New Age

Chapter 17 ~ We Can't Leave! I Just Got Here!

Three days. That’s how long it took for them to find us again, I realise as I run to the car, bullets and stun rays missing me by inches. Lucas and Spencer are already in the car and I’m about to get in when I see something, Spencer’s looks at me, he’s scared and confused, what have I done to make him look at me like that? Then a bullet hitting the car next to my arm snaps me back to reality, I look to the closest Robo and shoot it and the couple behind it before getting in the car. As Lucas speeds away I hear a voice in my head saying to me that she will find me again, and she will find out who I am. What the hell? Who’s she? And who does she think I am? I think I’m going crazy. Then Lucas turns the corner and I can no longer see the Robo, they don’t come round the corner so I’m guessing they were called to cease their attack on us. Doesn’t matter that they’ve stopped now, they’ll only find us again.

I look down to the object in my hands and find my dad’s smiling face looking up at me. Didn’t you leave that behind? Yes I did, but Spencer had managed to grab it quickly.

“Hey Mika?” Spencer called to me as I went to go to my room for the night, I turned around and asked him what he wanted, he walked up to me and pulled something from behind his back, it was my photo frame. I was speechless, I was so upset at leaving it that I had blocked it out of my mind, and then Spencer was placing it into my hands.

“I figured you’d want this, he’s your dad isn’t he?” He had said to me softly as I looked at my father and I. I only nodded in response to Spencer; he then walked away, a massive smile on his face.

Now as I look at it, Lucas drives crazily down all different roads, but I’m not paying attention to where we’re going, Spencer looks back at me as he’s speaking to Lucas, I’m not listening to their conversation and even if I tried I wouldn’t be able to hear them over my own thoughts. The only way to stop my mind from going into some kind of shock, I decide to close my eyes and sleep it off.

“She was in that car Lucas, it was her, I swear.”

“It couldn’t have been Spence, do you know how silly you sound right now?”

“I know, I wouldn’t have believed it myself if I didn’t see it, but you have to trust me Lucas, it was definitely her and she was definitely there.”

“Spence, I wish I could believe you but I just can’t, I’m trying to but it’s really hard.”

“Well try harder.”

“Spencer, we’ve only known about her for a few days, we can’t make assumptions, didn’t you say the look on her face was unable to be translated into words?”

“It was, I couldn’t explain it in a word, even if I read a dictionary for the rest of my life.”

“Then maybe she was as shocked as you.”

“Or maybe she was bummed that I found out.”

“I thought you liked her, now you’re assuming she’s the bad guy?”

“I do like her, I love her Lucas, but I loved Juliette too, look where she is now.”

“Spencer, we don’t know if Juliette’s there, she could be dead.”

“Oh, because that’s better then being with them.”

“Only if she didn’t choose it,”

“But she did choose it! She chose to leave us Lucas, and that’s your fault!’

“Hey! I had no idea, I didn’t make that decision for her!”

“You so did, you practically took her up to their doorstep and said, here’s an emotional wreck, you handle her as I can’t be bothered!”

“Spencer! That’s not what happened at all! I loved Juliette too; I loved her as a sister! Do you think I would do that to family?

“Before all this I would’ve said that you were the most loyal man I had ever known, but now that she’s here you’ve changed and I don’t know what to think.”

“So it’s her fault is it? It’s her fault that I’ve become a monster to you?”

“Yes.”

“I came back after she had arrived Spence! I didn’t even know she would be here!

Are they talking about me?

“I know what I saw Lucas, it was her and she was in a Robo car!”

I’m super confused right now.

“I’m super confused right now.” Lucas, you copycat!

“And you think I’m not? My eyes weren’t messing up, I saw her.”

“Okay, okay, I believe you Spence, just rest now and I promise we’ll figure it all out.”

Spencer moans in response and rests his head against the inside of the car door. I look at Lucas who is concentrating do hard I think he’ll burst a few brain cells. He suddenly looks into the mirror and sees me watching him, he knows I heard the whole conversation and he sighs as he looks back at the road.

“Please excuse Spencer, he’s had a lot of big days and I think it’s getting to his head.”

“I don’t know who he saw and why he was talking about me like that.” I whisper, my voice raw from yelling.

“You don’t want to know.”

“I do now.”

“No. You don’t.” He looks up at me in the mirror with such authority in his eyes that I have to look down at the photo again to calm me down.

“Okay, I won’t ask him then.”

“Thank you, are you going to rest” He sighs, kindness once again in his voice.

“I just woke up, I’d like to stay awake for a while.” He nods at my response.

I look out the window and soon we pass a sign that confuses me and makes me panic.

“Um Lucas? I just saw a sign saying ‘au revoir, merci de visiter Paris’ do you know what that means Lucas? It means Goodbye, thanks for visiting Paris, we’re not leaving Paris are we?” I ramble; we can’t leave Paris. I just got here.

“We have to.”

“But we can’t! I just got here Lucas and I got shot in the leg by jumping The Border to come here!”

“You jumped The Border to get to Paris?”

“Yeah, I can’t leave, my daddy…” My voice trails off; unable to tell anyone of the promise I made my dad.

“We have to, Mika, they’ll find us quicker if we stay in Paris.” He’s got a point; I suppose I could always come back.

“So where are we going?” I give in.

“New York.” Back there? Great, just what I came to Paris for, to come back to New York! Not.

“I take it you’re not too happy about that?” Lucas says from the front.

“No.”

“Why? Did you live there?”

“No, I was trapped there.” That’s all I give him, and he seems to figure out I’m going to give him any more details so we sit in silence.

A few minutes later we cross over the only way into New York from Paris that’s not covered by The Border, I look back out the window to see the streets of Paris slowly retreat further and further away from us.

Goodbye Paris.