Enchantress (Rewritten)

Repressed Memories

"Did he touch you?" Chase's voice was shouting in my ear, but my mind was elsewhere.

"What happened?" Xavier cut in, arriving in a panic. "I've been all over looking for you two." He huffed angrily, his face bright red. 

We were in the school parking lot, just moments after my little encounter with the Alpha. My palms were sweating and a faint glow was emitting from my scar, causing a tingling pins and needles sensation that made me feel numb. I was leaning against the trunk of Chase's car, the sun beating down on me. 

"You always have to make everything about yourself, don't you?" Chase rolled his eyes at him. "What did he say to you? You need to tell us everything." Chase turned his attention back to me, but I wasn't looking at him. I was looking at the dagger that was still tightly gripped in his hands and fighting the memories that were suddenly coming to the surface. 

"She looks pale. Why does she look pale?" Xavier wanted to know, preemptively blaming Chase for the state that I was in. 

"Give her some space." Chase demanded, pushing Xavier backward. 

"I am allowed to ask questions." Xavier defended himself. "I'm her Protector, too."

My back was pressed against the trunk of Chase's car. Xavier and Chase were bickering back and forth in front of me, but I had tuned them out. Flashes of memories that I had long repressed were coming back to me, somehow triggered by the dagger in Chase's hand. Maybe I was just over-thinking it, and maybe Damian's power-draining move had somehow messed with my mind, but I couldn't shake the image of the dagger out of my mind. 

Suddenly, I wasn't in the school parking lot. I was in a car and it was raining. 

My Dad was driving and my Mom was in the passenger seat. 

I could hear my Dad's voice speaking to me, but what was he saying? Why hadn't I been listening?

I was watching the rain as it trailed down the window pane, like tiny trails of tears. I could hear my Dad's voice but I didn't want to listen to what he was saying.  I wanted nothing more than to be back in my bed and far away from the two of them. Only a couple more minutes, and we would be there.

"Are you even listening to me?" He had asked, and that's when I finally looked up. And when I did...I saw the on-coming car's headlights right before it collided head-on with us. 

"Valerie, are you even listening to us?" Chase brought me back to reality, shaking me out of the nightmare that had been of that fatal car crash.

"He did something to me." I finally spoke. Chase and Xavier crowded around me like concerned parents. I traced my hand to my neck. "He drained my elements."

"You'll be fine." Chase sighed. "He only drained you a little, or else you wouldn't be able to walk."

Wouldn't be able to walk?  My stomach suddenly felt queasy.

"The effects usually don't last very long." Xavier chimed in.

"What else did he do? Did he say what he wanted?" Chase questioned, his brows furrowing together.

"He wants me to help him get his pack back." I breathed, my eyes staring straight forward, distant with flashes of the car crash coming in and out of my memory.

"From the Elders?" Xavier laughed, imagining the three of us and the Lawless Alpha breaking into the Elders compound. "Did you tell him that he's insane?"

"I asked him what he'd do if I didn't help." I replied, inhaling deeply. "That's when he started to drain me."

Chase slammed his fist against the trunk of his car. "I swear if I see him again.." He began to mutter under his breath.

"None of us are strong enough to stop him." Xavier said quietly. "We can either help him get his pack back or..."

"He can kill me." I finished, standing upright so that I was no longer leaning on Chase's trunk. "Or any of us for that matter." I threw my hands up into the air, thinking how easily Damian could get to any of us--or any else I care about. 

"Well we can't just help him." Chase interjected.

"We don't really have a choice." I said sternly, coming off a lot meaner that I had intended to, but my mind was still in pieces, replaying memories I had tried to forget. Why did I remember that dagger? Had I seen it the night of the car crash? 

"Is that all he said to you?" Xavier wanted to know, sensing that something else was off about me. 

I snapped myself back to reality, my thoughts and vision starting to blur together making it harder and harder for me to make distinctions between the past and present. 

"Yeah." I nodded at Xavier. "That's all he said." Oh yeah, and also the tiny little fact that he had asked me to leave my bedroom window open for him tonight. I tried my best to sound convincing, but something in the way Xavier looked at me made me think he knew better.

The two of them exchanged glances with one another, both of them wondering how to move on from the situation. "Can we go home now?" I pleaded. 

"Yeah, let's get you home." Chase agreed.