A Perfect World

Chapter 30

“Thank you, Aydin,” Dan says, hugging me tightly, the box hidden behind my back. I know what is inside of it. It’s an opaque, black stone resembling the night sky. Granted, I’m not sure why it’s so special, but Ty told me about it, so I went and found one. It was with a spell out of one of the books Chay had left in my car, but I still found it. After I hand Dan the stone, we move on to Matt’s gifts. We go through them quickly, and Matt gives me a set of 13 black-metal throwing knives, their handles wrapped in paracord of the same color as the triangular edge their blade. I have one in each magenta, pink, red, orange, yellow, green, teal, blue, indigo, violet, black, gray, and white. They rest in leather sheaths on a black, leather belt that I put on immediately. 

Jack hands out his haul next, gifting me a pair of boxing wraps as well. We’re all talented in hand-to-hand combat, but different forms, so it would make sense to be able to wrap our hands. It keeps our joints together and prevents injury from bones jarring together or other things that could go wrong with our hands and wrists. Matt and Claire wrap their wrists tightly, showing how they like to go for straight shots instead of hook shots, and giving a lot of support to his wrists. Jack and I wrap our wrists more loosely, allowing us more flexibility in our attacks. I can’t tell how Meg wrapped hers, but it seems to be a bit tighter as she spars with Matt, both of them attacking with beautiful motions and experienced swipes and dodges. As far as I can tell, neither of them have gotten hit too hard or too many times, but they’re both breathing heavily, their attacks slowing, but retaining their accuracy.

As we move on to Emory and Emma’s gifts they stop their fight, congratulating each other on their skill. They meet us by Venom and Stirling, Emma and Emory’s cars, and are given their presents first. Matt gets a thick novel from Emory, and a karambit similar to Claire’s, but a bit bigger, from Emma, tucking it into his pocket, then he goes back to sparring with Meg, Jack joining them a few seconds later when he got his gifts. A swiss army knife from Emory, and a hard-backed book from Emma, the title not visible to me. He puts it in his car, and joins the other two fighters, watching them, then taking Meg’s challenge after Matt gives up. Now sporting a new bruise on his left shoulder, visible under the edge of his t-shirt, his jacket abandoned on the ground.

We move on through people, Claire gifting me a beautiful, royal purple compound bow, complete with 40 arrows with indigo and purple fletching to make it faster when trying to nock the arrow, a purple leather quiver, and a target. I thank her and put the target in the back of my car, wrapping the quiver around my back and letting the bow rest alongside it. Jack gives me a box similar to the one I got Emma, full of random snacks I enjoy. I put on the floor on the passenger side of my car, meeting up with the other three with wrapped hands. Ty has joined us, his wrists wrapped tightly, and I see Dan wrapping his hands as well, his wrists loose. I volunteer to take on the winner of the Meg/Jack fight and quickly realize I’m fighting a losing battle when Meg is the winner. She beat both Matt and Jack without breaking a sweat, but I’m sure I can beat her. First, I let her think she’s winning, giving her free shots at my sides and arms, but use up as little energy as possible. I see Matt whisper something to Jack, them to Dan, and both of them look at me with a sort of clever girl smile. Apparently, Matt had caught on to what I was doing. Once she’s running low on steam I take up a better fight, using my stored up energy to take easy shots on her. She eventually gives up and we congratulate each other on a well-fought round.

Claire steps up next, and I keep my confident mindset, watching for even the slightest weakness in her stance, or anything else. I can’t find one, so I use my other available weapon, my feet. I drop to the ground, bracing myself on one hand, and  kick the back of her knee, knocking her off balance for a second, and giving me more than enough time to kick her off balance the rest of the way. She collapses to the ground, pulling herself back up in a second, but now limping slightly on her right foot. Now with a solid weakness, I hang around on her right, knowing she can’t put much weight on it. I shift to her left, landing a solid hit on the side of her shoulder. She fights hard for a while longer before I pin her to the ground, her hands under my knees and her feet unable to reach me.

“Good fight, Sea,” I say, stepping up and pulling her to her feet. Ty meets her walking with her to where she hands out her gifts.

Dan steps up, and I’m curious as to how he fights since I haven’t seen him in action yet. Even in juvie I never really saw him fight since he mostly hung behind me, trying to keep me from hurting anyone too badly. He takes a very direct, powerful approach, but falls quickly to my well-trained stamina. Or so I think. As I begin losing steam he seems to gain it, feeding off of my weakness. I step around him, mostly just evading attacks until I gain some energy back. I still hang back on attacks, trying to wear him out. That never happens though, since we get called back once all of our gifts have been given. We congratulate each other, now having become how we end fights, and he kisses me on the cheek, a gesture that I return affectionately.

I unwrap my hands, set the wraps in their box, pull my bow and quiver over my head and set them in the back of my car, laying my throwing knives and the belt alongside it. There’s a pair of jet-black karambits, and a few boxes made of various materials, and with various dimensions, one containing books, likely from Matt. We walk inside together, and I catch Meg picking up Jay’s books with little difficulty from beside her, setting it in the back of their car, and walking into the inn together after us.

We race up the stairs and down the hall, my throat and lungs burning as I pull past Claire and Dan to slam into the girls’ room door first. I unlock it, leaving the door open for the others, and collapse on the couch, out of breath and sore from our fights today. When I feel like I can move again, I chug a few cups of water, then got to work researching The Souls on my computer. The others walk in, get food and drinks, then follow my example. It’s strangely calm and quiet after everything outside, from Markus trying to mug us, to our friendly battle of skill with our boxing wraps that everyone at least one pair of. For hours we study in silence, well into the afternoon, until people start getting restless.

I close my laptop and set it on the couch where I had been sitting, and go to prepare some lunch. I grab three packages of chow-mein noodles from the pantry, and three boxes of chicken broth, as well as the ground ginger from the cupboard and soy sauce from the fridge. It doesn’t take very long to make, only about 7 minutes, but that is an annoyingly long time to a hungry teenager. I boil the noodles for a few minutes, hunting through the cupboards for anything I missed in the meantime. I don’t find anything, but I do manage to locate a strainer for the noodles. I dump the hot water and noodles into the strainer, rinsing them off well, then pour the chicken broth into the pot, followed by a few teaspoons of ginger, and 9 tablespoons of soy sauce.

“Oi! You guys hungry?” I shout, grabbing 11 paper bowls out of one of the cupboards, as well as spoons and forks, before putting some noodles in each bowl, then top it off with a generous amount of broth. We talk about our research as we eat, but nobody seems to have found much of any help to us. Meg and Jay eat quietly in the corner, neither making an effort to engage in the conversation. I take note of where everyone chose to sit. Emory and Jack sit close by, Matt and Emma sitting much closer together. Claire sits curiously close to Ty, a rainbow mark visible on the back of his neck, mostly hidden by his collar. Meg and Jay have rainbow marks on their palms and around the backs of their hands, running between their fingers. Jack’s mark is fully visible, but I can’t find Emory’s, likely hidden under her black, leather jacket. Jake’s mark is still black, not to any surprise. Honestly, I’m surprised so many of us have activated Turning-Point Marks.

Dan’s mark in invisible to me, and mine, the mark on the left side of my stomach, is hidden under my shirt, most likely still dark. As I look around the room, studying everyone, I think to myself, This is it. We’re never going to be normal again.

After a few seconds, I silently add, But that may not be a bad thing. In fact, I think I’m okay with that. Shifting closer to Dan and leaning against him on the bed, at peace with the chaos of life.

I’m looking forward to where we go.

As long as we all make it through this. I’ll make sure of that.

At peace with the fact that I couldn’t have changed what happened on November 1, 2018.