Changing Prudence (EDITING - ON HOLD)

Chapter 20

Lavender unlocked the door to her room, she had stayed in her mum’s hotel last night, since she was leaving early this morning and she didn’t want to have to wake Rue up with their goodbyes. She walked into the room to grab her toiletries to freshen herself up. When she turned back round to leave the room she let out a loud yelp, over in the corner Rue was lying fast asleep wrapped up in a slumbering Beck. They woke up with a start from the sudden noise.

‘Who died?’ Beck shouted as he was woken from his dream state. He stared around groggily. Rue turned round and fell of the edge of the bed, she had not realised she had fallen asleep while Beck was telling her the story last night.

‘What are you still doing here?’ She shouted at Beck. ‘I am pretty sure you have your own bed!’

Lavender suddenly came out of shock and raced out of the door. ‘I will leave you guys to it.’

As soon as Lavender left, Rue turned back to Beck to let the wrath of Rue out at him. But he had already fallen back asleep. She decided to use this peace and quiet to freshen up for the day. She grabbed her toiletry bag and towel and walked down to the showers. She took a quick shower since she wanted to get out of her room before Beck woke up. It was the only way to think of to get away from him. She noticed the dorms where beginning to fill up as she walked back to her room wrapped in her towel. She had not brought a change of clothes with her. She let herself back into her room, glad to find Beck was still asleep. She dropped the towel and reached into her still packed bags for her underwear.

‘Morning gorgeous, I do hope you don’t strip for every guy who enters your room.’ His voice was rough with sleep, but he was very, very conscious.

Rue let out a yelp and dropped down to get her towel. She scooted behind the wall that splits the room from her wardrobe. She would have to get used to changing behind the wall. Not that Beck would be staying in her room often. In fact it was never to happen again, even if it was just an accident.

Rue had only picked up her underwear. ‘Would you leave, or turn around please?’ She tried to sound polite, but Beck could hear the annoyance in her voice.

‘Don’t think so, I quite enjoyed that show.’

‘Well close your eyes then, I need some clothes.’ Her voice was getting higher and higher as she was getting more annoyed.

‘Put something comfy on. You’re going to your first training session with the specialist today.’ He simply stated, he didn’t bother closing his eyes, he was a guy, what else should she expect.

She gripped the towel around her as tight as she could as she walked round to her suitcase, trying as hard as she could not to flash. She made it back around the corner safely where she changed into her leggings and t-shirt. There was nothing more comfortable than that.

She grabbed her phone and keys, shoved on her pumps and walked over to the door. ‘See ya’.’ She waved over to Beck.

‘Woah, you going already?’ he jumped up from the bed, ruffled his hair and joined her on her way out of the door. ‘I think we should tell Keilyn about the crystal.’ He stated.

- - - - - - - - - - -

‘You want to do it then, I have a feeling she will have me pretty busy from the word go.’ In reality all she wanted to do was get Beck out of her way for as long as possible.

And it worked as soon as they got to the foundation, Rue was whisked off to one of the training rooms and Beck took Keilyn into a room where he was sure no one else could hear.

The training room was a huge stone room with a vast open space cleared in the middle, covered in a large fireproof mat. The fiery haired woman standing in the middle of the room, undoubtedly Rue’s new instructor, broke her out of her reverie. ‘Good morning, I will be your new teacher, Aeron Fitzpatrick, but you can just call me Aeron. If you need me I am here for anything, from handling your powers to something as trivial but equally important such as relationship problems.’ She grinned an omniscient grin, Rue guessed Keilyn had filled Aeron in on everything she knew about Rue herself. ‘So done with the formalities, here’s where the fun starts.’ Her impossibly wide grin spread even further and she rubbed her hands together. ‘Hit me with your best shot’ she crouched down as if she were a lion ready to pounce.

Rue looked at the woman perplexed. ‘You can’t be serious.’ But Aeron just stayed in the same position waiting for the impact.

‘I am a shield and a pretty good one at that, you can’t hurt me.’

Rue was reluctant, she didn’t want to hospitalise her teacher in her first lesson. She saw that there were a few candles lit around the old nineteenth century style room. She gathered the energy from the tiny flames into a fireball and sent it hurtling at Aeron, who whipped her arms out in an eagle like fashion which seemed to stop the ball of fire before it reached her, circling around the fierce woman until the energy of the flames died down.

‘Oh come on, surely you can do better than that feeble attempt. Come on wow me.’ She got back into position. Rue threw an even larger fireball at Aeron who dodged it just as easily as the last, but this wasn’t enough for Aeron who started taunting Rue in order to get her fired up.

At the end of their session Aeron explained to Rue the importance of that exercise. It turned out it was all a trust game, Rue needed to trust more in herself and in her new instructor. Who Rue thought was a tad more than a ‘pretty good’ shield. Rue must have sent fireballs the size of Aeron at speeds of at least a hundred miles per hour, yet she still managed to deflect them and didn’t even end up with a single burn.

They turned the corner to find Regan leaning against one of the many rooms set aside for important meetings. She turned round and jumped as she saw Rue and Aeron walking towards her. She was definitely up to something.

‘Ah, you must be my other student. I hear I have my work cut out with you.’ Aeron joked, in her own way introducing herself to Regan, who looked rather suspicious. ‘Call me Aeron.’ She held her hand out waiting for Regan to take it, but drew it away when she realised it would not be shook. Regan was stood in shock staring at Rue. There was no denying she was up to something.

Seconds later Beck came out of the meeting room followed shortly after by Keilyn. Realisation hit Rue like a tonne of bricks. Regan knew about the crystal. Rue ran into Beck dragging him towards the front door of the old building, leaving the others standing bewildered staring after them. All of them except Regan. She slammed the door behind them and told him what she had just witnessed.

‘Okay, calm down. You locked it away in your drawer didn’t you? So she can’t get to it.’

Another tonne of bricks were sent Rue’s way. ‘Sugar. I fell asleep before I could lock it away.’