{ELEMENTISTS OF WILLOW FOREST BOOK V} The Journey Across Water

Enemies

2: Enemies

Sasha Brunner, descendant but not child of the Burner, knew that at this point she had two options.

Either she kept her half of the promise and told Olivia Green, descendant of Aodh's sworn enemy Hephzibah everything there was to tell about her past, or she didn't, in which case Sasha would have no choice but to leave Willow Forest, as it was very unlikely that Olivia would accept any other substitute for Sasha's story. It wasn't that Sasha had anything else to give Olivia. Olivia had told Sasha her past, and, in this game of chess between Olivia and Felix, Sasha's brother, Olivia was a stronger piece than her.

Sasha could, of course, threaten Olivia that she would reveal Olivia's story (now Sasha knew it) to the whole world unless Sasha didn't have to keep her part of the deal, but Olivia would no doubt stop Sasha before she got round to it.

If Sasha did decide to run for it, the only person powerful enough to shield her from Olivia's wrath would be Felix. Making it all the way up to the Lake District and Echo Valley would be hard, but at least she wouldn't have to worry about the Death Wolves, as they were now under Felix's control. The last time Sasha had come face to face with her brother was as she was escaping his camp alongside Rock and Pebble, her - no, Olivia's - friends whom Felix had been holding prisoner at the time. Then, the two of them had made it clear to each other that Sasha was on the side of Olivia and Willow Forest, and that any brother/sister bond they'd possibly shared previously was gone. It was possible that Sasha might just escape Willow Forest before Olivia, the Councillors and the rest of the inhabitants managed to stop her. None of them, especially Olivia, could leave Willow Forest for very long and be safe thanks to the Death Wolves. Then, assuming she could make it to Echo Valley without anyone from Willow Forest stopping her, she'd still have to somewhat convince Felix (again) that she'd switched sides for good and there was no way she was ever going to change her loyalties again.

Whether that would work for the third time, Sasha wasn't sure.

Also, since reading Olivia's life story, Sasha had learnt that there was a very large, fully-grown, Hephzibah-centred resurrected dinosaur roaming the Great British Countryside somewhere. If Sasha bumped into him, he may not take kindly to those who had betrayed the very girl who had raised him.

The other downside of leaving Olivia was Sasha's newly-found Willow Forest Boyfriend, Ethan. Sure, she liked him (everyone liked him) but it wasn't like they were as serious as, say, Luke and Olivia. Ethan could easily find another girlfriend if he wanted. Ash, Eve, Rock, and about half the girls in the forest would go on a date with him before Ethan even activated one of his robots. The only other person who would be annoyed would be Tabitha and Bethany if their OTP Ethasha broke up, but they could always start stalking Olukia instead. Since it had turned out that Sasha's Echo Valley Boyfriend was a two-timing cheater, it had been kind of nice to have a guy send you heart-eyed emoji again, but the world wouldn't end when her relationship with Ethan did. Sasha didn't even trust him, anyway.

Sasha Brunner didn't do trusting people. Even after being at Willow Forest for over half a year she didn't trust anyone there, and especially not Olivia, although it was beginning to look like Olivia trusted her.

"Ready?" Olivia said suddenly from the other side of the booth. She was drumming her fingers on the table, and had apparently become bored as there was a newly-grown patch of flowers coming through the carped, spelling 'HURRY UP'.

"...Yeah." Sasha decided. "I think I am."

"Good." Olivia replied. "Because you keep saying you'll start, then you stop to contemplate, then say you'll start again, and then back out again, which is A) Really irritating for me, and B) Incredibly annoying for everyone who wants to come in here to the lounge and can't because I've grown poisonous ivy over the door so they won't disturb us."

Sasha opened her mouth to speak. "Actually," she decided, "I need another minute to gather my thoughts. Do you think that..."

"Come on, Sasha!" Olivia wailed, "You're keeping us all in suspense here! If this was a book, anyone dumb enough to read it would probably be tempted to track down the writer and hold them at ruler-point until they made you hurry up, stop it with all the stupid false starts, and just get on with it!"

"FINE!" Sasha shouted, probably a bit too loudly, as flames started to emerge from the palms of her hands. "YOU WANT ME TO TELL YOU? THEN I WILL. YOU THINK IT'S EASY FOR ME, REAVELING MY LIFE? IT'S NOT. I never wanted to be an Elementist. I never wanted to be caught up in this stupid feud between Aodh and Hephzibah. I just want to be normal. And guess what? That's not exactly going to be happening anytime soon, if not ever, so if you could just give me a break, and-"

"FOR GOODNESS SAKE, WOMAN, JUST START!" Olivia screamed.

Sasha fell silent.

"And if you try to worm your way out of it again," Olivia warned, "I will literally, literally, strangle you with lianas."

Sasha knew her cause was lost. "Fine." She sighed. "I'll do it."

So she did.