HORNS (BoyXBoy)

Chapter 134

Chapter One Hundred and Thirty Four

The ride back was long, but I couldn't necessarily say it was peaceful.

I had too much on my mind.

I kept my eyes on the road ahead, elbow on the open window on the RV's passenger seat with wind rushing across my face and ears and hair. The sky wasn't completely dark, more like a deep shade of indigo, and it was completely overcast without a star in sight. 

Street lights and other cars flashed by, casting repetitive shadows and enhancing the deep roar of Sebastian's luxury camper as it roared down the highway. My father's clawed fingers tap-tap-tapped the steering wheel, and in the rooms behind us I heard Echo, Dari, Sasha, and Luka talking in muffled voices about something I couldn't quite make out.

The damp, cool wind smelled like rain and grass, autumnal scents, and my heart was pounding despite the calmness of the drive. I felt like the last few days had been more of sensory and informational overload than anything else. From the nightmare of Yuma's confession, to being stabbed, to falling through a void of nothing only to land in Russia with Echo, during the day, and then frantically trying to survive... only to meet my biological grandparents, my uncles, my aunt, and that weird creature Binx--who'd had an unexpected connection to Echo's past...

Yeah. Let's just say, there was a lot of inexplicable whiplash related fuckery happening in my head, because no matter how many times I went over things through my sparkly new mental movies full of--you guessed it--trauma, there was just one thing in particular that was bugging me about the whole experience. It was like an itch that just wouldn't go away. 

What was that itch, you might be wondering?

Well, to put it bluntly, there was something off to me about Binx Del Vinx's connection to Echo. It eventually got to the point where I couldn't hold my tongue anymore and I finally turned from the window to look at my dad, who was focused on driving, humming softly to himself.

"Do you know how old Echo is?" I raspily inquired, and he blinked, startled out of his reverie; he glanced at me in surprise when I continued, "like, specifically, how old."

"Why would I know that?" he asked, frowning. "He's your boyfriend, mon, not mine."

I made a face since he had a point. "Yeah... that's true."

"Why?" Pop grunted. "Is something the matter?"

I exhaled through flared nostrils. 

"Kinda," I muttered, bringing up different mental visuals of him explaining that he was at least three hundred years old. "I... well, I still don't know what the hell you guys all talked about while I was out cold, but something about that faery creature, Binx... has been bugging me."

"The little blue furry thing with eight arms?" my dad asked, making a face. "Yes, I can see why you'd find him strange. He gave me the willies when I first saw him. Thought he was an alien."

"I thought the same thing!" I exclaimed; my ears drooped. "It's not that, though... it's his connection to Echo, along with everything else. I just... I dunno..."

A chill went down my spine when I thought of his cold, unseeing blue eyes. In the moment, I'd been too overwhelmed to really see things as they were happening and notice them, but in my head, after replaying my memories and the things my eyes had picked up over and over, this uneasy feeling I had was just... growing, relentlessly. It didn't sit right.

One part specifically stuck out like a sore thumb.

The part where he'd mentioned being taken captive two hundred years ago. I'd asked him, specifically, if that number was right to verify it because it hadn't made sense to me. I'd even seen a bit of confusion on Echo's face, too, although whether it was because he'd noticed the claims made no sense or he was just angrily confused by the brownie's unexpected presence overall... I couldn't really say.