SWNOVELS Chapter Chapter Nineteen
After we hugged, Strider begged me not to tell anyone. I told him yet again I had no one to tell, and I wasn’t the type of girl who made fun of people in pain. He left the room, then, saying he wanted to clear his head, and I went to sleep.
When I woke up, I saw the beds were unmade, meaning the guys had been here but left early, and on my bed there was a note that required me to meet Apollo after school was out at the backyard. A great way to start the day.
After I put on my new clothes, and after I pulled my hair into its usual bun, I left for breakfast. As usual, people stared, but I was almost completely used to it by now, so I ignored the stares and put on some egg and bacon on my plate.
I was midway through the dining hall to the humans’ table when a familiar voice called, “Hey, Angela!”
Turning around, I watched in disbelief as Strider waved at me from his table. The chatter died down as everyone looked at Strider with surprise and confusion, and I couldn’t help but share the same feelings. “What?” I asked.
Strider pointed at the empty seat next to him. Rachel, who was sitting on the other side of the vacant chair, made a face, as though she knew what was coming and didn’t like it one bit. “Come sit with us!” he said with his carefree smile.
“Um…” I glanced at Charlotte, Hazel, Jane and Ethan and saw they were looking at me expectantly. On Charlotte’s face I could read that if I chose to sit with Strider and his pals, I could forget about being her friend. Similar expressions were evident on the faces of the other three.
My decision was immediate. I turned my back to them and went to Strider, my knuckles turning white from how hard I held the plate. The humans and I had never been real friends and anyway, and I was no longer considered a human - so leaving them wasn’t tough. I’d rather be with Strider and the irritated bunch that was with him than being with the two-faced bastards. At least with the wolves, I knew what to expect.
Everyone looked at Strider and me as I sat my plate next to his and sat down. I avoided looking at anyone else and instead rested my gaze on the man who’d just yesterday cried his heart out in my arms. “Why?” I asked softly, my voice reaching his ears alone.
He shrugged and smiled in response.
I started eating, hyper aware of the looks I got from the other people at the table. Rachel glared daggers at me, Samantha and Cora regarded me with disapproval, Apollo sent Strider a “What the hell?” look, and Greg and Brom didn’t even pay attention to any of that and instead talked quietly to each other.
Rachel and Jason tried to grab Strider’s attention, but he didn’t listen to them at all and instead looked at me with a smile. “Did you sleep well?” he asked happily, as though every morning he was asking me this question.
“Err…” I murmured, “Um, yeah.”
“Great!” His smile widened. “Me too.”
I arched an eyebrow. “That’s, um, good, I guess.”
“Ooh you like eating egg and bacon in the morning?” he stared at my plate with misplaced surprise. “I had no idea.”
He’s plotting something, Tempest hissed inside my head and, for a change, I agreed with her. “I see you, um, like these things, too,” I said back.
“And I didn’t know you liked hot cocoa!” he said, his smile turning ridiculously doofus now. “Why not coffee?”
“Um, because I want hot cocoa?” I murmured, while Tempest let out a snort inside me. He’s really pathetic, she stated, and he seems a little too desperate, don’t you think?
Desperate for what? I asked.
To befriend you.
That was unexpected. Why would he want to befriend me?
Because you showed empathy toward him yesterday, and he appreciates it, she said as though it was obvious.
I thought you thought he was plotting something, I reminded her.
It doesn’t mean he doesn’t think of you as friend now, Tempest replied, and she was right. Because after breakfast, when we walked together to class, he actually continued talking to me, and I found myself chatting with him back, softening a little toward him.
We didn’t stop talking all day long. I sat with him and his group again at lunch, and the conversation never stopped. Rachel kept glowering at me, but I ignored her and continued chatting away with him.
It wasn’t hard to like Strider, now that he actually liked me. He was wonderfully friendly, and made me laugh more than a few times, but most of all, he was easy to talk to. In fact, it was much easier for me to talk to him than it had been when Charlotte and I were still friends, pre-Tempest.
At the end of the last class of the day, he accompanied me to the backyard. As we walked, I decided it was the right time to ask him what had changed. His response was surprisingly serious. “I judged you too harshly,” he said grimly, “and you proved me I was stupid to do so. You’re much more than I thought you were, and you’re so right about all the things you said back at the inn. You’re much kinder than you look, and I’ll be happy to be good friends with you.”
I couldn’t hide my shock. “You really want to be my friend?”
He shrugged. “Why not?” he said, “besides, I have fun talking to you, and after you made me tell you something so personal, I only told two other people…” he smiled a little. “I can’t not be your friend.”
Afterward, I didn’t question his actions and decisions anymore, and I just went with it. Tempest, for once, agreed with my choice.
When we reached the backyard, I saw Apollo and Fred were already there. The two stopped their conversation abruptly when we approached them, and it made me curious as to what they’d just talked about. “Good. You’re here on time,” Apollo said, nodding, and glanced quickly at Strider questioningly, but Strider was smiling as usual, even a little cryptically.
Strider went over to Fred and the two sat on the bench in front of Apollo and me. Apollo put distance between us and ordered me to step back, too. “We’re going to start working on your control in your Spirit and the powers she gives you,” he went straight to business, “now that you emotions are in check, we can move to the practical training. In addition, you’re more in tune with your Spirit, after you two spent this time together and started getting along.
The jackass is right, Tempest muttered.
“So what are we going to do now?” I asked.
“We’ll start from your connection to your Spirit,” Apollo said, “I believe you two are on speaking terms with each other, right?” After I nodded in affirmation, he continued. “And you’re getting along, right?”
“I… think we are,” I said hesitantly, “I mean, Tempest and I are pretty different from each other, but at the end of the day, we kind of get along.”
Apollo’s smile was evil. “If so, you’re going to have to work hard. My Spirit and I had a connection from the moment I was born. He’s never been dormant, and ever since I remember myself, he’s always been there, whispering in my head. His name is Pyro, by the way - short for Pyrokinesis, his very subtle full name.” He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, I’m laughing at you, Pyro. Anyway, Pyro and I have already had 1743 years to connect on this level, until even our thoughts are almost the same, and I barely hear him in my head as a separate entity. It only happens rarely when actually speaks, and it happens when I actively seek for his voice. Other than that, our souls have already become one. This needs to happen with you and Tempest.”
“Okay,” I murmured, while Tempest snarled in my head, As if it will ever happen.
“To start this process, you’ll need to meditate,” Apollo sat down on the grass eastern-style. “Do it like me.”
After I was seated and folded my legs into the uncomfortable meditation seating position, he said, “Close your eyes.”
I did as told and was expecting him to start instructing me or something, but it was silence that ensued. I gathered he wanted me to connect to the silence and the sound of nature around us, and so I tried to do just that.
I felt how my body relaxed bit by bit. Ever strained muscles turned slack, and a weird sense of peace spread through me. Tempest inside me growled a little, and I suddenly felt a little sleepy.
“Focus on Tempest’s breaths,” Apollo said, his voice quiet and lulling, “focus on every detail in her voice that you can hear.”
I fixated in that place in my head where Tempest was - where Maria had touched me and caused Tempest to awake. There, I focused on each and every of her breaths, on every noise she made. I felt something moving inside my chest, and then I felt another thing that made goosebumps cover my skin.
“What you’re feeling now is the power of Tempest inside you,” Apollo sounded as though he was talking to me from a faraway galaxy, “it slithers from your heart to every part of your body. Meditation made your Tempest fall asleep, and when she’s asleep, you can channel the Chaos powers from her and consciously use them, in your own way, without counting on your anger, which makes Tempest trigger-happy. Now, open your eyes.”
My eyes flew open, and I saw Apollo was standing. His eyes, which were usually a warm color of chocolate, were now lightning-blue. “Are my eyes a different color, too?” I whispered the question, not wanting to awake Tempest.
Apollo nodded. “They’re bright blue instead of your usual golden ones. Now, stand up.”
I rose onto my feet slowly, relieved to see the movement didn’t disturb Tempest in her sleep. “She won’t wake up,” Apollo said quietly, “not now when you have hold of her powers. When you let go of the powers, they’ll rush back to her and wake her up. Until then…”
“But I don’t get something,” I cut him off, now holding those powers with everything in me. “If I wanted to, I don’t know, fight someone, I won’t have time to meditate to get full control of Tempest’s powers.”
“These are your powers, too,” Apollo said, “and when we’ll get to the point of working on your offensive abilities, I hope you’ll be much more connected to Tempeste by then so she can hand the control over to you of her own free will, or at least cooperate with you. Right now, you’re training about channeling the powers. And now, are you ready?”
I bit my lips and nodded. Apollo nodded in approval. “I want you to try something with your powers. It can be anything - earth-shake, tornado, or another natural disaster. I want you to start knowing these powers and where they come from.”
“Fine,” I murmured, and focused on the grass under our feet. Shake, I thought. Shake.
The power inside me was fixated on the ground - I actually felt it when it did - but nothing happened.
Shake, earth, I thought more determinedly, shake!
“Why isn’t it working?” I asked, frustrated, after a few minutes.
Apollo didn’t seem surprised. “Because you still don’t know how to use your powers, and your energy is wasting fast with every moment you’re controlling these powers. Your body isn’t used to control such terrible powers, and therefore we’ll finish the lesson here and continue tomorrow. You can release the powers now.”
I blinked a few times. “That’s it?” I asked, frowning. “That’s everything for today?”
He scowled. “Another ten minutes of this and you’ll pass out of exhaustion. So do as I said.”
A flare of anger lit up in me. “Stop commanding me to do things, Apollo. I’m not your dog.”
“Which is just as well, because then I’ll have to love you by definition,” he said in disgust, “now release the powers already.”
I forced my anger down and swallowed the words that threatened to escape, and closed my eyes. I let my powers return to my chest, and when the last of them went back, I felt Tempest opening her mental eyes. I braced myself for a wave of anger, but all I got was confusion and tiredness. What happened? She asked, yawning.
I’ll explain later, I told her, feeling exhaustion settling in. I could barely stand upright on my feet, and a second later I fell to the grass, headache making my temples pound. I thought I heard Apollo sighing, and then someone said something, and I felt how I was falling asleep…
I was barely aware of someone picking me up in their arms, and then a soft whisper tickled my ear, saying, “Don’t worry, Angel, I’m only taking you to bed.”
Warmth and relaxation spread through my body at once, the sense of being safe and sound, the sense I only ever felt with him, swept me under. I put my head on Fred’s chest, relishing the wondrous feeling of being wrapped in his arms, and was immediately knocked out.