I wake up to Graham's concerned face. "Are you feeling okay? What happened?"
"I feel better," I say. I look down, even though there's a large bandage, I can see that the hole's much smaller than in my dream. It must be because she's so drained of power here. I think.
"Were you attacked on the way home?" he asks. "It doesn't look like your typical knife."
I want to talk to him about it about I can't. Graham hardly knows a thing about what happened in the woods and I don't want him to. I like to keep the what happened in the woods seperate from my friends. I don't want them to have to carry that burden.
"It doesn't matter, I'm okay," I say, faking a smile. "Get out of my room, I need to get dressed for the meeting."
"It does matter, if someone's hunting you then-"
"Oberon! You're awake!" Jaxon says, smiling and running into the room with us. "Yeah, awake and trying to get dressed for the meeting," I say, a little annoyed. Jaxon's face drained of all it's color. "Oh, yeah, I forgot we had that," he says. "You should uh, wait for the doctor before we go, he'll be back soon."
I sigh and lay back down. "Okay, then we're leaving." I say. I hear a door closing and Graham walks out of the room. "Docter, she's awake," I hear him say through the thin wall. "Excellent, she'll be up and running in no time!" a voice that is probably the doctor's replies. The voice is very familiar but I don't know where I've heard it. It's a man's voice and I'm a little worried because I have a new shirt on now because my last one was covered in blood.
"Jaxon," I say. His eyes snap from the door, to me. "Jaxon, we don't have much time before they return,"
I look straight into his eyes. "It's her. It's Cora, she-"
The door opens, Graham walks into the room, a familiar man following him. "You!" I hiss. "I didn't know you were a doctor! I thought you did science experiments or- something!"
"I do! And I do this! And other things. As you may know, I have many jobs." he says. "What did you do? Did you poison me?" I ask I look down at the hole in my stomach. "Why would I do that? You have a very important meeting coming up!"
"How do you know about that?" I hiss. "Well cause I'll be there too of course!" He is getting a new bandage out and I consider ripping mine off the see if he really did poison me.
"Men, will you please leave the room for us to talk?"
Jaxon and Graham look very confused, but they definitely don't look like they wanna do that. "It's okay, we need to talk privately," I say. "Who-"
"Just leave! We need to talk, I don't want you guys to hear this." I snap. Jaxon looks very worried, Graham just looks more confused than anything. Jaxon walks out hesitantly, but Graham waits a minute. He walks up to the doctor, "If you hurt her, I swear-"
"Don't worry, she's in good hands, she's been fine all this time after all," Graham hesitates, then walks out slowly.
I look up at the man who ruined everything. My whole life. If he'd ignored a little girl taking a book none of any of this would of happened. Kayden. "What do you want,"
"Nothing, dear! You friends needed a doctor, I was available, nothing special really," he says. "How ever, you did attack one of my employees," he looks at me with dangerous eyes. "Now don't get me wrong, Jordan totally deserved it, surprised you didn't do it sooner, in fact, but what bothers me is what you told him after."
Kayden walks over to me. He begins pulling off the bandage, I pull away and glare at him. "Relax, dear, I just have to change your bandages," he says
"I can do it myself." I respond. "You don't know how, it'll get infected if you do it wrong."
I sit back up. He begins pulling off the bandage again. I stare at him the whole time, not trusting him at all. Pain shoots up my side as he gets closer to the hole. I flinch a little, which he ignores and continues talking, not looking up once. "See, you told him, you were gonna make the operation fall," he says.
I try my best not to pull away, one wrong move, and I know I could reopen it. "Now, how are you gonna do that?" he asks and looks up at me.
"I have enough evidence, and the meeting will be with actual government officials, I didn't think it was that hard to understand," I reply. "Look, I'm the best scientist there is, there isn't a single one that has even half of enough knowledge as me, I can make our kind thrive with my knowledge."
"So?" I ask. "I don't need you to continue meddling in my life, and quite frankly, I don't care if our kind thrives or not, I hardly care if they live."
"So, I'm the only one that can defend against it. The one that nearly killed us all." he finishes pulling off my bandage. "I'm the only one, that has any idea how. Without me, our civilization will crumble." he says. "You'll learn more during the meeting but, she's growing stronger, strong enough to come here, I suspect she might already be able to reach us." He says, signaling to my stomach.
The rest of the time we don't talk, he just wraps a new bandage around my stomach and back. "There! You'll be fine to go! See ya there!" he says and begins to leave. "Oh! And if you cared, I'd think about it before having me killed, don't worry, I won't make you work for me anymore, if that's your problem,"
But the thing is, I don't care. I don't care if the civilization falls, I don't care if they all die. I only care that Jaxon, myself, and maybe Graham makes it out alive.
He acts like he could care less, but I can see right through him. He cares quite a bit. No one wants to die. Even if you want to die, you don't want to die, you just feel like you want to escape, and that's how you decide to do it, I should know, I've been in that position before. Maybe, if I play this right, I can get something out of this.
Jaxon and Graham walk in as soon as Kayden leaves. Jaxon is the first to speak. "Are you okay?" he asks. "Fine," I respond. "Let's get ready to leave."
Getting dressed and out the door is to quick because before I know it, we're standing at the entrance of the auditorium. Graham goes in front of us and holds the door open. Jaxon and I walk in.
In the middle of the large room, is a big table with maybe ten people there. I recognize some of them, just from pictures and stuff. These people are high in the government. No one can even dream of getting to meet them, yet here I am, dieing to get away from them.
I hear one of them murmur, "I thought there was only supposed to be two," the next voice is Kaydens. "Ahhh, you see, those two are a package deal. Don't worry about the extra man, he used to live in the forest, isn't that brilliant, I bet he'll know so much!"
It bothers me that's all we are to them. Items. Like personal little notebooks that hold all the information they need.
What's the forest have to do with this? I think, nearing the large table. "Hey," I say. "Why are we here?"
I'm pretty annoyed. The only reason we're here is because they threatened us. No one says a thing. "Look, we have places to be, so if no one feels like telling us, we'll leave right now." I say.
Someone stands. It's our leader of our community. I wouldn't call him a president because the job is passed down from their family, but not like a king, he still can't make decisions by himself, he needs others to agree too. The man is very tall, and very lage. He has a blond hair and he wears a suit so nice, I didn't even know they existed anymore. The man has intimidating grey eyes that look like they'll put holes through us.
He walks over to me and holds out his hand, "I'm Henry Brown, Pleasure to meet you. We invited you here today to talk about an old enemy"
I don't take his hand. "Sir, correct me if I'm wrong, but, you 'invited' me here, which was actually a threat, to speak to me about, what? Cora? I blocked out as much of that as possible yet, you expect me to be friendly? I'm sorry, I'm not sure that's how it works." I say.
There are murmurs around the table about how disrespectful I'm being, but I don't care. I have no reason to respect this man. Henry puts his hand down. "Yeah, sorry about the letter, we had to be sure you'd come," he says awkwardly. I ignore his apology. "What about Cora?" I say, in a low, lifeless voice. I'd hoped I'd never have to deal with her again but obviously, she has other plans and so do they.
"Come, sit," he says. We all stare at him, and slowly, on by one, sit down. Everyone at the table looks around awkwardly, not speaking. Each person at the table has very nice, perfect, clothes on. The girls wear nice, expensive, jewelry and look like they each spent an hour, if not more, on their beautifully styled hair. We all stick out like sore thumbs. My hair is thrown into a imperfect ponytail and I have stained jeans and a T-shirt on. Jaxon and Graham where similar clothes.
"So, what about Cora?" I repeat. "it- she- uh, well, I'm not good at explaining these kinds of things," Henry says.
"Don't worry about it sir," Kayden says. "To put it simply, Cora's energy is getting a lot stronger. At this very moment, It's growing. Soon, she'll be able to come here without a human's help. It's important that we can defend against her when she does come.
"Tell me what you're planning and why I'm here." I say. I think I know the answer. I hope I'm wrong. The table goes silent again. Someone finally says, "We need you to go back."
"No." I respond in a sharp voice. "You can kill me, because I'll die before I ever go back, at least here it's pretty painless and not personal."
"Wait, listen, we all decided this was the only way please listen to us! we tried to think of other ways, but you and the boy are the only ones to ever make it out!" says Henry. It makes me angry he didn't even take the time to know our names.
"And did you see what that cost? I killed half the village! If she gets ahold of me again, it won't only be half! It's suicide to go back out there!" I say. "Look, I understand that was hard, but you saved us all you are the only one that can do this,"
I don't think they're giving Jaxon enough credit, although we didn't get any credit until now. Until they needed something. But I don't need them getting any ideas about him coming on this idiotic mission too. "Look, if you go then you and your friends will have all your charges removed,"
"Don't you mean friend?" I ask. Another man begins to talk, this one is the head of the police force. "Oberon Rose, going beyond the wall, lying to government officials, drug transporting, staying out past curfew, several times." He looks up at me then back down at his paper. "Graham Michelson, lying to government officials, helping a fugitive. Helen Rose, helping, and homing fugitive. And finally, Jaxon, helping a fugitive, and going beyond the wall." the man finally stops.
"Wow, you guys really planned this all out," I say quietly. Both Jaxon and Graham look very surprised too but don't say anything. "Look, we just need you to get a simple plant, I believe you may know of it," Kayden begins
My surprise quickly melts back into anger. "Do you know what it's like there? Any of you? Of course you don't! I already saved your asses once why is it my responsibility to do it again? In that place, you're constantly being attacked with only your materials to survive! And Cora finds any weakness you have and attacks it! Do you know how many times she attacked her own s-"
I can't tell them about Jaxon. About him being her son. Knowing them, they'll probably add it to the long list or just kill him on the spot. "Jaxon, I mean Jaxon's life on the line to get me? She is ruthless, and will do anything to get what she wants!"
The room is still silent. "Look, I'm sorry, I really am, but you two the only ones who have ever made it out. Look, I'll even sweeten the deal and give you a few of my men to take." Henry says.
"Why don't ya just send Jordan while you're at it? Let's just get everyone killed! At least then someone who deserves it would die!" I say. Kayden looks uncomfortable with the idea. Of course I didn't mean it, but it doesn't make it any less true. Why would I want to spend another month there with someone like him? What if all the men he sends are like Jorden? He'd probably only last an hour anyways.
"Jordan Harald?" Henry asks. "That's the one," I say, rolling my eyes. "How in the world do you know him? Isn't he Kayden's lab assistant or something?"
"Or something," I say. I look over at Kayden, who looks ready to burst with emotions. I could do it. I could take down the whole operation right now. But I also can't. I can't seal our fate like that. It's too selfish. "When is this suicide mission supposed to start?" I ask.
"If everything goes right, we'll be ready in two days."
"Two days?" I repeat, "that's all the time I have to say goodbye to everyone before I march to my death?" I ask. Henry keeps on looking more and more guilty. "I- um- well-"
"We'll give you a week," Kayden chimes in. I shoot him a dangerous look, and he sinks back into his chair. It's still not enough. I wouldn't be ready in a million years. "A week sounds good. What do you think Miss. Rose? Will you be ready then?"
"I'll never be ready. But that seems like my best option so I guess." I say. "And I'm coming too." says Graham. "There's no way you're going without me." says Jaxon.
"But- no, you can't! Either of you! This is my fault and my mission! I don't know what I'd do if I lost either of you!" I say. "It's our faults too, it's our names on the list next our crimes just like you, so, it should be our mission too," says Graham.
"Besides, I doubt you even remember where the plants are," Jaxon chimes in. "Bring whomever you'd like," says Henry. "But it won't be put on us if they don't make it out,"
"Nor will it be put on us when your men don't make it out," Graham says. "Fine, then we have a deal, we'll meet you with your supplies and men on Tuesday of next week right here to go over the details of the arrangement. See you soon,"
And just like that, it's over. Just like that I'm marching to my death and bringing my friends down with me and there's nothing I can do about it.