The Awakening

All of That Evil Stuff

Sophie's POV

I dropped out of the sky from sheer disbelief, clutching onto my bleeding abdomen with one arm while the other weakly raised my sword at the intruder.

The audience was silent, almost as if they had never been there in the first place. And, no guards were coming to take this elf into custody for knocking Dimitar out cold.

She was sporting faded black ripped jeans and an extra large black sweatshirt, with black Nike sneakers as well. I quickly concluded that she had been in the Forbidden Cities; maybe on the run, from the looks of her tangled locks of blonde, tired ice blue eyes, and paler-than-normal light peach skin. Her hands were gnarred and calloused, and the little bit of skin showing on her wrist was a dark purple, leading me to think that she had similar bruises all over her arms and legs.

She dusted herself off as she stood up from the floor where she was checking Dimitar's pulse. I sucked in a breath at the machine gun she lifted off the ground; which was probably the weapon she used to render Dimitar unconscious. I wanted to ask why she felt the need to knock him out, but realized it was the least important question at the moment. When she locked eyes with me, she raised an eyebrow. "Why are you pointing that at me? I just saved you."

"Gee, wonder why I would point this at you," I said sarcastically, still pressing carefully on the Shamkniv wound. "It's not like you've tried to kill my friends and I, your son included, a number of times."

"Well, things are different now," Gisela stated, pursing her lips after in thought. "You and my son are going to need my help."

"You must be even more delusional than I thought, if you think I'm doing anything that benefits you," I snapped.

"You will, if it saves peoples' lives," she countered. "And, if you even want a chance to consider what I'm offering, I need you to teleport us out of here. Now."

I raised an eyebrow at her demanding tone.

"If you don't want to be caught in an ambush intended for you, that is," Gisela continued, crossing her arms.

I sighed and carefully walked over to where I laid my cape down. I winced as I bent down to pick it up and slung it on. Gisela took Dimitar's Shamkniv out of his limp hand and twirled it around after she'd tucked the gun in the back of her jeans.

Slowly, I dragged my feet over to Gisela, but stopped just short of arms' length distance.

"If any of what you're saying is truthful, you'll let me search your mind," I wheezed out, starting to feel the effect of Dimitar's blade in my lower stomach. Hopefully he hadn't doused it in flesh-eating bacteria, or anything of the sort.

"Fine," she gritted out. "I'll give you two minutes, then I'm leaving, with or without you."

I concentrated on pushing past her feeble attempt to block out my mind and entered the mind of a madwoman.

It was beautiful in an oddly twisted way; as if all the emotions she suppresses gathered in one big colorful loom. Memories flashed by in different hues of the colors of the rainbow. I tried not to linger on any unimportant ones for too long, but I couldn't resist glancing at ones with baby Keefe.

I don't know how long I spent in there, but I was in tears when I finally pulled back. The things I'd learned were making me look at Gisela differently, but I knew that she could have had numerous tricks up her sleeve. So, I didn't trust her too easily, but something was telling me that the memories I saw were genuine. They were too unbelievable to be fabricated to such an extent.

"You . . . you're-."

"-running out of time. Let's go," she cut me off, obviously knowing what I was talking about, but shrugging it off.