Fate's Demand (Twisted Fate, Book 3)

Chapter Thirty-Seven

I woke with unshed tears in my eyes and sobs that had become lodged in my throat while I slept.

The thousands of questions running through my mind stalled my reaction. Was it real? Was an hour here like a day there? Why hadn't anyone told me? Did they think I'd never know?

Sitting straight up in my chair, I stretched the kinks from my back, groaning as it cracked. As I brought my arms down, I swiped the drool from my mouth and turned my head to look around, hoping that nobody had noticed. It was so hard to keep my movements calm when all I wanted to do was run out and scream at the Brothers.

What was I supposed to do now?

If people in charge ever hashed out their problems, it wasn't in public.

Glancing around the room, I realized I'd slept through the students efforts and the library was abandoned. Either the librarian was too far away or too polite if I did. Not once did she lecture me about falling asleep on ancient texts. Was that because of my status here? Or was she happy that so many people were coming to the library since I arrived? More than likely, she knew the books were just that boring.

There was always the possibility that she didn't like me and kept her distance.

I stood, shoving my chair back, and its legs scraped the floor. The librarian didn't glance up. Was she deaf? With a shake of my head, I left, running through the halls back to my dorm as though leaving the library would discard the emotions from my dream.

Even hiding under my blankets on my bed, there was no escape.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I tried for an hour, finally deciding it was useless.

There wasn't going to be any sleep for me until I addressed this.

Shoving my blankets off, I wanted to run to Gabe and Mike for answers but knew I shouldn't until I could have a calm conversation. Instead, I dragged my tired body and sluggish mind into the bathroom and started the taps so that I could jump into a cold shower. Warmth was comfort where cold brought clarity, an alertness that I needed to be able to piece together my confusion into something that made sense.

By the time I was showered and dressed, it was still too early to find anyone unless I wanted to burst into bedrooms and yell, "Surprise!" Usually, that idea would hold appeal, especially if I managed to shock Gabe or Mike. I knew that it would lead to distractions and I couldn't allow for that to happen. Not about this. I wandered to the cafeteria instead, grabbed a carafe of coffee and a snack, and returned to the bleakness of my dorm room.

Setting everything down, I sat at the desk and pulled the pens and paper Gabe had given me from their drawer. Blank and full of ink, neither had been used, tucked out of sight and forgotten until now. It was good, though. I was going to use every page trying to tally their omissions and how they tied back to me. The only problem was that I had to figure out what I did know in order to find what they'd neglected to share. So, I completed the calculations which told me how long I'd really been away from home, if what Deryk said was true.

*****

Waiting until just after the start of classes allowed me to avoid running into anyone expecting conversation. Raffy was teaching, so I knew that he wouldn't be able to make an already bad day worse. I returned the empty carafe to the cafeteria and grabbed a fresh cup of coffee in a Styrofoam cup, thankful that its plastic lid kept it from sloshing over to burn my hands as I rushed through the halls.

Hoping to catch Gabe at the start of his day, I stopped at the door to the administrator's office. After calculating the hours into days, I had found the date I'd seen on the newspaper to be exact. Now, I wanted answers. I still believed that Darkness had manipulated the dream to an extent, but Deryk was right. Even if he'd taken thousands of photos and stalked me, there was no way would he have had enough details to fabricate it with that much accuracy.