The Glade and Its Glitch: Book 2 Allies or Enemies

Chapter 21

Nya ran her fingers through Jay's curls. The couple sat on the roof of the monastery. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Jay shook his head, the team had just finished another meeting with Soar. It was fairly uneventful, mostly just talk of the next steps to take. But some of the ninja were starting to lose hope in Cole waking up.

The meeting had ended in an argument, Dareth had suggested that they give up on Cole and switch their focus. Jay had expected most people to disagree, but Zane had other ideas. He thought that the ninja did need to switch their focus to the Glade. From what they'd seen on the working security cameras the Glade was training, preparing for war.

That caused Kai to get angry, he said that Cole would never give up on one of them if they were in his position. Most of the other ninja were in agreement with Kai, but Soar was not.

Soar claimed that worrying about Cole was distracting them from the Glade. He was very adamant that they were the true enemy.

Nya and Jay had been on the same side, which was neither Kai's nor Zane's. They thought that they needed to focus more on the Glade, yet not lose sight of Cole either. Lloyd sided with them, but only because he didn't want to argue with anyone. He hadn't voiced his opinion in the meeting, he told Nya afterward.

Master Wu and Misako had been fairly impartial to most of it all. Master Wu had mentioned knowing someone from the Glade, the ninja all thought he was worried about meeting an old friend. Or enemy.

"I don't want to think about it right now." Jay looked back over to Nya. "We can't let ourselves split."

"I don't think we'll split Jay. It was a small fight, they'll get over it." Nya pulled Jay's head into her lap, "Just relax."

"Zane and Kai seemed pretty upset with each other." Jay let her pull him closer.

"It was a stupid thing for Darreth to bring up, let's just forget it."

"It's hard to forget though." Jay reached his hand up and took Nya's. "Especially everything Soar's told us."

"Yeah, that's scary, the whole Glade and Huntress thing."

"Do you believe him?"

"Why would we not?" Nya allowed Jay to take her hand in his.

"I dunno, just something about him rubs me the wrong way. Have you seen the way he looks at me sometimes?"

"No," Nya looked down at Jay, a look of confusion on her face. "What do you mean?"

"It's just... I could be imagining it. But sometimes it's like he looks at me and has a bone to pick. I've never done anything to hurt him. But he looks at me like I attacked him, or have seriously wronged him in some way."

"That is weird, why would he be mad at you?"

"I don't know, maybe he's mistaking me for someone else. But why would he hold a grudge against me? He always seems to disagree with me. Like today, when I sided with you and not with Darreth and Zane, Soar really seemed upset about that. He glared at you too but not as much as he does at me."

"That is weird, but I don't know what we can do about it. You could try talking to him."

"I don't think he'd listen. It's fine, don't worry about it." Jay

"You ok?" She rubbed the back of Jay's hand with her thumb.

Jay nodded, lying. He really should have known better, Nya saw straight through his lies.

"Oh come on, don't lie to me." Nya rested her hand on Jay's chin, "What's bothering you?"

Jay tried to brush it off, but Nya pushed. "Fine, fine, I had another one of those freaky dreams a few nights ago."

Nya hummed, "Do you want to talk about it?"

Shrugging, Jay avoided the question, "They're just dreams, it's fine."

His girlfriend shot him a look that plainly said 'Shut up, it's clearly not fine' so Jay gave in.

"Alright, I give up. They're getting worse. The dreams keep getting weirder and weirder, and it's starting to affect the dream versions of my parents. They're glitching, hard. While they used to act exactly like how my mom and dad act in real life it's not how they act now. Having the dreams so soon after seeing them just shows how different they've gotten."

Nya wrapped her free arm around Jay's shoulders, "That would be weird. Seeing your parents in real life and then in the dream world."

"They're so different now. My mom is knitting this thing that I've never seen before. My dad says the same phrase multiple times. It drives me up the wall."

"That is weird, why would that be happening in your dreams? It doesn't usually happen does it?"

"No, and that's not even the worst part! I hear his voice sometimes. Nadakhan's voice. He's following me everywhere. I hate it, it's like there's no escape. Then there's this freaky black void. It spasms and flickers, sometimes it even makes it look like there's a hole in the world. Like it's broken."

"Why would it be broken?"

"I think there's something wrong with me. Nadakhan, the void, my parents, everything in that dream world, nothing's been the same since the Sky Pirates."

Nya ran her fingers through Jay's hair again, pulling him closer. "I'm still here. We're all still here. The rest of the ninja and I are on your side. Even if Cole can't really do anything about it."

"I know... But they're scary..." Jay trailed off, slightly embarrassed to admit he was afraid.

"That's ok. I get scared, Kai gets scared, we all get scared Jay. It's not abnormal. If we fear nothing, then what will push us forward?"

"You're turning into Master Wu." Jay laughed.

Nya slapped his arm, "You're ruining the mood. Shut up."