I leaned against the door of my bedroom once I was in and had shut it. Breathing I checked my internal clock, 10:46:34pm. 'What the hell! When did it get so late?' My biggest worry then was if Ciara was still awake this late in the night.
'Ciara,' I whispered telepathically.
'What are you doing?' she called back, amusement clear in her voice.
'I thought you were sleeping,' I whispered back.
'So you decided to whisper just in case I was actually sleeping.'
'There you go,' I said right before I saw her appear right in the centre of the bedroom with a light smile on her face together with a look of disbelief. This all faded almost immediately when her eyes scanned me.
"What happened to you?" she squealed covering her mouth to muffle her voice and then rushing over to me.
"Huh, what do you…." I didn't get to finish my statement when I noticed my clothes were blackened and my right palm was still covered in burns from when I touched Gary while he was in bed. I had been so focused on Gary that I hadn't had completely forgotten to check myself for injuries despite the dull pain I had felt from my palm earlier. I kept quiet lest I would risk exposing Gary's secret. I watched as Ciara started to mend my hand and sent healing magic through me to mend any other minor injuries. Her blonde hair was slightly messy and for the first time I got to look at her eyes without getting cold. They were a pretty shade of frosty blue with white specks scattered through them. She always had her glasses on because to stop everything from freezing which was a shame since I wanted to see her without them.
The tingling sensation finally came to an end, but Ciara held her position, "Kevin, you're staring."
"Look at me."
"You know that…"
"No, even if it's just for a second," I asked stopping her protests. She slowly lifted her gaze till she was looking me right in the eyes. I brought my hands to her glasses with the aim of taking them off.
"No don't," she pleaded.
"Just a second," I needed to see her without her glasses on. I also wanted to see if there was a way to resist her icy stare. If anything I would put her glasses back before I got too cold.
"Promise?" she pleaded.
"Promise." With that I took off her glasses. The sides of her eyes immediately began turning pale and the colour of her eyes began to change to a darker shade of blue. The temperature of the room also began dropping. It was like her glasses held a blizzard back. Ultimately, she was beautiful without the glasses as I had suspected. She abruptly closed her eyes and put her glasses back on. I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. A part of me had been completely freaked out at the possibility of me becoming a Popsicle.
"Don't do that again," she said dead serious. Sensing my defiance, she continued, "Look behind you." I did as told and found that the entire wall behind me was covered in ice leaving my outline uncovered. "You cannot be so reckless," she continued scolding. I sighed and walked to my closet to pick out a shirt that wasn't as charred as the one I was in. "Kevin," she demanded.
"I can't make such a promise, Ciara," I said quietly, "you're beautiful without your glasses."
"Then at least hold out until I have learnt to control it," she said.
"It never occurred to me that you could control it," I said astonished.
"It is hard and I haven't got the hang of it yet, but I use t whenever I look at you and sometimes the others. This wasn't something I learnt from Armensia. I was born like this," she explained, "without my glasses it I seven harder to control."
"That is so cool. Fine then, I'll wait for you to learn control," I said reassuring her, but she still looked troubled all the same, "what's wrong?"
She took a seat on my bed and I did the same beside her and waited for her to gather her words. "I told the others to hide something from you. We went to Armensia today." She said getting my intention.
"That explains the failed attempt to stop time," I said remembering the incident in the school.
"Wait, you noticed that?" she asked astounded.
"Yeah, time magic has very little effect on me," I said, "If you had asked me, I would have kept time frozen for as long as you would have liked." Her eyes widened at my revelation. I remembered stopping time on earth when we had gone to fight Texan.
"On the day we fought Texan, you held time on earth for four hours," she said as if the realisation had just hit her then, "You are unbelievably powerful, Johnson. Back to the topic at hand, he reason I didn't tell you was because I wanted to you to deal with your issues between you and Ryan."
Ryan and the Purgers… the memories of our encounter that evening started flashing back like a freshly open wound. I had literally used my powers right in front of them. Though my gut told me they would have no problem keeping that secret. Ever since I left them in the middle of the road, I felt closer to them, yet all had done was try to run further from them. Either way all my negative feelings towards Ryan and the Purgers had vanished. My mood fell when I remembered the stray memory of Charles.
"KEVIN," Ciara snapped me out of my thoughts.
"Oh sorry .I spaced out."
"What's going on with you and Ryan's crew?" she asked.
"To be honest, I'm not sure yet. And the worst part is that no one will give me a straight answer except for Ryan," I said.
"I don't follow," she replied confused.
"It's complicated," I sighed, falling backwards into the soft bed, "well currently at least."
"Popular guy asks you to join his gang. Answers required are 'yes' or 'no,' what's so complicated about that?" she asked.
"Can we not talk about Ryan right now?" I begged.
Ciara kept quiet for a moment. I knew I was asking too much of her, but I also didn't want to get into the state I was in when I came home today. "We went back to the cave where we found Texan holding the mages hostage. We were trying to find out what Texan had used the breach for.
I sat up from the bed full attentive, "What did the find?"
"Wow, enthusiastic much?" she retorted.
"Come on, come on, spill already," I rushed her on.
"Okay, okay. They were able to find out that Texan indeed used the breach at the exact same time that you said you saw him at school that day and one other thing he found peculiar was the difference in massed of the two worlds. He was able to deduct that there was a possibility that Texan sent something or someone through the breach and tried to cover it up by bringing something of similar mass back to Armensia. There were rocks of Earth origin found scattered all over the interior of the cave. Just to be careful, the mages tried pulling up images of what might have happened by checking the reflective surfaces in the place with magic. Texan was thorough though and they were only able to get an image of black hair. Unfortunately that could be anyone since they have a lot of servants."
"Black hair?" I asked thoughtfully. There was something that came to mind, but there was no way I was going to start making suck accusations when it was still too early to tell.
"Does something come to mind?" she asked.
"Nothing concrete yet. I'll look into it, so just give me a bit more time," I said to her.
"What about Ryan? Are you going to deal with both issues at the same time?" she asked. The question silenced me since I had no intention of discussing this with her. She got up furiously and walked till she was at the balcony doors.
"Are you planning to join him?" she asked quietly.
"I don't know," considering how I left Ryan right after telling him that I would in fact join him. I really didn't know where I stood on the matter.
"What do you even stand to gain?" she said, her voice laced with disappointment and defeat, "I'm going to sleep." With that said she vanished from sight.
"Good night," I called telepathically, but the reply never came. I lay in bed, thoughts once again becoming messy, but this time I dismissed and fell asleep at 11:58:43pm.
...….