The stakes are higher than ever.
It's been months since the four managed to temporarily defeat and escape Laurel, Amber, Kali and the others but the four's problems are far from over. Forced to live with their guilt and still plagued by nightmares o...
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Ashla-Leila's POV:
In light of Ash's revelation about the power inside Dana, Kalli, Kessal and Braeden I feel like the worlds dropped out from underneath me. That sensation of falling made me feel like I was standing on a landmine second away from detonation that would cause me to explode or some other earth-shattering event. And judging by the faces of those around us I'm not the only one with this concern. Luckily though, we're saved from having to say another word by the arrival of Chalice and Mara, both looking a little pale and peaky from whatever they'd found out that Eris had asked them to look for.
"Well, we have good news and bad news, which do you want first?" Chalice's attempt at lighthearted humour has me smiling internally but also simultaneously dreading whatever she is about to say to us. "Good or bad?"
"Good?" Rosa phrases it as a question but I can hear how uncertain she sounds. Almost as if she's aware of the news her- our -friends are bringing back to us. "Chal? The good news?" Rosa frowns and looks long and hard over at the blonde vampire but she refuses to blink, only looking over at the fire with an expression of contemplation that seems a little too intense for my liking. Almost as if she wished she could jump into the glowing orange flames and have them swallow her whole. "Chal?!"
She snaps out of it then and I see a semi-guilty expression cross her face before her emerald eyes cloud over for a split second with worry, something that does little to ease the nerves in my stomach or make me feel better about whatever was going on that had both her and Mara so spooked they just kept looking at one another out of the corners of their eyes. But she does explain what she found. "So the good news is that we managed to find the true extent of the damage the four caused. Or at least we think we have."
She stops then, almost as if she's afraid of whatever the bad news was that she'd found with Mara. Sneaking a look the normally cool and composed vampire was biting her lip and looking around with pleading eyes, mostly glancing away and then at Mara as if pleading with her to take over and explain the bad news that the two had found. Something that makes me think it's worse than anything either me and Ash or Rosa and Hunter had done together or apart given the lack of communication between the two.
"And the bad news?" My voice is the first to break the silence following Chalice's not so hopefully delivered 'good news' beside the snap, crackle and pop of the flames as the wood was slowly eaten away. The warmth seemed to not fill the room as it should in light of what happened before and whatever was to come next. "Chalice? Mara? What was the bad news?" Now terrified I try to reason with them but my anxiety won't let me do much more than grapple with the uncertainty that this lack of knowledge is filling me with and I hate it. I hate that because of a lack of knowledge about what to do we're stuck again trying to look after four kids who should never have been pawns in such a deadly and high-stakes game. Who should be safe to grow up and have a life they want to live, not one-handed to them since they were related to those of us still trapped playing? "Chal? Mar? Please we need to know, we've come too far to start keeping secrets from one another, even if done with good intentions."
