A Difficult Kind – Chapter 10
Brenda wipes the tears from her face and tries to calm herself down after reliving those horrible moments with Brandon.
'And that was the last time I had spoken to him before you showed up and he called me that day we were sitting in the bar,' Brenda finally says after a few minutes.
Dylan continues to stare at her and shakes his head a little. 'My God, Bren, I had no idea any of that was going on. Brandon didn't show one sign that you two were fighting and not getting along,' he says.
'Yeah, well, maybe he's a better actor than I am,' she says, trying to lighten the mood a little.
Dylan gives her a weak smile and squeezes her hand again. 'Not by a long shot,' he says staring right into her eyes.
'He turned into such a jerk so quickly that I didn't even have a chance to process it all. I just started to get over it and now it's all coming back to me like it was yesterday,' she says.
Dylan thinks about Brenda's interactions with Brandon during the time that he's been in London with her.
'The whole Christmas thing makes a whole lot more sense now,' Dylan says. 'After insulting you and being a complete jerk and then asking you to come home for Christmas just doesn't add up. There's something else going on here.'
'That was my first thought after he said it to me on the phone. Maybe it has something to do with these notes,' Brenda says, looking over at Iris, who was still at the table writing.
Dylan's mind immediately goes back to the situation that they were dealing with before Brenda started talking about Brandon. He smiles to himself, realizing that she was right, he was distracted for a long time and wasn't thinking about Marchette.
Brenda gets up off of the couch and goes into the bathroom to clean herself up. She looks into the mirror and wipes the makeup from underneath her eyes off. She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, trying to slow her heartbeat down.
She walks back into the room and sees Dylan standing at the table with Iris.
'Okay, I think I may have figured this out,' Iris says. 'Whoever put this note together did a fantastic job of telling the story. Now, I'm not sure that I have it entirely right, but I think I have a good idea,' she says.
Dylan sits down and waits for Iris to continue.
'What does it say?' he asks her.
'Well, the first note is very interesting. See this symbol here? This is the symbol of the Empress and it repeats several times in both notes. They may have changed the direction of the symbol, but nonetheless it is the same one,' Iris explains.
'Does that mean that it represents a person?' Brenda asks, walking over and sitting next to Dylan.
'I actually think it's supposed to be Toni. Although I've never met her, it fits with the way the story plays out,' Iris says.
Dylan nods, unable to come up with anything to say.
'The next symbol is connected to the Empress,' Iris says and points to the note where the two symbols are together. It is the Hanged Man,' Iris says.
'It's not what you think, though, it actually means personal sacrifice,' Iris says quickly as she sees Dylan open his mouth say something. He closes it and nods his head.
'Then we have the Fool, this represents you sweetheart,' Iris says to Dylan. 'It means to represent someone that walks blindly to his fate, without listening to or realizing the warning signs throughout the way,' Iris says.
Brenda looks over at Dylan and he almost cracks a smile. 'Yeah, that sounds about right,' he says.
Brenda and Iris laugh at him.
'The next few symbols all revolve around how, I'm guessing, the Marchette family reacted to you and Toni being together. The rune symbol means a destructive, reactive force to conflict,' Iris says as she sees Dylan nodding his head again.
'The next symbol is the Marchette family followed by the Tower,' Iris says and points to the card.
Brenda looks at the card imagery and gasps. 'Iris, that card does not look like it's a good thing,' she says, staring at the brick tower, with flames coming out of the windows and people falling from the sky.
'It looks worse than it is, Brenda. It is the culmination of a lot of things, including destruction with such force, that the result may be death,' she says.
'Isn't that the Empress symbol again?' Brenda says, pointing to the next symbol on the note.
'Yes, it is and it's connected to the symbol for the Sun, which I think represents Toni's spiritual transition from life to the afterlife,' Iris explains.
Dylan automatically feels his chest tighten at the mention of Toni and the afterlife. He takes a few quick breaths and lets the last one out slowly.
'The last symbol on this note is the Wheel of Fortune, and this card always represents the fact that we have no control of our or anyone else's fate whatsoever,' she says.
'Wow, that is quite a story,' Brenda says.
'Yeah, but I still don't understand what the hell that has to do with anything at all,' Dylan says.
'You will in time, sweetheart,' Iris says. 'I'm going to work on the second note now, okay? Run along and leave me be.'
Brenda and Dylan exchange looks as Iris shoos them from the table with her hand. They get up slowly and walk back over to the couch.
'Bren, let's get out of here. I don't think I can just sit back and watch her do this,' he says.
Brenda nods and goes to her room to put on a pair of shoes.
'Iris, we're going to take a walk around. Call us as soon as you're done or if you need anything, okay?' Brenda says.
'Mm hmm,' Iris says concentrating on the second set of symbols.
Brenda and Dylan leave her apartment and begin to walk around.
'Where should we go Bren?' he asks her.
'Um, how about we bum around Hyde Park for a while? That should take some time and it's nice and peaceful,' she suggests.
'Sounds good,' he says.
They get on the Tube to Hyde Park and as they are entering the park, Dylan spots someone standing on a large box just inside the sidewalk with a few people standing around listening.
'Is that some kind of protest or something?' Dylan asks Brenda.
Brenda looks over and starts to laugh a little. 'It might be. That's Speaker's Corner, Dylan. Anyone can get up on that box and talk about pretty much anything they want. A lot of famous people in the past used it as a way to get their voices heard,' she says.
'Interesting,' Dylan says keeping his eyes on the speaker as they walk into the park.
Brenda and Dylan start their walk around Hyde Park. They walk for a while taking in the beautiful day and the shining sun, which they hadn't seen for a few days. They find a bench overlooking the water and sit down.
'Bren,' he starts to say, looking over at her, 'I wanted to thank you for being so great these last few weeks. I could not have gotten through this without you,' he says and takes her hand.
She feels a jolt go up her spine when he touches her and looks back up at him with a smile on her face.
'I told you that I'd always be here for you, Dylan, no matter what is going on,' she says.
'You know, you are the only one who really has been. After everything that we went through together, I always knew deep down that you were meant to be in my life,' he says sincerely.
They look into each others eyes for what seemed like forever. A slight breeze starts to blow through the park and Brenda lifts her hand to push a piece of her hair out of her face, but Dylan beats her to it. He pushes her hair behind her ear and cups the side of her face.
She looks down at his arm and then back up to his eyes. She sees a very familiar look in his eyes and gets lost in his stare for a few seconds. He ever so slightly urges her toward him with his hand and she lets her head get closer to his. He leans down slowly, carefully watching her to see if she'll pull away from him.
Brenda thinks in her head that she should pull away and that kissing him right now would be a really bad idea, but can't seem to fight the gravitation of her body to his.
He realizes that she is not resisting and dips down to capture her lips with his. They start to kiss slowly and tentatively, neither one of them moving their bodies at all. Brenda feels the slight resistance she may have had fade away as Dylan reaches his hand around her shoulder and pulls her closer. She puts her hand up to his face and holds it there while they kiss each other.
* * * * *
Casa Walsh
Brandon paces the kitchen floor as he talks on the phone to Christine from the FBI.
'Brandon, tell me everything,' she says.
Brandon tells her about the notes they had received and their plan to try to bring Dylan back to town using Brenda.
'I'm really concerned about this. I don't know that much about the Marchette family, since after Jack's death I was moved to another department, but I'll see what I can find out. For the moment though it seems that you and your friends might be in danger,' Christine says.
'Danger from what? They're after Brenda right?' Brandon asks her.
'I don't know at this point who they're after. Her name was on the note, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they're after her. It's probable, but may not be what we think it is. To be safe though, I'd like to contact some of our agents that are over in Europe right now and see what the likelihood of putting a detail on her would be. If Iris is there too, that means that two people with good connections to Dylan are in the same place, and that's never a good thing,' she tells him.
'I didn't tell her yet that I was going to contact you, maybe you should talk to her and ask her if she's seen anything unusual first,' Brandon says.
'I definitely want to talk to her. If she has any information at all, it would at least give us a starting point. I'd also like to take a look around your house and Dylan's house. Maybe something was left behind that will point us in the right direction. I'll be in touch, Brandon,' she says.
'Okay, thanks,' he says. Brandon hangs up the phone and puts his hand to his forehead.
'How the hell did this happen?' he says to himself.
He feels a tightening in his chest when he thinks about the dangerous situation that he may have put his sister in.
* * * * *
Iris sits at the table trying to make sense of the symbols from the second note. She is finding that this one is a little more difficult than the first one. She stands up from the table and stretches her body. She starts to walk around the apartment and tries to clear her head.
She goes into her bedroom and pulls out the bag she received from the doctor. She brings a blanket and a few candles out into the living room and starts to meditate.
Iris slowly relaxes her entire body starting with her toes up to her shoulders. She sits with her back entirely straight and her hands resting on her knees. She breathes in and out slowly to capture a rhythm.
As she sits peacefully, the symbols she was analyzing float slowly through her mind. She sees the Empress symbol stop in the center of her thoughts and hang there. Iris tries to see through the symbol to a deeper meaning of what Toni is trying to tell them.
She fully believes that all of these messages are from Toni and that there is something deeper that she needs to say. Iris continues to watch the symbols float around Toni and align themselves with her symbol.
She focuses on the alignment and tries to memorize the order.
* * * * *
Brenda and Dylan sit on the bench with their arms around each other kissing slowly. Brenda relaxes her entire body into his arms as he pulls her closer.
When they finally part from each other, Dylan puts his hand on the side of her face and holds her close for a few more seconds.
'Dylan,' she says.
'Sssh, let's not talk about it right now, okay?' he whispers to her.
She nods her head slowly as he moves his hand from her face to her hand. He stands up slowly, pulling her off of the bench and continues walking around the water.
They walk in silence holding hands, stealing glances at each other every few minutes.
'Fancy meeting you here,' Brenda hears from behind her. She turns around at the sound of a familiar voice.
'Beau,' she says and stops walking.
Dylan lets go of Brenda's hand, puts his arm around her shoulders and turns around to face Beau.
'Are you performing today?' she asks him. He nods his head at her, but stares at Dylan the entire time.
'Still here I see,' he says to Dylan. 'It's amazing to me that years have gone by with no visitors, yet you come and stay for over a month,' Beau continues.
Dylan smiles at him and raises his eyebrows.
'Beau, first of all that was incredibly rude and second, it's none of your business,' Brenda shoots back at him.
Beau shrugs his shoulders and starts to walk around them, bumping Brenda in the shoulder as he does.
She stumbles a little, but Dylan steadies her as Beau quickly turns the corner.
'Bren, did something happen with that guy that I should know about? I mean, he's not going to come and kill us while we sleep, is he?' Dylan asks her.
'Nothing happened between us, Dylan. I've never seen him act like that before,' she says.
'Well, be careful around him, okay?' Dylan says.
Brenda nods her head as Dylan grabs her hand and continues to walk down the path.
'We should head back soon,' Brenda says. 'I'm worried about Iris.'
'Well, she hasn't called yet and I don't want to bother her,' Dylan says. He tries to cover up the fact that he wants to spend more time with her alone and not deal with what's going on with Iris back at the apartment.
Brenda smiles knowingly and just nods her head. Dylan looks at her and realizes that she knows exactly what he's trying to do.
Dylan stops walking and turns to face her. 'Bren, I'm not avoiding what's going on, I just want to prolong it for just a little bit longer. I don't know what she's going to find in that second note and it scares me a little. I just want to enjoy these moments before going back into that, okay?' he explains.
'I understand, Dylan. What would you like to do?' she asks him.
Dylan raises his eyebrows at her and squeezes her hand. She looks up at him and smiles.