Et tú, Clarissa?

Chapter twenty-nine

Present Day (England, Britain)

I look at Grace who stands a few metres from me with the file in a sloppy grip at the same height as her shoulders. She is too far away for me to grab it and her eyes are locked at me. The light-yellow folder dances almost unnoticed from side to side in her grip, just as an attempt to lure an animal.

"Is this what you want?" she asks me with a glare slipping through the poorly played innocence painted on her perfect face. "You came here for this, didn't you?"

Every thought or notice of that calm feeling that helped me through the encounters with the officer are as cleaned away. I cannot think nor come up with a plan or any kind of tactic that could get me out of this so I simply let the first words that comes to my mouth slip out.

"I don't know what you are talking about." I try, but Grace only sighs.

"Come on, Clarissa. I know you are not stupid and I certainly isn't either. You can have it on one simple iny-tiny condition." every somewhat playful expression is wiped of her face as she continues. "Stay away from Zac."

Her voice is steady and clear as she emphasises every word, making sure I understand the depths of her demand. Even the wind seems to stop dancing around the tall walls around us and the sound of applause from the leaves in the trees round us becomes silent. Not a bird or a bee makes themselves known in the intensity of the situation which only made it worse. It feels like my heart is going to burst by the thought of never being able to see Zac again. Why? I do not know, which makes it one more thing to add to the annoyingly long list.

I'm not stupid, I know I should stay away from Zac and I need to both get some kind of reminder to my previous life and make sure no one else sees that file, but can I though? Will I be able to keep such a promise if I make it?

I swallow the lump in my throat and look at her. Unable to get the 'I promise' over my dry lips. I know I cannot promise something I cannot keep. She snorts wryly.

"How hard could it be for you to keep away from other women's men? I don't want the two of you to spend time together, talk or anything. He is mine and you better get used to it, honey."

"Okay." the word forced out between my lips feels like a beat to the chest and I feel how blood from my right hand covers the fingers whose nails bores into the soft skin of my palm. "Just give me the bloody file."

A happy smile is placed on her lips as nothing happened.

"Amazing." she says with her voice sounding like a brat before she hands me the file. "See you never. I'm going to find my boyfriend now."

She dashes around her hair to lay on her back, before she turns to go, but I catch her with a couple of final words.

"If I were you, I would treat him better. From what I have heard you have not made him this big of a priority before and he deserves better."

Her happy, innocent smile turns into a wry grin as she turns back to look at me.

"Oh, honey. You have no idea."

Before I know it, she is gone and the only thing left in her absent is an uneasy feeling almost tearing me apart. I lean for support against the wall and slide down, feeling the cold bricks behind my back as I open the file. My eyes find their way easily between the words printed on the papers and the more I read, the more I feel the air leaving me. Word after word, sentence by sentence makes the dagger in my chest plunge deeper. I feel like more of a freak for each second that pass; each paragraph. Page after page I read about all kinds of accidents somehow connected to me as I was lying in that coma. How the power disappeared as I got cardiac arrest, how animals that were trying to get into the room and how people experienced odd things when touching me, such as energy fall, strange feelings or visions. Something clenches in my stomach as I read about all those people emptied of energy. Some even fainted and got hurt. Suddenly I can even feel their energy pulsing through me and visions of people appear in front of my eyes. Picture after picture and energy flooding through every single one of them. They all make me terrified and does not help the unbearable feeling of being a freak until I see a hand in the dimmed light of an evening. His energy is different and it is like a drug. The feeling of admiration and kindness floods through me with the visionary touch of his bloodstained hand.

I open my eyes again to see my empty hand in my lap. His touch was so real I could have sworn he held my hand, but I am still alone in the dark alley. As I have gathered my breath, I look at the first page again and look through all the substances they find analysing my blood. Structures and matter not found in human blood and substances not even known to today's scientists. How the molecules reacted under different kind of experiments and how it always seemed to wanting to find its way to me. Always grasping and reaching for me like I was its gravity instead of the gravity of the Earth.

Suddenly I feel how my fingers close their grip around something sharp next to me and before I am able to react, it flies thought the air right at a woman appearing in front of me. Next to her those men stand ready as one of them catches the sharp object with his magic before it touches her skin. The Guardians.

Jeez, could my day possibly get any worse?

I cannot come up with anything better to do than stand up with confident I did not exhibit the first time we met. Or at least the first time I remember. There is no point of running when they already found me twice when I have taken to escape.

"What do you want?" I ask them and hear the clearly irritated tone of my voice. "Did you not get the message the first times around? I do not wish to go with you."

The woman sighs.

"Look, miss Lockwood. We simply need your help with a matter of great importance. We cannot figure out how you succeeded to escape our surveillance, but we are happy that you are not dead as we feared."

Thank you...? I think as I watch them closely.

I cannot quite place them anywhere between trustworthy or not. Their energy is sterile and doesn't tell me much.

As the silence grows thick between us, I see that two of the men starts to become uncomfortable. Ashamed. I feel an orb of energy slowly growing between my fingers and one of the men takes up an object from a scabbard attached to his belt. A wave of unpleasant feelings hits me and I hear my own scream echo through my head accompanied by pictures of an old dungeon and another from a relatively modern laboratory. With panic slightly clouding my judgment of action I throw the orb towards the group, but I'm too slow and the warlock next to the woman get to me with a counter strike which ends in me being handcuffed with each hand in the object of magic neutralizer. He lifts me up in a rather sloppy magic grip and look at me in surprise with the eyes of an owl.

"Something is wrong with her. I could never overpower her if she had only half her powers." the warlock says while looking back at the woman. "What do-"

"Just bring her with us."

He looks at me with tender eyes as he slowly puts me down. I hear his thoughts roaming around in his little head.

I'm not that powerful; I shouldn't be able to do that.

Then perhaps you should watch your steps with what you are doing to me until I get my powers back, I think to him and I hear how his heart race and how he swallows, unable to meet my eyes.

The woman seems to notice it as well and looks at the warlock as the two other men take me by each arm to lead me away from him. Her gaze is serious, but still not unfriendly. I suddenly am able to make out that it is the determination looming around her is like a thick layer of insulation which makes it hard to reach in her core.

"Gabriel! Remember why we're doing this. Don't get soft now." she states and he nods and let them take me as he opens a portal in front of us.

I jerk slowly back and forth to get out of their grip, but without results. It feels like I'm empty. A sudden feeling of lethargy takes over and I have to struggle to keep my eyes open for a moment before I regain some energy, but it's not much. As the woman walks through the portal, me and the two men holding me follows, only to get followed by the other warlock, Gabriel.