Changing Prudence (EDITING - ON HOLD)

Chapter 15

A firm hand grasped her arm, she tried to free herself to get to Beck who could very possibly be in danger. The hand didn’t budge; it was clamped to her wrist like a lump of stone. She turned around and saw a flash of grey stone around her wrist for a flash of a second before turning into skin.

‘What the heck did you do to my hand?’ Rue looked up to see Beck’s shocked face staring down at his hand.

‘What? You… I could hear your voice, you were screaming and Cole was shouting at you… you were in danger, and I was getting closer.’ She slumped back against the wet wall of the cave. She was starting to get a migraine.

‘Come on, we really should get out of here, you don’t look too good.’ But Beck’s words sounded slurred to Rue, the walls were starting to blur, she could no longer make out which Beck was real.

- - - - - - - - -

Beck carried the terrified, frail looking girl out of the cave. He wondered what it was that had caused her to run back into the cave with a look of utter horror on her face. She had seemed really confused when he finally caught up to her. She was right, she was a fast runner. Cole and Rue had gone ahead back to the dorms leaving only Beck to witness Rue’s hallucination. It had almost killed him to see her face when he gripped onto her arm, her eyes wide with fear shown throughout her features. Much worse than the sensation of having his hand turn into a rock. Right now he was wondering it was something to do with the caves, there could have been gas pockets down there causing them to see things, and somehow Rue was more affected than any of the others. They reached the edge of the bad part of the forest before Rue’s eyes flittered open; she seemed groggy so Beck just carried on walking in silence.

- - - - - -

Light filtered into Rue’s eyes as she tried to figure out why she could see Beck’s angelic features in front of her, and why did he feel like she was moving, she couldn’t feel her legs moving. She focused on the sky to try and get back to reality, but when nothing changed except the trees she was moving past, she realised she was not making this scene up. Beck was carrying her. She tried to wriggle free of his arms and when that didn’t work she decided to roll out of his arms. Surprisingly managing to land on her feet. Though that success was short lived, as she patted herself on the back in her mind, she fell in a lump on the floor, her jeans soaked with wet mud.

Beck looked at her with a puzzled expression and offered her his hand. ‘Why did you feel the need to have a mud bath? You know there is a much nicer place that does those things, it’s called a spa.’

Rue narrowed her eyes at Beck, but thankfully took his offered hand to hoist herself up from the thick mud. ‘What happened? Why were you carrying me and where is my brother?’

‘In all honesty, I have no clue what happened, you backed out and the others went back to their dorms… separately I hope.’ Beck scowled at the thought of them going back to the same dorm.

‘Huh?’ Rue stepped onto the drier part of the floor, not that it would make a difference now. ‘Why did I pass out?’

‘How about I tell you as I walk you back to your dorm? It’s a pretty long story and I didn’t even see all of it.’

They walked back, Beck propping Rue up by her waist and Rue leaning lazily on Beck’s shoulder. Rue was even more confused when they got back to the dorm. Lavender was sat on her bed, laptop on her knee.

‘Nice bookshelf, I couldn’t find one that matched the rest of the room, you must have gotten lucky.’ Beck pointed to the shelf she made earlier on in the day.

Rue shot a confused expression to the shelf, and disappointment shot through her, she hadn’t managed to conceal it.

‘What bookshelf?’ Rue’s roommate, had crept over to join them.

‘You don’t see it… Please tell me you’re messing with my head?’ She shook her head so her pony tail swung either side of her head. He glanced over at the shelf to check it was still there. ‘Oh don’t tell me I am starting to hallucinate too. First my hand, now this! That cave has messed with our heads.’

‘Excuse us.’ Rue grabbed Beck’s arm once again and dragged him out into the corridor. ‘There is a reason you can see that bookshelf but she can’t, and if you think about it you know too. You weren’t seeing things when your hand turned to stone.’

Realisation struck Beck. ‘You’re one of me? I mean like the gene thing?’

‘Yes,’

‘Wait you don’t have some sort of medusa-ry ability do you? We need to get you some sunglasses.’ He looked down at his feet, trying not to look back up at Rue to see if her hair turned into snakes.

She lifted his chin up so his eyes met hers. ‘I must have made eye contact with you about a thousand times today.’ She exaggerated, ‘And you’re worried now that you are going to turn into stone if I look at you?’

He realised how stupid he was being. ‘Oh.’ He took to staring back at his feet once more, but this time out of embarrassment. ‘What abilities are you in possession of then?’

‘Transmutation, cellular manipulation, mindreading, elemental manipulation and my granddad suspects two more.’ Beck’s jaw dropped and his eyes turned to twice their normal size, he knew what this meant, but that was impossible, there was no way anyone he knew could be a great, they were extremely rare. The last one he had heard of was a couple of hundred years ago.

‘You can’t be serious! There is no way you’re a great.’

For some reason this was a blow to Rue’s stomach, she had been trying to ignore this fact, yet it still hurt to hear that Beck though she was not good enough to be a Great. ‘Why? Am I not what you expected a great to be like? Am I not good enough? Or maybe it’s the fact that I don’t fit the right criteria in appearance?’ She stormed back through the door, tugged back once more by a firm grip.