Author note: Hello, gawd, I've missed this and therefore I'm braking my own rule of not updating until the end of the month and here I am sending chapter five your way, I'm currently on par with my NaNoWriMo novel Siren Song (only just though) and I wrote most of this chapter while I was ahead with it and just finished it off today and rather than wait until the end of the month the post it I figured I do it now. So yeah, please enjoy it isn't all that long but I've been meaning to finish this for a while, hope you like it :) xxx
Chapter five
Sherwood House
We all stared at Mark, watching him as he resumed flicking through his notebook and turning his words over in our minds, 'THE dream'? Surely that couldn't mean what we thought it did, that Mark had had the first dream more than once? The room was silent, it remained that way for a good number of minutes before Will spoke, his voice cutting through the thick silence and making Mark wince slightly at the noise.
"When you say THE dream, you don't mean….?" Will started hesitantly but Mark cut across him, losing his usual calm completely now and bordering on hysterical when he said,
"The dream we all had in the beginning, the one we had after we met the old woman and the one with the prophecy, yes that one."
I blinked, worried by the way Mark was acting and how pained and exhausted he seemed, it was almost as though he had reached his limit and was about to crack. I pulled myself from George's lap, brushing my fingertips across his hand reassuringly as I did so, before walking around the meeting table to where Mark stood, looking dead on his feet and as though he would like nothing more than to curl up into a ball. How could I not have noticed this sooner?
"How long has this been going on for?" I asked my friend as I put a calming hand on his shoulder, at my touch he turned to look at me, green eyes shinning with tears behind his reading glasses.
"Ever since the first night we had the dream, it never stopped coming, I've had it every night since then." He admitted and I felt like an even crappier friend, how could he have been going through this for so long without me noticing? Some friend I was.
"Why didn't you tell us?" I asked as I lowered myself into one of the chairs around the meeting table, I never took my hand from Mark's shoulder and he had no choice but to sit in the chair next to mine, I had a feeling he needed to sit down before he collapsed out of pure exhaustion.
"It wasn't bad at first," he said and out of the corner of my eye I saw Jack sit down next to the others, everyone was listening intently, worry etched across their features "the dream came to me every night but it wasn't distressing in any way, and they didn't effect my sleeping at all, I woke up every day feeling refreshed and ready to help people. I thought that was the desired effect and thought no more of it. I thought that it was happening to everyone, but I soon realised that none of you had this problem when I tried to broach the subject but you had almost no reaction," I thought about Mark's words, remembering almost instantly the many times that Mark had brought up the topic of repeated dreams, and how I hadn't understood the confused and thoughtful look that crossed his face every time we said we didn't have them. "So I figured that I was the only one who was supposed to be having the dream, that it meant that there was something that I had to do and this was something I had to deal with on my own or else the rest of you would have been having the dream as well. So I wrote down the prophecy one night after my dream and started to dissect it, cutting it into bits so that I could decipher what every little bit meant." I nodded, understanding Mark's reasoning and urging him to continue, wondering in the back of my mind all the while if my dream had a purpose "but then I got stuck," he admitted looking slightly ashamed, in response to this I tightened my grip on his shoulder and looked stern, he had no reason to be ashamed "I couldn't figure out what certain bits of it meant and that's when the dreams turned nasty. Well, I suppose the dreams themselves didn't turn nasty, they stayed the same, the old woman appeared, told me that I was a merry man and part of Robin Hood's gang, that it was my job to help Robin the best I could and then she recited the prophecy. Nothing changed there but I started waking up and feeling terrible, as though I had been having a nightmare or had just ran a mile in under a minute, I woke up everyday frightened and with the sense of failure. After that I started to wake up from my dream in the middle of the night, the same time every night, and then I found that I couldn't get back to sleep, my mind would let me dream just long enough for me to see the prophecy and then it would wake me up and I could never get back to sleep. That's been happening for a few weeks now."
Mark finished and hung his head in shame, I looked from my shattered friend to the note book on the desk and then to the rest of the outlaws around the table, my brow was frowned slightly in discontentment and they all wore similar expressions. This wasn't fair on Mark, he was so tired and filled with self disgust, he hadn't failed us and we needed to tell him that.
"You should have told us mate," John said as he watched Mark struggle to keep his eyes open "you shouldn't have put yourself through this."
"I thought it was my job, that it was my responsibility to find out what the prophecy meant. But now, now I'm too tired to care any more, I've forgotten what sheet I came here to look for I'm that tired, I've given up." Mark said before resting his head on his arms on the table and letting out a yawn.
"We're not giving up Mark," I said as I rubbed Mark's slumped shoulders "you've done your best and we appreciate that, but let us help you now, I know we can figure it out if we try."
Mark turned his head as it rested on his arms and looked at me, even though his eyes were half closed I could see the defeat there and I didn't like it. "We wont be able to figure it out Robin, I've had almost nothing else in my head for weeks now, it's impossible. I'm sorry, I was supposed to figure it out and I cant, I've failed you all." Mark groaned and I felt my heart drop a little, I had never seen Mark this way, so down and depressed, it frightened me to see him like this.
"It's okay to ask for help once in a while Mark," George said calmly and comfortingly from the head of the meeting table, Mark seemed too look up a little in hope and even I was basking in the waves of calm George's voice inspired "and you haven't failed us in the slightest, you did all you could do, we cant as for anything more."
I smiled at George, who was looking every inch, the potential powerful businessman once again, I was only glad he used his powers for good and that he was on our side. I smiled gratefully at George before turning back to Mark and speaking in my most inspiring and comforting voice "George is right, you did your best and we appreciate it."
Mark looked up at me, dark purple circles set in his skin but a new hope flickering in his eyes, now that was the Mark I knew.
"It's not healthy you not sleeping, we'll figure this out and then you can get right again," Will said before turning to Jack, asking her silently to confirm his words.
"He's right, you need your sleep Mark, you'll make yourself ill." Jack agreed and Mark looked at her sceptically before asking,
"What, even more so than I am now?"
Jack nodded and Mark copied the motion, contemplating for a brief second before sitting up "I've done all I can do, I don't know how much more we can figure out but I suppose six heads is better than one." he said as he pulled the notebook towards him, I pulled my chair closer to his and all the others leaned in towards the table in anticipation. John picked up the TV remote, his fingers fumbled with the control and he accidentally pressed the button for channel three before muting the TV.
"I'll go and make you my grandma's sleeping tonic," Jack said as she eyed Mark worriedly "I think I have everything I need in the fridge and you'll want to sleep when we've finished this." Mark nodded his thanks and Jack got up, walked briskly to the back of the office where there was a tiny (and I do mean tiny) kitchenette that had been installed after the fire, where she started to pull ingredients from the little fridge. Meanwhile Mark flicked through his notebook until he found the page he was looking for, where on there was a written copy of the prophecy we had heard in our dream, I looked at the annotated page and was slightly astounded by how many notes Mark had written on the page, it reminded me of my GCSE English Anthology there were so many scribbles on the page.
"When did you start doing this?" Will asked, Mark didn't even have to think about the question and answered straight away with,
"July, around the time we snuck into Baxter's office actually," Mark said passively and I thought back, remembering Mark carrying around this notebook that week.
"Right," Mark said as he settled his finger at the top of the page and the start of the prophecy "do you want me to tell you everything I have already?" he asked and we all nodded, it was the best place to start out really. Mark stifled a yawn before reading the first line of the poem, speaking loudly so that Jack over in the kitchenette could hear him "'rise again shall he of hood, and save the people who he could,'" Mark read before looking at the next section of the poem and saying in a very intellectual and slightly bored tone "well obviously that means that Robin Hood is going to 'rise again' in the form of an ancestor of his so that he can help to people of Locksdale, 'the people who he could', well, the people of this town are in dire need of some help and they are the people he can save."
"Obviously," John teased and Mark looked up at him sternly though he was grinning at his friend, Will, George and I smirked, glad things were lightening up a little.
"Carry on Mark," I said encouragingly and Mark carried on, not even having to look down at the notebook since he had heard the prophecy so many times, he was only using the page for reference.
"The next stanza reads, 'twice a foe with evil schemes, comes to destroy England's dreams,' this line refers to Baxter," Mark said, glancing in George's direction warily as he said it, not sure how George felt about Mark talking about his father like this, George however showed no sign of offence and Mark carried on "about how he's the incarnation of Prince John and that's why he is 'twice a foe'. Or at least that's how I interpret it. I'm not too sure about destroying 'England's dreams' though, I think maybe its referring to the state of calm the rest of the country is in compared to us, or they way things could be without Baxter around. I'm not sure." Mark said with a shrug though it was clear it was bothering him slightly.
I nodded in agreement of Mark's words and he carried on "after that is says 'In the lock of the dale our hero lies, But England must wait with tearful sighs', well clearly 'the lock of the dale,' is referring to Locksdale and this is where this revolution or whatever you want to call what we are trying to do," Mark said with a smirk before looking at us, each one of us wearing a similar expression of mixed pride and amusement "is, so there it is referring to where we or rather more specifically Robin 'our hero', lives. I'm assuming that 'but England must wait with tearful sighs' is just basically saying that although Robin and the rest of us live in Locksdale there is still a wait for us to be ready to help the people. I make that assumption mostly on what the next line says, which is 'for of the year of the two zeros eight, we shall not have to wait.' Basically it's saying that in the year 2008, now, Robin and the rest of us will be ready to help the poor and they won't have to wait anymore." Mark stopped and looked up at us, making sure that we were following.
"Right," I said to show that I understood, my brow was frowned in deep concentration and the others all seemed to be taking in what Mark said, it all made sense and I wondered why we had never thought to do this before. It probably would have been a smart thing to do.
At my encouragement Mark continued to explain the prophecy to us, he seemed quite the expert on the subject and I wondered how it was that he couldn't understand bits of the poem, and how on Earth we were going to figure it out if he couldn't. I kept my thoughts to myself and was full of interest and listening intently when Mark spoke again "this next bit is also pretty simple, it says 'In the glory of she he will return,
and on the sixth month this we shall learn.' Clearly that means that when Robin Hood 'returns' he is going to be a woman, 'in the glory of she', its basically just stating what we already know and giving a face to the person who is going to be Robin Hood. Actually, what with how it says 'and on the sixth month this we shall learn', which obviously means June which is the sixth month of the year and the month we started to help people, that this prophecy or poem or whatever you would call it is actually for someone else's reference and not just our own, I don't know who, it just seems that its original purpose was to tell someone else exactly what was going to happen and then they decided to show it to us to prompt us into action." Mark said, his cheeks pinkening a little as he said his theory aloud, I thought about it for a moment and decided that what Mark was saying was actually quite likely, that someone else heard this before we did, maybe even more than one person, it just seemed as though it was a prediction that had been made in the past and that by the point we heard it, it was already partly true. It also seemed the right format for it. Mark however shook his head and laughed in a way that made me think he was trying to shrug off embarrassment and mock his own ideas.
"Anyway," he said continuing in his explanation "next it says 'With thrice good men a saviour tries, To decipher the truth from the lies,' and to state the obvious this means that there will be three, or 'thrice', men that help Robin to achieve her goal. This prophecy is most likely referring to the point in time when it was first made, when just Robin, Will, John and I were in the gang, which is likely why neither Jack or George were mentioned in it," Mark looked up from his notebook then and looked at George sat at the head of the table and Jack stood behind him in the kitchenette "this is exactly the same as the dream you both had though?" he asked and George nodded.
"So far," he said, his blue eyes shinning with interested. Jack turned around and Mark's words and also nodded her affirmation.
"Word for word." She said, a bowl of mixture in her hands.
Mark nodded once to himself before looking at them both again and saying "that proves my point, the prophecy was talking about what was happening at the moment we received it, it was also instructing both of you on what had happened so far, which is why neither one of you were mentioned."
"So you think that they didn't get a mention because the prophecy was also supposed to tell them what was happening and when, as well as whoever heard this before we did?" I asked wanting to make sure I understood exactly what he meant, Mark nodded before saying,
"That's my theory anyway, we know that both of you are supposed to be here because when Robin met the old woman in the street she said that two more people were involved in this and that we had found Jack on our own and George had had to find his way to us. Right Robin?"
I nodded "she said that we'd found Jack on our own but George had to go about his job of helping people and us alone at first, because of who he was." I said and I watched George shift uncomfortably out of the corner of my eye, probably remembering how I had shouted abuse at him in the streets when we banged into the old woman. I felt a little ashamed at that but hey, he had lied to me and I'm not famous for being understanding.
"Yes, so that's why I think that neither of you are mentioned in the prophecy. Now, the next line, about trying to 'decipher truth from lies' again I think it just has a general meaning, I think it's about how we've got to figure out things and decide what's true and what's not. The next line most likely means the same thing as it says, 'Good from evil, un from just, This all he does because he must,' again I think its just a general term for all the jobs we do in figuring out Baxter's and Conner's plans, and when it says 'all he does because he must', I'm more than sure it means exactly what it says, we have to do this because its out destiny. Also when it says 'If not the dale it shall be lost, All this comes at too much a cost' again this is obvious, its just describing what will happen if we don't do this and the consequences of our failure." Mark said and I felt everyone stiffen uncomfortably at that, as we all pondered what would happen if we failed in this, of all the pain and suffering it would bring. Mark shook himself from his musings and carried on "the next stanza basically explains those consequences, 'No one shall live across the lock, No man no girl no live stock.' Its pretty much describing what will happen if this goes wrong and for some reason we are unable to do this." Mark said, his voice slipping back into that intellectual tone he had.
Will raised an eyebrow at Mark and said "are you sure you're struggling with this? Cause you seem to have a pretty good handle on it to me." I had to admit that he had a point; it seemed to me that Mark understood this prophecy just fine and I was starting to find it impossible to believe that he having difficulty with any section of it.
"That's because all of this is basic Will, all of what I explained to you has already happened, is happening or is obvious, it really wasn't hard to work all that out, it's the next bit that I'm struggling with." Mark said, his voice going a little bit hard with annoyance and exhaustion. Will looked at Mark for a moment in mild shock before nodding his understanding.
"Tell us the rest Mark," I urged, sensing that now was the time to intervene "tell us what else you have."
"That is pretty much it now," Mark admitted as he looked down at his notes, I followed his gaze to where his finger rested at the next stanza in the poem, there were even more annotations there, as well as lots of scribbling outs and hastily written ideas, clearly this was the bit that was confusing Mark. "There isn't much after this point that I've been able to figure out one hundred percent of what it means, I can get the basic gist of what it means but I've got a feeling that this last bit is the whole reason why these dreams keep pestering me. I can't shake the feeling that this is the important bit, but I can't seem to figure it out because it gets kind of cryptic and there isn't a lot that I can work with to connect the dots between what's happening now and what it says in the prophecy. It's mostly about what's going to happen in the future so its more about making assumptions than any of the others were." Mark heaved a tired sounding sigh before he carried on speaking "basically, this is what it says 'There is a price to be paid, after all he has saved, in Hoods darkest hour, an evil ruler loses power. The people reach a new height, but the end still not in sight, it is over so it may appear, but it is for Hood we fear. For in the sun, Is Hood's undone.'"
Mark finished and we all remained silent, waiting to hear what he was going to say, though everyone else was simply sitting there and waiting for Mark to carry on speaking my mind was working at a hundred miles an hour. It had been a while since I had even thought about, let alone heard, the prophecy and only now did it dawn on me how bad things were looking for me at the end there. all that talk of a 'price to be paid' and 'in Hoods darkest hour' and 'it is for Hood we fear', had me feeling pretty darn concerned.
"I think the basic idea is that there will be problems in the end, that once we achieve our goal there is still going to be problems out there for us and that the end of this is going to be particularly difficult for…" Mark looked at me then, green eyes slightly ashamed and worried, not to mention cautious "well for…"
"Me," I finished, going for an air of nonchalance but only pulling it off at a passive level.
"Well, yes," Mark said, looking a bit sheepish. I nodded and tried to ignore how everyone was looking at me now, clearly concerned.
"What does that mean then, all that at the end there about 'Hood's darkest hour' and 'in the sun is Hood's undone,'?" George asked the protective edge his voice had taken clearly audible, he was worried about the end of the prophecy and how it didn't exactly seem to spell a happily ever after for me. I smiled reassuringly at him, yeah I was slightly worried but it couldn't be that bad could it, I mean come on, it hadn't said that I was going to die or anything, just that things would be bad for me. George didn't seem soothed by my reassuring smile and if anything looked more worried and tense because I wasn't taking this as seriously as he was.
"I don't know," Mark admitted, clearly bothered and ashamed of this fact, I tightened my grip on him to let him know that it was okay but like George he didn't seem calmed "there really isn't any way to fully state what it means other than that things will be difficult at the end…I don't know I keep repeating myself but that's the only thought that will force its way to the forefront of my mind, that things will be hard in the end." Mark said before holding his head in his hands as though his head hurt and groaning.
"You need sleep," John observed and I couldn't help but agree with him, John was right, Mark was cracking from the exhaustion and he needed rest.
"No, I can't; I've got to figure this out." He said taking his head from his hands and pulling his notebook closer to himself "Other than that the only other feeling I get is about the last bit, 'in the sun is Hood's undone', something is telling me that I really need to figure this bit out, like its important, but…it just doesn't make sense. How can the sun be your undoing?"
"Yeah, you're not secretly a vampire or something are you Robin?" John asked grinning at me teasingly after throwing his friend a worried look; he was clearly trying to lighten the mood.
"Last time I checked she didn't melt in the sun, but then again you never can tell," Will said, joining in on the fun poking "oh can you just imagine Robin as a vampire!" Will said as though it was the most hilarious thing in the world.
"I've come to bleed you dry, both your walet and your blood, give to the poor or die!" George said, doing some sort of annoying cross accent between Count Dracula and a girl voice I was assuming was supposed to be me, that alone insulted me more than anything else did.
I shot them all a killer look, my gaze lingering on George longer than everyone else, he was my boyfriend, wasn't he supposed to fight my corner? He shrugged apologetically and I mentally high fived Jack when she said "if she really was a vampire do you think she'd really be hanging around here still? She'd have bled Baxter a long time ago and would be off partying with Edward Cullen, Stefan Salvatore and a whole host of fit Vamp guys by now." I was pretty sure that Jack (Like me really) read a lot of vampire fiction and let me tell you right now that I'm glad she did. George and Will's faces dropped instantly and they both turned to look at us, only John was left laughing but now he was laughing at them rather than us.
"You got that right," I said, beaming at Jack across the room, she had a very amused expression on her face.
"I didn't know you fancied that Edward Cullen guy," Will said, more to Jack than me, his voice sounding almost betrayed and hurt when he spoke, I couldn't stop the grin that split onto my face at that. Bless him.
Jack only shrugged and turned back to the bowl she had on the counter in the kitchenette, an obvious smile on her face. George was watching me, a slightly dumbfounded and concerned expression on his face, I looked at him and grinned, he frowned and said "I didn't know you liked him either."
Like Jack I shrugged but also said "You ought to know, but then again I only remind you on national pick on Robin day," I said with a slight edge to my tone and George got the message, looking apologetic as he looked at me. John meanwhile was still laughing "though vampire or not, you all know I could kick each and everyone of your arses." I said, only joking but John stopped laughing immediately and I couldn't help but laugh at that as well.
"Can we get back on topic guys," Mark asked sounding slightly annoyed that we could start joking and bickering over a potentially life threatening conversation "we need to figure the end of this out, what it means about Robin."
I turned to look at Mark then, seeing the worry there I felt the smile slip from my face "Mark, I appreciate your concern but I really don't think its anything life threatening, for me at least, you on the other hand it very well could be if you don't get some sleep soon." I said looking him in the eyes pointedly.
"Robin," George said, his voice going back to its protective and worried tone "how can you not be concerned by this? It's talking about your undoing." George insisted and I turned to him now, extending my hand across the corner of the meeting table so that I could grip his. Once my hand grasped his I stroked his hand with my thumb and said,
"It didn't say that I was going to die George, just that the sun was going to be my undone or whatever, that could mean anything you know, it could just mean that on the day when all of this comes to a close we need to resolve it at night rather than when the suns up." I said, trying to reassure him but Mark ruined whatever progress I had made in that when he said.
"I thought about that too but it doesn't sit well with me, I don't think that's really what it means and I get this vibe that the solution is something else, something obvious." Mark said, raising his hand to his head as though in pain again and looking troubled.
"Look, let's just try and think of some explanation for this so that Mark can sleep, I'm not overly worried by this so neither should any of you be." I said, noticing now how everyone was looking at me again with concern clear in their features. "Now, let's make a list of all the bits Mark doesn't understand and try and figure out what they mean."
The others murmured their agreement to my words grudgingly, clearly not liking how callous I was being about this but I saw no other way, it wasn't bothering me and it shouldn't bother them either. Mark turned the page in his notebook and hovered his pen over the page before writing 'England's dreams' as a bullet point.
"Okay, does anyone have an idea what England's dream could be?" I asked and everyone was thoughtful for a moment before Jack said,
"I think I agree with what Mark said, about it being how everyone else in the country is living or how life would be without Baxter." She said as she picked up the bowl that held her now complete mixture and headed over to the table before setting the bowl down and sitting on the remaining spare chair.
Mark wrote that down next to his bullet point before asking "any other ideas."
I thought for a moment, wondering about what England's dream could be, I pondered on weather or not it had any relation to the American Dream before dismissing it and deciding that not only was all of this closely related to a time long before that but also that it didn't really fit. Other than that and what Jack and Mark had said I really didn't have a clue what England's dream was.
"No," I said and the others all shook their heads.
"Not got the foggiest," John said and I smiled at him before turning back to Mark, sorry that we couldn't figure that out, he didn't look too upset though and I was guessing he was sticking to the idea that the last line was the important one.
Mark made another bullet point and wrote the last section out in a brief form, before looking up at the rest of us expectantly. "Any ideas about the end of the prophecy?" he asked and I watched as everyone frowned in concentration.
"Well, the bit that says 'In Hoods darkest hour, an evil ruler loses power' has to be talking about Baxter and us winning over him in someway, maybe even overall." Jack said sounding hopeful, I was glad of her optimism as the whole thing with the prophecy seemed to be bringing everyone down, especially Mark and George.
"I was thinking something like that, its not that specific but I think that you're right," Mark said with a smile of his own before writing down what Jack had said next to his bullet point.
"It's a shame it doesn't give us a date, or at least a month, when this is supposed to happen, like it did earlier." Will said and we all nodded our agreement, we weren't going to get too excited about the possibility of us beating Baxter, it could be a long way off in the future yet.
"Sure would make this easier, you know, knowing how long we've got left stuck with the miserable git." John said meaning Baxter as he lent back in his chairs, green scarf dangling around his neck.
The others nodded in agreement, well, everyone except George who was sitting at the head of the table his expression troubled and resting his chin on his hands as he contemplated something, I looked at him and felt my brow frown in worry until he spoke and I understood why he looked so bothered "what about the bit that says 'in Hood's darkest hour'?"
Everyone went silent then; they stopped contemplating how much easier it would be if the prophecy told us exactly when we would beat Baxter and an air of worry closed around them as their gazes flicked from George to me.
"I should imagine it means what it says on the tin," I said with a nonchalant shrug of my shoulders "that in my 'darkest hour' we will beat Baxter."
"I don't think you should take this so lightly Robin, I don't like it, I don't have a good feeling about it." George said, his tone just hitting that level of seriousness that made him sound super sexy.
"There's no point in worrying about it, not unless we can figure out exactly what means other than something bad is going to have to happen to me for us to win, anyway Mark said it didn't feel like it was important." I said and George's expression became even more solemn.
"Don't be so flippant about this Robin, Mark never said that it wasn't important, just that he felt that the last line was what we needed to figure out to stop these dreams, didn't you Mark?" George asked as he turned to Mark to back him up.
"Well, yes, I didn't mean that that bit wasn't important, just that 'in the sun is Hoods undone' was key, what I really needed to figure out." Mark said looking at us both with an unsure expression on his face, as though not wanting to get in the middle of our couples row.
"Well I'm not worried about it; like I said you lot shouldn't be either." I said, matching George's stubborn gaze with my own and raising a single eyebrow at him, why was he so worried, I said that it didn't bother me "now, I think we should keep trying with that 'in the sun is Hoods undone', since it's clearly the most important part."
"It doesn't bode well for you either Robin," George said as his gaze intensified "I think you should take heed of this prophecy, it doesn't seem something to be sniffed at."
"I'm not sniffing at it," I said, my voice raising a little and the others starting to look off in other directions as they got a little embarrassed by our argument, typical, I thought, they didn't have a real problem with walking in on me and George when we were doing something I enjoyed but they had no desire to brake up our lovers spat "I just don't think that it's anything I need to be worried about just right now, I'm not letting anything get in the way of helping the people of this town, prophesied death or not."
"You can't help people if you're dead or critically injured Robin, I wont let you shrug this off, I know what your like and you cant begin to understand what it put me through seeing you in the hospital like I did the other week, not knowing if you were going to live or die. Forgive me if I don't want you to go through that again and if I care about you enough that it would probably kill me to see it happen again." George said and whatever come back I had been planning froze on my lips. He was only doing this because he cared, I reminded myself as I watched his eyes glisten behind his hard expression, he may be acting over protective but he had his reasons. I could only imagine how I would react if George had been in a similar position to the one I had been in the other week, badly I was sure.
I opened my mouth to speak, to try and reassure him as I realised I hadn't been doing when I was insisting I didn't care about the prophecy's warnings, undoubtedly he thought that I was acting like I had when I had gotten ill the other month and fainted on the drop off. My words never left my mouth however as John suddenly said,
"Robin,"
His voice had a hint of urgency to it and everyone else turned in his direction, I held George's worried gaze for a fraction of a second longer, sending him an apologetic glance before turning to look in the direction the others were, George followed me a second or so after. I should have been a little more sensitive to him, I thought as I looked at John, see, I can admit when I'm wrong.
"What is it," I asked John, who was looking in the direction of the muted TV where the regional news was playing to its self.
"Look," John said before turning the volume back on, a female news reporter was on the screen, sitting in the studio and reading of the big news stories in the local area, a braking news banner stood out in bold red and black at the bottom of the screen.
"…at the offices of Baxter Industries in Locksdale today as the private office of Mr. Robert Baxter was broken into late last night. Security guards were alerted to the brake in when it became apparent that all of the buildings security cameras had been switched off, however by the time members of the B.A. and local police services had made it to the building the thieves had fled the scene. Officials called to the office early this morning stated that only a minimal amount of damage was inflicted upon the building during the brake in, however several valuables left in the office were stolen along with documents from the desk and money totalling at around £2000. At this point the police have yet to state who they believe committed the crime though the local rebel band of 'Robin Hood' and her outlaws are said to be under suspicion, Mr. Baxter was unavailable for comment at this morning as he is currently out of town on business, however a spokes person from Baxter Industries said that 'the style of the brake in was similar if not identical to the methods used by Hood'."
The room fell silent as John pushed the mute button once more and the grave looking newswoman continued to move her lips as she told the rest of the day's news, no sound escaping from her. No one spoke, I blinked and then turned to look at the others, slowing they all moved their heads to face me and I saw that their expressions matched my own shocked one. What? I thought simply, confusion taking hold of me as I tried to process what I had just heard, that didn't make sense, not in the slightest. I caught George's eye and saw that his bright blue eyes were wide with shock and a thoughtful expression was on his face as he clearly tried to figure something out. We hadn't broken in to the offices of the Baxter Industries last night, we hadn't been their in months actually, but still there had been a brake in and we were getting the blame for it. My mind was whirling at a hundred miles an hour and I watched as Mark frowned and Will and Jack shared a glance, something was going on here, something we didn't know about, someone else was had broken into Baxter office for whatever reason and made off with several precious objects. The big question wasn't just who they were, we would soon figure that out, I just wanted to know if they were friend or foe.
Author note: and that's that, I hope that you enjoyed reading that, I enjoyed writing it as it was a nice change to Siren Song. Anyway, let me know what you think please, thank you so much for reading this and being patient with my dreams of finishing my NaNoWriMo story, I cant tell you how much I appreciate it. Oh and I'm sorry about the reference the vampires, can you tell I'm just a little bit excited about New Moon's release? Thanks again, I sure hope you like it and please, please review. :) x