Chapter 14
Dream
I tried opening my eyes, but my lashes were plastered together in wet, sticky clumps. When I finally managed to wrench them open, I found Sasuke staring down at my face as I rested on his lap.
“Finally, Averie,” he said, and his voice sounded scarily feeble. “I was so worried. You were out for nearly a quarter hour.”
Memories raced through my mind. Pierced in the chest. Unmoving on the ground. Lying in a massive pool of blood.
I glanced down at Sasuke’s chest. The wounds and blood were still there—his entire shirt was red.
“I watched you die,” I blabbered, sitting up quickly. “Wait—is this a dream? Don’t tell me this is a dream?”
“This isn’t a dream...” He managed a small smile despite looking so faint. “I didn’t die...knocked out... Are you all right?”
Every inch of my body hurt, but I didn’t give a damn. “Never mind me, are you all right?” I asked, relaxing my shoulders a little and even letting out a small smile.
“I’d like to appear cool,” he spoke flippantly, but I could tell he was trying hard not to sound shaky, “but I think I might pass out again anytime.”
The blood drained from my face, and the relief and joy evaporated. “We need to get help. I’ll call Sir Albion—wait, how is he? And Asa. How are they?”
“Injured.” I heaved in relief, and Sasuke paused, gritting his teeth as he waited for a spasm of pain to pass. I watched him worriedly. When he’d recovered enough to talk, he continued weakly, “We should contact Atward.”
Instinctively, I groped for my iPhone in my jeans pockets, but he stopped me, saying, “I tried...there wasn’t any reception.”
“Where are we?” I asked, frustration mounting.
“The clearing...” he wheezed, his breathing getting more haggard, “next to Okamoto...”
“Let’s zap out of here then,” I suggested.
“You’ll have to do it.” He paused again, inhaling sharply as another spasm of pain seized him. “I’m definitely out of it.”
I shut my eyes and did as Sir Albion had taught us. First, I would have to summon my zodiac.
“Aries?” I thought to myself.
“You used up most of my power with the incineration of the massive demon just now. I need more time,” said Aries in my head.
“Are you serious?” I cried out loud, exasperation exploding out of me. “What should we do now? Sasuke needs medical attention!”
“So do you,” replied Aries evenly. “Calm down and think.”
“Okay, okay, now, how much have you got left?”
“Not too much. I’ve only got enough to go to somewhere near.”
“Sasuke.” I spoke aloud. “Are there any payphones around here? Do you have Japanese yen with you?”
“There are some at the entrance of the club.” He tugged his wallet out of his pocket and handed it to me.
I took it and, cupping his scarily pale face in my hands, told him gravely, “Wait for me. I’ll be back fast. You’re not allowed to pass out, okay? Leo, please keep him conscious.”
“Tell him Okamoto Riding Club at the foot of Mount Fuji.”
I nodded then focused on the memory I had of the entrance of Okamoto Riding Club, and zap! I was there in an instant, nearly toppling over as I landed.
Ignoring the pain, I looked around and found the payphone booths almost immediately. Rushing over, I slipped into one, snapped up the receiver, and punched in the necessary codes followed by the number Atward had given us in Japan. The call went through. I waited impatiently, praying hard for the phone to be answered soon. Sure enough, it was picked up after the third ring.
“Hello?” said Atward.
“It’s Averie! We’re at Okamoto Riding Club. Well, the clearing next to it! At the foot of Mount Fuji. We need help! Sasuke is badly hurt!” I desperately hoped Atward could understand what I was trying to say. I knew my sentences didn’t flow, but I couldn’t think—let alone speak—coherently now.
“Wait there for me.” Atward hung up—apparently understanding my broken rambling—and I zapped back to Sasuke’s side. Thankfully, he was still conscious.
“I’m holding out pretty well, huh?” he said with a hint of a smile playing on his lips, but I was too worried to return the light-hearted talk.
“Don’t talk,” I scolded, and he let out a laugh, only to end up crouched over in pain just as Atward came into sight.
He wasted no time asking questions as he kneeled down on the ground next to us, rested a hand on both our shoulders, and zapped us away.
In a matter of minutes, Sasuke and I were both receiving medical care in a small—but fully equipped—private clinic in Vancouver. There were only two doctors and two nurses, and Sasuke had a doctor and both nurses to himself in another room.
Atward entered my consultation room soon after I’d finished the last part of my treatment—the bandaging of my right calf, though it had already stopped bleeding. Bowing slightly, he thanked the doctor who had treated me as she took her leave, shutting the white wooden door behind her and leaving us alone in the room. “That place was so foggy, I could tell there was a fire all the way from the entrance of the horse club,” he said as he crossed the short distance toward me, manoeuvring his lofty frame through the tightly-packed space. His usually smooth features and movements were abnormally stiff.
“Is Sasuke okay? Is everything okay?” I asked Atward anxiously.
He gave a slight nod, and I exhaled in relief. “What happened?”
“Do you know of the demon Enepsigos?”
“Yes,” he said, stopping by my recliner bed. I had to tip my head all the way back to keep eye contact with him. How on earth did a person grow so tall, anyway? “What about her?”
“Erm...actually...do you mind sitting down first?” I gestured for him to sit at the foot of the bed. “Sorry—but looking up at you is making my neck hurt,” I explained as he lowered himself onto the bed.
“Better?” he asked, polite as ever—just like Sasuke.
“Yes, thank you,” I said. “Okay, so back to Enepsigos. She transformed into human form—she was actually our Chemistry teacher in Black Gold. She worked for Lucifer, but I don’t think you need to worry about her because I think I took her out.” I knew I was rambling, but I couldn’t control the things spluttering out of my mouth. My mind. “More importantly, Aquarius and Libra have already landed in Lucifer’s hands. What are we going to do?”
All of a sudden, my iPhone started to beep as my WhatsApp was spammed with messages. The clinic, evidently, had Wi-Fi. I pulled my iPhone out of my pocket and got yet another shock. The screen of my white iPhone 5 was badly cracked—damn, Uncle Dave had only just given it to me for my eighteenth birthday; I wondered how I should go about telling him the current state of his expensive gift—and I was surprised it could still work at all. The messages were from my mother.
“Where are you?”
“What happened? The house is in ruins.”
“Are you safe and well?”
“Call back ASAP.”
I didn’t know she had WhatsApp. I thought it was a young people thing—yeah, probably not the time to discuss that. “It’s my mum,” I told Atward. “Do you have a phone I can borrow?”
He reached into the pocket of his pants, drew out a silver BlackBerry and handed it to me. Unenthusiastically, I dialled my mother’s number, and she picked up immediately.
“Who is this?” she demanded.
“Mum,” I said, expecting a massive storm to hit.
It did. “Averie!” she yelled so loudly, I grimaced. I was pretty sure Atward heard her as well. “Where are you? I was so worried!”
“I’m fine.” There was no way I would tell her I had seven broken ribs, a punctured lung, and eleven stitches in one of my legs. “I need to discuss something with you.”
“You demolished the house then disappeared without a word! Is that what you meant by going to be
d?”
“A demon, Lucifer’s servant, Enepsigos, attacked me while you were out, so I had to run,” I explained curtly. “That’s not what I want to discuss with you. Tell me honestly, Aquarius and Libra, are they still alive?”
“Yes—”
“Mum, please, you’ve got to stop Lucifer—”
“Averie,” she said, cutting me short, “they’re already on their way home.”
“What?” I cried. I didn’t get what she was saying at all.
“Aquarius and Libra are both on their way back to Singapore.”
“Back to Singapore?” I asked sharply. Incomprehension would have swept me off my feet if I hadn’t been sitting. “Why?”
“I persuaded your dad to let them go.”
I sucked in a hard breath. “Are you serious?”
“I saw the young boy. He’s about your age—” My age...could Aquarius be Jace Peller? “—and I just felt we couldn’t take his life, so I talked your dad out of it.”
“Are you sure he really let them off? Maybe he put on an act to get you off his back?”
My mother sighed wearily. “Averie, trust me. Trust your dad. He’s a man of his word. I’m sure he released them.”
I found it really hard to trust Lucifer after he appeared so unfeeling when he found out he’d shot his own son. “But—”
“Are you that distrustful of your own father?” Lucifer’s voice took over.
“Give me a reason not to be,” I fired back, clutching Atward’s BlackBerry so tightly it was a wonder it didn’t break.
“Averie.” It was back to my mother’s voice, and it was pleading. “Don’t speak to us like that, please.”
“Honestly, search your conscience and ask yourselves…” I felt myself choking up as I spoke. “Have you both ever given me a good reason to trust you?”
“We love you. We’ll take excellent care of you from now on, I promise—”
“Taking care of me, loving me…it’s not enough!” I retorted, straining to keep my voice from cracking. “Don’t you get it? There’s more to being parents! You need to be role models I can look up to! The way you conduct yourself, your way of life and thinking, your morals…everything counts! How am I supposed to trust a father who shot his own son—legitimate or not, pawn or otherwise—without feeling the slightest bit of remorse? How am I supposed to trust a mum who only thought about her own happiness even though it meant destroying another family? I can’t trust parents who only think about themselves, and I’m not sorry about that,” I finished fierily. In the end, I managed to hold myself together as anger completely overrode anything else I might have been feeling.
My outburst, apparently, stunned my parents into silence because they made no effort to talk.
“I hope you’ll stay true to your word regarding the release of Aquarius and Libra. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have other matters to tend to—checking out my brother’s condition, for example.”
I hung up and passed the BlackBerry back to Atward. He took it then stood up and walked to the other end of the room.
“How’s Asa? How’s Sir Albion?” I asked him. “Are they all right now?”
“Sir Albion is doing fine.” When he didn’t mention anything about Asa, I began to get worried. Asa was probably badly hurt. After all, he’d taken the shots at point-blank range.
“What about Asa?” I asked again impatiently.
Turning to me, Atward breathed hard. “Promise to take the news calmly?”
“Yeah, just tell me already!” I snapped. “How badly is Asa hurt?”
“Asa…” Shutting his eyes, he inhaled deeply then finished his sentence in one breath. “…took a direct bullet to the heart and doctors didn’t think he would make it.”
Didn’t. Think. He. Would. Make. It.
As soon as the words registered, my world blanked out.