Casters Book Two: Shadow Caster

Chapter Twenty One

I wake up to the smell of food. Specifically cinnamon rolls. I scrunch my brows together in confusion before letting my eyes flutter open and adjust to the light in my room. I can't tell what time it is, how early, or how late. So I force myself to sit up.

My body feels weak like I ran ten marathons or something. My muscles ache with each slight movement, my head is pounding with a major headache, and I swear if I don't get water in me soon I will shrivel up from dehydration.

"How do you feel?" Vega gets up and walks over to me, she was sitting on my window seal staring outside.

"Awful," I pout and glare at nothing in particular.

"Here," she sighs and hands me the breakfast that was waiting on my nightstand.

I quickly take the milk and start chugging it.

She rubs my back to comfort me.

"Okay, you win, I'm never listing to Nerissa ever again." I come up for air.

"What happened?"

"So we went to spy, as I told you, but we found this weird cult dance thing, everyone was wearing masks. It was super ominous." I pause to take a big bite of my gooey cinnamon roll. "Anyway," I say around my food. "We got caught, like super-fast. It was kind of my bad. Anyway, somehow, we got roped into their weird energy cult dance thing. I couldn't figure out who anyone was. But I swear some of those people looked familiar. Anyway, on the ground, they were casting this spell, like the whole time, but we didn't really notice until it was all bright and glowing or whatever."

"Emery, you need to drop all this. You could have been seriously hurt." Vega says.

"I'm not done. So like they let the moon shine into the room And everything got super bright and BAM! We passed out. The next thing I know I'm waking up on the ground and everything is cleared out, like completely gone. Like nothing ever happened in the first place. Weird right?"

"Just promise me you won't do that again. Please."

"Don't you want to know what that was all about? There is like a cult here at Belmore, and they might be behind what happened to me."

"No!" she shouts in anger.

I flinch.

"Stop it! Stop digging into this. Stop putting yourself in danger. Just... leave it alone. Who cares how you got here, all that matters is that you're here now. Cults, Energy draining, Emery do you hear yourself? This is crazy, and you don't seem as alarmed as you should be. You could have been killed!"

"Sorry," I mumble and poke at my food.

"I just... don't want you to get hurt." She looks away from me.

"Okay, I'll drop it," I say softly.

"Good, now eat up. I told Cyrene that you weren't feeling good so you could rest today."

I stare at my food, no longer hungry.

I don't like this side of her, I don't like it when she's mad at me. It makes me feel like a dog with its tail tucked. Like no matter what I say, she doesn't want to hear it. She just wants me to agree with her and that's the end of it.

But what I saw last night feels important.

That symbol, those people, that spell. I have to look into it.

I just wish she'd understand.

"I'm sorry for yelling," she says after we sit in silence for a minute or two.

"I'm sorry for making you worry; it won't happen again," I say without looking at her.

She sighs and kisses my forehead before getting up.