Read Workings of a Happily Ever After, The Page 14

  ~*~

  Janine didn't seem to care one bit that she walked half-naked through the halls of the dormitory toward her room, the slight breeze revealing more than a little leg, as Janine would call it. She looked over at me, lips twitching upward. "Sorry about the shock to your virgin eyes and imagination back there, Sal gal."

  I flushed and looked away. "I already wondered if he liked you," I admitted. Yet another thing I'd missed. I sniffed. Maybe I shouldn't be on the Special Security Team?

  "Believe me, the feeling's mutual. He's one helluva man." She suddenly wrapped an arm around my shoulders. "And don't sweat this GF shit, Sal. If she'd wanted to mess with you, I'm of the mind she'd have done it already."

  "But what if she can control me like the Sorceress did with Rinoa?" I shook my head, eyes wide as they focused on her face. "I'm getting married in two months, Janie! I don't want to have that looming in the future!"

  "From what we all know of GFs, Sal, they don't control us. We just channel them, so to speak. It's a... host-like relationship, hence the loss of memory." She gave my shoulders a jostle. "It's been months since her last appearance--"

  "With who? When? How? What happened?" And the questions must have sounded as desperate as I felt.

  Janine regarded me a moment before saying, "If I tell you, it's my ass."

  "I won't tell anyone you told me," I promised, vigorously shaking my head while disbelief that I pressed her to break security had my insides trembling.

  Janine halted and turned to face me, staring down at me as she crossed her arms and pushed her full lips to one side. "Oh hell. Why not? It was Miss Thang."

  I blinked. "Ahndra?"

  Janine nodded. "Yeah. When the radicals had her and Marshal under their thumb. They were about to gang rape her, with Marshal chained and forced to watch, and everything went black. Next thing she knew, Marshal was kneeling over her and everyone was dead or dying."

  I paled. "D-Dead?"

  Janine nodded again. "Bingo. Then, on the way back to Balamb, she faded in and out of consciousness, complained of one helluva headache, and didn't remember the summon. Just like you. The only differences we've noticed, prior to this 'dream', are that Asura didn't kill the men this time and you didn't have a headache. But now it seems she can talk to you in your dreams. Hell if I know how."

  I turned away, staring blankly down at the floor as the information sunk in. Finally, I faced Janine again. "What am I supposed to do?"

  She rested a hand on each one of my shoulders. "Sal, Asura is as much an ass as Gilgamesh; come any time they damn well please. I figure that as long as we stay out of her way and do our best to stay on the same side, things'll be fine." Janine pulled me into a hug. "Get married, kid. That's all you have to do. Everything else will take care of itself."