Stolen Time

One last touch

Fervent knocking could be heard on the door and Elaine moved quickly to open it. Her nerves were still on the edge. It was almost Sunday noon and Seraphina still hadn't woken up since yesterday. It was unsettling, to say the least. Yeanna told them it was normal to be exhausted after the procedure as the mind had to reconstruct itself, forming new synaptic connections to work around the missing parts. Given how extensive the memory loss was Elaine wasn't surprised Seraphina was out cold for so long.

It made her feel even more guilty.

She spent the whole time since Arlo and Yeanna left brainstorming ideas as to how to mitigate the new situation with her roommate. Arlo wanted those memories gone but as far as she understood 'memory lock' didn't prevent the victim from forming new memories, so how exactly was he planning to keep John away?

The questions kept piling up in her mind with no answers in sight when the knocking shook her out of her mental spiral. She scrambled to her feet and practically ran from the couch to open the door. She hoped it was someone requiring her assistance in healing, which as a form of helping others could alleviate some of her guilt, but any type of distraction was welcomed.

Or so she thought, but when she yanked their front door open her heart sank into the pit of her stomach.

There stood John with a smile. It was a friendly smile, one that was supposed to show he had no bad intentions, but considering their less-than-warm relationship it was mainly on his face to keep things amicable between them. It was practiced and polite, but she could feel it was a front he put up.

'Lowly cripple, it's all your fault', she growled in her head. If it wasn't for him she wouldn't have betrayed Seraphina like this. It was because of his bad influence and weirdly charming personality that their school's, as well as the entire region's, number one decided to relinquish her title and abandon her duties.

'Yes, that's right! Arlo was forced to do this to correct the disturbance John caused in the hierarchy! If it wasn't for him...!'

She suddenly wanted to push him to the ground again or something akin to get him out of her sight. All the uncertainty about Arlo's morals and behavior now was redirected to the person in front of her. Her guilt channeled to a target she felt comfortable and familiar with now turned into anger and her voice came out snappier than intended.

"What do you want?"

His face didn't react at all. He was more than accustomed to how badly people treated him. He may need to relieve his momentary ire later with his punching bag but now it wasn't the time. Now he was on a mission.

"I'm here to see Sera," he answered simply.

"She's not here," she said and was about to close the door on him, but he stopped it with his foot.

"Come on, I can see her shoes right there!"

Elaine was a little surprised by how quickly she got caught but she wasn't about to give in so easily.

"She has more than one pair."

John couldn't keep a straight face any longer and rolled his eyes.

"Believe me I know every single pair she has. I was there when she bought 95% of them and saw her wearing the rest. Those are her weekend casual wear. She wouldn't use something else in this nice weather."

Yeah, she kind of forgot about how close these two were. Something that was about to change the moment they met again...

When she didn't answer he knew he had her.

"Can I come in?"

"No," Elaine stated immediately and pushed the door against his foot once more.

He, of course, resisted.