Updated 30/August/2020

Chapter 74

Betrayal

Russel had to return home for dinner that evening. Raven felt sad to see him go, she... she... she admitted it. She hated him less than most people. He had offered her the invitation of dinner with his family, but some part of her was still anxious around those new people. She'd felt like she had imposed on them enough for now. That and they just appeared too nice to be real.

That was weirdly something about Russel that Raven couldn't put her finger on. He seemed too nice. Okay, the Doctor was nice, but even he had his dark side. His boundary that you were not allowed to cross without getting his hackles up. So where was Russel's boundary exactly? Raven always got on peoples wicks one way or another. But Russel took it all in his stride.

She looked in the mirror at her reflection. She still didn't buy that she was attractive, or that even someone like Russel would find her attractive, at all. She looked more like some kind of freshly dug up, dead corpse. A vampire who hadn't seen the sun for decades. Like she was a ghost of some sort. Not that she'd want to change it, she'd grown too used to it, and she knew what she looked like with a normal skin hue. She'd looked weird. More weird.

Time marched on, and the Doctor still did not return. Raven was still confident that he was okay. Somehow she just knew if he was in danger she'd get some general sense of it. While in meditation she could locate his signature in the ether. She frustratingly just could not pin-point him in the real world, nor what he was doing.

There was also no sign of the creature either, so Raven just decided to relax for now. It will show itself when it was ready.

Eventually, she got bored of meditation and decided to go for a walk to clear her head. Maybe she'd visit Russel and they'd go somewhere. Like, maybe to the movies or something that normal teens usually do. Was that a good idea, or was it a better idea to give him some space before meeting him again. She'd decided she'd think about it later, right now she just wanted to go for a walk.

She'd barely made it out the front door when her attention was grabbed by a waving arm.

"Hey Raven, over here!" shouted Antonia from a corner table in the pub. She and the other two girls were sitting around the table, eating chips. What was with Britain's obsession with those little potato wedges? The girls were also drinking dark, bubbling liquid from glasses.

Raven approached the girls, the told her to sit down and so she did. She felt strangely on guard now because she remembered they did not like Russel. The Landlord appeared and offered the girls more chips. Some were offered to Raven, she was going to decline at first, until her growling stomach reminded her that she hadn't eaten since that morning. She could stomach a few of these weirdly cooked fries.

"The Landlord is a friend of my parents." Antonia spoke, "I always got free chips from him, even when I was a little kid."

"Best chips in the village." Lisa said.

"They're the only chips in the village." Sarah said back in her posh tone.

"That makes 'em the best." Lisa smiled.

"I can't fault that logic." Raven commented, the girls smiled and laughed at her sarcasm. Raven thought about offering them a smile, but it was too much effort.

"Do you want a glass of wine?" Antonia said, holding a wine glass full of red liquid. Raven had never tried wine before, so she just shrugged a 'sure' and tried to look disinterested. Raven paid for a glass of wine at the bar, she half expected the Landlord to want to know her age or check her I.D. but he didn't seem that concerned. Raven guessed this was either because they were in the middle of nowhere, so who'd enforce the law? Or perhaps, if she remembered rightly, the legal drinking age in Britain was sixteen, not eighteen like it was in the states. In fact, from what Raven read, a lot of adult stuff was legal to people ages sixteen and up in this country. A lot of adult stuff was.

Raven was now fascinated a little by the red liquid in the wineglass she now held as she carried it back to the table. It was a beautiful red colour, it was almost like an ingredient in a potion. Raven sat down with the girls, rose the liquid to her lips and tried to drink it like orange juice. Instantly, she gagged and spat it back out into the glass in a coughing fit. What the hell was this? It was revolting! She expected it to taste of cherry, or something fruity. This stuff was so bitter.

The girls laughed at her discomfort. "First time?"

Raven wiped her face. "The only time." She said, putting the glass on the table to forget about. She felt annoyed because she'd wasted her limited funds on this fowl drink. Probably for the best that she didn't drink. She'd seen what people were like when they got drunk, she feared what she would be like. With powers that easily flew out of control it was better that her mind remained grounded.

"So, Raven," Antonia leaned into her. There was something in Antonia's eye that Raven didn't like. "You weren't at the book club last night. What were you doing?"

"Stuff." Raven shrugged, she could tell them about the old orphanage, or the monster, or that she went exploring in the woods, but she really didn't want to tell them about Russel. She remembered they didn't like him, and she still didn't understand. The guy seemed okay from her standpoint. Not the greatest guy in the world, but decent.

"We've seen you with Russel." Antonia said, getting straight to the point. Raven's eyes became sharper as if preparing to defend herself. "We told you he is bad news."

"I didn't seek him out, he followed me." Raven insisted.

"A stalker?! I knew he was a pervert!" Lisa hissed.

"No, I mean…" Raven sighed, she got the feeling no matter how she explained it, they'd spin it as something bad, because that's how they saw him. He was bad, and everything would have to revolve around that 'fact'.

"If he was stalking me I'd nut him to oblivion!" Lisa said in her commoner sounding drawl, thrusting her forehead out. Somehow, Raven didn't think she had much to worry about. Russel didn't seem the sort to be in to muscle-heads.

"How that boy got a girlfriend, I'll never know." Raven stood, she wasn't going to take this abuse of her friend from these girls, and she wasn't going to stand being insulted in that way.

"No, no, no. We didn't mean you dear." Antonia said, much to Raven's confusion. "We mean his actual girlfriend he's seeing, right now."

It felt like the pit had dropped out of Raven's stomach.

"He… he doesn't have a girlfriend." Raven insisted.

"We didn't think so either, until I saw him hanging out with this girl all the time." Antonia said as she took her phone out and searched for a picture. What she showed to Raven was Russel with someone a little younger than he was. A blonde girl with a cute face, a perfect complexion, and importantly for the male gaze a massive pair of boobs. Raven suddenly felt very self-conscious of herself.

That could be anyone! Raven insisted in her mind, a stranger, an acquaintance? But Antonia continued to scroll, showing that Russel hung out with this girl on many occasions. Then came a picture which showed Russel and that girl together, embracing in a hug. Where they kissing? Raven couldn't quite tell, the angle of the photo was weird, but it looked like it.

Maybe he already broke up with her. Raven's mind insisted, but there was doubt in that thought. She'd thought she'd felt something between herself and the boy, it can't have just been civility. Raven now felt like some special connection had just shattered into a million pieces.

Raven closed her eyes and took a deep breath, and decided to be adult about this. She'd just have to pack up and move on, she wasn't the jealous type, jealously would be pointless. The world turns. People come, people go. It would be pointless to be upset about... about...

Power escaped and Raven's hair stood on end and twisted a little before falling back down. The girls noticed, but thankfully someone had opened the pub doors and a gust of wind had blown through, disguising Raven's venting. Raven crossed her arms over her chest as she thought. She was delighted Russel had a partner already, she must be such a lucky girl. Raven ground her teeth a little as she thought this, still trying to flush her feelings away. Boys would be boys after all. Raven couldn't make people love her. She couldn't make them 'like' her, even. Love was pointless.

"You wouldn't want to be with him anyway, dear." Antonia said. "As we said, he has an anger management issue. Trust us, he'd only tire of you, and then you'll find out how nasty he can be."

Now Raven was not going to stand for that. Russel may not think of Raven in the way that she wanted, but at least he was a good man.

"I'm not upset." Raven said coolly. "We were nothing, anyway."

"Yeah, but... I worry about his current girlfriend. What happens when she breaks up with him." Antonia said.

"Yeah, he can get pretty violent when he can't control the women in his life." Lisa said. This was clearly bullshit and Raven said so, until Lisa said she could prove it. The large girl pulled out her phone, a blocky, chunky thing, which clearly reflected the owner, and she scrolled through it.

"Leave me al…" said Russel's voice, just a single sentence. It sounded like it was screamed in distress, but Lisa had pressed a button to push the video on a little. Then Lisa showed the video to Raven. The screen showed a video of poor quality. The device was hardly TARDIS level technology.

Raven could see... That was Russel? He was a little younger, maybe fifteen years old, but he was large in a body mass kind of way. He'd clearly lost a lot of weight between the years, and his face was covered with horrible spots and pimples like that of a teenager. He was also stomping around the place, chasing after the phones holder, a look of blind fury on his face. He looked crazed as he reached for Lisa, presumably for her neck, just a look of utter, intense, hatred on his face. Then the picture froze on his bared teeth.

"Me and Lisa had told his girlfriend about him and she broke up with him. He was very angry with us and the girl." Antonia said. "He came after us, and we filmed it for evidence. He also hit the girl for leaving him."

"I managed to knock him out though." Lisa said, shining her knuckles on her shirt. Antonia shot Lisa a warning glance. "We told you. Boys are stupid and violent."

Raven just looked at the face on the phone. It might have been the low quality of the video, but did Russel look like he was crying? The image was a far cry from the stoic image he radiated now. Was that all just a lie and that anger is what lay beneath.

Raven's face fell, then her eyes looked up accusingly. She wasn't stupid, she knew they were trying to manipulate her and turn her against Russel. "That is in the past."

"He did the same to me too." Sarah spoke up, "he got really upset when I dumped him."

"He's a bloody misogynist is what he is." Lisa hissed. "He just wants someone to be his mum. That's all men and boys want. They're just looking for a surrogate mother to take care of them." Lisa huffed.

"That, I agree with." Sarah said holding her nose up in the air.

"We girls need to stick together." Antonia said to Raven, passing a bowl of chips to her.

Raven looked at them, but didn't take any. She may be hungry, but she didn't want to accept the offer. Her mind was suddenly running through new possibilities based on this new information. Russel didn't act in that violent way at all, not now. Perhaps he was hiding it. After all, these girls didn't know Raven was a demon who'd one day destroy the planet. So did that mean Russel was some kind of closet misogynist and he was just able to hide it?

"We've been nothing but straight with you, Raven." Antonia said in a reassuring tone.

Yeah, Russel did seem too nice.

"This is a mans world, so us girls have got to stick together for support." Antonia said.

"Yeah, we lookout for our friends." Lisa added.

"If you want more proof, ask the Landlord, ask the shop keeper and the school teachers." Sarah added, "Russel is a bad seed. If you hang out with him then the Landlord may kick you and your dad out of your room."

That was a worry. Raven had nowhere else to go, and there was the Doctor's gizmos and gadgets she'd need to worry about. What was she supposed to do with them? She needed that room as a base of operations while she looked for the creature.

In fact, something suddenly clicked in Raven's head. That creature they've been chasing. Raven's theory was that some mind was creating it through leaking psychic potential. What if the source was nearer than she'd thought? Russel's brain did feel weird, perhaps that is what she was sensing. His psychic potential; That, and he didn't automatically fear her when he found out about her own powers, almost as if he'd experienced something like it before.

Come to think of it, the creature only did appear when Russel was around. They were alone in the orphanage, no other minds except for her own and Russel's.

Everything fitted a little too perfectly for Raven now. All that she knew is that she felt cheated, but why do it?

Then Raven remembered the three girls in front of her. Then she remembered Andra, Cal and Maphalle, and the other monks of Azarath. How they teased each other and Raven with their power. The thing is, if no one saw it, then they couldn't prove you did it. What they did to her. Raven's blood simmered a little. They'd tease her, push her around, playfully bully her, and no one believed they were doing it because Raven had no proof, so nothing could be done.

Is that what Russel was doing now with these girls? He couldn't attack people physically, they knew he was likely the aggressor, and people could record it. But if he could get this creature to do it for him then no one would ever find out he was the one behind it all. After all, no one in this world knew about psychic powers and their potential for mischief. No one would suspect a human boy, and especially not Russel.

It was all such an elegant and sinister plan Raven could've come up with it, and only a sinister mind such as her own would ever enact it. She wouldn't now, obviously, she was trying to be good, but that doesn't mean she still can't think like a bad guy.

Did that too explained why he was hanging out with her? He was sizing her up, trying to determine if she was some kind of threat to him? Well, of course she was. Raven had the ability to seize those psychic limbs reaching out from his brain and sever them. Cutting off his abilities from his conscious mind.

Raven put her feelings for Russel aside, as she looked at the three girls, and remembered how Andra, Cal and Maphalle would torment her and get away with it. She hated people who did that, and Russel was doing it to them. What an arsehole! She'd decided, she had a mission to accomplish. That creature needed to die, and if that meant mutilating Russel's psychic powers then so be it. Once she was done the girls could punish him as they saw fit.

Raven reached forwards and took a chip from the bowl.

"We need to stop Russel." Raven said vaguely. The three girls all smiled darkly. Inside Raven too smiled. The girls could actually be useful, and they'd get their revenge in return.

It had been a few days since little Raven last saw Gallrick. She had managed to fix his arm and reverse the damage luckily. But she still felt really bad. It had been his fault, obviously, playing around with her potions, but she felt responsible for leaving them out and labelling them the way she had.

She felt like she'd spoilt the friendship now. He wanted nothing to do with her.

Timidly, she played a little with her long hair, feeding some of it into her mouth she chewed on it, which she always did when she was nervous. What if Gallrick told someone? Her collection of forbidden potions would be discovered and then Raven would be in serious trouble!

She worried about this for ages until she heard someone knock on the door.

She opened it a crack and was delighted to see Gallrick standing there, and her hair was a chewed mess! She slammed the door closed.

"Just a second, Gallrick." Raven said, taking a comb and almost ramming it through her hair to tidy it up. He liked her hair after all, so she wanted to look nice for him.

"Hello Gallrick!" Raven said when she opened the door completely. "Are you okay, after... the other day?"

Gallrick held up his arm and showed it was all normal.

"I'm glad." Raven said, "I thought I might have hurt you." There was something in Gallricks expression, something which kind of put her a little on edge. But Gallrick wouldn't hurt her, he had no reason to. She'd said she was sorry.

"Listen, Raven, can you help me out with something?" Gallrick asked.

"Gladly." Raven perked up.

"Come with me, please." And Gallrick started walking ahead. Raven closed the door to her quarters and hurried to follow him. She was just glad they were friends again. But she couldn't shake the feeling something wasn't right.

To Be Continued…

Authors notes: A bit of a shorter chapter this time to set things up.

Again, if the next chapter doesn't have an update later than 30/August/2020 then the chapter has not been updated yet and won't make narrative sense.