A Pocket Full of Posies (Book 3)

Chapter Three

"But you feel okay? You don't feel unwell? No issues with your normal sight?"

I respond to Kato with a shrug. I'm not going blind, if that's what she's worried about. I get the feeling a shrug might have been too nonchalant of a response because at least three people roll their eyes. I surround myself with too many eye rollers, I swear. Kato sighs, then turns back to Chiku, and snaps something in a language I don't understand. Chiku bats at the air, then huffs herself out of the living room.

Turns out the drink wasn't just orange squash. It was orange and mango. Infused with a mixture of other ingredients blended together in a way that renders my abilities dumb and deaf, albeit temporarily. She technically drugged me, but no need to get caught up in the small details. Anyway, aren't potions and shit meant to taste gross? I'd happily down a gallon of what Chiku gave me.

"She was just trying to help, Mum," Ava says from the sofa, "She didn't know Felix's tolerance levels were so low."

Is that an insult? I feel insulted.

"Ava, darling, that's the problem." There's an unmistakable sense of tension in Kato's voice as she speaks, showing a side of her I didn't know existed. "It was careless."

Chiku's intention was to give me a dose strong enough to faze out the banished voices, but weak enough to not remove the rest of my abilities in the process. I think it's fair to say her concoction needs some work. Either that, or I need to stop being such a sensitive little twat. I get the feeling there's not much I can do about that, though. If it didn't mean Annabel was left stranded, I'd happily stay in this state forever. Get me that orange and mango shit on tap.

"Mate, it's actual jokes that you drank it," Tom says with a laugh. "That's, like, my level dumb. Even dumber maybe."

"I don't know why Connor went to all that trouble," Jamie says, joining in on the attack. "He might as well have put an ad in the paper requesting anyone who sees dead people to pop around to his abandoned house in the middle of nowhere, and you would've come running."

"No one reads newspapers anymore, dickshit," I hit back.

"Yes, that's what you should take from what I just said."

"Boys!" Kato snaps.

She seems stressed. Is she stressed?

"The banished voices--they're definitely gone?" Kato asks, turning back to me.

I nod. "Turns out I might not be crazy, after all," I say, staring at my friends without an ounce of subtlety.

Take that, arseholes.

"We didn't--I didn't mean, like--"

"Eh, I'm just trying to make you feel awkward. I don't care. Hell, I agree," I wave my hand at Tom.

For the first time since I met her, Ava's posture is coy, her eyes refusing to meet mine as she sits on the sofa below me in silence. Damn it, now I feel bad. She was the lesser arsehole of them all, bar Carmen.

Kato takes my rare functioning state as a chance to get into the nitty gritty of everything. I revealed the basics of what had happened with Connor, and what I'd remembered about my past back in hospital, but nothing in any crazy detail. Everyone's in agreeance that now the hospital's painkillers are fully out of my system, the floodgates have been well and truly opened for the banished to hound me, hence yesterday's meltdown. Kato's not so sure about the blessing daze's jarring effects, but thinks it might be a case of me generally feeling overwhelmed at the moment. Can't exactly argue against that.

When Kato asks me what I think Connor's next steps will be, I respond by sort of just staring blankly at her. I don't know. Find me, I guess. His thought process isn't something I understand, nor want to understand. He surely can't think I'll ever get on board with his plan now, can he? As far as I know, he has no idea I've got my memory back, but even then, it should be pretty obvious I'm not down for the Armageddon shit he's trying to pull. What that means for me, I don't know. I'm not sure I want to know. I just wish it was simple.