Ame Perdue

Chapter Fourteen

I sat against the wall of the tent, blinking the last of the spots out of my vision, breathing heavily as I tried to alleviate the fear that the vision had built in my chest. It had felt as if I was truly back there, the life that I had become accustomed to falling apart in a matter of seconds. I squeezed my eyes shut for only a moment, reminding myself where I was. Reminding myself that life was over, that it couldn't touch me from here. My eyes snapped back open as my heartbeat evened, glaring hatefully at the person that put me in that position.

Across from me, Milo was blinking just as heavily, a needle still sticking out of his own arm. There was an unmistakable look in his eyes, one that only served to piss me off further. I didn't need to guess to know that he had just experienced the same thing that I had, "Did you find what you were looking for?" I asked him venomously.

Milo stared silently at me, his hair a mess around his face from our earlier tussle. There was a faint amount of guilt in his eyes for the invasion of privacy. I was beyond pissed. He had no right to go through my head. It was bad enough that he forced me to relive, but what right did have to join me? Screw it if he thought that he was doing it to help me or to figure crap out. He had no freaking right. It was my life, not his.

I knew exactly what he had experienced, I knew the thoughts that he would have heard as they ran through my five-year-old brain. It didn't take a genius to put two and two together. He didn't know everything, but he knew enough and the thought pissed me off. He had no right to inject himself into my memories. So what I was having dreams of other worlds? It didn't give him the right to comb through my past as if it was his own.

People had the misguided notation that it was our pasts that defined us. They were wrong. I didn't start living until the day that I met Janus. Nothing that happened before that matters to me. It didn't mean anything, didn't affect my life today. I didn't need or want the pity of other people. Everyone thought that they knew what was best for me. Everyone thought that I needed to talk about it, be open about crap. Screw them. They didn't know what was best for me, their trying to force information that I didn't want to give just pissed me off. Nothing gave anyone the right to dig through what I had worked so hard to bury.

He brushed the dirt off of his robe as he stood up, offering me his hand. I shoved the appendage out of my way, pushing myself to my feet without his help. He looked like he was about to say something before changing his mind. There was nothing tentative to his tone as he asked, "I assume that the first vision happened immediately after the fox lunged at you?"

The memory hadn't shown the first vision like I was positive he was intending it to. Just the day prior, ending the moment that everything went black around me. I scoffed at the audacity of him. He didn't even pretend to look very guilty for digging through my past. I crossed my arms in defiance, not caring if it was childish or not, "You're the one that has no problems going through other people's memories. You tell me."

"I will take that as a yes," He muttered as he pulled a phone out of his pocket. He kept half an eye on me as he typed in it, "Amil would be able to confirm, but I think that it is a quirk of the wanderer curse. As far as I know, you are the only human to bear the curse and are therefore less suited for the work. Those dreams are the curses way of giving you a chance at survival."

"In other words, you don't actually know and are just taking wild stabs in the dark," I threw my hands up in frustration. This was exactly why I didn't want to tell him anything. He had no idea what it was and would have to tell fifty people before anyone got even close to the answer, "That was my thought the moment that I realized this place was real. Want a gold star for going through extreme measures to guess the obvious? A round of applause? A cookie?"

"If you would answer me when I ask you things, I wouldn't have to resort to extreme measures," Milo folded his arms against his chest as he regarded me, "This world doesn't have time for your teenage temper tantrums. You drew the short stick, Dante, you're one of us. And it doesn't matter what you think about it, our job is to save this world. And I can't do that if I can't get a straight answer out of you."