Chapter Thirty-Five

Everyone is sitting around the dining table when I descend the stairs, they’re all chatting and laughing, talking about what they’re hoping happens during the trip and where they’d like to stop to look around and what buildings they’d like to visit. I sit down listening to the conversation, debating on what I want to make myself for breakfast.

“What do you think you’d want to do during our trip?” Berik asks me.

I look up from the spot I was looking at on the table. “Uhm, I honestly don’t know what I want to do, all I know is that I’m thinking about possibly making an omelet for breakfast.”

Everyone chuckles at me, “I don’t doubt that you’re hungry, you didn’t eat breakfast with the rest of us.” Fenirick states. “Do you want me to get Alaxander to whip up one for you?”

I smile and shake my head “no, I can make it myself, but thank you!”

Alaxander comes out of the back room dressed in a chef’s apron and a pair of grey sweatpants. “Did I hear someone say they wanted an omelet?”

I sigh and roll my eyes “Yes, but you don’t have to make it for me, I am perfectly capable of making my own omelet!” I exclaim.

“No, no, no.” He tsks. “I am the chef, and I don’t allow others to take over.”

I roll my eyes “Fine, just please put spinach, mushroom, cheese, and ham in it.”

“No problem my fine lady!” He replies bowing backwards into the kitchen.

I roll my eyes chuckling, heading back to my seat at the table.

“I’m surprised you allowed him to cook for you, you never allow anyone to cook your food.” Freyja says.

I shrug “I just don’t feel like arguing this morning.”

I get a worried look from Freyja, Cherie, Nik and Berik. “Since when are you not in the mood to argue?” Nik asks.

I take a deep breath and let it out slowly before diving back into the dream that I had when Berik woke me up. “I don’t know exactly how to react to this dream, all I know, is that it didn’t feel like a dream, it honestly felt like I was there in real time, like I was astral projecting or something.” I explain.

“You said that they heard you gasp when you saw yourself kneeling in the dungeon-like room?” Fenirick asks.

I nod in response. “Yeah, it was really crazy, one of the men even went as far as to say that they were ‘being watched’ I mean, yeah, I was watching from the stairs, but if it was only a dream, how were they able to sense me or even run after me?”

“If you were in fact dreaming about the elders, it could very well be that you were astral projecting into a possible future event. Or, they thought to test if astral projection was going to be one of your powers, which seems to show that they were right. When you saw yourself, did you look like a mirror image or were your features distorted?” Fenirick asks.

I think about this for a minute, “the girl kneeling in the middle of the room definitely looked like me, but I couldn’t be one-hundred precent sure if it was a carbon copy of myself or not.”

“I’ll message your uncle and see if they know what you look like, it may be that they don’t actually know anything about you, but since you’re the granddaughter of two elders, they may have a familial link to your subconscious.” Fenirick explains as he takes out his cell phone and calls Torsten and puts it on speaker so that the rest of us can hear what is being said on both sides.

“Hello Fenirick, how is your road trip going?” Torsten asks pleasantly.

“Not too bad, we’re coming up to our first stop in the next couple of hours, but I had a quick question to ask you.” Fenirick replies.

“Shoot!” Torsten says.

“Is it possible that the elders know what Falencia looks like or where she might be?” Fenirick asks, getting straight to the point.

There’s silence on the other end for a few seconds “I don’t think they know what she looks like exactly but, there are rumors that they know where she is, or at least where she was. Apparently, the human Elder’s son knows who she is and what she looks like, or at least that is what he is claiming.”

“Shit!” I exclaim, making everyone look at me in confusion and worry.

“What’s wrong?” Berik asks.

I bite the inside of my bottom lip and shake my head trying to calm myself down as the events from Prom flash through my mind. “I didn’t take him seriously, but he was ranting about knowing who I was he used the name ‘Moorn’ I thought he was absolutely nuts, but now, I’m thinking he actually knew what the hell he was talking about.”

“What exactly was said?” Fenirick says.

I recount what was exchanged between us as everyone sits in their seats and listens. “I honestly didn’t give him any merit to what he was saying, but I thought he was being his normal stupid self.”

“Of course, he’d know about you and what to look for.” Fenirick replies. “He’s being trained to take over for his father once his father retires, just as his grandfather trained his father.”

I sigh deeply “So he wasn’t just spewing nonsensical bullshit?”

“Apparently not, I wonder how long he’s known about you.” Freyja replies.

“I honestly don’t know, but maybe it was a good idea to get out of town when we did.” I say trying to make things less awkward.

“I’m thinking it was.” Freyja says. “Maybe, we should bypass going to Louisiana for a minute and go somewhere else, somewhere that no one would think to look for us?”

I take a deep cleansing breath letting it out slowly. “I think that would be the best option at this point, maybe instead of stopping at our designated stop that we’re heading to, maybe go in the complete opposite direction.”

Fenirick nods “I think you may be right.”

I shake my head in my hands. “I should have taken him more seriously. I thought maybe he had heard a rumor or something stupid like that, I don’t think I let on that he was on to something.”

Freyja, Justin, Cherie, and Nik all pull me into a group hug. “You’re not alone.” Freyja says in my ear.

I smile “Thanks you guys! I don’t know what I would do without you.”

“Crash and burn.” Nik says making me grin.

“You may be right about that, but either way, I’m glad to have you all in my life, even if you make it difficult from time to time.”

Nik gives me a toothy grin “I don’t know what you mean.”

I smirk “Uh huh, I don’t doubt it.”

He smiles and hugs me a little tighter “I promise, nothing bad is going to happen to you.”

Fenirick comes back into the dining room from talking to the driver. “We’re going to venture off route, I told the driver to go west, we’re going to go towards California, go see the Pacific Ocean.”

I smile as I take a seat on one of the couches in the lounge area, zoning out as I think about the dream and the new information that was just sprung on me. Anderson, the guy who was my biggest bully throughout school, not only very possibly knew who and what I was, but he could possibly alert the elders of the Underworld Society to my location or at the very least, the people who I cared about. This feeling of dread creeps up my spine, I can’t help but think about the implications that Anderson made. My phone dings with a notification from discord, I look at the message and notice that Sean messaged me.

‘Hey!’

I smile at the message and reply ‘Hey.’

‘What are you up to?’

‘Not much, just hanging out, you?’

‘Same, I was wondering if you would want to hang out tomorrow?’

‘I appreciate the offer, but I am on a road trip, it was a last minute spontaneous thing my mom sprung on me and my sister.’

He sends a frowny emoji ‘that sucks, I was hoping we could hang out sometime.’

‘I’m sorry, maybe when we get back, I don’t know when that will be exactly considering my mom has been saving up to take Freyja and me on a road trip across the US.’

‘That sounds like it should be a fun time.’

‘I think so.’

‘I’d love to continue talking to you.’

I send a smiley emoji ‘I’d like that too.’

Our conversation goes back and forth for a while as we talk about anything and everything that we could possibly talk about, the conversation flows fairly smoothly, until he asks where we’re planning on stopping and everything. I pause for a minute trying to figure out what to say.

“What’s wrong sis?” Freyja asks.

“Sean messaged me, and he’s asking where we’re planning on stopping and what not.”

She sighs “What did you tell him?”

“I didn’t, I took a pause in the conversation because I don’t know what to tell him. I don’t know if I can fully trust him either. This royally sucks, I don’t know who I can or can’t trust, outside of our group, and even then, there’s new faces in our group and I don’t know if they’re fully trustworthy.”