Chapter 36
After a long while walking, we stopped to set up camp. We had walked well into the night, but I was really tired so Gabriel told me to stop. I sat down, but it didn't ease the pain. It wouldn't, after all.
We sat in silence. Gabriel had set up a fire, though I insisted to help, he could see how much pain I was in. I rather wished he ignored it. I thought that maybe if he did, that I would have a much better time trying to keep my mind off of it as well. My breathing, the constant issue of walking around was coarse after the walk today. We had gone slow, but Gabriel said it wasn't that far. Maybe that's why he allowed me to go in the first place.
"Gabriel," I began. It was the first thing I'd said since…well since he'd caught me trying to escape.
"Mmm," he replied, poking yet another piece of wood into the fire. He was holding out two sticks of fish from a river nearby. As entirely sick I was of fish (it was the only food we had over our previous journey) I was so famished that I could hardly keep myself patiently waiting for it to cook. The aroma hit me and I almost held my breath. It was unbearably delicious (as much as fish could be anyway.)
"Why did you…." I began. Why did he let me go?
He seemed to know my question before I asked it. What is it with people and being able to read my thoughts?
"You have to find your brother. It was important to you," he shrugged.
I looked at him, disbelievingly. "Oh," I said. There was nothing else I could say after all. He was obviously lying. I just…I just wondered what the truth was. There was something lingering behind his eyes, maybe he knew something I didn't.
"You're just too stubborn. I knew you would find a way out somehow and I wasn't willing to let you go alone."
I nodded. I was important to him. To them, I mean. I was important because it was their only way of righting the wrongs that had befallen the world that was my home. I should want to help them, for life's sake. I just didn't want it to be me.
"So you're really taking me there? You really think this is where Cal is?"
Gabriel nodded. "Even though you may be unaware, I've known Cal a long time. We'd always known he was one of great importance to society. For a long while, we thought it was him that could put it back to normal, for everything to go on as it was before all of this went over, but…" he paused and looked at me.
"But you discovered something about a sibling," I said, inquiring myself.
"Yes," he answered placently. "We're not sure what to do when we figure out who isn't on our side. You see, we merely know and we have no control over what might happen. That's why we need you, or Cal to protect us when the time comes. We can't face your father when he decides to finally show himself."
I took this in. "How will it happen then?" I asked. "How will you know when…"
"When one of you turns over?" he asked. "I can't say. Juniper knows a lot more about this than we do."
I nodded. "She's very experienced isn't she?"
He laughed. "More than you know!"
I gave him an puzzled and he smiled.
"Do you remember her and that man talking in the woods. She and him were talking and talking about "old times." I don't know if you realized this, but those old times were when the break through first happened with the dreams and nightmares."
"Oh, so they've got a big past together," I guessed.
"Raina, when that first happened, well…." He began. "That was four thousand years ago."