Disclaimer: Meg Cabot owns all the stuff from The Mediator.

For your love

Chapter 7

I waited an hour before I went back to Jesse's room. Fortunately, he was asleep by then. I was still going through with this, of course. While I was waiting I'd had a chance to think about all this, and I'd decided that I wasn't going to let what Paul had said bother me. After all, I had Ellie on my side didn't I? At least I hoped so; I still wasn't one hundred percent sure on whether or not she was trustworthy. But like I said before, I was just going to have to give her the benefit of the doubt and go with what I wanted to believe on this one. Anyway, she seemed to know her stuff about shifting, so if I did have her help then what was the worst Paul could do?

When I went into Jesse's room (or mine, whatever you want to call it) and at first I just looked at him. It was weird seeing Jesse sleep, since, as a ghost, he didn't need to. Just as I was walking towards him I saw a flash of light out of the corner of my eye.

"Hey Ellie," I said, not really surprised to see her since she'd said she might show up.

Ellie wasted no time with greetings. "You need to hurry up, Suze," She told me.

I gave her a confused look, "Why?"

"Paul knows," She explained. "He came after you. Didn't you see him?"

"Yeah, I did, but why do I have to hurry? Can't we just go back to just a little bit after we left?" I hoped that made sense, it sounded a little bit confusing.

"Things are a little bit more complicated now Suze. In case you haven't notice he took the book with him, we need to get it back."

The book! I'd forgotten all about it with the whole seeing-Jesse-when-he-was-alive thing and I'd left it in here.

"Suze," Ellie said, "stop daydreaming. Let's just get what we came for and go. Here I brought this with me."

She handed me a knife then went to pick up the bottle, which I'd left on the floor earlier. I stepped up to the bed where Jesse was sleeping and looked down at him.

"What if he wakes up?" I asked Ellie as she handed me the bottle.

Ellie looked at Jesse then said, "Don't worry about it. I've got it sorted. Now get on with it."

I took a deep breath and picked up Jesse's hand, then dropped it again, "Ew, I can't do it. It's too gross."

I've never been particularly squeamish, in my experience the mediating business tends to involve a lot of bloodshed, and I've never actually been bothered about it. But this was different; it was just, I don't know... ugh! You know?

Ellie rolled her eyes. "Oh for Pete's sake!" She grabbed the knife from me and sliced it across Jesse's hand. It was like on Pirates of the Caribbean when they keep trying to undo the curse. I always hated those bits because I couldn't help thinking how irritating it would be to have a big cut like that on your hand. Not fun. Ellie then held up the empty water bottle and let the blood trickle into it while I just concentrated on not throwing up and stuff.

When she was done she put the lid back on the bottle and ripped a strip of material off the sheet on the bed. She wrapped the material around Jesse's cut then said, "Come on, we better get going."

I nodded and took hold of the hand Ellie offered to me. She took a sheet of paper out of her pocket and began to read from it. As I got one last look of the 1850s Jesse I smiled. Hopefully it wouldn't be long now before we could finally be together. I soon got that dizzy feeling from the time travelling then suddenly I was back in my room, in my own time. I let go of Ellie's hand and sat on my bed.

"So what now?" I asked.

"We need to get that book back off Paul. He also took some other things that we're going to need."

"And how are we supposed to do that?" I asked. I so did not want to go back to Paul's house.

"I don't know," Ellie said. "I can't go and get them, he'll be expecting that."

"What good is me going instead going to do?"

"None. We need to think of some sort of plan."

I couldn't believe it Paul had done it. He'd beaten us already and we'd barely even begun. I could just see him now sitting there, looking all smug, with that stupid book of his. I was seriously pissed off with him right then. So, even though I was perfectly aware that it wasn't going to do anything but make me angrier, I picked up my phone and dialled Paul's number.

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A/N: I'll make the next chapter longer. I promise.

PisxiePam: I updated! Obviously. I don't know whether it was soon or not, I can't remember, which suggests that it wasn't soon. But whatever I'm here now aren't I? Thanks for the review.

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Dark-Killer: Ok I updated, so don't kill me or anything dude.

Mystique Angelique: I think I got the commas right this time but do you think you could give me an example of what I was doing wrong? Just to make sure. Thanks for the review.

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