Lainey and the Magicians (First Draft)

Chapter 19

 The identity of the New Shadow Rider and their face fizzed about in Lainey's mind. This person had been one dear to her that obviously wasn't Emerald, or this could have been a part of a mental game to break Lainey's psyche since Magicians could mask their appearances. What if Piopold was a part of this mental game? What if Nathan was inside this game? She thought of the Grace from the past, Christopher Tom, Nathan, Chard, David, and even Codebreaker. What were they doing at this hour? Also, what was the present Grace doing at this hour? She squinted her eyes to read the moon outside.

 It was 3:39 AM. She hadn't slept well. Her covers had been tossed aside onto the ground, and some of the covers were slightly pulled up on the bed to signify the internal war that was waging inside her head. The toughest wars were internal wars. Some faceless person pointing a gun or a sword at you required no actual contemplation of what you were fighting, but psychological wars required contemplation. Who were the two people she had met before Pumpkin and Emerald had shown up? Why had Pumpkin and Emerald showed up? Who was the Lady? Why hadn't she done anything? Lainey was inside a microcosm when she had been around Emerald, but who were the other two men who had stopped them at the bridge? 

 Casey and Fredrick, Lainey's mind buzzed. Those names held close to her heart, and they had been two of her best friends when she needed them most. She had met them when she was inside the Magician Academy in Salt, Arizona, that she had been teleported or had walked to every day. Teleportation to one of the Magician Academy locations was rare since some Anti-Magicians could track down certain magic usage, and it wasn't worth figuring out the location of some of the recruits so the Anti-Magicians could intercept them. 

 Also, Fredrick couldn't stay in Arizona for the whole year since he would have to be back in West Jopiline with his hippie commune that was run by his uncle who ran a music shop. On the other hand, Casey could stay in Salt, Arizona, for the whole year and he lived in Salt all the time. This small-town blend of Salt had a few thousand people in it, but it only had a few roads & backroads. The main attraction of Salt was the big mansion that Lainey lived in with all its courtyards, and the mansion was a typical place where people went to for parties. When Lainey and her twin sister Stella were both five years old, they had a party at the mansion and everyone in town came. Lainey stepped to pick up the covers as she wandered about the room. Casey and Fredrick weren't very inept at being her friends in most ways. Like Lainey, they tried their best to all be good friends and it was easy to do especially when Fredrick had the Peace Sign and a flower pendant around his neck.

 Ever since she had left the Magicians and the Jewels, she'd cut off all contact with everyone she knew except for her manager, her makeup artist, and some of the other people that she was connected with in the music industry. There was no point in talking to Stella and her parents since they had been-well she wouldn't think about it. She'd scrounged about in Salt for a few months without any Magician activity plaguing her personally, but she must have been watched. If so, was she being watched now? They cared about her still. Shadow Rider had attacked her and Codebreaker, but Emerald said that they were testing her by what they were doing.

 Lainey hugged her arms to her chest. Did her giving into her Rider powers lead to Emerald and Pumpkin being able to haunt her dreams or was it stress? Why had they let her scrounge about on her own? Was she protected by other forces? Pumpkin had drained Lainey's bank account. Most of the funds were from robberies and had been stored up in Minapon run banks which accepted fraud money as a deposit. Also, why had the Lady mysteriously disappeared? If she was real, did she have to go somewhere else? Lainey kept looking in the mirror at herself.

 She peered down at her outfit she'd picked last night to sleep in. She was in PJs and her fingers felt that her hair was pulled up into a ponytail. She wanted to feel like a young child again and wished she was, wrapped in her mother's arms as she read chapter books to her every night before she would go to sleep if she could find time for it. Lainey loved when her mother would read to her. She never knew what book her mother would pick to read each night. At first, it would be picture books and as Lainey got older, her mother would choose chapter books like the Magic Tree House & the Boxcar Children to read to her each night until they finished the selected book. A servant would read to her sister Stella at night, but her mother began to incorporate Stella into a family reading time so everyone would be included in reading activities.

 Lainey snapped herself out of the memories. For the moment, it was about not staying up all night in her room taking no steps to get to Mars. Casey. Fredrick. David. Emerald. Pumpkin. Codebreaker. Chard. Nathan. All these names were a tide inside her mind and they pounded back and forth like the ocean during a storm. She looked outside to the moon. It was 3:41, and her clothes weren't satisfactory enough to go to the moon in the freezing chill. David was rich enough to have a security system, and her room was on the first floor. Was David testing her too? Where was David? Was he following leads about his daughter, Jolene, or had he returned from that mission? A thought popped into Lainey's mind. Jolene. She had gone missing at journalism college after joining a Magician group, but Lainey didn't know if Jolene had gone willingly to the Magicians. Also, Magicians had infiltrated journalism and they had infiltrated the news stations. "Magicians, we're everywhere," Lainey muttered quietly to herself where nobody could hear except for herself.

 What if something was inside her? What if the Magicians were monitoring her? A voice sound wave could lead to the Magicians figuring out a location just by reading the sound waves and connecting the sound waves to other known data about the area. Could David's security people hear her? It was quieter than a whisper. This mansion had walls surrounding it, for crying out loud, and then had advanced weapons placed throughout the entire house. Ever since she had gotten the tour, she knew the whole place except for the secret passageways she'd discovered that were off limits.

 This mansion had 4 floors. It also had a massive stronghold on the third floor where a hero named Paractive slept in a radioactive chamber. How did David get rich enough to buy a radioactive chamber for a radioactive hero to sleep in without being disturbed? Chard slept on the first floor close to where she slept, but his room was private from everyone else's rooms. Codebreaker slept in a room that he added downstairs, and he had a technologically advanced cave jutting right out of the stairs that he used for many different things. A girl named Kylie slept downstairs close to where David sometimes slept. Was she a relative of David? She had darker skin than he did, so it still could have been possible that she was related to David, but their features resembled each other.

 In the Magician's life, Lainey would sometimes sleep in similar houses to this. Close to Jopiline, there was a Spanish-Italian house that Emerald and Xrious conducted meetings in. She'd forgotten exactly where the house was. Lainey walked close to the window in her PJs.

 Her hand reached up against the window. She hesitated. She thought of David's security system, Jolene, and about some of the events of the dream. She didn't want to think about the dream. She walked to the other side of her room. This place was highly secured with walls and she bet there was a security team that monitored all the camera feeds. Hadn't these people ever heard of privacy? Betting on a security team didn't mean that there was one, but there had to be. David was prepared for anything. In a corner close to the mirror, there was a laptop and Lainey grabbed it. On her bunk bed, she slid the laptop onto her lap.

 She opened it. There was a note stuck inside.

 Information you need is on this.

 Your new friend