Legions (22 page)

“Glad you think I’m
learning quickly, but I feel like I’m only holding us all back.
Especially with you barely returning to us and picking up where you
left off basically… Show off.”

“What was that? I couldn’t
hear you?”

It was pretty windy
whipping around everywhere but when I went to repeat myself, he
rolled his eyes and sailed off, calling me over to follow him. I
saw a fairly flat surface ahead of us and was hoping that maybe
that would be where I’d attempt my first, and hopefully, not last
landing. I wanted to end on a good note.

“Ready?” He asked. “Think
above where you want to land.” Athen said, landing as graceful as
ever, walking into his landing more than anything.

Concentrating so hard on
not landing on the ground but above it. I felt my feet searching
for something that wasn’t where I thought it was. I was sure I was
only a foot or two off the ground at the most, but I was pretty
certain that would hurt just as much. Kicking my feet frantically
as I attempted to land, a squeal escaping into a scream exploded
out of me, but not before Athen was there helping me down to a soft
landing on my knees somehow.

“Oh my, god. I almost face
planted.” My heart was beating so fast. Here I’d been flying,
literally flying, and could have created a catastrophe for myself
when only dealing with the last three feet of landing space. “How
long is the landing thing going to take? That seems kind of
important?” I asked, breathless.

Athen was grinning, his
eyes taking me in as if I’d achieved some sort of greatness that I
could never understand.

“It’ll come. Maybe another
time or two, Ana -that’s all.” He was already praising me to Cyril
and Arie, who had decided to come over and meet us with my backpack
in hand from up on the mountain.

“Nice work out there, Ana.”
Cyril said, shaking his head. “I’m surprised, for sure. I thought
you’d have mud stains or something signaling some sort of run in
with the dirt.”

“Nice, Cy. Thanks for the
support. Remind me to only practice in the snowy areas so you can’t
fault me for my landing techniques.”

“No, kid. You did awesome.
Really.” He said, swatting at me and missing, grabbing Arie’s hand
instead.

“We don’t need to take the
gondola down, you know.” She chuckled and hopped on Cyril’s back as
he began cruising down the mountain before I could
object.

“Well? Hop on?” Athen said
reaching for my arm, spinning me towards him.

“Alright, buddy, but you
better be careful. After all, you’re the newbie in all this.”
Unable to hide my grin at the thought of being able to hold onto
him for the entire ride down the mountain, I hopped on his back and
wrapped my legs around his waist as we took off down after Cyril
and Arie, who had surely made it down a third of the
mountain.

Chapter 25

The excitement level from
my earlier adventures on the mountain was pretty hard to hide, but
I did my best to help Arie make dinner as the guys went walking
Matilda. We’d decided that this was going to be the last night we
spent in before making contact with everyone in the village. Time
was ticking, and we couldn’t afford to be up in Whistler having fun
that much longer before confronting some of the issues down below
that had been brewing.

Besides learning what I had
on the side of the mountain, I needed some time to absorb the idea
of using my poor innocent friends as target practice for my
shapeshifting lessons that were next on the agenda. It was hard to
justify what I was going to be doing to Karen. Supposedly, even if
I messed something up badly, my family could intervene and help to
make the memories disappear. Karen was going to be my first
attempt. Being that she was my closest friend in Whistler from
before, and our comfort level was as close as it ever could be with
me; she was my best shot.

Apparently after the skill
was learned, it doesn’t matter friend or foe, stranger or not,
anyone can be fair game. When practicing, the comfort level needs
to be there with the alleged target or victim. That’s where poor
Karen comes into the equation. Since I was close to so few people,
she was the lucky one. Thankfully, she’s already excited to get
together tomorrow, which was half the battle. Arie promised to show
me the end result with a stranger in the morning, but it was all me
in the afternoon with Karen.

I was mindlessly chopping
the garlic for the stew when I noticed Arie standing by the sink,
blankly staring out the kitchen window. The sun had almost set, but
the wooden blinds were still pulled halfway down, from the earlier
sunshine.

“What’s up?” I asked Arie.
“Everything okay?”

“Oh, yeah. Totally.” She
said, shaking her head, trying her best to convince me that she was
fine.

“Well, I don’t believe it,
so why don’t you tell me what’s going on? It’s high time the world
doesn’t keep revolving around me. I’d like to know.”

Arie turned to look at me,
her eyes distant and reflecting something far different than what
was on the mountainside only hours earlier. A frailty began to
emerge that I’d never seen before from her usually bubbly
self.

Pulling her over to the
kitchen table, I cleared off a section of the groceries we still
had to put away, making way for whatever was about to spill out of
Arie.

“Have you noticed anything
off about Cyril?” She asked point blank, her eyes tracing mine for
any sign of insincerity or answer to her unasked
questions.

Startled by the direction
of this conversation, I took a moment to gather my thoughts,
thinking back quickly to all the times I’d spent with Cyril over
the last few weeks and guiltily realizing how little time I really
paid attention to much of anything besides myself and
Athen.

“I… I don’t know. I don’t
think so. Like what?” I uttered back, completely
puzzled.

She was shaking her head,
reaching for the grapes that were on the table in the fruit
bowl.

“Don’t know how to explain
it… Shouldn’t probably even be talking about it, really. I’m sure
it’s nothing. I…”

“You’ve got to talk to
someone about it, right? That’s what you’re always telling me, at
least.” I did my best to smile but was deeply concerned with her
lack of discussion. Knowing the guys would be back soon, I knew I
had to prod to get it out of her.

“Where’s this coming from?
Since when are you noticing anything? I’m not saying there isn’t
something going on, but I honestly have been too wrapped up in my
own stuff, and for that I apologize. But you’ve got to give me some
clues.”

“I don’t know. I really
don’t know.” She reiterated again, shaking her head.

“Yes, you do, Arie. You
wouldn’t have said anything if you didn’t.”

She was quiet for several
minutes, and I wasn’t sure if I’d pressed my luck until I heard the
sigh escape from her.

“It started right before
Athen came back. I noticed that he had been more impatient with
you. You probably didn’t even notice with everything going on, but
I did. I dismissed it though. Then he began to pull back from me a
little. I’d start to talk with him, and he didn’t want to hear it.
Didn’t seem to matter what the topic was. He changed the subject
and… now, it’s like he doesn’t really want to be close.”

“It didn’t seem like that
on the mountain?” I gently offered not wanting to contradict what
she was dealing with too harshly.

“No, you’re right. Coming
down the mountain was great, but have you noticed it’s not like
he’s been doing that all the time lately. I mean, come on, think
about how he always acted with me when you first came back into our
lives. It was like he and Athen were always competing to see who
could be the better gentleman, or who could impress us the best. I
know it sounds petty, and now that I’m saying it out loud, it
doesn’t even make sense.”

“No, I kind of see what you
mean. But, truthfully, I chalked up to him not wanting to rub
everything in my face with Athen gone for so long.”

“Well, Athen’s back and the
old Cyril isn’t.”

Keys in the front door
signaled the end to our conversation, reaching over to pat Arie’s
hand, I was at a complete loss for words and couldn’t wait to see
Athen turn the corner into the kitchen.

As if a direct page out of
Arie’s worst speculation, Athen came into the kitchen, letting go
of Matilda and grabbing me up from the chair instead, swinging me
around and kissing me on the cheek.

“Miss me?” He asked
chuckling.

“You didn’t give me enough
time to.” I whispered wryly, glancing over at Cyril who briefly
touched Arie’s shoulder before heading upstairs. Hoping she
wouldn’t notice that I caught the interaction, I buried my head
into Athen’s neck.

“Alright, that’s enough.
Dinner’s still not quite there yet.” Not wanting to push him away
but doing so for Arie’s sake, I spun around to grab the spatula and
continued on where Arie left off. The conversation would have to
wait.

***

The morning’s sunshine was
beating through the window as I was nestled in Athen’s arms.
Feeling the firmness of Athen’s embrace, I wriggled in deeper
hoping to stretch out the minutes that much longer before getting
up to start the day’s training activities.

Before going to bed the
night before, we decided to get through the last of the training up
here and feel out the situations up here before heading back to
Victoria.

“Wanna get up?” Athen
whispered.

“Umm, no. I’d like to stay
right here, thank you.” I pulled the covers up that much more for
extra effect, loving the feeling of his skin next to
mine.

“Yeah, tell me about it.”
He rolled over me, his arms surrounding my shoulders, kissing my
forehead ever so gently. “We’ve got to squash these Legions. It’s
really interfering with us.”

“Tell me about it.” I
rolled my eyes. “You know it actually is. It’s like this nonstop
chase is all I’ve known since coming back. I start to get
comfortable loving you again, and something disrupts it. Never mind
the poor people that they are trying to attack. It’s all about me.”
I said, laughing, throwing the covers off of me as I did my best to
distract myself from watching Athen get ready for the day. Hearing
about Arie’s struggles the night before created an odd attachment
to Athen even more.

“Has your sister talked to
you about anything recently?” I asked, throwing him his robe to
take in with him to the shower.

“No, not like anything out
of the ordinary. Why?” He had the shower running, probably not
expecting a conversation to possibly turn the way it might if I
fully brought up her suspicions.

“No reason. She seemed a
little down was all.” I did my best to brush it off as he climbed
into the shower and decided to make my entrance into the world for
the day by making the pot of coffee for everyone and escape the
closeness the shower could possibly bring us.

Arie was already waiting in
the kitchen, presumably for me, because as soon as I entered she
pounced.

“I hope you don’t think I’m
imagining things or making something out of nothing. It’s probably
nothing.” She said immediately.

“Trust your gut, Arie.
Whatever it is you’re noticing, it’s wearing you out. The usual
perky Arie has vanished since about 4 pm last night, and I’m not
used to it.” Grinding the coffee beans gave me a chance to
formulate what I should or shouldn’t say, I didn’t really want to
mention that I’d seen Cyril barely giving her the time of
day.

“Not to sound ridiculous,
but have you talked to him about it?”

“Yeah, actually. Last night
I brought it up. Didn’t go so well.”

“Like how? He brushed it
off?”

“I wish. He got angry, and
he’s never ever gotten angry over something petty like that. I only
asked if anything was bothering him because he seemed tense, and
for the first time ever, we went to bed not holding each
other.”

“I doubt it’s anything that
has to do with you. Something’s gotta be bugging him and since
you’re the closest to him, he’s taking it out on you. I know how
much he loves you, and you do too. We’ll get to the bottom of it.
Where’s he at now?”

“Went to grab some
breakfast stuff from the bakery. Hope that’s the only
reason.”

Seeing Arie like this was
so painful. I never imagined her to be in this situation or even
ever to have a worry or care in the world. I was going to talk to
Athen about it; in case, he knew something we didn’t. Hopefully,
Cyril has opened up to him about something at some
point.

“Are you gonna be okay with
everything we are trying to stick in for today’s plan? I don’t want
to press you to do anything. It can wait.”

“Thanks, Ana. But you know
as well as I do, it can’t wait. We’ve got to get this last piece of
training started. This is going to be the most difficult to get the
hang of. Guarantee it.”

The door from the garage
opened, and I did my best to act as normal as possible.