CHAPTER 11
"Wh-what is going on here?" Marguerite ran over to Roxton and tried shaking him. "Roxton! John!" She put her ear against his chest and tried listening for a heart beat. She listened and listened but didn't hear anything. "Damn it, John! Don't you dare go dying on me! You wake up this instant!" She quickly checked the others and saw they were in the same state as Roxton. "What the hell do I do? I don't even know what's wrong with them, how can I help them?"
"There's nothing wrong with them."
When Marguerite matched the voice with the child from the cave and found her standing next to Roxton with a smirk on her face, she didn't hold back her anger. "YOU! I knew I wasn't imagining all that! What have you done! What did you to do my friends! You better pray they are all right because if they aren't, nothing will save you from me!"
The little girl shook her head and started walking in Marguerite's direction. "Temper, temper, Marguerite. I just told you, your friends are fine."
"And I'm just supposed to take your word on that?" Marguerite scoffed. "Just undo whatever you did to them and I might not hurt you."
"You still don't get it, do you? I'm not here for them, I'm here for you."
"Look brat, I want some straight answers. What exactly do you want from me!"
"This is your chance, Marguerite." The girl waved her arms around her, "The one you've been waiting for. Take it."
Marguerite wasn't any closer to understanding what was happening and she didn't like being played with. "Take what? What on earth are you babbling about, kid?"
"You always wonder why these friends of yours rarely give you the benefit of the doubt, why they don't trust you as much as you trust them. Just this very moment I have frozen in time is proof of that. Well, this is your chance to change it. You've been wondering about this for years. Tell them the truth." The girl pointed towards Roxton and then disappeared.
"Damn it," she started muttering under her breath and made her way over to Roxton. As soon as her eyes met the medallion it started its decent and landed in Roxton's waiting palm. She also noticed that everyone else was back to normal as well.
She sighed and held out her palm. "Fork it over, Roxton." She noticed he was still holding the key to her future as if it was a toy and she started to grow impatient. However, she knew how stubborn Roxton was and that he wasn't going to give it back unless she told him something. She could tell him anything, he wouldn't know if it was the truth or not.
She decided against it. At one point or another, the truth would come out and it would be better coming from herself. "Just give it to me, and I'll tell you everything, all right?"
"There you go, Marguerite," he smiled and handed it back to her. "All right, you have your trinket, now out with it."
Marguerite looked at the faces of her friends and started having second thoughts. What are they going to think of me after I tell them? We've all just started to get along really well and they've started trusting me more. Will this only ruin everything? Marguerite tried to shake off her negative thoughts. There's only one way to find out. I have to do this, I have to know how they will react to me once they know everything.
"Well, you all might as well sit down, this is going to take a while to explain." Everyone made their way to a fallen tree and had a seat and waited for Marguerite to explain. "Well, um…" She glanced over at Roxton and he gave her an encouraging smile. "It all started in Shanghai."
"Shanghai? Why were you in Shanghai?" Malone asked.
"Well, if you let me continue, you'll find out." Marguerite glared at Malone. "As I was about to say, I was in Shanghai on business and I was working out a deal when things went south and I was forced to get out of there. They tracked me down before I could leave."
"How did they track you down? What kind of business deal were you working out that you had to run?" Malone's curious mind was asking a lot of questions and Marguerite wasn't sure if she should answer them.
"Don't worry, Marguerite, we're here to listen. Go ahead." Roxton smiled at her again.
Marguerite took a deep breath and started her story again. "You don't need to know the business I was working, but the man I was dealing with has people all over Shangai. It was only a matter of time before he found me. I only needed a little bit more time and I might have made it out."
"Marguerite," Challenger interrupted, "just exactly who is this man?"
"Ever heard of Shangai Xan?" Roxton, Malone, and Challenger's faces all wore shock while Veronica's wore one of confusion.
"Who's Shanghai Xan?" Veronica asked.
"He's one of the most dangerous crime lords in the world. He has people all over the east doing business for him. I ran into some of his men while I was in the east, they are not men to be taken lightly." Roxton turned his gaze from Veronica back to Marguerite.
"My paper did a story on the Xans once, not people that I'd like to deal with," Malone said.
Veronica looked at Marguerite worriedly. "And you were doing business with the leader of these type of people? What were you thinking?"
"Now, Veronica," Challenger interrupted, "I'm sure Marguerite had her reasons. Let her continue."
Marguerite smiled gratefully at Challenger. "Thank you, George. Well, I had no choice in dealing with him, but that isn't the point. Once I was brought back to Xan, he made it very clear that I was in his debt and that it must be repaid. That's where this little medallion comes in." Marguerite held it up. "This is called an Ouroboros. Actually half of one. Xan showed it to me and told me that he believed that the second half of the piece was on this plateau and that I had to come here and get it for him."
Challenger quickly stood up. "Are you telling me that Xan knew about the plateau then? And you did as well?"
Marguerite nodded her head. "That's right, George. That's why I funded the expedition, I had to find a way to get here. It's not everyday that a woman comes to South America by herself, it would attract too much attention."
"So you just used the expedition as a means to get here? You never cared about the findings of the expedition or us did you?" Veronica asked.
"That's not true, Veronica. I had my reasons for coming here, I had no choice. George would have gotten the necessary funding sooner or later, I just sped up the inevitable. Why does it matter where the money came from or why I came here? You all got here didn't you? You still made your discoveries George, Malone you still got your story, and Roxton you still got your chance to bag your trophy. I unfortunately still haven't accomplished what I came here to. I don't know if I ever will." Marguerite looked away from her friends and down at the piece of metal in her hand.
Roxton looked at Marguerite and could see her wistful glance as she looked at the small piece of gold. "Marguerite, why is this medallion so important to Xan? You still haven't explained that to us."
"The Ouroboros is a snake biting it's own tail. It represents birth, death, and rebirth. The legend goes that when both halves of the medallion are joined, the person who holds it will have great power. One of them being able to be taken anywhere just by wishing it."
Challenger scoffed, "And you believe in this fairy tale?"
"It doesn't matter whether I believe it or not, George. When you are in debt to Xan, you have to repay him in full."
"Wait," Veronica interrupted, "if this medallion is so powerful and important to Xan, why would he just let you walk off with his only half and expect you to return with the other half?"
"He wouldn't. I took it from him as insurance." Marguerite looked at her friends' faces and tried to judge their reactions.
"Figures you'd steal it." Veronica said.
"Insurance against what, Marguerite?" Malone asked. "Surely, he wouldn't try to kill you if you were looking for the other half for him."
"No, Malone. She did it for some other reason. Didn't you, Marguerite?" Roxton looked knowingly at her. "Why is this so important to you?"
"Because," she looked into Roxton's eyes, "Xan has my birth certificate. I have to do this John, this is my chance to find out who I am."
"Why didn't you tell us, Marguerite? We would have understood."
"It isn't that simple, John. These are dangerous people, I couldn't risk telling you all and putting you at risk. Besides, this is my problem, not yours. I've been searching for my heritage my whole life, and I can't give up now. So whether or not you all turn your back on me, I will keep searching and I won't leave this plateau until I find it. I won't let Xan destroy the only tie to the past I have!"
Marguerite kept waiting and hoping that her friends would jump in and say that they would help her and wouldn't turn their backs on her. She looked at them with tears in her eyes that she would never let fall and back at Roxton hoping he of all people would believe in her.
"Now what do you want?" Marguerite knew deep down that even though she had kept the truth from her friends, they would never turn their backs on her. She realized that they weren't speaking not because they didn't want to, but because they couldn't. "You can come out and show your face now!"
"Now what did I tell you about that temper of yours, Marguerite?"
"Look, kid, thing, or whatever you are. None of this is real, why are you keeping me here? Let me out of this place already!"
The little girl looked surprised. "You mean you don't want to find out where the Ouroboros is, Marguerite? After that speech you just gave, I thought you'd jump at the chance to find out where it is."
"What are you talking about?"
The girl walked towards her friends. "What if I told you that one of your friends knew where the second half of the medallion was? What would you think?"
Marguerite looked skeptically at the girl. "I wouldn't believe you. If one of them had known where it was, I would have found out about it already."
"Well, it's true. One of your friends has been off exploring by themselves and knows where it is. So what will you do?"
"What do you mean, what will I do?" Marguerite asked.
"If you find the other half, silly. What will you do?"
"Look, you better start making some sense before I lose all patience."
"I think I know what you'll do, Marguerite." She started circling Marguerite with a knowing smile on her face. "Once you join both halves, you'd use the power of the medallion to take you back to Shanghai so you could get your birth certificate. Then you'd try to find your parents. You know, the ones who gave you that locket with the inscription you read every night before you go to bed. 'For our daughter, Marguerite. Forever in our thoughts.' Am I right?"
Is she right? Could I leave them all that easily? If I had found that medallion earlier I might have, but I don't know if I can just walk away from them all that easily.
"You hesitate, Marguerite. Are you telling me if I unfroze your friends and one of them showed you where to find the missing half, you wouldn't go after it? You wouldn't leave this plateau and find the very thing you've been looking for your entire life? All of your struggles, all of your pain, all of your wondering and praying would finally be worth it. Are you telling me you wouldn't leave this place in a heartbeat? You don't owe these people anything. You could find your name, you could find your family. You haven't even known these people three years, and even then it's been shaky friendships at most."
Marguerite looked at the faces of her friends. "No, you're wrong. These people are not just my friends, they are my family. No relationship is perfect, but I love these people as if they were my true family, the same goes for Summerlee even though he isn't with us. I don't know if I could choose between finding my past and what I would lose with these people in the future. If one day I find the Ouroboros, I'll make a decision and I'll tell them all the truth one day, but for now there's no reason for them to know.
"Now, I know this whole thing you've shown me isn't real. So why don't you stop wasting my time with things that could have been and put me back in reality. As I told you before I'm a very busy woman."
"Very well, Marguerite. I hope you're happy with your decision. You had your chance to change it."
Marguerite placed her hands on her hips, "Yeah, yeah, can we go now?" In the blink of an eye, she was back in the cave and the girl was gone. After picking up her torch, she started cursing under breath and went back to her long search.
TBC
A/N: We're almost at the end, two more chapters to go! Thanks for everyone who is reviewing, stick around next chapter will be up soon. Drop me a line if you can. :)