“Everyone is fine out there, just sleeping due to some magical thing born of my anger. We are taking them somewhere to propose the Royal idea of helping them,” I said to Zeke in a rush of words before turning to Chloe. “Please, listen to me my dearest friend. I haven’t been honest with you these past months about what has really been going on with me. I just couldn’t, as I was afraid you’d look at me like you are now. But, now that you have seen it, I want to explain, to get everything out in the open. Please let me. I beg of you. I’m not bad, or evil. I have special powers, but I am still the person you knew, the Christina you have always stuck beside through thick and thin. Please, based on all of our years together, let me explain at least.”
“No,” Chloe demanded. “I don’t know what I saw. You guys drugged me or something. I’m seeing shit. Bad, unreal, shit. Damn it. I don’t know why you would do this to me, Christina. I don’t know you anymore. You leave, and then this. Just let me go before I start screaming and don’t stop until help comes.”
“You can scream all you like, sweetie, no one is going to come. I am still Christina, your best friend. I would never hurt you. I am sorry that those men took you. I never wanted that to happen, but it was all about revenge, against me, and I am so sorry you got involved. Just let me explain what you saw. Unfortunately, no drugs were involved,” I said, though something in me wanted to just tell my friend that it had been drug-induced hallucinations and leave it at that.
Maybe I should be selfless, just let Chloe go, let her think me some monster that drugged her, let her go on with her life, move on without me. Even as I thought it though, my heart broke. I didn’t know what was best, and I didn’t want to lose Chloe. We had too much history. I should have been honest with her in the first place, maybe eased my way in. Too late now, I just didn’t know what to do.
“No. It doesn’t make any sense. If you are my friend, you will just let me go and never contact me again. I’ll move. You won’t be able to find me. Just let me go. Please!” Chloe begged.
It broke my heart to see my friend like that, my brave friend, my strong friend, the one that had always been there for me through thick and thin. I didn’t know what to say to convince her of any of it being true, and I didn’t know if it was best to let her go off thinking the worst of me. Not even being selfish, the lie now would only continue to break Chloe’s heart too, to let her think that I thought so little of our friendship that I would hurt her.
“Show her, Christina,” Zeke offered as a way of help. “Seeing is believing. Better than a lot of talk, and a shorter distance to the truth no matter how hard to understand. Give her a glimpse of your magic so she can’t refute it.”
“Okay,” I agreed half-heartedly. “Listen, Chloe, I am going to show you some of what I can do. I promise you, I will not hurt you. Please, try to keep an open mind. Try to remember who I am, not these past seven months, but the past twenty years before that. I found out when Lex first showed up that I was a descendant of some Royal bloodline, a magical one, though I know how that sounds. Crazy. Believe me, I’ve been there myself.”
Chloe just remained in her upright fetal position shaking her head back and forth as I spoke. She blinked several times, looking from me to Zeke, around us, trying to figure out if she had a chance of escaping, I assumed. I had to act quickly. Making her feel a captive was not helping my cause.
“I should have never had any abilities, but falling in love with Lex, it brought them out in me because of what… well what he is. So watch. Please. I won’t hurt you,” I rushed through the words, hoping my voice would show my sincerity.
With my blood pressure up, my fears shooting adrenaline through my body, even after all the magic I’d just used, it took nothing to conjure up the power inside me. I started simple, forming a ball of light that circled about in my palm. Making it small, as non-threatening as possible, I even made it into a soft figure, an infinity symbol that I knew both of us loved.
“No,” Chloe said at first, guarding her eyes with her arm as if the light would hurt her. When I let it continue, played with it even, moving it, changing the colors of it, parlor games really that I’d learned during training to learn to control my magic, Chloe peeked out over her flesh. “No. That is not possible. I don’t understand. What the hell did you guys give me? I’m seeing things. Only you must be seeing them too. Make it stop. Why are you doing this to me? What are you doing to me?”