Avatar Rose: Dusk

Ch.54: Nathan

Evan pins me down as Rose runs into the house, facing away from us. "Rose!" I bark at her. "You haven't promised me yet! Get back here!"

But as the end of her hair streams into the door, she pays me no mind. Liesel glances at me worriedly, then says something to Gwen who smiles and nods. The two go and help Xander into the water...

Oh yeah, Alexander. I forgot about him. I should probably help him...

My eyes dart back to the door. Rose barely said a word since she woke up. What happened to her? Was she tortured, chased, held hostage, raped? A nasty rumour about the spirit world had been running around before I left the South Pole 7 years ago: that it had been overrun by terrorist organizations or something. Is she paralyzed by trauma? What was Liesel thinking to accomplish by leading her into there? Just meditating is fine- I used to do it all the time. Learning to connect with past lives is okay too. But the spirit world?

Evan still has my hands pinned to the grass. He slips a bloodbending grip onto me, and I try to resist. Apparently I'm in no condition to, however, and my veins all go tight, on the brink of straining. My ears feel like they're drooping, my nose like it's pounding. It's been a little while since I last felt this. My arms and legs start to move on their own, as if I'm a puppet, my brother the puppet master. Right leg, left leg, they move in front of the other. It looks like I'm walking normally. I guess I don't often get the time to admire how good of a bloodbender Evan is compared to me. He's a true puppet master.

My veins freeze again, and Evan's fingers stop moving. I can't turn my head to look at him either. I don't know what he's doing.

Soon enough, I feel a cold vapour against my skin. Evan freezes my hands together, then makes a wall of ice, confining me into a corner. "This is called Nathan's time-out corner!" He yells from the other side of the ice. "Come back out when you've regained your cool!"

I'm cold enough. You froze me into an icebox.

I try to move my fingers, but it's not just the ice that's restraining me. Evan still has me in a grip. His footsteps move farther and farther away. But he still has me in a grip.

I can't even talk- he's got my lips in a lock too. I guess I have no choice but to wait in my little block of ice.

Rose with a terrorist gang? No wonder she isn't talking. The rest of people aren't doing anything I bet! I bet they barely give a fuck that Rose has probably been raped or tortured- while we're at it, she might have leaked information.

Five minutes goes by with me paralyzed. I may be freezing cold, my hands almost wanting to fall off due to cold, but inside I'm fuming with rage. At this time, Evan has the piece of mind to turn me around so I have something to look at.

Behold, there is Gwen, Liesel and Xander. Liesel meditates next to the little creek, while Gwen works her magic over it, letting the water glow a fluorescent blue. The effect is marking clearly on Xander's face- his features are no longer shrewd up in agony, but he looks genuinely relieved. Still though, blondie shoots Gwen a hateful look out of the corner of his eye, clearly still sulky from the incident. Evan is no-where to be seen, but a curl of smoke emerges from in front of the house. Probably him. My eyes catch sight of Rowan coming outside, forever the gentleman, with another pitcher of raspberry lemonade for the gang. He doesn't bat an eye towards me.

In fact, none of them do.

Not Gwen,
nor Liesel.
Not Xander,
nor Rowan.

Do they even know I'm present? They should be scolding Evan for locking me up like this. Gwen should be unfreezing this ice, letting me move. But instead? They all sit back relaxing in healin' hot-tubs and drinking cool raspberry lemonade! Hah!

Talk about being selfish!