Here it is!
Chapter 3
Isabel
I wake up in the middle of the night, my sixth sense making my whole body tingle. I go to wake up Arkarian, only to find he's not there. I pick up his note, the words making dread grow deeper and deeper.
Quickly, I dress into something warm and leave the hotel. Although I have no clue where Arkarian could be, my sixth sense leads me directly to him. I walk up to him. "Arkarian! There you are! I've been looking for you. I think something's wrong." When he doesn't respond, I touch his arm gently, and he swings it up, hitting me in the face. "OW!" I exclaim. "What was that for?"
He doesn't apologize, simply narrows his eyes at me. "Are…are you okay?" I ask cautiously. I try to go over to him, but my sixth sense seems to be preventing me.
"Was it something I said?" I ask. He continues glaring.
"You know what?" he says, "Just shut up." And he punches me. Of course, it heals right away, but the fact that it happened is what hurts more. I feel the tears well up in my eyes.
"What was that for, Arkarian?" I exclaim. He's always been so gentle, caring, and loving that this one act surprises me.
"I don't love you, Isabel. I'm just pretending." His voice is the same cold one as before. "Why don't you just go back to the hotel, and leave me the hell alone?"
I breathe deeply, narrowing my eyes. "Fine," I snap, "But tomorrow, we're going back to Angel Falls. It's almost been two months here anyway."
And with that, I stalk off into the night. As I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, I try to think about what could possibly have happened to make Arkarian act the way he did. I figure he might just have had a bad night, or something, and that he'll hopefully be back to normal by morning.
Unfortunately, he's not. I try to embrace him when I wake up, but he pushes me away. "Just pack your stuff, and let's get out of here, okay?" With a sigh, I do so, and we leave.
During the long plane ride home from England, I try to engage him in conversation, but he refuses to talk to me at all. It's probably better this way, so that nothing bad gets said. Half of the flight goes like this, before I say, "Look, I don't know what I said or did to make you angry, but I'm sorry." He doesn't say anything, and I feel hot, thick tears roll down my cheeks. "Arkarian, please talk to me! Why can't you be the man I know? The one who tries to encourage me to do better, and who comforts me when my idiotic brother won't? Please, at least tell me what I did wrong so I can try to fix it!"
Even after all that, he still chooses to ignore me. So, I decide to do the same. For the rest of the trip, neither of us says anything to the other.
When we get home, we're greeted enthusiastically. But when they see that neither of us are very happy with each other, Ethan tries to talk to Arkarian, while I get bombarded by Mom, Matt, Rochelle, and Neriah. Jimmy, Shaun, and Dillon join Ethan helping Arkarian, but it seems that whatever he's mad at me for is something so big that he won't talk to anybody. As I look around, I notice that there's one person missing; Chloe. But before I get a chance to ask about her, I have to answer Matt's question of what's wrong. So I tell all four of them, then remember that Matt, Rochelle, and Neriah are all Truthseers.
"Matt, I need to ask you a favour," I say to him.
He looks surprised. "Sure, what?"
"I don't think that Arkarian is himself. Do you think that you could check his thoughts to see what's wrong?"
He laughs. "Isabel, this is probably the most experienced member of the Guard we're talking about. I doubt he'd leave his thoughts open for anyone to read!"
I shoot Matt a pleading look, and he gives in. Seconds later, he opens his eyes, looking startled.
"What? Did you find the problem?" I ask frantically.
He shakes his head. "Not exactly. But I think you were right about him not being himself; there was a strange fog surrounding his mind. I think someone from the Order could be controlling him, but they'd have to have a specific skill to be able to do that. There's only one person in existence that has that skill, and as far as I know, she's on our side."
I look suspiciously at him. "Who? Do I know her?"
"Oh yes. You know her quite well, actually. You see, the only person with the skill to overshadow somebody is Chloe. And the thing is, Chloe's not here. The last time I saw her, she said something about going to England."
Sooooo…I guess Chloe's not such a good girl after all…why is it that in almost every single fic on GoT there is, Chloe (if she's even featured) is evil? Maybe because her character was really only mentioned a few times in the series, and she's a really easy person to consider evil…I don't know!