Liam laughs quietly. “It was priceless.”
Ryanne gasps and jumps off of my lap. “We have to go.” We all just stare at her. “Now! Dravin knows where we are. The enchantment is down, and I don’t have the strength right now to put it back up. He’s incredibly mad, and we need to go.”
“How long do we have?” Tom asks.
“Thirty minutes. An hour tops.” Everyone gets up and starts to head upstairs to gather their belongings. We are the last two in the living room. She is still looking at me like she doesn’t believe I am really here. I can understand that, but I don’t like the scared look in her eyes.
“Ryanne,” I start. We need to talk. Before I can get anything else out, she stops me. Her hazel eyes glisten as tears threaten to fall again. My heart breaks when she starts shaking her head and backs away from me.
“Not right now, Colton. I need to make sure we get out of here safely before I dwell on everything that just happened.” She sniffs her nose and slowly walks up the stairs.
My eyes follow her upstairs before I head up there as well. Hopefully, I’ll have time to tell her later. Once she calms down and we are safe, I’ll tell her. She needs to know. I can tell that the time is finally right.
Twenty minutes later, we are all waiting in the kitchen. Tom, Bragden, and Larkin are helping pack the car, while Emma and Ryanne walk through the house making sure that we have grabbed everything we need. We’ll be able to buy stuff when we get to our new location. I am sitting down in a chair in the kitchen with Liam. Sudden movements hurt my side. It’ll take a couple hours for my mage healing to kick in and finish the job.
Ryanne and Emma come into the room with empty hands. We’d apparently packed everything. Ryanne pulls a chair up and sits down at the table, next to Liam. Her wet hair falls forward, hiding her face as she rests her head on the table. Emma and Liam both look over at me and glance back at Ryanne. I shake my head. She doesn’t know yet. I haven’t had a chance to tell her.
Soon.
“Okay, the car’s packed and ready to go,” Tom announces. Ryanne pushes herself away from the table and silently walks out of the room.
“She’s just shocked by everything. She thought you were dead, Colton. I wouldn’t know how to act either if I watched you die,” Emma says as she stands up and leaves the room after Ryanne. I stand up and grab the small green pet carrier with Olive in it and follow the girls out.
This is going to be an interesting ride.
Chapter Two
The atmosphere in the car is a lot more tense than usual. I’m sitting in the back between Liam and Emma, but no one says anything. The car is silent. Everyone keeps glancing between Colton and me. I still can’t believe he is alive. He is sitting in front of me…alive. Breathing. He is here.
I feel like I’ve been pushed through a sand storm in the middle of the desert during a heat wave. My body is exhausted. During the last…day? Has it really only been a day? I’ve been through a roller coaster of emotions. Thinking back, I remember how we all acted in the kitchen on Colton’s birthday. Emma and I laughed, sang, and danced. We were having fun. Then there was forest. I was comfortable walking through the forest with Colton. He made me smile. He made me feel safe. For that short period of time, I forgot about the mess I was in. I was just Ryanne, and he was just a boy I liked. He was just Colton. Then, we saw Adam and Natasha, and it all came crashing back down.
I’m supposed to be this prophecy girl. I’m supposed to help end a supernatural war…with mages…against Dravin and the Gadramicks. I’m full of all this power that I don’t know what to do with. Everyone seems to be out to get me and those that I love. Dravin will do anything to get to me, and he did get to me.
A lot of people are depending on me. I feel like I’m drowning under the waves of pressure crashing into me. Because of the prophecy, I can barely go to sleep without getting attacked. For the past couple of nights, both Dravin and Adam have invaded my dreams. The only way I’ve figured out how to get out of them is by getting knocked out or knocking them out. It’s usually me that gets knocked out. Then, I wake up with the injuries. I’m afraid to sleep anymore. It feels like I can’t do anything without the risk of getting attacked.
When I got captured the second time, I didn’t know that Liam and Colton were there too. I thought that I had changed the vision. When I saw Colton being dragged into my cell, I panicked. I had changed something, but it wasn’t enough. He still ended up there. He still ended up dying…right in front of me. All my efforts had been for nothing.