Children of the Elements: Prey to Him

Chapter Five: Friends to the Rescue

Chapter Five: Friends to the Rescue

Georgea sighed in irritation and rubbed her head as Nathan’s escape sunk in. Eva glanced at Ash. She had something to do with it: Eva could feel it. The way she came bursting in and gathered them in the living room so eagerly, even shutting the doors; there was something off.

Wanting to clear herself of Chris’s warpath, she turned properly to Ash. “Did you help him?”

Ash’s eyes glinted, a stroke of worry crossing them, but she shook her head. “No! I was talking to him normally, and then I came down here to tell you what he said! I thought you’d want to know.” She folded her arms. “Maybe I shouldn’t have.”

“It’s fine,” Chris muttered angrily, now staring at the door. “It’s not your fault.”

Eva still wasn’t convinced with her story, but she said nothing more for the minute. Instead, she turned to Georgea. “We should go and get him.”

Surprisingly, she shook her head. “No. If he’s so convinced that he wants to go outside and get himself killed, that’s his own problem. We’ve tried to help him, but clearly he doesn’t want help.”

“If he’s running from Craig, then we’re all in trouble” Chris stated definitively. “We should find him before Craig does.”

Eva glanced at Ash again. She was staring at the floor, not participating in the conversation. “What do you think, Ash?” She purposefully asked the question loudly so that the other two could hear.

Ash looked up again, casting her gaze across the three of them staring at her. “I think you should leave him to whatever he wants to do. It’s him who’ll pay for it, right?”

Eva turned her gaze to Chris, who now looked half way between angry and confused. She continued talking to Ash even as she studied him. “But weren’t you the one who confronted him for leaving for no reason?” She turned back to Ash, who was now looking a little anxious. “Because you didn’t want him in danger. Why have you suddenly changed your mind?”

Ash stuttered. “I- I haven’t. I just think that it’s his own -”

“Why are you suddenly sticking up for him?” Eva’s final question managed to break the other two into her suspicion of Ash.

“You’ve been very upset for a while now because he hasn’t told you what he’s been doing. You can’t just suddenly decide that it’s OK now,” Georgea inputted, though her voice was very gentle compared to Eva’s and Chris’s.

“You helped him, didn’t you?” Ash turned to look at Chris standing half way up the stairs at his comment. Eva tried to push down her satisfaction that she’d caught Ash’s plan out.

Ash cracked. “You can’t just keep him under house arrest here! That’s basically like being a prisoner in his own home, and I don’t know about you lot, but I’d much prefer it if he’s actually happy about staying here rather than angry at us all the time.”

“But you let him out! Didn’t you see his face?” Chris shouted. “He doesn’t have the fortune of immortality like you: he can die, Ash! What if he dies?”

Ash’s face turned red with anger, and her fists clenched as she began to shout back at him. “He won’t die: he’s not incapable like you seem to think he is! He doesn’t need you to protect him! And anyway, why the hell do you care? I thought you hated him a minute ago!”

Chris drew back a little. “I never hated him. He’s just irksome.”

“Then leave him alone!”