The Seven Souls

Chapter 13 (Gabe)

I reached for a second brownie. I think the first one had worn off. Then I stopped my hand. Was I really going to do this to myself? Maybe Jeanelle cut me off for a reason. Maybe the absolute pain that circulated my entire body was enough of a deterrent from eating a second one. Or was it the chills? Or the disassociation? Or the barf? (Don't tell anyone about the barf.) What about the general lethargy? Or the voices yelling, "Of course you're the one who steps forward to defend yourself. After all, you're the successor to Prince Lucien"? I gotta say, auditory hallucinations were a new one. But still, there was something telling me to grab a second brownie. After all, Jeanelle had just given me a baggie with six of them after going weeks without anything. Maybe my tolerance had gone down. I hear that's a thing that happens.

But then again, I had just eaten a whole one of those. Jeanelle had been warning me about not eating a whole weed brownie at once. Maybe this is my comeuppance. Still, my hand was here literally reaching into the baggie. Isn't this the literal dictionary definition of addiction? I couldn't become a pot addict. I got too many A's in elementary school. Resist, Gabe! Resist!

Finally, I pulled my hand out of the baggie and zipped it shut. I shoved it under the bed where I had been keeping it since that fateful day (that fateful day being yesterday). I've been wondering what Mom would do if she ever saw me with those things. I could tell her the truth, say that I got them from Jeanelle, but she'd probably say, "Quit deflecting the blame. We know she'd never do that!" And then she'd shove the remaining brownies into my mouth, breaking my jaw and killing me with a weed overdose. Or maybe she'd just use a knife like all the other murderers.

After I gave the brownie bag an extra kick, I looked down to make sure it was nice and hidden and saw my wand, which I had also hidden under there for "Mom would kill me if she saw this" purposes, glowing. Did someone want to kill me? It had been quiet around here since Jeanelle had blinded Wally. Was I finally going to be able to do something?

I pulled the wand closer to me. Jeanelle's face was visible in the gem looking panicked. "Yello?" I said. (Get it? 'Cause my wand's yellow?)

"Gabe, I need your help with something," Jeanelle said. "Now that I'm finally sober, the realization is finally hit me."

Sober. She must have gotten too high, too.

"The black tar is gone."

Okay, now I'm sober. "It's gone?"

"Yeah. I was lying in bed hating everything like you do when you take a dose of marijuana that's over your tolerance level when Bruce and Amber appeared in my room with an empty jar which Bruce had stolen from my room, mind you. Apparently, that spell Bruce found works, and he decided to rub it in my face by getting rid of my entire supply."

"Our entire supply," I reminded her. I had made great contributions to this team.

"Don't correct me. The important part is that we have no way to make the vaccine now. What the heck are we supposed to do?"

"This never would have happened if we had just gone ahead with the black tar conditioner like I suggested."

"Gabe, this is serious."

"And I'm seriously wondering how we have a problem with this. We have a solution, and that black tar isn't around anymore, so you can't blind anybody else."

Jeanelle put her head down. She must still be torn up about blinding Wally. "I don't want to blind anybody else," she said, her voice shaking, "but that spell was created by a usurper. I'm not going to use the work of someone who hurt so many people."

"A usurper?"

I sighed. I guess he wasn't in the loop. "Prince Lucien created the spell. He tried to overtake the Dragon King's biological son as heir to the throne 1,000 years ago. You remember that?"