The Time Hopper

Meltdown

After dinner that night, I called a little council meeting. At first, I had wanted to speak to everyone about it all at once, but I wasn't sure that was a great idea. A few of them were liable to panic, and a couple more were likely to storm down the mountain and try to fight them on sight to get revenge for Kat. Which I didn't necessarily disagree with, I also wanted to get revenge for her, but now wasn't the time. We were weak. Some of them hadn't even been able to take their magic into themselves yet, and those who had hadn't had any time to get used to it yet. Hell, I had done it weeks ago and I still had barely scraped the surface of what I thought I would be able to do now. No, if they did that they would be killed or captured, and the rest of us would have to either do our best to help them or flee to save ourselves. 

So I picked the people I thought would keep a level head. Myself and Riley settled on only Alice and Alexei, knowing that they were the calmest of the group. It was hard getting them away from the others, especially given how closely Took was watching us. Really desperate to be included, that guy. Which didn't make much sense to me. Taking charge was horrible. It was stressful, there was so much responsibility, and everyone thought you were really smart and well put together when you really weren't and the truth was that you were rapidly spiralling out of control with no idea how to stop this ride- 

But we figured out how to get them to one side anyway. Riley quickly managed to slip Alexei a note telling him when or where to meet us, and a quick moment of eye contact and a head jerk to the door when Took wasn't looking was enough to pass the message to Alice. It was late evening by the time we managed to all peel away and meet in my room, but we were alone. 

"If this is your way to tell us any urgent news, then you need to learn to pick up the pace." Alice chided me immediately. I winced. 

"I mean, it's a little urgent, but this was the best I could do. I didn't want the others hearing, I didn't think they'd be able to keep a level head." I explained, rubbing the back of my neck sheepishly. 

"And it isn't anything that couldn't have waited a few hours. We would have told you immediately if it was that important." Riley was quick to reassure her, having already sprawled out over my bed and taken up most of the space to sit down. I shoved a leg to one side and perched on the end as the other two just stood around. 

"I think I'll decide how urgent the news in. In the nicest way possible, I don't fully trust Sadie's judgement." Alice said, leaning against the wall with one foot and folding her arms. A little hurtful, but fair enough. I sighed and nodded. 

"Alright then, here goes nothing- but let me finish everything I'm going to say before you start yelling at me, okay? Basically, the leader wanted to tell me that some of Obsivian's men have been spotted in the valley- but from the way they're moving, it doesn't look like they know we're here! They're probably just generally searching for us." I was quick to say, watching as Alice's expression turned from impatient to very, very angry at me. The noise that came out of her mouth was almost inaudible- a small squeak of fury as air escaped her lungs as she tried to think up a response. I winced, and a second later she was scolding me.

"Why would you wait so long to tell us? That is urgent information, and you have known for hours! And instead of telling us, your decided that you needed to fuck around and try to get just two of us on our own, taking literal hours to do it, while Obsivian's men got closer and closer to us! What the fuck is wrong of you? You've put us in so much danger, why wouldn't you tell us this the moment you found out?" She scolded me, and I felt anger rise in my chest. Because I thought I had made the right call, and I had solid reasons behind it, and I was getting damn tired of Alice always pretending like her personal opinions would be objectively correct. I stood up, glaring at her.