"Cass! Wait please, I can explain!"
She had heard this all before. One bad boyfriend in High School and she swore that she would never let herself feel this way again. She thought that Jake was different…obviously not.
She slid through the doorway to the Annex and just stopped. She couldn't think of anything and her mind was assaulted with images of Lamia's legs wrapped around Jakes waist, her kisses trailing his neck, and her evil smirk when she saw that Cassandra had just witnessed all of it.
When Jake found her in the middle of the Annex, tears were rolling down her face and dripping onto the marble flooring. She was tugging at the sleeves of her cardigan and she refused to look in his eyes.
"Cass.." he whispered quietly as he placed his hands gently on her shoulders.
"Cass, you have to understand, I didn't know what was happening." He lifted his fingers to her face to softly wipe the tears from her cheeks. Her eyes then met his and Jake could see his betrayal in them.
"You didn't know what was happening? Well from what I saw, you had your tongue so far down that she-devils throat, I wondered how it was possible that the two of you could still breathe!" Cassandras voice was getting progressively louder as she got angrier. Jake completely understood her anger and the guilt he felt tripled in size….. if that were possible.
"Cassandra, I will keep telling you how sorry I am until the day I die if that is what you want, but you have to know that she put me under an enchantment, I honestly didn't know where I was or how I got there." Cassandras faced moved swiftly from angry into sceptical. How did she know that this wasn't just a lie, or a trick?
She whispered so quietly, he almost thought he hadn't heard anything.
"It…it hurt me Jake. I thought that maybe we were headed somewhere more than friendship but I guess that was my mistake"
"No Cassie, for a while now, I have wanted to be more than friends with you. You are the only bright spot in my life and I could never live without you." His eyes pleaded with her and at that moment, she knew that he was telling the truth.
"What a bitch!" Jake jumped back a bit in surprise. He had never even heard Cassie swear before let alone calling people names.
"Whoa..oh not you, Lamia" She quickly added. Jake could see Cass was getting lost in her own thoughts.
"I mean, who puts an enchantment on someone just so she can make out with them? That is NOT nice!"
"After you ran out, she told me that it was her plan to have you walk in on….us. So that she could break the trust within our family and that we would all be too busy fighting each other to focus on finding her and DuLaque."
At that point Ezekiel came stumbling through the door followed by Eve and Flynn.
"Where the hell have you two been?" Eve questioned them. "We have been looking EVERYWHERE for you. We thought you had been taken by DuLaque or affected by the apple!"
Jake had never seen Eve look so….Maternal in the months that he has known her. Jake glanced down at Cassie. "We were…uhhh….distracted. Lamia got away."
Flynn and Eve looked at each other and then back at the two in the middle of the room but both decided not to say anything further on the matter. Eve would talk to them later.
"AALLLLrrriigGGHHttttYYyyy THEN" Flynn bellowed to the rest of his team. They were all looking at him now, with the exception of Eve who was rolling her eyes at his theatrics. "What do we do next?"
"We need-"
"Eve" He interrupted, "we talked about this."
Eve sighed and then pinned him with a murderous look. She slowly raised her hand as if she were in a classroom.
"Yes, Eve, do you have an answer?" Flynn grinned at her
"We need to find DuLaque and Lamia and get the apple back" She growled at him.
"A+ for you!" He cheered looking very proud of himself. "Yes DuLaque and Lamia we find them, we get the apple, we can stop whatever it is that they want to achieve"
The next few hours were devised of plans to locate them and trying to figure out what they were planning over containers of Chinese food and empty coffee cups.
"I HAVE AN IDEA!" exclaimed Flynn as he ran out of the Annex, waking up his librarians that were asleep over crumpled up maps and notes.
They had all fallen asleep a few hours ago except for Flynn who was too energized to sleep. It was probably all of that coffee.
"Maaattteeee" Ezekiel groaned with his head under a map. "Inside voice, Im trying to get my beauty sleep…not that I need it if course"
The rest of them looked at each other, shaking their heads. Predictable Ezekiel. He is his own biggest fan.
Flynn ran back into the room holding a silver oak leaf.
"We can contact the Fae and get them to do a location spell"
"A location spell? Flynn, if you had that leaf all along, why haven't we used it yet?" Cassandra replied.
He glanced at Eve sheepishly. "Well funny story, had a thing with the Queen and it didn't end too well and I wanted to avoid seeing her"
"Ha" Eve exclaimed sarcastically "Not that funny as it turns out" She crossed her arms and tried not to let her jealousy get the better of her.
"Yes well I figured it is our last resort and we really need to find them"
As you can probably imagine, the talk with the Fae Queen was about as civil as it could be. Flynn begged for the favour, Eve spent the whole time staring daggers at the Queen, Ezekiel was flirting with the 600 year old being and Cassandra and Jake were awkwardly glancing at each other from opposite sides of the room.
Cassandra still wasn't really speaking to Jake and Jake was still apologising profusely to her.
In the end, the Fae Queen granted Flynn his favour and she was delighted at the prospect of being owed a favour by The Librarian. Flynn knew that whatever that favour would be, he wouldn't like it but he couldn't think about that just now. DuLaque and Lamia were in a decrepit house lying in a dense forest in Washington. Whatever they were doing there, no one knew.
As they were all gathering things to take with them, Ezekiel walked past Flynn and Eve.
"It was ages ago, she didn't mean anything, and she is really old anywaayyy…"
Ezekiel smirked and kept on walking. Oh those two, when are they going to put everyone out of their misery and just GET TOGETHER? Ezekiel thought.
For a while, you couldn't hear anything except the crunching of leaves under the groups feet and the chirping of birds that no one could actually see. Flynn and Eve lead the group through the dense forest with Ezekiel in the middle and Jake and Cassandra at the back.
"I do trust you Jake, its just going to take some time for me to get over what I saw. It was really gross"
"Yeah I know, how do you think I feel? I was the one that had to make out with that truly awful person" His whole body shuddered at the memory of her. Cassandra smiled and knew that their relationship is going to be alright.
Eve slowed down as they started to reach a clearing. There in the very middle, stood a decrepit two story house complete with broken shutters, wooden planks missing from the wrap around balcony and paint peeling off the walls of the house.
"Charming" Eve muttered under her breath. She turned to the rest of the group and in a hushed voice, reminded them of their duties.
"Stone and I are going to scout the perimeter and set up the boundary stakes so that no magic can be performed inside the house, Flynn and Cassandra, you find the apple and Jones…stay out of trouble got it?"
"Yes Ma'am" Ezekiel grinned, stood up straight and fake saluted her.
"Cute" Eve replied very sarcastically.
"I always am" Jones countered. By the look on her face, she didn't need to say anything to let Ezekiel know that she was less than impressed. "Ok I'm going now" he hastily replied and then he disappeared.
The rest of them rolled their eyes and split up.
Flynn and Cassandra dodged the broken planks on the balcony and made their way to the front door. Cassandra put her hand up to knock but Flynn grabbed her hand before she could. With a confused expression she turned to him questioningly. He put his finger to his mouth is=n a shhsshhing motion and slowly pulled at the handle of the door.
It opened with ease and the two of them stepped inside the darkness of the house.