SWNOVELS Chapter Chapter Thirty Five
James and Jasper were talking in the office. “Why didn’t you go after Emily when she left with Kat?” Jasper demanded.
James shook his head. “What good would that do?” He asked. “I would have gotten knocked out by whatever happened to knock out Savannah and Kat. Only I might be in the same boat as Savannah.” Did Jasper really want him to be poisoned like Savannah?
Jasper shook his head. “If you had gone with them, you might have still been able to provide aid to Emily and Kat against whoever kidnapped Emily.” He told James.
James managed not to groan. They didn’t have time for this. “We both know who took Emily.” He said. “The Black Hand has been planning this for a while. We both have suspected the Black Hand of planning something for a while.” They had to try to find Emily before something bad happened to her.
Jasper leaned back in his seat. “The day of the Black Hand’s ritual is on Thursday. Where would they keep her until that ritual?” He asked. Three days. The Black Hand had to keep Emily locked up somewhere for three days and avoid the police from finding out about her.
James stood up and went to the window. He looked out. The police were talking to Gabriel and Kat. There was an ambulance outside the medical building. Professional doctors and nurses were trying to cure Savannah of whatever was poisoning her. There were police talking to Emily’s other counselor. Audrey’s group had Emily’s group with them. James was surprised that the police hadn’t tried talking to him yet. He was just a few years younger than the counselors. He had a feeling that Gabriel was keeping the police from him to avoid everything about the Chosen One and the Black Hand coming to light.
“What’s the plan now?” He asked Jasper. “Am I going to try to find Emily while you and Gabriel watch after Audrey?” He was really hoping that Jasper would say yes. He had to make it up to Emily for not going with her. He didn’t know where to start but he had to start somewhere. He would start with Kat. He wouldn’t reveal her real identity to Gabriel but he would use that against her. She had to know where the Black Hand had taken Emily.
Jasper shook his head. “For right now, Gabriel and I are working on keeping everyone calm and making sure that everyone thinks that Kat and Emily went to another location within the camp to talk things over.” He told James. “The last thing anyone wants, are parents panicking and campers scared. If they find out, then it’ll just put Emily in greater danger.” What he didn’t say but James knew he meant was that if this all came to light, the Black Hand would throw everyone into chaos because of all of the departments across the world that they had infiltrated.
James looked at Jasper. “What am I supposed to do?” He asked. He needed to know what to do. He couldn’t just sit back and do nothing.
Jasper looked at James for a few minutes. “You’ll need to ask Gabriel that.” He told James. James quickly left the office to talk to Gabriel.
At the cabin, Rachel was sitting on a bed crying. Delaney and Elizabeth were trying to comfort her. Audrey was sitting on her bed watching the three. She didn’t really know them. Just that Rachel was Emily’s little sister and the other two girls were Emily’s cousins. She wondered why their counselor, Kat if she recalled correctly, would want to kidnap Emily. Was it because Emily had saved her life from the killer to be? Audrey looked at her own group and the other campers in Emily’s group. They all looked pretty worried and unsure of what was happening.
James entered the cabin. Audrey looked at him. The boy didn’t look good. It looked like he had a very worried look on his face. The three counselors went up to James. “What’s the word?” Tony asked.
James looked at him. “Gabriel wants you to know that Kat and Emily are in a safe place in the camp until the attacker who hurt Savannah is captured.” He told the three. Audrey could tell that James was lying. There was something else that was happening and James wasn’t telling them what it was. She was going to find out though what it was that he wasn’t telling them.
Audrey went up to James. “We need to talk.” She told him. James looked at her. That was when Audrey noticed something. James was a year younger than her but his eyes seemed to have seen more than a fourteen year old would have usually seen. She wondered what James had seen that would give him those eyes. Audrey shook her head. She didn’t have time for this. She led James to a corner of the cabin out of range of Rachel. “What is going on?” She asked James. “And don’t tell me that Kat and Emily are hiding somewhere and that Savannah is just feeling sick.”
James looked at Audrey. He had a feeling that Audrey wouldn’t let this go until he’s told her everything. He wondered if Gabriel had known about this when he had saved Audrey as a baby all those years ago. He decided to tell her the truth. He wasn’t sure how she would take it or even believe it but he had to tell her. “There’s a prophecy that is to be fulfilled and it involves Emily.” He told Audrey. “And Kat is a part of a group that is against Emily fulfilling her destiny. That is why Emily is missing.”
Audrey shook her head. “But why would this group attack Savannah?” She asked James. “I thought they only wanted Emily.” That was when she thought of something. “The person who tried to kill me, was that person with this group?” She asked. James was silent but it was the answer that Audrey needed to know that it was the truth. “Why would they go after me?” She asked James. “What did Savannah and I do to make those guys want to hurt me?” James sat down. Audrey sat next to him and looked at the two groups. The groups were still worried and Rachel was still crying.
“I think the killer went after you because of something that happened fifteen years ago.” James told Audrey.
Audrey looked at James, surprised by that. The only thing that she knew of that had happened fifteen years ago was that she had been born. Her heart sank as she remembered her past. “Why would those guys care about whether or not I was born fifteen years ago?” She asked. Her own birth parents hadn’t cared about when she had been born so why would the people who were after Emily even care about her?
James took Audrey’s hand and held it gently. Audrey, surprised by this, looked down at their hands before she looked at James. That was the first time a boy ever held her hand like that. “You wouldn’t remember this but when you were a baby, you were in an orphanage for a few short months.” As James told her that, Audrey began hearing a baby’s cry. She looked at the others. For some reason, it looked like they couldn’t hear the baby crying.
She looked at James. “What else happened?” She asked, her heart began to beat fast. “I need to know.” Maybe it would help explain the baby she heard crying.
James sighed. There was no going back now. “The orphanage was run by the Black Hand, the group that is after Emily.” He told Audrey. “The Black Hands were training the lost orphans there to be Black Hands as well. Your mother, trying to keep you safe, put you there without knowing that the Black Hands were there as well. She was on the run from the Black Hands because back then, the identity of the Chosen One wasn’t known yet and the Black Hands were hunting down every lead they got. The Black Hand that found you didn’t know that your mother had been a possible chosen one so you weren’t killed right away.”
“Right away?” Audrey asked. “What do you mean by that?” James looked towards Rachel and her cousins. “James, why wouldn’t the Black Hand kill me right away?” Audrey needed to know what had happened all those years ago. She couldn’t let it go now. She noticed a tear running down James’s face. “Please tell me.” Audrey said to him.
“The Black Hands at the orphanage didn’t have time for a baby so they just left you in a room and expected you to die.” James explained. “But before their plan could work, Gabriel showed up and took you away.”
Audrey knew that she had heard that name before. Her thoughts went to the camp director. “Gabriel the camp director brought me to my adopted parents?” She asked.
James nodded. Audrey was taking this a lot better than he had thought that she would. “Originally he wanted to raise you here but when certain members of the Black Hand found out that he had taken you from the orphanage, they began to hunt for you, thinking that if Gabriel still had you, they’d find out what made you so special.” He looked at Audrey. “You would have been a cousin to me if Gabriel had kept you here.” He told her before he smiled a little, hoping to brighten the mood.
Audrey looked at James’s smile. She had a feeling that James’s only family was Jasper and Gabriel. She was touched that she would have been his cousin. It also sounded like he had been hoping a lot that she would have stayed there fifteen years before. She then frowned. “But you’re fourteen.” She said. “You wouldn’t have been born yet until after I had been born.” Did James forget that?
James laughed a little. “I only look like a fourteen year old but the truth is I’m immortal.” He told Audrey. Audrey wasn’t expecting that. She looked at her counselors. They were talking but Eloise looked in their direction and smiled. No doubt Eloise thought the two of them were trying to cheer each other up. Audrey had a feeling that none of the counselors or even the staff knew the truth about their boss.
Audrey looked at James. “You’re immortal?” She asked. “But how is that even possible?” There was no way that this fourteen year old boy was immortal. It was just impossible.
James smiled. “I was turned immortal a very long time ago when Emily’s ancestor, a brave warrior, fought against the Black Hand’s leader. Gabriel and Jasper said they found me dying and turned me immortal to save me so I could help fight against the Black Hand and to protect the Chosen One when she appeared.” He explained.
Audrey wasn’t sure how she felt about all of this but she did know one thing. If it sounded too crazy to be true, there was a good chance that it was true. The way that James was looking at her told her that it all was true. “Well you failed at protecting the Chosen One if Emily is the Chosen One.” She told him. “She’s been captured by the Black Hand if she is gone.” James’s smile vanished and he looked in the direction of Rachel.
Audrey looked as well and she immediately regretted reminding James that he had failed to protect Emily when she saw Rachel crying. Audrey wondered if she would have been more sensitive if it had been her own sister that had gone missing. She wouldn’t know because she was never going to have a sibling ever. She was always going to be an only child. She knew that Emily had helped save her from the masked killer and had been there for her when Audrey had been in the medical room. She realized that Emily was the closest thing she had to a sister.
She gently squeezed James’s hand. James looked at her. “Well then Cousin.” Audrey said before she smiled. “It sounds like we have a Chosen One to find.”
James smiled as well. “So you’re going to believe everything I just told you?” He asked. He hadn’t been sure if Audrey would believe him. It all sounded so crazy even to him.
Audrey nodded. “There’s no way you could have made any of this up so it has to be true.” She told him. “So I’m going to help you find Emily and when we do, we’re taking her back to her little sister.” She looked at Rachel. “I want Rachel to have a good week at camp.”