Taken

Chapter 18

I get two different reactions when I finish explaining my dream.

            Vul, unsurprisingly, is squinting at me skeptically, his arms crossed and lips twisted into a scowl. Leo, also unsurprisingly, is looking thoughtfully off in the distance while taking a bite from his skinless apple. As for me, I just sit there awkwardly and fiddle with the small stone that has a weird design etched into the side, waiting for one of them to speak.

            “That’s . . . strange,” Leo comments after a moment

            Vul rolls his eyes. “Not so much strange as impossible. Mortem can’t be back, Beata trapped him in the Nether a millennia ago.”

            Leo shrugs. “Things change. Mari was lost to the human world and Beata disappeared. It makes sense that he’d strike in her absence,” he says before tossing the apple core into a waste bin. “What I would like to know, is what kind of power you possess,” he says to me. “No offense, but you look perfectly normal. Where could all that power possibly be hiding?”

            I frown and shrug. “How should I know? She only told me that it’s there, not what it is or how to use it.”

            Leo hums under his breath, considering this.

            “We could always put her in a life or death situation. The power would want to protect itself so, in turn, it’d protect her.” Vul says as he places the ball on the couch cushion beside him.

            “Too risky,” Leo states as he slides into the chair opposite of mine.

            I nod in agreement. “Yeah, I’ve already went through a life or death situation this week and am still recovering.” I say with a gesture to my bandaged shoulder that still aches.

            “Right,” Leo says. “We can’t have her dying on us either. Beata chose her for a reason.”

            Vul rolls his eyes, “Right,” he mutters dryly.

            Leo opens his mouth to say something else, but the front door bursts open, revealing a smiling Sim who holds a cookie in each hand.

            “Cookies!” he yells as he swings across the ceiling and disappears into the hall.

            I blink in surprise and Vul groans. “Why’d you have to send him to Pan? Now he’s never going to go to sleep.”

            I glance outside of one of the windows whose frame is made of roots woven delicately together, and see that it is already dark out.

            How long had I been out?

            “He needed to get out of the house. We can’t include him in this,” Leo says, tugging my gaze away from the window and back to the golden-haired boy.

            Vul scowls, a look I presume is permanently etched on his face, and stands. “Whatever, I’m going to make sure he doesn’t get himself killed,” he says as he stalks off info the hallway.

            A moment later there is a loud thud, followed by Sim cackling. I turn back to Leo who is shaking his head.

            “So, what now?”

            He sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Now, Vul and I have to get Sim to bed. In the mean time, you can make yourself comfortable until we get back. There’s plenty of food so help yourself,” he tells me as he stands up. “Maybe after we can figure out what to do with you.”