Fate's Revenge (Twisted Fate, Book 4)

Chapter Thirteen

Hailey didn't take the full hour I'd offered before making her decision, though it was longer than I thought she'd need after all the time she must have thought about it since arriving in Hell's Fire. It wasn't like I was asking her if she wanted to go back to life, but Glory Academy was still as unknown to her as it had been the day she'd died and unknowingly made the choice to go to Hell's Fire.

Thirty-seven minutes later, after five minutes filled with at least four false starts, she pushed up from her seat at the desk. Each step she took across the room was filled with determination. By the time she came back, I was prepared to accept her choice either way, but I truly did wish she would come.

"I will go with you," she said, crossing her arms as she came to a full stop at the end of the bed. She darted her gaze between us. "What do we have to do?"

I looked at Tyler and smiled, and then back to Hailey. "I'm going to describe my dorm room at Glory Academy to you first. Deryk could explain better, but I will be as simple as I can without all the confusing stuff that makes it sound like it's impossible. Basically, when we leave, you'll have to picture where you want to go to get there."

"And if we can't picture it?" Hailey asked.

"Well, I'm going to describe it to you. It's minimal, so it shouldn't be hard to imagine, but we'll also hold hands when we leave. I think that'll get us all there." I nodded. "Just don't think about your home or anything, because I don't know if me thinking about my dorm room will be enough to transport all three of us."

"You don't know for sure if we will all get there by thinking of it?" Hailey asked. "That sounds risky."

"It'll be fine. If you somehow lose your grip during transport, imagine the room as I describe it. You'll be okay."

If not, I would send a Brother to get them.

She opened her mouth to say something and then closed it, sighed, and stomped back to the chair she'd been sitting in before going to the desk. Even though Hailey seemed like she had more questions, she'd obviously made up her mind and wouldn't even allow herself to change it.

"Let's hear it then. What does your room look like?"

*****

An hour of descriptions and what felt like never-ending questions passed before it was time to bring the vial back out of my pocket. Was this how Deryk had felt when he was trying to get me to come with him to Hell's Fire? I hadn't even listened to him explain what was entailed. Instead of trusting him, I had to leave to pepper Mike and Gabe with questions about the validity of his information before considering it could be true. Then I had made the leap before I could change my mind.

All Tyler and Hailey were doing was asking questions, but it was still annoying. I didn't know why I was itching to leave when I didn't really want to return to Glory Academy, but yeah. As much as I didn't want to see Suzie and Mike, I didn't want to see Marcus even more, so it was the lessor of two evils.

"So, I'll put a drop of this on each of your fingers, we'll hold hands, and then put it in our mouths on the count of three," I told them. "Any more questions?" I began lifting the stopper of the vial.

"Uh, yeah," Tyler said. "I have one more."

I put the stopper back and sighed, silently counting to ten so I wouldn't give into my impatience and snap. It wasn't Tyler's fault. Hailey had asked so many questions I was on edge.

"Well, one of us won't have a free hand if you want to be connected." He looked at all of us with his eyes, not needing to physically point out the obvious dilemma.