"That's your brilliant plan?" August demanded.
"This plan sucks." Chord concluded.
Dixie shrugged. "I think it could work."
"Thank you." Sam sighed.
I pointed an accusing finger at August. "You just don't like it because you're ridiculously over-protective."
He shrugged without a shred of remorse. "It's my job to keep you safe."
"Yeah?" I countered, folding my arms over my chest. "And how's that working for you so far?"
He faltered and I felt a little guilty but didn't back down. I didn't like how controlling he was being. I must have really loved him a lot to stay with someone as stubborn and annoying as he was. "Between you and Chord, how did I ever do anything?"
"You really didn't do much on your own." Dixie admitted.
Isis groaned. "If you all are done reliving the good ole days, I believe it's time to go. If we don't show up soon, Iris will start suspecting us and then we'll all be in trouble."
"She's right." Sam nodded. "We need to go."
"Come on, Taryn." Isis said. "We'll contact the rest of you when we can. In the meantime, I suggest you begin your search for the goblet. The sooner we find it, the better. Sam and I have told you all we know. It's not much but it gives you a starting point."
I stood from my seat and started to follow Isis and Sam out but August stopped me. I looked down at his hand on my arm and then back up at him.
"Just promise me you'll be careful." He pleaded. The desperation in his voice made me catch my breath.
All I could manage to do was nod. It took all of my willpower to break my gaze away from him. Everything about him was so intense.
"Alright then," Isis flounced out of the room and called over her shoulder, "let's do this!"
Sam rolled her eyes. "Come on, Taryn. She's right. If we don't go now, Iris will suspect something."
I nodded and followed her out. I could feel August's eyes on my back all the way. I sighed and watched the ground pass by beneath my feet. "Sam?"
"Hmm?"
"What's your son like?"
"August?"
I nodded and looked up to find her shrugging.
"To be honest, I don't know."
I cocked an eyebrow. "You don't know your own son?"
She laughed humorlessly. "It's a long story. The fact is, we've only just met today."
"And you're ok with just leaving him behind like that?"
"No, but he doesn't trust me either. Would you if you found out your mother was the sister to the enemy you've been battling for years?" She shook her head. "As much as I would love to be with him constantly, I would rather give him his space and allow him to trust me in his own time instead of forcing myself on him and making him hate me."
I let my eyes drop back down to the ground. "Oh."
"Why do you ask anyway?"
I shrugged. "I was hoping that if you could tell me something about him, I'd be able to remember everything. I hate being in the dark."
Sam smiled and looped her arm through mine. "I'm sure there's an antidote somewhere. I know what Iris used to wipe your memory, so maybe we can right it again."
"I doubt it. My memory has been tampered with so much there's probably not much to return."
"You have some memories, don't you?" Sam squeezed my arm reassuringly. "There's still hope. Don't give up so soon. And even if we can't, just think of it this way. You'll get to fall in love my son all over again. I can see it in your eyes, Taryn. You still have strong feelings for him, don't you?"
I didn't say anything but I knew she knew the answer.
"Don't be scared of them. You've got the advantage every girl dreams of having. You already know he loves you too. There's nothing holding you back but you."
I couldn't help the small smile that grew as we followed after Isis. It scared me sometimes how strong my feelings were but Sam was right. It was pretty evident he liked me. I had nothing to lose. But first, we had a villain to crush.
"It's good to see you all again. I was beginning to wonder if anything had happened to you." Iris greeted with a cold sneer.
She knew. Well, ok. Maybe she didn't know the whole truth, but she knew something was up and if we didn't persuade her otherwise, and fast, we were going to be in some big trouble.
"You mean other than the house blowing up around me? Nah, nothing happened." I snapped back at her.
She smirked. "Perhaps if you had not run back inside like a maniac, you wouldn't have been injured."
I crossed my arms over my chest and glared back at her. "Look, lady. Thanks to you, I don't remember much about anything. All I know are the orders I'm given and I was told to make sure the boy goes up in smoke. Well, guess what? The boy went up in smoke, thanks to me. You're welcome. Evie's magic was strong, but apparently not strong enough. If I hadn't gone back in, he would have escaped out the back door. Next time, why don't you try picking someone a little bit stronger in the magic department to do your bidding."
Beside me, Sam was holding her breath. Her side glance told me I probably should have kept my mouth shut, but I didn't care. I was tired of people trying to run my life. Especially this lady. She thought she knew everything about me? Well joke was on her. She might have all the info on the old me, but she knew nothing about the new me that she'd unwittingly created by stealing my memories.
"Don't mind her, Iris." Isis stepped in. "They did some more work on her mind at the hospital to reaffirm the blast did no damage to our work, and it appears it's having some side-effects."
Iris waved her off. "No matter how many times we wipe her slate clean, she will always continue to be a sarcastic brat."
I shrugged unapologetically. She wasn't wrong. That was a part of me she couldn't take away. Sarcasm and sass. My one solid line of defense.
"Iris?" Sam ventured cautiously. "May we speak in private for a moment?"
Iris turned a hateful gaze to her sister. "Anything you have to say can be said in front of everyone."
"Very well then. I believe my son is still alive."
I nearly choked. Was she crazy? Weren't we supposed to be playing up August's death? Had I missed something somewhere? Maybe their tampering had messed with my short-term memory too.
Iris raised a delicate eyebrow. "What makes you say that?"
Sam hesitated. "When Taryn raised that barrier to protect herself, she may have inadvertently protected the boy as well. There was no evidence of his death at the house. It may just be that he had been completely incinerated in the heat of the flames, but I'm not sold on the idea."
Iris seemed to contemplate her words for a moment.
Isis looked like Sam had just slapped her across the face. I elbowed her in the ribs to snap her out of it. If Iris caught onto our shock, it wouldn't take long for her to pick out the lies.
"Perhaps you have a point. Keeping you around may not have been the worst idea yet." Iris turned on her heals and strode across the room. "I will send out a search party immediately. If he did survive, he will have been incredibly injured. It won't be hard to find him. My team will decide the finality of his death."
"What will your team do if they do find him?" Sam asked quietly.
Iris turned to her head and the corner of her lip twitched up into an evil sneer. "They'll finish the job of course." She turned back around and retrieved a small leather-bound book from the drawer in her desk. "In the meantime, I believe Taryn and I have some more work to do. Isis, Sam, go make yourselves useful elsewhere. It's best if Taryn and I work alone."
I swallowed hard but rolled my eyes as if I didn't care. "Wonderful. Alone time with the one person I know would just love to liquify my brains. This should be fun."
"Unless you would like your brains reduced to liquid, I suggest you shut up and follow me." Iris snapped.
I stuck my tongue out at her retreating back before following her into the small backroom where we did all of our practices. In order for her plan to work, she needed my magic at its peak, which meant countless hours of practice for me. I only had a few days left to master complete control over my magic before the plan was set to take motion. I was so not ready for this. On top of that, now I was going to have to try playing dumb and slow down my training a bit to hopefully push the plan back and give us a bit more time to work with. We were about to find out how good my acting was.
Apparently, my acting was pretty good because Iris never once suspected me. I'm not blonde, but I have to say, I play the part really well. The lessons were getting harder and though I understood them and could have mastered them if I'd tried, I'd played dumb. I made Iris give the same lesson three different times before I 'barely' managed to get it. Not to pat myself on the back but I killed that acting session.
Iris told me she didn't want to see my face for the rest of the day. She told me to get lost. I took her words seriously. Might as well play into the whole 'dumb blonde' thing I had going for me. I managed to get out of the house undetected and carefully avoided the security cameras I knew she had hidden everywhere. I'd snuck into the security room last week and memorized where every camera was. I'd managed to sneak out twice since then. It was a good feeling knowing I could do it.
Normally, I would use my time outside the walls to find someplace secluded to hide. Somewhere I could be by myself and not worry about anyone finding me. Today was a bit different. I decided to try and find the others. Sam had said that the safe house was no longer safe so they wouldn't be there. I wasn't completely positive as to where they would be, but I knew the general location. We hadn't finished going over the plan completely before Isis, Sam and I left and I wanted to make sure we were all on the same page. I preferred going into this with everyone having full knowledge of what was going on.
I didn't get very far before I heard someone call my name. My heart dropped and I slowly turned toward the voice. I wasn't sure who it was, but it didn't really matter. I'd been caught. I was so screwed.
I was met with a sight I really didn't expect to see. It was Chord. What the heck was he doing here? I was in the middle of town. Weren't we supposed to be keeping a low profile? *then what are you doing in town?* I silently berated myself.
"Chord?"
He reached me and dramatically fell forward, resting his hands on knees and breathing heavily. "Hey, Taryn."
"What are you doing here?" I asked.
"I could ask you the same question." He raised an eyebrow and smirked. "Sam contacted me. She couldn't leave without Iris noticing so she called me. August wouldn't answer her calls. He's still salty at her for not coming forward earlier."
I frowned and shook my head in confusion. "Why would Sam send you after me? How does she even know I'm gone?"
"They're tracking you." He said it as if it were a common thing for people to be monitored everywhere they went. I on the other hand, didn't like that idea very much.
"What do you mean, 'they're tracking you'?"
"You've been chipped. Yeah, apparently they've been tracking every move you make. It seems when you 'escaped' today, you didn't take your usual route. It's beginning to worry Iris. I was sent to come turn you around before they send a search party."
I was fuming. No one had bothered to tell me that they were tracking me? No wonder Sam said the others wouldn't be at the safe house any longer. It wouldn't be safe there anymore. Iris knew where it was because of me. I let out a cry of frustration and threw my hands in the air. "This is ridiculous! And no one bothered to say anything? Don't you think I should have known?"
Chord put his hands up in a peace offering. "Don't look at me. I didn't know until about ten minutes ago."
"Ten minutes?" My eyes lit up. "Then you guys must be staying somewhere close by."
Chord cringed. "I wasn't supposed to tell you that."
"Technically, you didn't tell me anything. I figured it out."
He shrugged. "Either way, I'm in so much trouble."
"Why shouldn't I know where the safe house is?"
"Like I know why anyone does anything around here. No one tells me anything." Chord admitted with a sigh.
"Welcome to my life." I muttered under my breath. "Fine, I'll head back. I don't want anyone getting into trouble because of me."
Chord smiled and stuck his hand up for a high five. I half-heartedly slapped his hand. His fingers locked around mine, trapping my hand in his. "Let me walk you. You look like you could use some company."
I gave him a grateful smile.
"Are you doing ok?" He asked after a while of walking in silence.
I took a deep breath and shrugged. "Honestly, I'm not sure. I just wish I knew what was going on. It seems everyone's keen on keeping me in the dark. The only people I know are the enemies. Everyone else seems to know me, but I don't know them. August scares the crap out of me because every time I'm around him, I can barely contain my emotions. I'm still not sure if I can even trust Sam and Isis completely because from what I'm piecing together, they haven't exactly been friendly to us the whole time. On the other hand, I don't have a choice but to trust them because I have no one else at Iris' place." I sighed and squeezed Chord's hand a little tighter. "You know what? I guess I'm not doing ok. I just want all of this to be over. I want my memory back and I want my friends back."
Chord didn't say anything for a moment. We walked in silence and I was starting to worry I'd scared him off. "You've got me." He said finally. "I'm here and you remembered me on your own. That's something. I mean, I did try to eat you once but we moved past that a while ago. You can trust me now. I'm your friend."
"Thanks, Chord." I managed a small smile.
"As for August, I can tell him to back off if you need me to. He won't like it, but if he knows it's for your own good, he'll do it. He really loves you, you know? Well I guess you wouldn't, but he does. He talks about you all the time. From everything I've heard, you two had a pretty special bond."
Why would anyone like me that much? How could anyone love someone like me? I was a mess. It didn't make a lot of sense. He must have been a little messed up in the head. I could see how I'd fallen for him though. He seemed to be really smart and emotional. He wasn't afraid to show his emotions or how he felt toward me. From what I'd seen, he was a bit over-protective, but even that was charming. He wasn't bad to look at either.
"You're thinking about him, aren't you?" Chord asked with a knowing grin.
"What? Pfft. No." I quickly denied his accusations but he didn't believe me.
"You keep smiling and blushing. You're definitely thinking about him."
I scrunched my nose up at him, unable to deny it. "Shut up."
He laughed. "It's ok. It'll make him happy knowing that you still react that way. He's been really worried about what's going to happen to you two."
I bit my lip to try and keep from smiling. "I should probably go on alone from here. We're almost to the house and I don't want you getting caught."
Chord nodded. "You're probably right." He released my hand and pulled me into a hug instead. "Be careful in there, Taryn. I'll see you later." Before I could react, he was sprinting back down the street the way we'd come.
I sighed and looked back in the direction of the house. I wasn't thrilled to be going back, but it seemed I didn't have a choice. One way or another, I was going to get this stupid chip out of me. I hated knowing that I was being tracked. Any small sense of freedom I'd had was just ripped from me and I wasn't going to stand for it. Iris thought she could control me life? Well she was wrong. No one controlled my life but me and she was about to find that out the hard way.
sorry for the late updates! it's been a little crazy trying to get back into the swing of fall routines. updates should start being posted regularly again :)
