Timeless

Chapter Fourteen

Sorry guys this took forever

School has been really busy, but it's out now, so I can hopefully finish this over the summer

Also I procrastinate way too much

But, I have a plot, and there are going to be four more chapters

I don't really know about a sequel, I'll just see where this goes

Again, sorry about the wait

~~~~~

Jasper's POV

"What?" My heart practically stopped. He had done this. That's why he calls it the Time Orb. He was the one that made up the name in the first place. He let me steal it. It was his plan all along.

How had I been fooled so easily? Randomly finding a magic ball of time isn't normal. It never should have happened. And it was all my fault.

"It was you?" Natalie asked, her voice full of suppressed anger. "You did this?"

He took a step toward us, and we all instinctively moved backward. "Are you afraid of me?"

"Well, seeing as you tricked us into traveling across time, caused us pain, and now put us into a cell with no idea how to get out, yes." Alex's voice was hard, her brown eyes calculating.

Desperately trying to cover up my panic, I said, "She's got a point. It's either that, or we're just really gullible."

Honestly, it's both.

The man laughed. And, oh man he shouldn't have. It sounded unnatural, like it was just barely not forced. Like a knife scraping ice, it made us all cringe and lean back. I wanted out of the cell. Any other one would do, any one that didn't have him in it.

Now he was standing in the middle of the cell, and we were as far away from him as we could be. But that still wasn't far enough.

I could never be far enough away from him. I shuddered, and looked him up and down. He wore a heap of different discolored rags, which made it impossible to tell where his shirt ended and his pants began.

Maybe it's just a really long shirt.

"Why?" Natalie's voice shook slightly. "Why did you give it to us if you knew it would cause this much trouble?"

"If I told you, you would never understand the reasons for my actions." Then he turned to stare Alex straight in the eye. "It's me. You know me."

Her eyes narrowed. "No, I don't."

He rolled his eyes and pulled the hood (when had he gotten a hood??) of his clothes over his head. It made the fabric seem darker, more sinister.

"I was there, that night, years and years ago."

"How would I remember something from that long ago?" Alex asked doubtfully.

"Because that was the night your parents died." He continued, ignoring the sharp intake of breath from the girl. "That night, I saw a sort of resistance in you. The way you ran, and the fact that you wanted to stay and help your parents fight us. The way you knew you were too small to be much of a help, but wanted to help anyway. When I watched you follow your parent's instructions that night, I knew that you would be a good person to use for this. You didn't doubt their judgment, and you knew that they wouldn't win that fight. But you ran anyway. It took be forever to find you again, and when I finally did, you had those two with you." He pointed to Nat and me.

We can knock him out while he's monologuing. I wanted to say something, but he continued.

"When I watched the way you three worked with each other, I realized that I had found the perfect people to manipulate. You all had the exact traits that I needed, and you fit my needs to the mark. It was amazing how you fell for it, actually. I almost expected you to be smarter, but-"

"Shut up. Just- just- shut up."

I turned to my right in surprise. Alex usually didn't speak this forcefully about anything. Her hands were clenched into fists so tight, her knuckles were white. And they were shaking.

"It was you? You were one of the ones that killed them?" Her voice wavered.

"Actually, I was the one that killed them." He spread his arms, as if waiting for applause. He didn't get any. "The others were just there to make sure no one saw us. You were supposed to die too, actually, but I liked you. And I'm glad I didn't. You three were easier to play with than putty."

I stepped forward. "No. Don't say that." An anger was building up inside me. I pushed the pain from my head to the side. There were more important things to deal with right now than my own needs. For one: Alex. It was obvious that she was shaken up. And now I vowed that this guy wouldn't even touch her. Not in a million years.

I was actually surprised about this, though. Alex never spoke much about her parents, we just knew that they died by way of magic. And that's why she possessed such a strong hatred for it.

Nat seemed to be thinking the same thing. She stood a bit closer to Alex's right side.

"Jasper's right. You don't have a right to say that."

He shrugged. "I'm only stating my opinion-"

"No. You're doing more than that. So much more," Natalie argued.

A small light in the corner of my eye caught my attention. At first I thought I was blacking out. My head can't be that bad, can it? But Alex's fingertips were glowing. Just like they had in the alleyway. The glow spread to her palm.

"Oh." The man was staring at her hands, a sort of happiness in his eyes. If you could even call it 'happiness.' "Well. Let's not get like that, now-"

"No. You don't get to tell me what to do." Alex looked up from the place where her eyes had fixated on the floor of the cell. The edges of her eyes around the pupil were glowing. "You don't get to tell me anything." She thrust one hand out, and a tendril of white magic wrapped around his neck, curling over his mouth and nose. He seemed to be suffocating.

And the thing was, me had no incentive to help him. No part of me wanted to tell Alex to stop. I knew should. The man was choking now, grasping at the light. His hands fell right through it. His face was taking on a bluish tinge, and where the magic was touching his face and neck was starting to blister and burn.

"Alex." Nat reached out her hand and took Alex's own in hers. Alex seemed to be snapped out of a trance, and the magic fell away, retreating back into her palms. The man fell to the ground, touching his neck and wheezing, pulling air into his lunges as fast as he could. When he could talk, he did. Which was a really bad idea, as he would soon find out.

"Oh. Oh! You- you're good." He grinned. "Just as I expected."

The glow returned to Alex's hands, but before anything could happen, two guards came up to the cell.

"That's enough," the first one said. "We're letting you three out."

They unlocked the cell and brought the trio out. As they left, the man said one more thing.

"I wasn't the only one that helped kill them, though! The Octet Court did too."

~~~~~

Alex: why do you torture me like this

Me: im so sorry it was a last minute thought

Alex: literally why though

Jasper: i guess SOMETHING needed to happen

Nat: yeah...

Alex: YOU AREN'T SUPPOSED TO AGREE WITH HER

Me: i promise there won't be any more cells

Jasper: oh finally

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