Hunter

Chapter Nineteen - Instability and Conflict

Jasper knocked gently on the wood. When I opened the door, I saw the look of resignation on his face. I knew that look all too well. It wasn't a look that I wanted to deal with at that particular moment. I was on edge: I didn't know what to believe. I was emotionally unstable, my feelings galavanting around my head as if they had a mind of their own.

"Hey," he called out, his voice gentle.

"Hi." I didn't say anything else. Why was he even there?

"Are you okay?" His soft voice washed over my body, calming the raging nerves that were causing me to lose control of myself. I shrugged my shoulders and ran my hands over my arms.

I pulled the door even farther away from the frame and hovered back into my messy room. The blankets were on the floor along with four pillows. The sheet was lifted up on one corner, all of my belongings littered throughout the room.

I stepped back onto my carpet. My cold feet immediately warmed by the softness that covered the floor. I stood there for a moment, running my toes over the smooth tussles of the rug. After exhaling a breath I didn't even realize that I was holding, I stepped forward and sat on the couch across from my bed. My elbows rested on my knees, and my fingertips just barely touched each other. Jasper sat across from me, the exact mirror image of my position. Our hands were only a few inches apart, and I could almost feel his forehead on mine.

"The temperature of this room is approximately 40 degrees Fahrenheit." I watched as his skin prickled, the grey color in his eyes intensifying.

"The standard body temperature is 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. According to the laws of thermodynamics, the heat is going to travel from your body, the system, to the room, the surroundings, making you feel colder by about 59 degrees in an exothermic reaction." I rolled my eyes, irritation nudging me.

"That's cold, and I don't want you catching a cold, so here." He stood up and made to wrap a blanket around me. I grabbed it from his hands, seeing a pained look in his eyes, and draped it over my shoulders. He sat down and watched me carefully. I kept my eyes trained to the floor, but I could hear his tapping feet.

"You seem kind of restless," I pointed out.

"I am. I don't know what it is, but I just feel tense all over."

"Where's Dee?"

"Home."

"So I'm your last resort?" I asked, noticing his tense demeanor.

"Hayley." His voice was pleading for my cooperation.

"What's wrong, Jasper." I calmed down slightly, trying to put everything behind me, as difficult and frustrating as it may have been.

"Nothing. Everything. I don't know. I just... I can't help but feel that there's something bigger than all of this. That this whole, mission, or whatever you want to call it, is a smaller part of some bigger scheme. I can't shake this feeling. It's been resting on my back ever since we left."

"Why didn't you say anything?"

"Well, I didn't think it would be that big of a deal until I talked to Athena's Celestial." His fingers tussled his hair as he released a loud groan of frustration. "Do you know what she told me? She said that Athena is ashamed to have me as her descendant!" He stood up and started pacing. I called out to him.

"She feels that I haven't been exerting myself, that I have made no contribution to this search for your necklace," I called his name again.

"She thinks that all I am is some useless pawn that's going to be used as a sacrifice so that other players can get all the way across the battlefield to the King."

"JASPER!" I grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him towards me. The blanket fell off of my shoulders and pooled around our legs. "Jasper..."

"It just sucks. I feel like I've been disowned by the biggest part of me. It's like losing your identity, Hayley, and it sucks." His voice cracked on the last syllable, and my heart broke for him. His eyes were closed, and he was fighting for control over his own body. I pressed myself to him in what I hoped would be a comforting hug. It was awkward at first because his hands just hung there, but eventually, he returned the embrace.

"You're not useless. You're not. You're anything but. Jasper, without you I don't know if I would be able to go on because just the sight of you gives me the strength that I need to do all that I do. Jasper, you're my anchor." I felt a small drop of wetness on my shoulder. When the second drop fell, I followed it all the way back up to his eyes.

"Jasper, you're my power." My head lay on his chest as he struggled to hold back his sobs. I actually wanted him to cry, not only so that I could make fun of him for it later but so that he could feel better.

I don't know how long we stayed like that, our arms around each other, drawing solace from each other's presence, but Jasper was the first one to pull back. His hand was on my cheek as he stroked away some random strand of hair that was intruding on my face. He smiled down at me before saying, "thank you."

I smiled back up at his six-foot frame before pulling away from him. Stepping back, I picked up the blanket and wrapped it around my shoulders. We were about two feet apart now, and as uncomfortable as I had expected the aftermath of our moment to have been, it wasn't, but I did feel a little dizzy.

That's when Deidre popped up. Looking like a ghost, we both couldn't help but lose our cool. Her form materialized out of thin air, and when she was fully visible, my vision swam and I stumbled. I grabbed onto Jasper, and he leaned into me. He was feeling it too.

"Why are you dead-looking?" I mumbled.

"How did you get here?" Jasper questioned.

"I hope I didn't interrupt anything." I was going to respond but she cut me off. "Anyway, my father wasn't pleased with my disappearance, so he taught me something new to help stay in touch."

"Can you just tell us what you're doing so that you can leave?" I quipped. She looked hurt, but from the look on her face, I knew she wasn't taking it too personally.

"Well, Hayley, when you're a descendant of Morpheus, you have the ability to control the brain-"

"I don't care. Just cut to the chase." She huffed. "I'm here metaphysically. Since I'm not really here, this image that you're seeing is a hallucination that I've connected to both of your brains. Basically, since I've formed a connection with you two on the spiritual level, I have the ability to present myself before you at this very moment, even though I'm not really here."

"How is that cutting to the chase?" She ignored me.

"Grade A magic trick, don't you think?"

"I've seen better," Jasper mumbled under his breath as he joined me.

"You know what, since you two are being so rude to me, I might as well just leave."

"But you're not even really here," he shot back.

"Exactly." I looked at Jasper with a small smile on my face.

"So this isn't even happening, right?"

"Right, because she wasn't even here in the first place."

"So if a tree falls in the forest, and no one hears it, did it really fall?"

"Nope," I teased. At that point, Dee was really gone, and I felt better. As I smiled at Jasper, my heart weighed heavily in my chest. For a second, I had allowed myself to forget, and it was magical. But I remembered, and remembering wasn't magical. Wrapping the blanket even tighter around myself, I stared at my feet. Jasper noticed the change in mood and rubbed the back of his neck. For several moments everything was quiet, then, once again, he broke the silence.

"Goodnight, Hayley."

"Goodnight, Jasper."