The Fallen Goddess

Out West

The next city we make it to is Soda Springs, Idaho. It is now midday, technically, but it's leaning closer towards evening. And nothing has changed.

Koreena and I are still not talking, and the day has, once again, been silent. Only when the sky darkens into a dark blue, signifying the end of another day, do I agree to go to a hotel.

We go to the one nearest us, being dropped off there by our cab driver. He says the name but it doesn't register in my brain; it's not important enough.

We get a room and we go there. I don't intend for it to be a hard process, I just want to sleep properly and then wake up and keep moving. But as soon as the door to the room is shut, Koreena starts talking.

"Blake, I'm sorry. I know that I hurt you but I didn't mean to. I never meant to; I never wanted to. But you made it clear that you were worried about me, and I just couldn't stand to let you suffer on my behalf. I guess it didn't work so well," she adds the last part in after a moment with a harsh, humorless laugh.

"So now it's my fault?" I whisper with a calmer tone than I thought I would express.

Koreena looks horrified at my words. "No!" She exclaims. "No, that's not what I-"

"Yeah, well it's what you said."

"Blake, I didn't want this to happen. I overreacted, and there's no excuse for what I did, even if it only lasted a short amount of time."

She's crying now, and honestly, I would have expected her to be angry, not... sad. But I still don't give in to the temptation to tell that I'm not angry. I have to remind myself what she did.

"Yeah, you're right," I spit out, finding that with every word it becomes easier to resist. "There isn't an excuse. You made a dumb mistake that you can't fix. Let me make myself perfectly clear: I was worried for you, but it didn't harm me. You did. You harmed me. This, all this, is your fault!"

I'm yelling at the top of my lungs by the time that I finish speaking, and now I'm fuming. I gesture around the hotel room, in air, wherever, to make her see that I mean that everything is her fault: both of us being hurt, me being stuck here, having to travel like this, and her having to drain herself of life every few days.

I think she understands.

I stand there, glaring at her, biting my tongue to keep from going on. She is standing opposite me, arms at her sides, tears sliding down her face.

I am the first one to turn away; I go to the bathroom and slam the door, locking myself in.

I hear her rush over to the door, I hear her try the handle.

"Blake," she whispers through the door, though I pretend I don't hear. "Please."

I do nothing, and soon she walks away, but I can hear her sniffles and gasps that mean she's attempting to stifle her crying: it isn't working.

I stay in the bathroom well into the night, until I no longer hear her crying and instead hear deep, even breathing.

I slump against the door from where I was standing and listening a second ago. I'm so stupid. I'm being childish and dramatic and I wish more than anything that this had never happened.

I sit there and take a deep breath, rubbing my eyes. When I finally decide that it's safe to come out, I stand up and unlock the door. I see Koreena's form slumped unceremoniously onto her bed, and I can't help but smile.

But then I hate myself for finding any humor in her pain.

I go over to my bed and slump into it in the same manner as Koreena, hoping that if she wakes before I do, she might realize that I am also feeling pain.

I wake up next morning to find Koreena gone. Thinking that she's just gone because she needs some space or air or something, I don't panic.

I take a long, hot shower, I get dressed, and I do everything that is available to me to make myself look like a decent human being. Even after all that, however, Koreena is still not back.

I start to worry, wondering if any of her siblings have caught up to her and hurt her. I frantically start thinking about what I should do, how I should help her, but then I remember that whenever her siblings came after her, the never left me alone. Why would they do that now?

I start to calm down, and my heartbeat returns to normal. I deduce that I'll just have to wait for her, and since we are running low on money, I decide to go look for any opportunities to make more.

It's a pretty big city, so by the time I return around two o'clock, I have made nearly six hundred dollars from helping people throughout the city.

I'm excited by my haul, but the excitement goes quickly when I go back to the room and Koreena still isn't there.

I hurriedly stash away the money in my pocket, not having anyplace better to hide it, and reopen the hotel room door, ready to go and search for Koreena.

I don't expect to open the door and her standing before me.

She pushes me inside the room and shuts the door, clearly not caring that she just made physical contact with me.

"Blake, I know you hate me, but please just listen. I was out looking for jobs, and in a big crowd on a sidewalk, I saw my brother. He smiled and mouthed 'I know where you're going'. We have to leave now, we can't go to California."

"How do you know that he didn't mean China?" I question, becoming frantic but still wanting to be assured.

"He's very stuck in the old ways and he never would have thought of hover boards when trying to complete the riddle," she says, trying to pull me towards the door.

"What about the other part of the riddle? How do you know he didn't find out how to make others who know it talk?"

Koreena looks at me with profound fear in her eyes, but determination on her face. "I don't, but we have to go."

Now I let her pull me. Together, we basically run from  our room to the front desk I. The lobby. We check out as fast as we can, and then we rush outside. Making sure no one is watching, Koreena places her hand on my arm.

"This is further than I've ever been able to teleport in this state. We- we may not make it. I may not make it," Koreena whispers.

"I'm all in, Koreena." I tell her firmly, and with a sigh that releases some of her stiffness, we are both whisked away.