Flames in the Midst (The Jade Hale Series) (17 page)

“Jade,” Zach started with a tone of authority that almost made me give up my quest, “You were just hit by lightning.  You are lucky to be alive, but you must be delirious.  You’re crazy if you think I’m going to take you anywhere but the hospital.”

If this had been any other night, I would have been satisfied with making Zach happy.  I could have gone to the hospital, let them tell Zach I was fine, and called it a night.  The matter of getting my family book pressed upon me more heavily than any other need. 

“Zach, I’m fine.  Really.  I was just shocked.”  Damn.  Wrong choice of words.  “I mean, I was just surprised by what happened.  I didn’t get hit by lightning.  So, either you can head back over the Bridge of Lions or you can turn towards the hospital, but I will get out my first opportunity if you aren’t going to take me where I want to go.”  There.  I didn’t need to use a spell.  I could bend Zach to my will the normal way, with logic and threats.

“I don’t know.  I’d feel much better if we just went to the hospital.”

I braced myself with one hand on the back of Zach’s seat and grabbed the roll bar on the jeep with my other hand.  I stood up a bit too quickly and had to resist the urge to give in to the dizzying feeling that washed over me as the wind whipped through my hair in the moving vehicle.  Zach looked over his shoulder and saw me standing, getting ready to leap out the minute he was forced to slow down by the traffic or a red light.

“Damn it,” Zach murmured under his breath.  I could tell he was giving in.  He pulled out of the turn lane and headed straight towards the bridge and away from the hospital.  As I sat down, I looked at Chase who was shaking his head, but I just smiled.  It was my turn to smirk. 

The Jeep was still wet from the rain, but the rain itself had stopped—a quick Florida thunderstorm, but enough to postpone the fireworks.  Some people would be heading home for the evening already, giving up on the night since the highlight of fireworks in the summer sky had been removed.  Others would stay out and enjoy the festivities even without the grand finale.  I hoped the people who were living in the little brick house on Magnolia Avenue fell into the second category.

I shivered a little.  The brief rain soaked my clothing, but the ride in the Jeep in the warm summer air worked towards drying them while the humidity worked towards maintaining a damp, sticky feeling.  More than anything, I anxiously thought about getting to that house.  This might be my only opportunity for the rest of the summer.

As we got closer to the bridge, there was a steady stream of cars already leaving.  The traffic into the historic district was only slightly faster than the traffic exiting.  Still, we made better progress in the Jeep than I would have made on foot had I gotten out when I first threatened to do so.

“Which way?” Zach asked as the bridge dumped us out into a river of cars and people.

“Right,” I told Zach.  I would have to get out and walk soon.  I wanted to get a bit closer, to lessen the chance I would run into the people who lived in the house, but I also didn’t want Zach to know what I was doing.  We crept past the row of restaurants and horses hooked to carriages waiting for someone to pay the exorbitant rate of a romantic buggy ride through town.  We passed the fort, people walking in and out on one of the few nights it is open after dark.  A group
of tourists in colorful ponchos stood gathered around a woman in period clothing on our right.  I caught a bit she was rehearsing about witches.  I could tell from the way her amber aura glowed she probably was a real witch, but I am sure none of the plastic parka people would have believed it.

As we approached Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum, the traffic slowed from creeping to dying on the sidewalk.  Small, tired children were passing us on foot.  I knew a lost cause when I saw one.  This was as far as it made sense for me to continue the ride in my chariot.  I grabbed the roll bar again and swung into the street.  Walking around the Jeep, I called to Zach.

“Thanks for the ride, Zach.  I’ll see you at home later.”  Zach looked completely helpless.  I knew he wanted to follow me, worried I might really have some pressing medical issue and die from the lightning strike on a back street of St. Augustine in the middle of the night alone.  Still, he couldn’t just abandon his father’s Jeep in the middle of the road.  Parked cars lined the side of the road.  There was nowhere for him to go.  He would have to trust I would be okay.  To my surprise, it was Chase’s voice I heard as I walked briskly away from the traffic and down the sidewalk.

“Don’t worry, man.  I’ll go with her,” he reassured Zach.  In a moment, Chase appeared next to me, keeping pace with my determined stride.

“So, where are we going?” Chase grinned.

“None of your damn business,” I chastised him.  “You are not coming with me.
”

“That
’s where you’re wrong.  See, I already told your friend I would go with you, so I really don’t have a choice at this point.  I can’t break that promise.”

Chase was more infuriating than he was gorgeous.  Even though I would certainly appreciate a handsome companion on any other night, Chase was the exception to that rule.  I absolutely did
not want him coming with me.  As if he could read my mind, Chase reiterated the point that I was not going to shake him.

“You can tell me where you are going or I can figure it out when we get there, but either way, I will be accompanying you tonight.”

I stopped on the sidewalk, exasperated.  I turned to face Chase, who just grinned impishly at me.  Everything about this circumstance seemed to amuse him.  Unfortunately for him, I was not in the business of amusing people.  I wasn’t interested in entertaining him, but I also couldn’t threaten to incinerate him.  For one, he probably knew I didn’t really want to hurt him.  Besides, he had really helped me out at the beach.  Of course, I would have never been in the situation at the beach if he hadn’t interfered with Zach.  I could feel the heat starting to rise within me.  I quickly pushed it back down.

“Chase,” I finally started, “what are you doing here?”

“I’m checking up on you.”  He no longer sounded amused, but very serious and a little cocky.  This was the Chase who left me fuming on the porch.

“I don’t need checking up on, and I certainly don’t need you messing with my friend’s head.  I will be fine on my own for the rest of the evening.  Please leave me alone.”  I tried to pull this off with the same air of arrogance Chase exuded, but I failed miserably.  For one, I wasn’t really certain that doing this alone tonight, after all of the energy I spent on my little fire, was my most brilliant decision.  I felt a bit light-headed, but I did my best to hold my own.  I stood facing Chase like a puffed up rooster, ready to fight.  Then a crowd of children pushed past us on the sidewalk, shoving their way through the crowd, and I embarrassingly lost my balance.  Chase caught me and set me right on the sidewalk again as the children hurried on
, and I heard a frenzied mother calling out a hurried apology as she continued after the pack.

“Jeez, Jade,” Chase said with a little more compassion in his voice, “whatever it is you need to do tonight, can’t it wait for a day or so?”

“No,” I answered simply.

“Then I really do need to come with you.”  I thought about this for a moment.  Chase coming with me was at least better than Zach coming with me.  I wouldn’t be able to explain any of this to Zach.  Chase couldn’t do anything about me going after my family book.  It belon
ged to me, and I was certain my aunt left it buried behind our old house.  If Chase came along, he would just be a prop.  An extra figure in the background just in case something went wrong.  The end result would be the same.  The book would still be mine at the end of the night.

“Fine.”  I turned back on my original path and picked up my brisk pace.  Chase kept up with me and didn’t speak for the first few blocks.  As we passed by the storefronts and picked our way to the Prince of Peace Church and the Shrine of Our Lady of La Leche, the crowds slowly dissipated.  Soon there were only a few other people on the walkway with us.  I wanted to be alone, but since I wasn’t, I had questions running through my head that might as well get answers.

“So why did you mess with Zach like that?” I broke the silence without breaking stride.

“It was just a simple little spell.  It was entirely harmless, if you hadn’t gotten so worked up, anyway.  How did you figure it out?”

I could not explain to Chase that Zach’s aura being off gave me my first clue.  I couldn’t explain just feeling something was off.  I chose the most simplistic route I could.

“He just sounded funny.  Kept repeating things, and was really intent on me meeting this mystery guy when he has never had any interest in hooking me up with anyone.”

“Oh,” Chase sounded defeated.  “I guess I should have studied my subject a bit more, but it wasn’t really a big deal.  It was just easier to check in on you with an introduction.”

I had to laugh.  The last time I saw Chase, he reamed me out for being dangerous because I didn’t know what I was doing, and now he made a mistake with something he called a simple spell.  The irony amused me.

“What’s so funny?” Chase didn’t look amused.

“I was just thinking about the last time I saw you.”

“I still think you’re dangerous,” Chase said with a hint of regret behind the chill of his words.

“You’re the one who caused all this chaos tonight because you forgot to do your homework before casting a simple spell,” I accused.  This whole conversation felt like déjà vu.  We may have been arguing on a different day in a different city, but the argument was the same.

“But if it hadn’t been me, if I hadn’t been there to help you,” Chase pressed on, “you would have hurt someone or everyone.  You certainly would have ended up hurt yourself.  I seem to know more about your gift than you do.  I’ve done my homework.”

I wanted to argue back.  I wanted to place all of the blame on him, but this time I knew for sure the truth in his words.  If Chase hadn’t been the one who had messed with Zach’s head, if Chase hadn’t been there to help me, the events of the night would have gone quite differently.  I hated to admit it, but I owed him.  It was like a test, and I failed miserably, but at least I knew what I had to work on in the event of a real emergency.  If next time it was a Shadow Ruler I faced, maybe I would be more prepared—because of Chase.

“Thank you for helping me avert a disaster,” I muttered under my breath, forcing myself not to remind him it was a disaster he had set in motion in the first place.  “Can we talk about something else?”

“Sure.  You’re the one who started this conversation,” he reminded me.  “And you’re welcome.”

We walked in silence past the shrine filled with ancient tombstones.  I glanced up at the gargantuan cross standing like a sentry over the graves and the churchyard.  The clouds were beginning to clear and the waning moon shone through the breaks in the clouds, flooding the ground with an eerie glow that lapped our path like the nearby waves lapping the shore. 

“Why are you here?” I broke the silence again.

“I told you.  I’m checking up on you,” he didn’t even look at me as he said it.

“But why are you checking up on me?  And why you?  Why not Stefanie or someone else?”  It didn’t make sense.  He didn’t like me; I didn’t like him.  Stefanie could have simply come for a visit.  This game Chase was playing was not necessary.  We finally reached Magnolia.  I turned right on the sidewalk that took us past the Howard Johnson and towards the Fountain of Youth Park.  Chase kept pace with me as he formed his answer.

“It’s not that simple.  Listen.  I don’t agree with them, but Amy, Madilyn, Stefanie, all of them, they still have you as a part of their plan.  They wanted to know if you were any closer to coming around.  Stefanie wanted to come, but I volunteered.  Well, I insisted.  We argued about it for a few nights, and they finally decided to let me come.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.  They know you don’t like me.  Why would they let you come?”

“The only one who thinks that is Stefanie.  They know I think you are dangerous.  Stefanie told them about our argument.  She thought that would be her card to get to come out here, but I played it against her.  I told Amy that was the reason I had to be the one.  I wanted to apologize to you, and I knew you would never come back unless I apologized.”

“So you lied?”

“Sort of.  I don’t hate you, Jade.  I’m not sorry for our argument, but I am sorry I brought your mother into it.  She wrote the most amazing spells.  You lost someone very special, and I shouldn’t have used that against you.” 

There was an awkward silence between us.  I felt a few tears well behind my eyelids.  I blinked them away in the shadows cast by the moon.  I did not want to talk about my mother.

“Anyway,” Chase continued, “I still don’t think it would be a good idea for you to help our group.  I care about all of them.  They’re more than just a coven of Guardians.  They’re my family.  I have to look out for them.  You haven’t been studying.  You haven’t been practicing.  You hardly know who you are.  If nothing else proves my point, what almost happened tonight should.  You’re dangerous.  Like an un-detonated land mine.”

I gulped back the lump in my throat.  The truth hurts, right?

“That was the worst apology I have ever heard,” I managed to get out.