"So what are you looking for again?"
"Dunno."
Tyler had borrowed the photocopied file from Pogue once class had ended before the emergency meeting, and was reviewing all of it. Nothing in it conformed to Clea's tale, but at the same time everything did.
He flipped through the twelve pages again, not finding anything new or incriminating. He sighed, and put the file down, convincing himself that Maddie was honest and that her abilities were true. But a nagging feeling in the bottom of his heart didn't agree.
"Well you can search for whatever it is later, we have to go meet everyone for the meeting." Pogue said.
"Yeah. Right. Lets go." Tyler shoved the file back into the desk drawer and walked out the door after Pogue.
When they got to Ana and Maddie's dorm room Tyler hesitated a bit before walking in. Fortuantely Pogue didn't, and seconds later they were standing in the lvingroom, Maddie reading a book while sitting on a couch and Reid and Ana eating each other's faces on the other. Pogue laughed loudly when he saw, but the two still didn't separate. Maddie didn't react either, and they soon noticed the two small earphones in each of her ears.
"Hello!" Pogue yelled loudly. Maddie jumped, Ana stopped and Reid pulled himself off of her for a moment to glare at his friends.
"What the hell do you want?" He hissed, wiping lipgloss off his mouth.
"Meeting, dumbass, did you forget?"
Reid paused and thought of this.
"No. I just found a better thing to do."
Ana cackled.
"Well we need to hold the meeting now, Reid." Caleb said, suprising everyone by his stealthy entry moments ago. "You can finish what you started later."
Reid groaned and sat up, followed swiftly by Ana.
"Anastasia Siward, didn't you have an erran to run?" Maddie said innocently. Ana looked at her, blinked, sighed, and resigned herself to her fate. She stood grudgingly, fixed her skirt and hair and after putting on a fresh coat of dark red lipgloss waltzed out the door.
"Right, lets get started then." Caleb said.
Maddie took the earphones out of her ears, Pogue sat down on the couch beside Reid and Tyler just stood beside Caleb.
"So whats this meeting for, Caleb?" Maddie asked.
"Just a warning, I think. I have a feeling that Chase is going to try and hit during the winter formal. He hit at the fall formal last time, and I think that he thinks we'll have our guard down like last time."
"Also because Reid is ascending that day." Pogue said. "January 27th."
"So we have to assume that Reid is his main target. And that he's going to try and get to you no matter what, so we need to set up extra security. And never get Reid out of our sight."
"Right." Pogue nodded. He turned to Reid. "So how does it feel to be the center of attention, blondie?"
Reid grinned and was about to answer when Caleb cut him off.
"This isn't a game, this isn't about being the center of attention, this is about killing Chase Collins and making sure no one gets hurt again. So keep Ana out of the picture for a little bit, don't be with her in public and don't brag about her. Got it?"
Reid nodded, grasping the seriousness of the situation.
"And Maddie." Caleb turned to the only girl in the room. "Don't stay too close to us. Its ok if its in school, because we already stated that Chase isn't going to attack from that angle, but outside and in the streets don't get too attached, alright?"
"Yeah, sure." She nodded.
"And as for you two." He turned to Pogue and Tyler. "No fucking around. When I say something is going to be done no arguing, no retaliating, no going off on your own or anything. You guys don't have anything to lose yet, so don't fuck it up for those who do."
Pogue looked slightly offended by this, remembering Kate's fight for her life against a curse Chase set on her last time they fought, but stayed quiet. It was true that this time, if Chase wanted to get to the next ascending son, Reid, he could only hurt Reid himself or maybe Ana. The rest of them were safe as long as Reid stayed his usual self.
"That's all." Caleb said. "Just please remember all this. We can't afford losing anyone."
Everyone slowly shuffled out of the room except Maddie, who plugged the earphones back in her ears and proceeded to lose herself in her small world of music and Nietzsche. Tyler cast her a glance as he stepped out, wondering how she could have lied to all of them.
Caleb, once having returned to his house and locked himself in his room, proceeded to strip from the waist up and examine for the enth time the damage that the aging has caused to his body.
His arms looked a good half century older than he was. The skin was wrinkled, parchment-thin and transparent to the point where he could see the veins and blood vessels in his flesh. His hands looked like claws, his fingers had elongated and his nails grown thicker and yellow before chipping off at random places. His knuckles looked like tree bark, and felt as flexible as it too.
The aging had spread upwards towards his shoulders a while ago. They were with brown spots and the skin was bigger than the flesh was and it drooped a little. His chest wasn't as old as his arms were but it was getting there: where there used to be a fit body shaped up from long swim meets and days at the gym now the muscles were disappearing fast and the skin starting to sag from the excess space. He could feel his ribs getting brittle under his waist.
Caleb gritted his teeth and made his pained hands into fists. It was spreading, fast, and he needed to stop it. He could feel the age starting to affect his legs from the inside out, his knees and muscles getting sore quickly and without reason. He felt lucky that it hadn't yet reached his face, else than the bags under the eyes and the small, nearly invisible wrinkles that formed around his eyes when he smiled that weren't there before, but he knew that it was just a matter of time before he was exposed completely.
He sighed and sat down on his bed. He held up his hands and examined them carefully. Where months ago he had had smooth hands that used his power gracefully and wrote with elegance he now possessed hands that could belong to a monster, or a dying old man.
And it was painfully unfair.
He had never done anything wrong to anyone, except Chase of course, but he deserved it. He was the most responsible of the entire covenant, the most kind, the most compassionate, and he's still the one who ends up suffering.
Then his mind started drifting to how far he would go to get rid of this aging. Would he make an innocent suffer? Certainly. Would he kill? Most likely. Would he hurt the covenant?
With a sigh he shrugged away the thought, thinking that he'll cross that bridge when he gets there