Finding ( Safe and Sound Trilogy: Book 2 )

Chapter 14: Violet - The Scrolls

I woke up, hoping it would be the last time I would pass out like I did. I fell asleep at a bad time, I know I did. I could feel it. I had to get up and ask Duke what the hell was going on. Before I could swing my feet out of bed, Anne stomped in with a glass of clear liquid and a dirty cloth.

"Oh, you're awake." She said, setting down her items on the dresser next to my bed. I adjusted myself so I sat up, better for conversations. "Duke said if you fall asleep again for longer than a couple hours, it could be fatal."

"And all you have to do to wake me up is pour water on me?" I questioned.

"Well... It's not exactly water. And I don't exactly pour it on you..."

Before I could ask any more questions, Duke strode in, casually leaning against the door frame. "I see the potion worked. Faster than usual. How long she been up?"

"No need for the potion," Anne replied. "she was up before I even entered the room."

"Not for long, then. Her Aries spirit has that effect." Duke walked in, taking his time with every step he took, and sat down slowly in the rocking chair. "Ahhh."

"Duke, you have a lot of explaining to do." I ordered, standing up and towering over him.

"I knew you would want some answers."

"Why am I falling asleep and not waking up for days?" I asked. "I've never been much of a sleeper. I always thought it was a waste of precious time - so why?"

"You're wasting 'precious time' right now," Duke backsassed. He looked rather bored, his eyelids drooping. "you're sleeping because your Shadow Dwelling is taking up your Soul Energy rather fast, since you haven't been using it for thirteen or so years."

"So..." I began pacing, biting my bottom lip in deep concentration. "So, why is it called 'Shadow Dwelling'?"

"I didn't come up with it, did I?" Duke said, rocking in his chair.

"I suppose you didn't, but you can cut the act!" I snapped, pointing my finger at him. "I'm not here for your adittude."

Duke raised his eyebrows. "Calm down,"

"I'll calm down as soon as you tell me exactly what's going on!" I screamed. "What happened when I fell asleep?"

"I think I can tell you that." Hayden's voice came from behind me, clear as day. I whipped my head around to see his face, and unexpectedly found cuts and bruises.

I gasped and ran over to him. "What happened to you?"

Hayden shook his head. "Kris and I got into a fight."

"What did you do?" I backed up, a bit intimidated.

"Excuse me?" Hayden defended himself. "Kris was abusing you!"

I raised an eyebrow.

"He was slapping you, trying to make sure you wouldn't get any rest. So I told him to stop and he turned around and punched me."

"That is not what happened," I rejected. "You had to have provoked him. Kris doesn't go around hurting people for no reason-that's not him."

"Yeah well finding out you're the most important person in the world can change 'him', can't it?" He left it at that, with a cold, icy glare, and shut the door behind him.

I swung my head around and looked directly at Duke. "What happened?"

"He pulled him back by the hair."

"What?" I yelled. "He should know better than to even look at Kris's hair. He hates him."  Creeping up on our conversation quiet as a mouse, the soft strumming of an acoustic guitar played from the other room. God, I missed that sound. It calmed me down and when I tried to stay angry, I couldn't. I just loved the sound of Sheila.

"Yeah. He should really leave me alone about mine, too." Duke suggested, petting his greasy hair and making a stupid pouty face.

"You're a grown man, stop embarassing yourself." I said coldly. He replaced the pout with anger, but before he could say anything, I said, "There are more important things to talk about. What is my power, and I swear to God I will kill whoever interrupts us this time."

He sighed. "You're a Shadow Dweller."

"Yeah, I know that. What do I do? How do I use it?" I wanted to slap him.

"You can't really call upon it and use it on demand."  I pulled my hair and growled and sat on the ground, trying to control my anger. Sounding urgent, Duke corrected himself: "Well - Wait! Don't get angry. You can do it, but it takes tons of practice."

"Well what use is that?" I got up and started pacing, biting my lip in concentration. "Why was Kris given probably the most useful power we could ever recieve to defeat the Masked Lord, but I was given a completely useless mood swing disorder?"

Anne laughed, and quickly covered her mouth at the sight of my glare. When I looked away, I could hear her faint giggles.

"What can I do with this power once I train it?" I asked.

Duke sighed. "It's used for evil, and will destroy you a little bit more everytime you use it."

"I don't care how broken I am, the only thing I care about is keeping Kris alive." I growled.

Duke's eyes widened. "How can you be so sure that Kris will be the-"

"Oh don't even play that stupid game!" I yelled. "Kris is better than me, okay? He can freeze time, for God's sake. The next time we see the Masked Lord, he can freeze the time, run up to him, and just.. Murder him on the spot."

"You can make people kill themselves, Violet."

My eyes widened as I looked at Duke, unsure if I heard him right. "What?"

"You look at them when you're angry, and they reflect on every bad thing that's ever happened to them. Any feeling or sign of hope or happiness disappears. It's like diving into a deep depression, no warning, no escape, all pain." I didn't know Duke could speak with such intelligence, he kept going. "They beg for death. If you don't do it, they do. I've seen it a couple times, but only once did the man escape alive. The Shadow Dweller died. It's their only weakness - like a bully when their victim is no longer affected by their insults, their beatings."

"Great." I threw my hands up in the air and sat on my bed, resting my head in my hands. "Just great. I'm supposed to be saving people - but instead I just make them KILL THEMSELVES!"

"Your Soul Energy is dangerously low right now," Duke said.

"How can you tell?"

"Your eyes are almost black."

"Oh."

"Oh," Anne mocked. "Oh! 'You're going to die.' 'Oh.' That's all you have to say? Oh?"

"Anne!" Duke hissed.

"What?" I panicked. "I'm going to die?"

"No, no, no." Duke glared at Anne, but she was behind me so I couldn't see her reaction. 

"So how do you know all this?" I asked curiously.

"You see scary things when you're with the Unknown."

"The who?"

"The Unknown. The group I was apart of before I met you kids in that pub." He explained.

I tried to recall the memory of the dirty pub and the greasy man sitting at a table in the corner. I began to picture an old hotel room and me bringing a blanket to cover up the man - to cover up Duke. Then, I remembered why we took him in in the first place.

I gasped. "The Scrolls!"