*Unedited*
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"you are becoming troublesome Protector!"
Camilla rolled her eyes as she turned to see Senkhara herself glaring at her.
"the disrespect you show to me!" the spirit hissed.
"Bitch if you wanted my respect then you need to earn it!" Camilla was more than happy to hiss back at the woman.
"I am growing weary of waiting for your little chosen one," The Spirit taunted Camilla moving closer to the girl who didn't do much but look at her with a sour expression on her face. "your friends do not have long left, and then I will replace her."
"no!" Camilla screamed grabbing onto the spirits arm as she went to disappear. Blinking she found herself in Eddie and Fabian's room, Camilla going straight to her brother to find her hand going through his bed... great she was bloody astral projecting again.
The sinister laugh of Senkhara caused Camilla to turn around the spirit bitch had brought her upstairs without realising, it must have happened when she grabbed onto her. The woman's eyes flitted between the two boys before landing on Fabian, the protective stance Camilla had next to him causing her to smile. "is he he?" she asked the protector. "tell me, girl, is he who I am looking for!"
"I have no bloody clue!" Camilla spat back at the woman. Knowing she was referring to the Osirian.
"The Chosen One is failing I must wake the Next Osirian," Senkhara told the girl causing Camilla to scoff but before she could say anything Eddie groaned awake behind the spirit causing Camilla's eyes to widen and the spirit to turn around to look at him.
"God Cam, you and Smokey need to leave me to sleep." He sleepily grumbled.
"you see me too?" Senkhara asked in an amused voice missing Camilla as she moved closer to the centre of the room and nearer the spirit. "perhaps the Osirian sleeps in you?"
"Eddie?" Camilla whispered to herself watching Eddie's reaction to the woman's words and seeing him look back at her confused.
"the what?"
Senkhara didn't bother to ask for a response, instead, she held her hand out to Eddie the Mark of Anubis clear.
"Eddie get away from her!" Camilla's shout caused Eddie to look away from the spirit and Fabian sat up at the shout too.
"No!" he added taking in the scene quickly and knowing he needed to back up Camilla.
"The Bond of Old," the spirit hissed seeing the sister and brother pair shouting. Eddie blinking slightly trying to compute what was going on.
"Eddie you need to wake up," Camilla told him not taking her eyes off the spirit.
"NOW!" Fabian ordered as he watched Camilla gather her hands behind her and push them out at the spirit.
Camilla's Motus was enough to shake Eddie and Fabian to a startling wake. The two boys sitting up in their beds Fabian scrambling to put the light on to check that his sister and the spirit weren't in their room.
Nothing was in the middle of the room, nothing but a piece of paper that was burnt a little around the edges which lazily floated down from where Camilla once stood. Fabian grabbed at it as Eddie looked around in alarm.
"Bad dream?" Fabian asked the boy trying to sound aloof, the paper clutched in his hand.
"Remember when me and Mara were ghost hunting?" Eddie asked Fabian clearly shaken. "yeah well, it looks like the local ghost is haunting me now..."
"sounds bad..." Fabian whispered back, "night!" with that he lent over and plunged the room into darkness once again with a flick of the light switch turning over so he could open the paper in the moonlight. In Camilla's small neat handwriting there were two simple words written on it.
Protect Eddie...
"What? wait..." Eddie replied to Fabian who was looking at the words in shock trying to figure out what his sister was trying to tell him. "where you dreaming too?" Eddie asked Fabian.
"No..." Fabian answered the boy honestly. He wasn't dreaming, whatever that was it wasn't a dream. It couldn't have been. "you woke me up." He quietly lied to the boy hoping Eddie wouldn't question him.
"Oh..." Eddie quietly responded feeling guilty all of a sudden about waking his friend in the middle of the night, "my bad," Eddie glanced at the space the spirit had been before putting his head back on his pillow hoping sleep would take him soon, dazed and confused.
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The school bell rang loudly as Fabian and Patricia hurried from their higher math class down the corridor together, it was one of the only classes the pair had together with no one else. Math was essential in computers so it just made sense to Patricia and Fabian was a nerd so he wanted to take the harder classes. Fabian having finally informed the girl about the creepy dream he and her boyfriend shared with the spirit and Camilla. It had taken him till the class to decide if he was going to tell them about the note she had left and decided against it.
There were some things the twins needed to keep between themselves as they protected the others. They would endure the stress so the others didn't have too.
"Wait," a concerned Patricia pipped up, "you had the same dream?"
"yeah I think so," Fabian told her.
"Why is Senkhara targeting Eddie now?" Patricia asked loudly causing Fabian to look around the corridor nervously.
"shh," he told her before speaking again in a quiet tone, "who knows?! I just think its best we keep him as far away from this as we possibly can." He told the girl knowing if anyone could keep Eddie away it be Patricia.
"oh yeah sure," Patricia replied back sarcastically, "it's not like he's intrigued or anything." She added as the pair wandered into the biology classroom.
Joy saw the pair and raced towards them with her notebook out. "guys I've cracked it!" she told them excitedly.
The pair looked at her in excitement as Amber joined the group.
"the only bit I'm not quite sure of is the last guard." Joy told them with a sigh, "like Victor said he changed from random movements to a pattern towards the end and I can't be certain I filmed his whole sequence. But I've worked out the safest possible moved I can," she said glancing at her notebook before looking to the Sibuna's around her, "and yeah... I'm confident."
Fabian smiled as he looked down at Joy's notebook, "you know what, I have a good feeling about this."
"I have a sick feeling about all of this," Amber muttered in a worried tone.
"Amber, we have to think positively." Fabian told her, "in a few hours we will have Cam, Nina and Alfie back."
Patricia looked around the quiet classroom, "I never realised how much I'd miss Alfie, it's just way to quiet around here."
They all laughed and murmured agreements as Eddie walked into the classroom to hear Patricia's declaration. "huh, that's so tragic." He said causing the girl to turn to look at him, everything Fabian had just taught her causing a look of worry to wash across her face. "a little tear almost formed. Too bad you couldn't miss your boyfriend like that." Eddie said bitterly before moving into the classroom and sitting down in his usual seat. The seat next to him that was normally Camilla's he put his bag on so Patricia couldn't join him like she had over the last few days.
"Ouch." Joy murmured causing Amber to nod her head in agreement with the girl's quiet exclaim. Talk about love drama!
"Leave them, leave them." Fabian instantly said in an abort like tone pushing Joy to their normal lab table leaving this Peddie moment to play out like it naturally would. They had enough on their plate love drama was not needed right now.
Patricia looked at the boy and wandered over to him, picking up his bag and dropping it to the ground taking Camilla's seat. "Okay, listen Needy." She started looking at the boy causing Eddie to roll his eyes at her tone, "I know I've been a bit all over the place recently, but I've had a lot of stuff on my mind." She told the boy as he turned to look at her.
"Like, eh, Alfie stuff?" Eddie knew he was coming off as jealous but he had spent far too much time fighting for the relationship with Patricia and he felt he was slightly justified in the jealousy at that moment.
What he didn't appreciate was the laugh Patricia let out as she realised the issue was Eddie's jealousy. "Are you serious?" she asked the boy with a grin on her face. "you're really jealous of me and Alfie?"
"No..." Eddie scoffed slightly but even he didn't believe the word that left his mouth as he turned to look away from his girlfriend. "well he was into Piper, so maybe you're just the next best twin." The words came out bitter and from a place of anger wanting to make Patricia hurt him like he was feeling at the moment.
Patricia wasn't alone as she gasped at the audacity of Eddie's statement, the Sibuna's at the table behind the couple all gasping to telling them that they had been listening in to the conversation. "Wow..." Patricia looked shocked as Eddie glanced away from her. "you really know how to make a girl feel special."
Eddie turned to her taking the bait and digging himself into an even deeper hole, causing Joy and Amber to shake their heads as they watched on, "sorry but you said no secrets. You said we would share because that's what couples do, now I'm starting to see that only applies to me."
Patricia's eyes soften as she realised, she was contradicting her own rule but she was doing it to keep Eddie safe, but she had no clue how to tell him that.
Thankfully before she could Mr Sweet came into the classroom a huge pile of papers in his hands as he wandered to the front of the class. "Carpe Diem! Et Tempus Fugit! There will be an exam next week on the fourteen stages of development for new medicine. So, I recommend you do your homework!" with that he turned to look at the class expecting the eye rolls and groans that always followed the announcement of a test. Not sensing the tension that was evident between his son and Patricia as they both looked away from one another at their lap table.
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Biology had been long and awkward, to say the least, and all students jumped to their feet as the bell rang loudly indicating the end of the class.
"Oh, before you all rush off!" Mr Sweet shouted causing sighs as students slumped back into their seats to hear what the man had to say, "I have a rather pleasant announcement to make. This morning I received an email informing me that the Jackal came third in that competition of your' s Joy."
The students looked around at Joy who smiled half-heartedly. She had almost forgotten about the whole article and competition with Senet taking over her focus. That Joy who didn't know of the tunnels felt like she was someone from a lifetime ago. As Amber said, once you know the Sibuna secret you could never unknow it and Joy didn't know the half of it. She was starting to understand why small things like balls and websites didn't actually seem to be as important to the group as they had once been to her. They were all dealing with something bigger and far more important.
"Oh..." Joy faked a smile looking around at her classmates as they glanced at her expectantly.
"Congratulations." Mr Sweet smiled at her proudly as he led the smattering of applause for her causing Joy to shift a little uncomfortably in her seat.
"that's amazing Joy," Fabian whispered too her causing the girl to shrug a little.
"yeah but First would have been better," she told him causing the boy to roll his eyes amused at her comment. That was the Joy he knew who always had a bigger goal in mind and was never quite happy and could find something that needed improvement.
"but really exciting news," Mr Sweet looked like he was about to burst with excitement as he tapped his fingers against his desk waiting for the applause to die down to keep talking, "the winner of the blogger of the year competition is also in this very room! And her name is... Mara!"
"Good Job!" Eddie told Mara as the class broke into applause once again, though no one seemed surprised that the girl won.
Well no one but Mara anyway, "Wow... that's..."
"Typical?" Joy muttered causing Amber to smile slightly at the girl's words.
"Well done, Very well deserved." Mr Sweet told the girl.
"Thank you." Mara honestly told the headteacher, before she turned to Eddie with a smile, "you know, I couldn't have done this without you... or Jerome." Mara frowned slightly glancing around at the table at the far back which was normally Jerome, Camilla and Alfie's table but was currently empty. "I wish he was here..."
Fabian followed Mara's gaze too and looked at the table in worry. People were starting to notice the absence of Alfie, Camilla and Nina and something in his gut told him Jerome hadn't gone off with some uncle, there had to have been something more too it but the question was what?
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Jerome knew he was in the abandoned farm shed Rufus had for some reason decided was to be his base of operation. Even at the dead of night, the boy would recognise the building in an instant. Rufus, however, couldn't lock Jerome up in the same barn as he had Trudy thanks to the Sibuna's having driven a tractor into the barn door so had resulted in locking him into the one liveable room where he was also storing his collectables, Jerome eyeing the large safe in the corner before jumping as the door could be heard unlocking from the outside.
Rufus wandered in eyeing the boy with disdain. He didn't want to keep survivors but Jerome Clarke had far more sway than the boy even seemed to realise. The children may have been growing in power, the man sure The Protector this time around would be far more powerful and skilled than she was last time they faced off so he was using every advantage he could. The Joy's of being The Osirian still meant he knew some details about The Chosen One and The Protector that even they didn't know... a bit like how the boy sat in front of them was connected in all the madness.
Rufus handed the boy a glass of water, he needed the boy alive and breathing for him to be any use for him. "Drink." He commanded.
Jerome took the glass from Rufus nervously and took a small sip from the glass before watching the man wander over to his safe. The man's body hid the combination from him but with a few clicks and a grunt the man pulled the heavy metal door open and Jerome got a glimpse of the contents inside the metal safe. There was a few papers and documents, some weird jewellery pieces but the thing that caught his eye was a small pink gem.
The Frobisher Gem.
Before he could say anything, Rufus had grabbed whatever paper he needed from inside and shut the heavy metal door once again. Turning his head to see Jerome looking his way before the boy turned to look straight ahead taking a far to innocent slip from his drink. Rufus looked at the boy before shaking his head turning on his heel and leaving the room. Jerome Clarke wouldn't be dumb enough to even try to break into the safe, Rufus knew that much.
Jerome watched in silence as the man slammed the door shut behind him and the multiple locks on the other side were heard being locked. The moment the last lock was heard clicking shut Jerome got to his feet and raced over to the metal safe, holding onto the handle and giving it a pull as if magically it would open. Of course, the safe remained firmly shut.
Jerome let out a groan and ran a hand through his hair until his eyes landed on the glass of water the man had given him, an odd conversation with his dad coming back to him on how safe mechanism's work and how to crack one open. "what was it dad said about safe cracking?..."
"when you turn the dial and press a glass against the vault, he could count the barrels dropping!"
Jerome's eyes widened; Rufus might have given him the very tool needed to crack the safe open. The boy tipped the remaining water out of the glass before getting to his knees and putting the glass to the safe. He was going to crack this open if it was the last thing he did.
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The Sibuna's all looked at the Jackal statues. This was their final fight. They were going to win their friends back today or gods help them. Patricia gave Amber an odd look as she put two bars of chocolate into her pockets. "Amber! Come on, we don't have time for a picnic," Patricia groaned slightly knowing they were waiting on her before they started the dangerous game.
"If I'm going down the hole, I want to be prepared," Amber informed her.
"Ready?" Fabian asked as Amber flicked her hair out of her face and looked to the Jackals with a glare. The girls either side of him nodded their heads confidently. They were going to kick this tasks ass! "okay, so remember we have to cross to the other side whilst avoiding as many danger squares as possible. Team Sibuna moves four squares then the guards rotate."
"and they can only take you if you're on a danger square," Joy added for Fabian from where she sat on the throne overlooking the Senet game. "okay... so I have named each of the guards. The two at the front are Jasper and Sweetie, the two in the middle are Vera and Trudy..."
"What about the middle one who recently decided to have a pattern?" Amber asked nervously.
"that's Victor." Joy spoke watching Fabian as he rolled his eyes at the girl's words, knowing someone needed to defend the man seeing as Camilla wasn't around. "I have studied the Video and I have worked out a pattern for each of their movements."
"Which means?" Patricia prompted.
"I should be able to predict the square they're going to point at." Joy said in an optimistic tone.
"Nice, but do we have to call one of them Trudy?" Amber asked, "because I really like Trudy."
"it's just easier if they have names, that's all" Joy informed the blonde girl, before taking a deep sigh, "I know all of them except Victor... he's the enigma. He only started moving in a pattern the round before Alfie was taken so I have no clue where he's going to point."
"Still," Fabian pipped up trying to stay positive, "I'm glad we have you, Joy."
"Okay... everybody ready?" Joy asked nervously.
"Ready!" Patricia instantly said in a confident tone.
"Ready," Fabian spoke up, he wanted his sister back and they were going to win this.
"Ready as I'll ever be," came Amber's nervous tone. "For Nina."
"For Camilla," Fabian added.
"For Sibuna," Patricia added.
"Sibuna." They all spoke as one putting their right hand over their eye.
Joy took a steadying breath before she made her first command, "Amber, Fabian one step forward."
The two did as she asked stepping onto the board.
"Patricia, two steps forward."
At the end of Patricia's move, the oddly familiar noise of mechanical creaks could be heard and the Jackals all turned indicating their move.
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Below them, Camilla let out a cry in pain as she leaned over the makeshift bed once again as blood came pouring from her mouth into the bucket Nina had found. Alfie and Nina looking to one another in worry as they watched The Protector whimper in pain. The others had started playing again they knew it because Camilla had gotten worse.
"This is it..." Nina whispered to Alfie as he crouched by his friends head, "this is the last shot we have..." Alfie turned to look at Nina in confusion, "Camilla has this game left before..." the girl trailed off in panic before whispering, "She's simply been strong too long."
Alfie shook his head as he looked to his best friend who was whimpering in pain her eyes fluttering shut slightly causing the boy to squeeze her hand tightly. He refused to lose Camilla today, "I know it hurts, but you have to stay awake." He whispered in fear.
Neither he nor Nina knowing what else they could do for the girl but hoping that the other's won this game, otherwise... well they didn't want to think about that.
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Joy's game so far was going better than Victor's, at least Fabian thought soo as he looked around the board. "Fabian..." Joy's voice cut through his thoughts as he focused back on the game once again. "one square right. Patricia, two forward. Amber, one step forward."
Fabian watched the girls move and looked at Joy in alarm along with them both.
"It's okay Amber," Joy told the girl reassuringly, "you should be safe."
"Joy, that's putting her right on a danger square, right next to Victor," Fabian argued.
"you did say he's the only one you can't predict," Amber added nervously.
"I know, but I've been watching him," Joy countered. "I think I might have worked him out."
Fabian shook his head; he couldn't let something happen to Amber. Camilla would kill him if Amber got hurt. "So why don't you move Amber one square right so she's on the same square as Patricia?" Fabian asked the girl on the throne. "you can predict that Jackal right?"
Joy shook her head, "no then we'll be going sideways when we need to keep going forward." Joy argued with him before looking to the blonde in a commanding tone saying. "Amber one square forward."
"No, Amber..." Fabian countered in a worried tone, "I really think you should play this safe."
"Both of you stop it!" Amber shouted.
"Fabian," Joy looked at the boy annoyed, "do you want to win this thing and get your sister back or not? If Amber makes my move and Victor points to the square I think he will, then she is safe."
"Yeah but that's a pretty big risk to take, what IF he doesn't Joy." Fabian hissed at the girl, "Look, Amber... you decide the move."
Amber took a deep breath and glanced between the pair before turning to the Mask. "I'm going to be brave like Cam..."
Fabian let out a groan as he watched the blondetake a deep breath before stepping forward on the square Joy had told her todo. All of them waiting for the Jackals to move to decide the fate of the girlswho shared a square together.
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AHHHHHHHHHHH! What's happening to Cam?! will they be able to complete the Senet task in time before she gets her magic sapped from her because honestly guys she is in a bad place!
plus Jerome with Rufus?! there is so much happening and not a lot of time left in the book to see how it will all wrap up.
Fav, Comment and Share
Love ya
Sarah xxx