Stones

Part 7

“Oh, Alex,” he said. “What’re we gonna do with you. It’s midnight, get some sleep! Love you babe!”
“Ok, love you more. Night!”
“Love you most.” He whispered. I hung up.
The next day was a Saturday, so I slept in until noon. Gabe (who’d clearly slept even later than that), texted me at one: Good morning, beautiful. Oh well, I thought. It’s the thought that counts. I was going down the squeaky stairs to get myself some brunch, when something went flying past my head. And then again, and again, and again. I dodged these objects, stopping myself from screaming, and finally caught a glimpse of what they were: Arrows. Nobody still used arrows for hunting, right? And where were they coming from? As more and more questions flooded my mind, I looked down at my purple hand. Yes, purple. And then I saw my purple arms and legs, fingers and toes, stomach, back, chest, neck, face, ears, etc.! I was scared out of my wits.
I ran straight back up to my room, too shocked to yell to my mom. I slid under my bed, put my hands over my eyes, and cried. Was this what being a puck was like? How long was I gonna be like this? How could I ever face my friends or family ever again?! They would all turn against me, thinking I was some freak of nature. I knew I’d have to come out eventually. I decided to call the two people who would never turn against me: Victoria and Gabe. I asked them to come over as soon as they could, and they took me quite seriously. Within seconds, Victoria had teleported into my bedroom, and Gabe had flown at practically lightspeed to my window. When I crawled out from under my bed, Victoria gasped in horror. Gabe laughed his @$$ off.
“This is NOT funny!” I shrieked, as I slapped him in the face. “This is serious, dummy!” Silence. Then, Victoria spoke up.
“Darn right it’s not...” She said, and slapped Gabe just for enjoyment. I apologized, and he did, too. Then, he got an idea.
“How about we call Kai over?” He suggested. “I’ll bet he knows a good skin-changing spell. Best sorcerer in town.” Before I could object, Victoria disappeared, and then reappeared holding Kai by the shirt collar. The second he saw me, he passed out. After a couple slaps in the face from Victoria, he woke back up, muttering something about me being a fully mature puck. Freak. Turns out, he knew a perfect spell to disguise my purple skin. But, Gabe kept interrupting him and laughing his head off. And getting slapped by me and Victoria. Once my skin was back to it’s normal color, we went out for pizza. It was nice, you know, just the four of us. Kai was going on and on about how he first learned he was a sorcerer, and the time he won an award for inventing a new spell, and blah blah blah. Victoria was on her phone, texting Ezra the entire time, occasionally joining the conversation when it involved either violence, or boys. Her two favorite subjects. Gabe and I were talking like normal people.
After dinner, we all walked down to the waterfall, which they told me was their usual meeting place. Victoria announced that they needed to talk privately. Without me. After about half an hour of dangling from trees and skipping rocks in the lake, I got bored. I resided to doing what I do best: Snooping. I tip-toed through the woods to the big oak tree where they were all sitting, discussing a “very important matter” as they put it. I stood on the opposite side, and poked my head around.
“What were you thinking?” I heard Victoria ask. This was directed at Gabe.
“That she’s beautiful and funny. Worth getting to know.” He sighed, and I saw tears start to fill his eyes. “How was I supposed to know...?”
“Keep your eyes on the prize, buddy!” Kai chuckled, but he didn’t look too happy either.
“Shut up.” Gabe snapped. “Victoria, I can’t do this.”
“How do you think I feel?” Great, now Victoria was tearing up.
“There must be some way out of it... Some way to change the rules. I can’t kill Alex. I’m just getting to know her!” All three of them started bawling. I did, too. I couldn’t help it; the three people that I trusted the most were all planning to kill me, and I had no clue why. I buried my face in my hands. The next time I looked up, they were standing around me, crying, shaking their heads. I knew they didn’t WANT to kill me, but I didn’t see why they had to. And, my mom had said that she brought me here to keep me safe, but maybe she was in on it to, maybe she wanted me dead....
“Alex,” Gabe said quietly. “We don’t want to hurt you, but...”
“But what?!” I demanded.
“We have no choice.”
“It’s this deal we made with Gale...” Kai added. “Long story.”
“I’ve got time.” I mumbled. Truthfully, I wasn’t sure how much time I had. I wasn’t sure of anything. Victoria, who I knew I could depend on despite her cold personality and harsh attitude, explained.
“Thousands of years ago, all the creatures of the universe lived together in harmony. Vampires, werewolves, fairies, sorcerers, mere-people, shapeshifters, you name it. One day, a powerful sorcerer named Gale,” Thousands of years ago? It couldn’t be the same Gale.... “Was displeased with the harmony. He claimed that everyone was becoming blind, not recognizing that there were unlimited resources and opportunities. So he created a new type of creatures: angels of darkness. There were five of them. They were undeniably strong and powerful, practically invincible.” She paused for a moment nodding toward Gabe. That couldn’t mean that he was thousands of years old, could it? And why were they called angels of darkness? I hadn’t had a lot of experience with this type of thing, but I assumed that “darkness” wasn’t a good thing.
“So,” she continued. “they followed his every command, creating new weapons and poison and building huge cities, where they enslaved anyone who didn’t cooperate. Gale became the dictator of the universe. One day, as he was walking through one of his largest, most cynical cities, a lovely young vampiress caught his eye. He begged her to marry him, but she wouldn’t. After years of chasing and begging, they made a deal. She would marry him if he agreed to make her the Queen of all vampires. The day of their wedding, he put a spell on her to make her love him.” Shelby. It had to be Shelby.
“Little did they know, while they were busy building The Dark Empire, a group of rebels, led by the powerful fairy Danika, was planning an assassination. She wanted the world to be peaceful, with no conflict at all.  She snuck into Gale’s castle, and was caught and arrested by the guards. Gale laughed at her foolishness, scolded her, and let her go. He didn’t see her as a real threat until he woke up one night with a knife at his throat. Danika and her followers agreed not to kill Gale, as long as he agreed to move his empire to the underworld, where he could rule however he wanted. You see, Danika knew that killing Gale or eliminating his empire all together would start riots and eventually a war.” I stared at her in disbelief. How did she know all of this? And what did it have to do with me being killed? She kept talking.
“But he put a curse on Danika, so that she would die and he could rule again.  But he wasn’t powerful enough. So every hundred years, he seeks revenge by sending a group of his servants to kill a unknowing Fairy or Puck. Kai is a Dark Sorcerer, I am a loyal Vampiress, and Gabe is one of the original, most powerful angels of Darkness.” I knew it! Well, I don’t know it... But I knew it! It all made so much sense now.  I was part of an ancient sacrifice tradition. Great. But I didn’t wanna die... I decided that I would find a way out of it, a way to change the tradition. Maybe I could make a deal with the Dark Lord, er- Gale.
“Alex,” said Gabe. “Alex, I don’t... I won’t hurt you.” I wasn’t so sure. I backed away from him. “Alex, I promise.” He promises, I told myself. He promises. I slowly trudged back towards him. He grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me against his chest. I could feel his heartbeat racing, and once again I trusted him. He walked me home. As I opened the front door, I noticed that he was still standing in my driveway.
“Gabe?” I hollered.
“Alex.” He answered. “Come here.” I ran over to him.
“Is something wrong...?” I asked in a shaky voice. I wasn’t sure I could handle another negative thought.
“No. Well, yes. I promise not to hurt you, but..”
“But Victoria and Kai..” I added.
“Yes. And others. Like Gage, Israel... Others. It’s really not safe for you here.” I knew that he was totally right, but where did he expect me to go? I was already out here away from my fabulous lifestyle, and what were the chances of convincing my mom to move again?
“What, are you trying to get rid of me? So soon?!” I joked. He looked like he needed a laugh. “I think I’ll be okay. I’ll take extra precautions.” I assured him. He sighed. He knew I was in a disagreeable mood, and there was no way he could’ve won.
“Alright,” he huffed. “Just don’t go getting yourself killed... I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to my girl.” He kissed me goodnight. I kissed him again. Before we knew it, we were sitting in my room (we had crawled in through the windrow to avoid getting caught), trying to talk and kiss at the same time.  He was saying something like: “I love you so much... Omigod omigod omigod....”, with his fingers in my hair, his perfect lips on mine. If I was going to die, I wanted to die thinking about this. About him.
“Alex...?!” I heard a familiar voice shriek from the doorway. “ALEX!!! What are you doing?! Who’s that? When did he get here...?” Oh, great. My mom. Gabe quickly pulled away from me and turned bright pink. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, and attempted to fix his hair. Rather than try to explain everything to my mother, I stared at Gabe, thinking: He is sooo cute when he’s embarrassed... When he was done staring at his reflection, he realized that I was staring at him too. I gave him a look that meant: Please say something... batted my eyelashes, and flipped my long beautiful hair. It worked like magic.
“Mrs. um.. Blake,” he managed to say. “I was just... Alex and I... Hi. I’m Gabe Lincoln. Not Abe Lincoln, although he was a great president... And your daughter, Alex, is like so hot... I mean, quite lovely, and I’m kinda her boyfriend. This is kinda awkward... Not the way I pictured meetings my girlfriend’s family would be.” He laughed nervously. My mother didn’t laugh. I knew that if I didn’t say something soon, Gabe would get himself murdered by my mom. I attempted to smile, but I was too scared that my mother would think I was being disrespectful.
“Mom, yeah, this is my boyfriend Gabe. I told him he could come over. So sorry I didn’t ask first... And, um, oh mom please don’t be mad!” I burst into tears, right on cue. I had known since I was little that I’d one day become an actress. Today was that day! I buried my face in my hands, and kept on sobbing. Gabe, most likely falling for my trick as well, rushed to my side to comfort me. Guys are so stupid sometimes. He wrapped his arms around me, apologizing again and again, while my mom slowly walked towards us.
“Well, Gabe, you keep your hands off my little girl or you won’t have any hands. Got it?” Now, she was embarrassing ME. Gabe didn’t answer her. He was too busy trying to get me to stop “crying”. My mom dragged him out of my room, down the stairs, and out the door. I just sat there, rewinding the day in my head. It was like midnight. I wanted to call Victoria, but it it was sooo late... I didn’t even finish my thought. I fell asleep. I was actually starting to get used to my old, rickety bed, and the old rickety house. The second my eyelids snapped shut, I saw an image of the book. I knew that it would help explain everything that was going on, I decided I would look at it in the morning. But then vision changed, no, it zoomed out, so I could see the rest of the picture. Someone else was holding the book... Gabe! What was he doing? He was crawling through some sort of underground tunnel, running into the occasional bat or rabid mouse or hug rare species of beetle. About 3 rat bites and 1 infected bug bite later, he got to the end.
He stepped out of the tunnel into a huge room with glowing red lights. There were huge spiders and dark purple and blue spirals floating in midair. I could’ve sworn I heard evil laughter. He looked nervous, and proud. He walked slowly through the lair, taking no notice of the human - and fairy- skeletons hanging on the wall. My view changed, and now I could see directly into his eyes. They didn’t look like Gabe’s eyes, they were full of hate and betrayal, and I knew he wasn’t doing whatever he was doing by choice. My view changed again. Now, I seemed to be looking through his eyes, seeing what he was seeing. This was the most vivid dream I’d ever had... He stopped walking and looked up. About ten feet in front of him was a huge throne, which appeared to made from solid gold. I’d had some pretty big pieces of gold, but none like this! Even more breathtaking was the young man in the throne. He was undeniably handsome, with dark hair, perfect teeth, and mysterious green eyes. When Gabe held out the book, a mischievous smile spread across the guy’s face. Gabe bowed his head, trying to hide the look of pride and satisfaction from this guy, who was obviously his superior. Then, Hottie (that’s what I decided to call him) let out an enormous sigh. He looked almost displeased. Hottie took out a list and checked off the book next to “magic book”. His whole list was complete, wait... No. It was missing one thing. The empty box was next to, “Alex Blake, alive”.
Horrified, I woke up, covering my mouth to keep myself from screaming. I knew there were people out to get me, but I had no clue someone as striking and powerful was in on all this fairy and vampire and dark lord junk. Unless.... Unless Hottie was really Gale. But what were the chances of that? Actually, I told myself, it’s very likely. But, after a few minutes of panicking and thinking up possible explanations, I reminded myself that it was just a dream. A very bad, very realistic dream. I couldn’t get back to sleep. I tiptoed across the room to the box where I put all my rocks and notes. And the book. I dug through the box to get the book. It wasn’t there. I thought I was imagining it. So, I looked again. And again. It was really missing. And it had been there before Gabe left. He had been looking at it like it was some sort of treasure. That explained the dream. Gabe took the book to Hottie. And, if all of that was true, Hottie was Gale, Shelby’s boyfriend. And Victoria was ACTUALLY working for him. And so was Kai, and Gage, and all the others. But, even though I never SAID that I wanted to work for Danika, I was. For the first time since I found out that Victoria and Ezra were gonna kill me, I felt scared. Truly, painfully scared.
For the next week or so, Gabe, Victoria, Kai, and me had meetings every night. We discussed possible ways to bend the rules; possible ways to trick Gale. None of them wanted me dead, but it seemed that there was no other way. If they hid from him, he would find and kill them. If I hid, he would kill them. If they killed me, they would be rewarded with more eternal life. That is, of course, the only reason they were still alive. They had done all that Gale had asked them to. I could tell that they had never been asked to kill their best friend before. Because, I could read their minds! Except for Gabe. Eventually, Israel came back. He acted as if he had never left, as if nothing had ever happened. And more people (creatures) joined our little group. Regan and Megan, who I recognized from my science class, and a tall, red-haired boy named Greg. Regan was a vampire, Megan was a vicious angel of darkness, and Greg was a werewolf. The discussion about whether or not they were going to kill me slowly faded. It was almost time.
I was asleep in my bed one night, when I heard a thump coming from the direction of my window. My eyes shot open, but it was too dark to see anything. I could just barely make out the shape of twelve people, some male, some female, some young, some full grown adults. They looked as if they were like floating across the squeaky wooden floorboards, heading soundlessly towards my bed. It was a new moon, so I couldn’t see any of their faces, and I just barely noticed the one that was standing behind the others, not moving from my windowsill. I was too focused on the far too familiar person, I didn’t even realize that the group was coming closer and closer. I screamed as I felt a dozen pairs of hands wrap me in my own sheets, and lift me out of my bed. It was hard to breathe, and I decided I couldn’t waste precious oxygen screaming to no one in particular. I heard some weird kind of chanting as they carried me out my window and down the big oak tree that they’d climbed in order to get to it. I couldn’t help thinking that this never would’ve happened in California. My dad’s top-notch security system would’ve stopped them for sure. That was about the only thought I had before I was too oxygen-starved to think. I passed out, expecting never to wake up again. My last half-thought was one word, no, one name: Gabe.
The second I could breathe again, I sucked up as much of that sweet, crisp New York air as I possibly could. It was still dark, but I could see the sun rising from behind a cluster of trees. My thoughts started coming back, starting with: Where am I? It took me less than a minute to figure that one out. I sat up and dusted myself off, and rubbed my sleepy eyes. I observed my surroundings first. No, actually, I observed my outfit FIRST. I was wearing a tight purple sleeveless dress, made from what I recognized as pure silk. No shoes. No jacket or shawl or anything to keep me warm in the cool November air. My hair was pulled back into a tight braid. I was sitting on a squishy patch of... Of... Moss. And I was in some sort of outdoor cage, like at the zoo. But this was definitely not a zoo. The bars of the “cage” were spread apart and stuck into the ground, but there were thousands of little wires running between them. What made it even more  zoo-like was the people standing around my “cage” pointing at me with with amusement. It took me a few minutes to recognize them. Victoria, Gage, Kai, Israel, Megan, Greg, Shelby, Hottie (Gale), Ezra, and Gabe. Gabe was holding the book. But he wasn’t laughing like the others. And he definitely wasn’t laughing when Gale announced what he was planning to do to me.
“I was thinking something unusually violent.” He chuckled. His flawless smile sent a frightened chill down my spine. “Because this one here is... Different. I can feel it. She’s beautiful, and she’s disgusting at the same time. I hate her. I HATE her.” He repeated this phrase (“I hate her”) so much that everyone started joining in.
“I HATE HER!!!! I HATE HER!!!! I HATE HER!!!!!” The crowd got larger. And louder. I could feel all my confidence, hope, and trust crumbling inside of me. There was nowhere in my “cage” to hide, nowhere to cry and block out the rest of the world. So I burst into tears in front of the dark lord. In front of what looked like an entire country, and I was on camera. There were probably little werewolf kids in their homes laughing at the weak little fairy. I sobbed and sobbed, and suddenly I felt something hit me lightly in the back of the head. A note from Danika! I opened it so fast I cut my finger. Dearest Alex, I am so very sorry you are in such a predicament. I hate to say I told you so... But I told you so! Gabe is not to be trusted. In fact, now is time to look to someone you may not WANT to trust. You will know what I mean when you see him again. Good luck! I will help you get out of there, Alex. Just give me time. Your friend, Danika. I thought about this for a very long time... Who was it that I didn’t want to trust? And obviously I knew I couldn’t trust Gabe. But that couldn’t be it. A lightbulb went off in my head: Israel! I didn’t want to trust him, after what he did to Amanda. But there was something about him that convinced me that he didn’t do it intentionally. He was definitely the guy Danika was talking about.