Loving Ashlynn (#Wattys2016)

Chapter 47 - Aftermath Run. Skip. Hop. Jump. Fly. (Samson Conrad POV) Pt.4

        

Chapter 47 – Aftermath, Run. Skip. Hop. Jump. Fly. (Samson Conrad POV) Pt.4

The wise do not trust blindly, my grandfather, Jonah would say sometimes. He was brought up in a time where trust was built based on your actions – so to gain trust, you made the right decisions. You became transparent; the line you walked in life must be done with virtue and sincerity.

That's not saying that this is no longer found in society, but just more or less a rare find.

In reference to myself, I found it hard to let people in, even keeping my family at a distance. Which, after Brennan's actions, I hated to tell myself 'I told you so' but the words where right beneath the picture perfect surface.

Then there was Fatima. Someone just as layered as I was, although it was her view on the world that pulled me in and kept me entranced.

She has this rare beauty. I might be biased.

At the time she was ill, I truly understood the fine line that she was walking. Fatima had fear of the unknown, toppled onto the duplicity already there. Still she showed true strength, she was a good person through and through.

I could remember Shannon Rosario, Taylor, Javier and Devin's mother, trying to tell my parents that Fatima was with them for money. Fast forward two months and I'm sitting in the back seat of Imogen's car after we've dropped off the letter for mom and dad at Nova's place. And on the seat besides Fatima is a suitcase of money, documents and keys from a safe she kept at Walsh's place.

I wonder if my thoughts are normal. There with the bag of getaway supplies, my heart races at how close I was to losing Fatima. She once told me that Dmitri left her everything. I remember thinking, that maybe everything wasn't much, though her words puzzle me.

However with the actual proof at her side, I realize that Fatima wanted to belong somewhere. Here we were, running away, and it was her idea.

Fatima could have left us much sooner. Granted she couldn't drive... she had enough money to hire a driver to take her anywhere she wanted to go. It would cost thousands to do that if she went far enough, but she had it.

Lifting up her hand, I bring them to my lips. A smile growing on my face, grandpa Jonah was right. Had I not been transparent when it came to Fatima, had our family not been that way, she would have bolted the first chance she got.

Or maybe that's just what I'd like to think. Maybe her fear of the outside world was greater than her fear of us. I'd like to think that it's the latter. She sends me a questioning look, but I just shake my head, and mouth, 'nothing.' She doesn't believe me.

Heading to Fossil, the car ride remains silent. No planning with the others in the car, just pure silence that says volumes. As though each mile away from Bend led to a build up of questions that no one wanted to ask.

I had my fair share.

How much danger was the family in? Would my parents listen to what the letter said? What was waiting for Fatima in Williamstown, Massachusetts? And why make her go somewhere? Why did they not just make her remember the data they gave her?

On and on it went.

Though I did not understand a bulk of the conversation held between Imogen, Luca and Fatima, as the trees blur by, I wonder: the Loyalist and Independent fictitious story Fatima had been accepting of? More and more it was looking like something that was not as fake as we believed.

If there was one thing I knew it was that spells was about wording, creating and keeping balance.

So far, if Wyatt said she'd recall coordinates now, what if he told her of the Independents and Loyalist? Except somehow, that spell went wrong and somehow Fatima remembered that part before she was meant too?