Spirit

The Meet

Three faces looked my way, him, a lady in her forties and a man about the same age.

“Hell Mali, it’s nice to see you again after so long. I’m Cavalla, and this is Shaun” the lady spoke fluently and something about her struck me. I gave a small nod and a slight smile. “We had been searching for you from when you first were taken. And we gave up hope for four years; until we found a small enough lead to find you. For about the past two months we have been tracking you and waiting for the perfect moment to come along when you would be on your own. Fortunately that came sooner than we had anticipated”.

“What am I doing here? My parents will be looking for me, the police will arrest you.”

Cavalla’s face drooped, “Mali your parents can never come... They are, dead.” My whole world at that moment started swirling, Mum and Dad were alive it was only a few days ago that we last spoke.

“What are you going on about, t-take me back to them.”

Cavalla’s eyes narrowed “They are not your real parents. Your real ones were killed when you were twelve and you were taken. You are more important than you realise. You have great strength, that is why we sent Adrian out to get you and also because we thought you might have recognised him. You seem like you don’t know us, as we suspected you cannot remember anything.”

Was she going crazy? I was about to ask her what drugs she was on but something was flashing in the back of my mind, out of my grasp. 

I was quite intrigued, “So what you’re saying is; I have been living the past three years with people who I thought were my parents. Going to a school where I got bullied and ended up getting tutored at home… And my real parents are dead.”

Cavalla pulled a face, “You just have to reach into your mind and pull out the memories that they made you lock away. Concentrate on something happy, some emotion you like to feel and forget about the people who you thought were your parents.”

I tried as she said. My head hurt, but the memories were somewhere in there, but I was unable to even get a glance at one. And everything quickly disappeared as Adrian had laid a hand on my shoulder, “Are you okay?” I shrugged it off and moved further away from him.

Suddenly the man, Shaun, that had been sitting next to Cavalla jumped up off the lounge and put a hand on my shoulders. I felt dizzy and a shiver ran up my spine. Reflexes kicked in and I hit him right where it hurts, in the groin. I was expecting him to make the sound of a dying whale and fall on his knees. But I judged the man incorrectly, he gasped for a second. Then came at me fists clenched, eyes burning with anger. My body cringed, waiting for the pain that was about to come when his fist came flying towards my face. His body broke into a spasm, but I could see he was trying to fight it. I saw my opportunity and ran for the door on the far side out the room; surely it was the way out. I glanced back quickly as I was about four metres away from freedom and smiled at them. The man now stood tall and Cavalla was next to him, they too were smiling back at me.

My body slammed into something hard, but soft at the same time. And my eyes met another set of eyes, royal blue in colour. Crap. Adrian grabbed me by the wrists.

“It’s no use I’m quicker and stronger than you”. Do you think I gave a rat’s ass, NO. He left the perfect opening for me to lift my right leg in one sweep and aim for his head. Anticipating my movement Adrian ducked his body, whilst still holding my wrists. My body lost its balance and he took advantage and pressed his weight on me, pining me too the floor.

He helped me up off the ground and it was only then that I noticed we had an audience, that found this performance hysterical. My cheeks grew hot as a guy older than me said “Well she gave you a run for your money. I thought you were going to be the one going down first”.

“Yea right Caleb, keep dreaming mate” Adrian said laughing.