ShadowSong [Book 1 & 2: Complete] [NaNoWriMo16/17]

Chapter 25 - Back and Forth

Olivia woke up the next morning to the buzzing of her Liaiser's alarm.

She reached over and turned it off, stretching her arms up as she hummed to herself. "Morning, Viriiii!"

"Morning, Olivia! How are you feeling?"

Olivia lifted up her sleeping shirt and trailed her fingers over the Shimmer's wound. There wasn't much of it left now. It looked more or less like a regular bruise, even if the placing was a little weird. "Great! Saved the city last night from not one but two Manifested, completed an offering task, captured Ella's fragment and you damn well know I'm ready for whatever comes today!"

"Perky as always," giggled Viri, zipping over to land on Olivia's shoulder.

Olivia went through her morning routine with the exception of breakfast fairly quickly, working her way up to the task she was dreading. Clothes went on. Her not-quite-fitting glasses were checked. Breakfast was her reward, she told herself, and food was a pretty good motivation.

Eventually, it was the only thing left, and she stood, staring at her drawer with a pit of dread settled in her stomach.

"It's not going to change if you leave it, Olivia," said Viri, sitting above the drawer. "Would you like me to look?"

"Nope," said Olivia, taking a deep breath. "I can do it. Better hurry up to or I don't get to eat before Jason drags me out of the house to go temple-ing."

She put her fingers on the handle and not giving herself a chance to think about it, pulled.

She'd be the first one to admit she was lazy with sorting her medication. She was supposed to put them in this container that had a separate section for every day but usually she just took one from the bottle each day. One bottle lasted about a month, but she couldn't remember the last time she'd got a new one. Her mum usually remembered that for her. Olivia hadn't had to worry.

But now, she needed to know how many days left she had.

Reluctant fingers took them out one by one, placing them in their separate sections. With every day, the bottle got a little lighter, the shaking a little quieter, and when the last one came out, the urge to cry hit her a little harder than she'd been expecting.

Olivia wiped her face and forced herself to count them out. If she continued taking one a day like she was supposed to, her last one would be two days before the rollerblading competition, which wasn't ideal. She could skip a few days in the middle to extend it out, but with the Ella situation, she couldn't risk a bad seizure. It was already going to be hard enough to get away from Jason when she needed to, let alone if Ariel and everyone else was watching her every second of the day like they used to.

With a sigh, Olivia took today's pill and downed it with some water. She was just going to have to risk the competition and hope that her brain didn't decide to screw her over.

Breakfast was lively. Her parents bombarded her with the questions they'd obviously wanted to ask yesterday. What she'd been doing, had she seen Ariel, did she enjoy it? Olivia answered as best as she could, but when her mother asked a question Olivia had been hoping not to hear, she nearly shrank back into her seat.

"What's Jason like?"

"He's okay," said Olivia. "He was pretty nice, actually. He picked me up in the storm yesterday when I got caught in it on my way there, but I kind of screwed up and I'm pretty sure he hates me now."

Her parents looked at each other. "What happened?"

Olivia shrugged, realising it'd be hard to explain to them the real reason. "I was supposed to do something and I kinda let him down a bit after he stuck his neck out for me to his mum."