Jinxed

E I G H T

Chapter Eight: Why don't I recognize myself?

Emilia 

In less than a minute after our exchange, the carriage was pulling away from the field and starting it's way down the road.

I leaned forward and pinched Kai's arm.

"Ow!" he rubbed his arms "What was that for?"

"That was for touching that wretched picture frame" I hissed at him, pinching his thigh this time  "And that is for what you pulled back there! What are we doing Kai? Because we sure as hell aren't the Cartiers nor are we qualified Language teachers of any kind." 

"I don't know what's going on" he hissed right back at me "But don't you think that wherever we're going is better than being stuck in the middle of a field? In a town we know nothing about?"

"So pretending to be people we're not is supposed to work in our favor?" I scoffed at the half-witted idea he called a plan "You do know that we're bound to get caught by playing this impersonation game, right?" 

"It'll at least help us figure out our next moves" he crossed his arms and leaned back in his seat "And isn't that a good thing?" 

"And what happens when the real language teachers show up?" I asked with a raised brow "What'll happen to us then when they find out we're phonies?"

He shrugged "We'll deal with it if it happens."

I narrowed my eyes at his carefree attitude "Is this one of your pranks? Am I being punked? Does that guy work for you and is he taking me on a wild goose chase throughout the city of New Orleans? Did you pay him to say all that crap about being in the 1800s? What are you going to do to me Kai? Dump me in the Bayou? Bury me in one of those ancient Above-ground tombs?"

"Those are horrible things to do" He scowled at me "Why would I do that?"

"Why wouldn't you?" I shot back "You've done pranks like that in the past."

"But not to you Emmie" he said, his eyes softening "Never to you."

"Still doesn't make it right though Kai" I said softly, looking out the window and watching as the trees passed us by "Let's not talk about this right now. What we really need to talk about is how we're going to get out of whatever this mess is."

"You're right" He said, leaning back in his seat "In retrospect though, we seem to be crushing this impersonation business so far."

"Only because of my three and a half years of French" I scowled at him "Which, by the way, I'm rusty at. I'm barely scraping by and it won't be long before they figure out that I'm not a fluent French speaker."

"They won't find out" he waved my concern away "Besides, at least you can speak some French. And Spanish. I can barely speak anything other than English."