Dead Lines

42: The World is Changing

Unedited. Note: This is the LAST CHAPTER. All that's left is an epilogue.

Chapter Forty-Two

Five days later...

Everywhere I went, I heard his name. People murmured it, muttered it, and when I walked by or happened to be around, they covered their mouths and whispered it into ears. It was annoying.

Very, very irritating.

And sadly, my southern temper, which I'd managed to keep suppressed up to this point in my life, snapped out of me. It was scary. I even scared myself a few times. Instead of referring to me as Pandora, they were now calling me Medusa. Pretty face but she'll scare you to stone. Which, is a feat considering who I was, my stoic reputation, and the fact all Elite were considered stone.

In a time of crisis, the Elite were supposed to come together and conquer the problem. Right now, the Assarions and the hermai needed to be together in this new world where humans hated us, blamed us, were scared of us. Not divided like we'd been for centuries.

They didn't need one of their own to be afraid of.

So Logios and a recovering Kells sent me out here.

To my "happy zone", they said.

Well, not much remained of "here".

I practiced swinging the club and stared off at the ruined sixth hole of the country club golf course. The fairway was torn up, the fake grass ripped up by the roots while the natural grass sunk in making pot holes the size of Montana.

"Fore!" I screamed.

Allie scoffed next to me. "Lame."

"What?"

"You're supposed to hit the ball then scream fore."

I knew how to play, she didn't have to tell me, but I'd been away from the game for a while. "If I hit the ball it might bounce back at us when it hits one of those downed trees. I don't want to be responsible for you getting a concussion."

"Told you we should've done tennis," Schylar grumbled from my other side.

Both of us looked at him and scowled. "Really?" Allie broke the silence.

"I would suggest swimming but it's too cold for bikinis." He hunched over a little more, shoving his hands deeper into his pockets. "Have I mentioned it's freezing out here?"

We stared at him but I couldn't help it. I started laughing. It was funny.

The whole thing was funny.

The whole thing was sad.

But it was funny. Hil-ar-i-ous

And Schylar was right. It was cold.

Which only made me laugh harder.

Because I knew what cold felt like. And hot. And warm. And freezing. And skinless...

That last thought had the laughter dying out of me and the pensiveness sink in.

"Oh, oh no. No, no, no." Allie tore my golf club out of my hand and hit me in the back of the leg with it. "No."

"Ow! What? What! What!!!"

"No thinking about your time under the ground. No, no, no." She bopped me on the nose with her finger. "No."

I blinked. "No?"

"No," Schylar added. "If you start thinking about it, I'll start thinking about it and as much as I sympathize with you, I don't want to think about it. When you told me about it, I couldn't stop imagining it. And I don't want to imagine it because it's awful. So no thinking about it. Ok?" I stared at him, wide eyed, and he took it as me agreeing. "Ok. Now, hit the damn ball a couple of times so we can go cuz it's really, really cold!"