym and looked around, they had the kind of set up you’d expect the army to have. They had agility courses that tested strength, speed and stamina. I was slightly in awe of the place, I wish I had this kind of set up. I saw a familiar face and decided to have some fun.

“Hey Ryan.” He turned at the sound of his name and came over to me.

“Hey Angel, how are things?” He asked me with a big grin on his face.

“Ryan, why do you always call me Angel?” I asked him.

“Because you always change your name, how am I supposed to know what to call you?” He asked and I had to admit he had a point.

“It’s Freya, for now anyway.” He laughed. “Fancy being my sparring partner?” I asked.

“Need someone to kick your ass?” He smirked.

“That’s fighting talk considering how our last fight ended.” I smiled as I remembered it was he who ended up on the floor.

“That was not a fair fight.” He scrambled for an excuse to explain his loss.

“Time for a rematch then.” I grinned and he followed me on to the sparring mats.

He met each of my attacks well, of course I wasn’t trying to actually hurt him, he is a friend after all. But he matched me well in a fight, and wasn’t allowing me to get a drop on him.

I only had a second to catch him off guard and I took it, I lashed out with my foot and connected with the back of his legs, knocking him off balance. I followed through with my next move, pushing in to his torso before he could regain his balance, sending us both to the floor.

I used the momentum to straddle his waist, successfully pinning him to the ground. His breath came out in a rush as he tried to knock me off of him, but my grip on him held firm. After a while of failing to escape my grasp his body stilled.

“Ok you win, now get off of me.” He said a little grumpily, his ego wounded slightly after losing to me again.

“What was that? I didn’t quite hear you.” I teased.

“You seem reluctant to get off of me, not that I mind. People will start getting the wrong idea, I always knew you had a thing for me.” He winked and grinned, knowing this tactic would work. I got off of him almost immediately.

“You wish.” I said and rolled my eyes, he laughed.

“How about a race through the agility course?” He suggested.

“Not tired of losing just yet then?” I loved winding him up.

“We’ll see.” He challenged.

The first part of the course consisted of beams of different heights, the idea being to roll under the shorter ones and to jump over the higher ones. We stayed pretty neck and neck at this point, and stayed that way as we climbed up and over the climbing wall.

I slowed my pace a little when I reached the balancing beams, taking my time. Ryan did the opposite, allowing his ego to get the better of him. He fell off half way across, and had to start the beams from the beginning again, that was what everyone did if you failed an obstacle during the course.

Maintaining my lead I got a running start and made quick work of the hurdles, jumping over them with ease. Ryan took the balancing beams slower the second time around, but it wouldn’t take him long to catch up to me.

I crawled under the netting and reached the weighted slabs on the other side. I rubbed some chalk in to my hands in preparation. I gripped the bottom of the first slab, lifted it to my shoulder and manoeuvred my body so I was on the other side, before I set it down again. I did this with the next two slabs, each one being heavier than the last. I could hear Ryan close behind me, the weight of the slabs barely slowing him down at all.

I reached the swimming pool, diving in without hesitation, and swam the length of the pool as fast as I could, pulling myself up out of the water at the other end. Slamming my hand down on the timer as I did so. I looked behind me to see Ryan just reaching the end of the pool, with a slightly sour look on his face.

“I don’t understand how you manage to win at everything.” He said, a little grumpy again.

“If it makes you feel better, if you hadn’t had fallen, you might’ve beaten me.” I tried to be nice, but I don’t think he was buying it.

“No that doesn’t really make me feel any better.” He poked his tongue out at me and we both laughed, his sour mood instantly gone. “I’ll beat you one day.”

“I’m sure you will.” I said with a laugh. We headed down the hall towards the showers, before parting ways he turned to me, looking a bit more serious now.

“Freya, what are you doing attending Fair Lake? You don’t need any help with your powers, and if you did Smithy would help you here, you know that.” Ryan said to me.

“I just needed somewhere to lay low for a while.” He wasn’t buying it, I sighed. “Places like that are always suspicious to me, I don’t have any proof yet but I get this feeling that it’s not all it seems on the surface.” I explained, knowing I could trust him with this.

“Any reasoning behind this feeling?” He asked.

“I’m not sure yet, I can’t quite put my finger on it.” I told him.

“Ok, but you’ll let me know if you need any help?” He asked and I nodded. “Will you actually or are you just saying that so I stop asking questions?”

“Maybe both?” I admitted, he laughed.

“You’re impossible sometimes, you know that right?” His big smile taking away any possibility that I could’ve taken any offence to that comment.

“It’s all part of my charm.” I said with a wink, he laughed and pulled me in for a hug.

“I bet it is.” As I started pulling away from our hug he held on to me, looking in to my eyes.

“Ryan are you-“ I started to ask but I didn’t get a chance to finish my sentence before he pulled me in for a kiss. His lips were soft as they pressed against mine, and when I didn’t pull away he deepened the kiss, pulling my body flat against his and winding his fingers in to my hair. Before I knew it I was kissing him back. I could feel the muscles in his chest, and his strong arms that held me against him. Kissing someone I had always seen as a friend sent my head spinning. Not knowing what to do I froze. Feeling my body tense up he released me, a hurt and confused look on his face.

“I thought you knew how I felt about you.” His voice was quiet, and he wouldn’t meet my eyes anymore.

“Ryan, I’m sorry. I was just surprised, I didn’t know-“ I began but he interrupted me.

“It’s fine.” He said shortly, and headed away quickly towards the showers.

“Ryan please wait.” I called after him, he disappeared through a door without looking back.

I ran my fingers through my still wet hair trying to process what just happened. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy the kiss, I just didn’t know how to feel about it. I didn’t know he liked me in that way, it seemed so out of the blue.

I didn’t know what to think, how to feel, after what happened with Bastien the other day and now this? My brain was scrambled. The only thing I knew for sure was that I’ve just hurt one of my oldest friends. With my head hanging low, I headed in to the showers.

As the water cascaded down my body, my thoughts drifted to when me and Ryan first met. It was about three years ago when I was working a job, at the time I thought he was the person I was after, he matched the physical description to the letter.

I caught him off guard when he was alone and cornered him. Luckily for him, I searched his mind and found that he was not at all related to the crimes I suspected him of. It turned out that he knew information that helped lead me to the person responsible, and after that I introduced him to Smithy, Ryan has been working for him ever since.

After my shower I met back up with Lucas, we had been here for a few hours now, and it was time we were heading back to the Academy. I thanked Smithy and Alex and we started walking back.

“How did it go?” I asked him.

“Pretty well I think, Alex was a lot of help. With some more practice I think I’ll start to get it. They said I can go back any time I want.” He explained, he seemed really happy.

“I expected they would, that’s just what they’re like. I’m glad you got the help you wanted.” I said to him.

“Thanks to you.” Lucas said and put his arm around me in a half hug. ”What did you end up doing?” He asked. My mind flashed back to the feel of Ryan’s lips, and his body pressed against mine, and the hurt look in his eyes after I basically rejected him. This wasn’t something I wanted to discuss with Lucas right now, or even think about.

“Not much, I just had a work out in the gym.” I hoped he wouldn’t question me any further. “Come on, we best get back, it’s getting late. Although it may be best if no one at the Academy finds out where we went today.” I suggested.

“Yeah I was thinking the same thing, I don’t think they’d take too kindly to knowing that I went elsewhere for help with my powers when that’s what they’re supposed to be there for.” Lucas said.

I was glad he agreed with me on this, I didn’t want to cause any problems for Smithy if anyone did have an issue with it. We walked back to the Academy and it didn’t seem like anyone had noticed we were gone for the evening. It helped that probably a lot of students had headed home for the weekend, so there were a lot less people about.