The Revealing

We walked into the kitchen living room, the room where I’d found them earlier that week. We all sat down. I was last to sit and realized the only spot left was beside Car on the couch. So I sat down. Damian moved uncomfortably in his seat, but he stayed seated.

“Okay, so can you describe the scenery a bit more? Where were you?” Mason obviously didn’t understand my problem.

“I don’t know—maybe a cave or something. It was all very hard to make out, as I said to Damian. Everything except Peridot was blurry.”

Mason sighed and stood up, running his hands through his hair. Willow watched. She wasn’t the only one who was observant. I had noticed their lingering gazes and the way they looked at each other.

“Okay, a cave—that’s a good start. Was it wet? I don’t know how you are when you’re in the trance, but can you feel your surroundings like you do now?”

I nodded. “I can. It was dry, but that could have been because of all the electricity in the air. I just don’t understand why Lisa would give Peridot up like this.”

Mason looked at me and said, “Well, the thing we all love about Lisa is that she is loyal. Unfortunately, if someone she loves is in danger, she will do anything to save them.”

“She is only six. Who could she possibly love?”

Car stirred beside me, and his knee touched mine. He didn’t move it. I was suddenly very aware of my knee.

Mason continued. “Well, maybe a brother or a guardian. Wouldn’t you risk your life if you knew I was in danger?”

I let out an exaggerated exhale. “No.”

He shoved me gently. “Actually, you would, because instinct would kick in. I am your source of protection, your way to stay safe. Keeping me alive is keeping you alive. But thanks. I’m glad to see I can count on you.”

Sarcasm leaked from his last sentence, and I laughed. I made a face at him, but he ignored it. He sat down beside Willow, knocking his knee against hers. He didn’t move it either. Interesting.

“The only type of cave I know is like forty minutes away, and Lisa is still here, so we are still good,” Mason said.

I stood up and walked out of the room. My paintings and drawings were never wrong—well, so far. As I picked up the pace, I heard everyone follow me. Car picked up the pace and ran with me. I didn’t mind. I was sure the huffing and puffing Damian would, though.

“Where are we going?” Car asked.

I looked up at him. “To Lisa’s room. I just want to make sure she is, in fact, still here.”

Car opened the door and held it for me. I walked in, thanking him. I looked around—she was nowhere in sight. My fears had become reality. The only link to Peridot and that future painting was gone.

“What are we going to do?” I asked.

Car was behind me now, with a small space between us. The closeness made me a little uncomfortable. I didn’t know why.

“I don’t know.”

I turned around. “Well, Mason said that the closest cave area around here is like forty minutes away, and if she left just now, we could catch up to her.”

Car smiled his big Car smile and then patted the top of my head. “I knew there was a reason we keep you around.”

I stuck my tongue out at him. Then the footsteps of the others drew closer. Everyone entered. Damian was last to enter. He was breathing heavily.

“What is it with you and running?” he said through pants.

Willow turned around to look at him. “Maybe you should hit the gym, huh? Gasp! Is that a weak spot?” She poked his belly. I smiled when he swatted her hand away.

“Anyway, Obsidian had a great idea!” Car said.

I smiled at Car’s enthusiasm. Damian straightened. “Well, let’s hear it then, Miss Genius.”

I blushed. “If she’s not here now and she can’t drive, she is probably not that far away. She doesn’t have super speed or anything that could help her travel, so we could easily catch up to a six-year-old girl.”

I smiled at my epiphany, but then Damian kind of stomped on it by saying, “That’s a nice thought, but obviously, she isn’t working alone, so the elders would make sure they got their package quickly and without hassle.”

I frowned a bit and slouched a little. Car patted my shoulder. “I thought it was a good idea,” he said. He smiled.

“Of course you did. You’re just as slow as she is,” Damian said.

My head whipped up, and I glared at him. He smiled, making my heart jump a little. He could be such an idiot sometimes. Car wasn’t doing anything wrong. However, Car obviously took that insult to heart, because he walked over to Damian and stood really close to him. Willow tried to get in between them, but they were big guys, so it was like a mouse trying to separate angry lions facing off. Damian wasn’t afraid. If he was, he was hiding it well.

“What are you going to do, Car?”

Car obviously had had enough of Damian treating him like a little boy. He pulled his arm back and, before anyone could stop him, punched Damian straight in the face. Damian didn’t flinch. He didn’t even bleed, but his nose looked weird. He fixed it and then looked Car straight in the face. “Do you feel better, little brother?”

“No, but a few more hits should do it.”

I didn’t have time for this nonsense. Peridot’s life was at stake. “Guys!”

They both turned to look at me.

“You can settle this later! Lisa is somewhere about to be tortured, and honestly, I don’t know what happens after that. She could figure out how to get Peri out of the void. Whatever the reason the elders want her is obviously not to offer her milk and cookies!”

Car, Damian, Mason and Willow all raised their eyebrows in surprise at my outburst. Mason grabbed his keys. “Okay, you’re right. But the boys need to be separated, or we will get nowhere, so Willow and Car, you’re coming with me. Damian, you take your car and drive with Obsidian.”

Car’s shoulders slumped, and Damian wore a victorious grin as his brother backed down. He pulled his keys out of his pocket and shook them in the air in front of my face. “Let’s go, Bunny! We’ve got the world to save!”

I followed eagerly but still felt a little responsible for Car. Damian noticed my expression as we turned the corner. He picked me up and threw me onto his back. I giggled. Out of all possible reactions, I giggled. I felt as if my age were shrinking by the minute.

“A piggyback ride? Are you sure this is the time for this type of thing?” I said.

He shrugged. “I don’t know, but it made you laugh, so that’s a plus.”

I smiled sleepily, and he added, “Anyway, you look tired. If you want, you can sleep on the way. I promise I won’t draw a moustache on your face.”

I could hear the smile in his voice. I wrapped my arms around his chest and held on. “Yeah, I am tired. But I won’t have time to sleep. If it’s forty minutes walking, it’s probably ten minutes driving.”

“Who said anything about walking? We are going to be driving for forty minutes, and then when we are at the base of the caves, there is a bit more walking after that.”

I couldn’t really comprehend what he said, because I was so tired. I rested my head on his back. He was walking at a nice, even pace. I just sighed and said, “Okay.”

When we got to the car, I was already half asleep. He put me in the front seat, put on my seat belt, closed the door and walked around to sit in the driver’s seat. My head flopped to the side. I was dead tired, and I didn’t even know why. As soon as Damian entered the car, I drifted off.

I could hear music playing outside the car when I woke up. I looked at the time. Things looked blurry, and I rubbed my eyes. I couldn’t get a clear look at the clock. Maybe I still had sleep in my eyes. I sat up straight and looked around. Damian was still driving, but we weren’t moving—it was as if everything except for me was frozen. I heard a crackling sound that sounded like someone crumpling up tinfoil. I heard more crackling sounds, this time louder and closer. I looked around frantically to see where the dreadful noise was coming from, but we were in the middle of nowhere. I fussed with my seat belt buckle, when all of a sudden, an ear-splitting cry came from behind me.

I turned around to see the grossest thing I ever had laid eyes on sitting in the back seat, leaning forward and staring at me, still screeching. It stopped, and the music outside the car stopped. The thing moved a bit closer, and then it grinned at me with more teeth than anyone should have in his or her mouth. The teeth were all tiny and square, and each one had a gap in between it and the next. The creature had black circles around its eyes and no lips, just a smile from cheek to cheek. Its eyes were dark circles in the middle of white dots. Its skin was the colour of vomit, and it had thick black eyebrows. Its skin was so loose and old that it barely clung to its face; everything sagged a little. It was wearing a robe. It was also small. Lying down, it only took up about a seat and a half. It leaned so close to me that I could smell its breath, which smelled like something rotten. It spoke to me.

“Oh good. You’re awake, Your Majesty.”

Its voice sounded like something straight out of a horror movie, echoing itself a couple times, as if there were more than one voice in its body. Why had it called me Your Majesty? I felt as if it were trying to mock me.

“Who are you? And why are you calling me Your Majesty?” My voice was shaky.

“Oh, that? It doesn’t matter. I’m glad you’re finally awake. Well, technically asleep. I’ve been trying to get you to sleep for hours, Your Majesty.”

I tried to unbuckle my seat belt.

“Don’t bother trying that,” it said. “Everything is frozen because you are sleeping, Your Majesty.”

“What do you want? And stop calling me that!” I shouted. The creature was starting to get to me.

“You will find out soon enough. First, tell us—where is the little one? We know you saw her, Your Majesty.”

I was suddenly aware of what was going on and who exactly was contacting me. This wasn’t just any ordinary dream. I tried with all my willpower to open my eyes and wake up.

“Things will go a lot better for that one if you tell us, Your Majesty.” It pointed a long, skeletal finger at Damian.

“Don’t touch him! He has nothing to do with this! I don’t know where she is!”

The thing screeched again and opened its mouth so wide its jaw unhitched. A gust of wind blew out of it as its finger inched closer to Damian’s head. On the wind, I could hear the unimaginable creature yelling, “Liar!” at me. I was sure that image would haunt my nightmares more than once from now on. It stopped screeching when I covered my ears.

It was silent as it stared at me and leaned close again. Then it said, “How unfortunate one of you will die because you choose to lie, Your Majesty.”

It grimaced at me and then grabbed my hand so fast I didn’t get a chance to pull away. It shoved my hand in its mouth, dug its teeth in and pulled until my arm ripped off. I woke up with a jolt. Damian was driving, and the car was moving. Ten minutes had passed since I’d fallen asleep. I looked at Damian. When he turned toward me, his face was the face of the thing. It screamed, “Liar!” again, and I screamed.

“What? What’s wrong?” Damian swerved the car as I screamed myself awake.

I looked at him with a horror-filled expression. “Is it you? Is it really you?” I yelled at him.

He pulled the car over to the side and turned it off. “Yeah, it’s me. What is wrong with you?”

I jumped when he touched my hand.

“Calm down, Bunny. You’re freaking me out.” He put his hand on my shoulder. “Breathe. It’s just us here—no one else.”

I looked in the back seat to make sure no one was sitting, staring, watching and calling me a liar.

“Are you going to tell me what happened?” he said.

I looked at him and touched his face to make sure it was real. “How long have we been driving?”

He looked at me and then at his watch. “Fifteen minutes.”

I started to calm down as he drew circles on my hand with his thumb.

“So are you going to tell me what happened so we can go get Peri, or are we going to just sit here like this for another five minutes? Because I’m fine with both.”

I glanced at him, and making sure that he was Damian and that this wasn’t just another dream, I looked at the watch on his wrist as another five minutes passed. I guessed that meant I was awake, as I was pretty sure that time stood still in dreams.

“I had a bad dream, and when I woke up, I was still dreaming.”

He looked at me in disbelief that I had caused a fuss over a dream. “What happened in it? You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

I inhaled and then exhaled. “In the first dream, everything in the car was frozen still. There was this disgusting thing sitting in the back seat.”

I shivered, and he put his hand on my shoulder, but I shrugged it off. I would not be weak just because I’d had a dream. He took his hand back, unoffended by the gesture, and I continued. “It kept saying that it was expecting me and that I knew where Peridot was, because they knew that I knew.”

He nodded, listening closely. “What did it look like?”

“It had about fifty teeth. They were all flat and small and came to squared edges. Its skin was this gross green vomit colour. Its eyes were majorly sunken into its face, and it had bushy eyebrows and a hood. Its eyes looked like black holes. They didn’t have colour, and they didn’t glow like yours, Willow’s and Car’s do. If they did, they glowed black and sucked light away. Its voice was as if there was more than one person talking, but they weren’t in sync. It was small, about the length of half the back seat.” I exhaled. “Oh, and its smile. That was the worst part. It spread across its face till there was no face left to be on. One more thing: it kept calling me Your Majesty.” I shuddered.

He looked at me, asking with his eyes if I was okay. I nodded. He didn’t address the Your Majesty thing. I assumed I would never figure it out.

“The thing is, normally, bad dreams don’t bug me this much,” I said. “With this one, it felt as if it was actually a message to my subconscious. It really messed with me.”

“Well, it’s okay. You’re awake now, and we are going to go get Peri and kick some butt, okay?”

I nodded, and he smiled and tousled my hair.

“Atta girl, my little bunny. Anyway, what you described sounds like a screecher, and those things are completely harmless—trust me. They do bite, however, but it’s easily avoidable. As for the Your Majesty thing, that’s a little new, but I wouldn’t read into it too much.”

I still didn’t believe I was awake. Damian would have already cracked a joke about how only a woman would be scared of a dream or something like that. So I poked him. He looked over at me, already driving. I poked him again while he was looking over at me, to test his reaction.

“What do you want, Bunny? I’m driving at the moment. Can’t it wait?” His voice sounded a little annoyed, and at that point, I recognized him in an instant. This was my Damian.

“Nothing. Just wanted to make sure you are really you.”

He frowned, disappointed with my method. “And how exactly does poking me figure that out?”

I rolled my eyes. He was looking over at me as if I were crazy. This was definitely my Damian all right.

“The poking was a method to get a reaction. The reaction you gave me would tell me if it is you or not.”

“Oh, so you think you know me that well?”

“When it comes to your annoyance with me, I can tell it’s you in a heartbeat.”

A weird expression crossed his face. I couldn’t understand what it meant.

“You do know that I like you, right, Obsidian?” he said.

The use of my actual name instead of Bunny made my ears perk up at the serious turn the conversation had just taken.

“You just—I don’t know—get on my nerves,” he added.

“Wow, you started great, and the finish was flawless, by the way,” I said.

He raised an eyebrow at the sarcasm in my tone. He stared at the road, and I turned to look out the window, fed up with his mood swings.

“You don’t seem to like me very much. No matter how I try,” he said.

I turned and stared at him in disbelief. His shoulders were slumped, as his words proved to be true in a way. I didn’t understand what he classified as trying.

“What are you talking about? Name one time you tried. All you have been is mean.”

“I would never hurt you. You make me nervous, so sometimes I say the wrong things.” He looked at his hands holding the wheel, and for the first time, I could tell he had liked me the whole time. Except his way of showing it had been teasing me as if we were in third grade and I were the pretty girl with cooties.

I wasn’t going to let this be easy for him, so I forced him to answer. “Name one time that you tried to get me to like you.”

“All right.” He put his finger to his chin, smiling, and he chuckled to himself. “During our first English class, when it was your first day, you didn’t notice me at all. All you did was stare at Car. So I tripped you so I could get you to look at me. Plus, I wanted to see your face.” He smiled and nodded as if this were a good reason.

I didn’t look at him and sighed. I propped my head up on my hand and leaned it against the window. “Do you want to try that again?”

“Um.” He thought to himself. “Remember your first night in the mansion?”

I nodded.

He continued. “Well, you got yourself into quite a mess—twice, I believe—and twice, I did something for you that was probably not needed. First, in the showers, when there was that whole thing going down with that girl, I stopped you from getting into it, mostly because you would probably have lost and been really badly injured. She has a bad temper. Then, when I came to check up on you later, you had climbed out of your window for some unknown reason. So I got my warmest sweater and went outside to look for you. When I found you”—he paused and laughed—“your legs were dangling right above my head, so I decided to help you out, even though you fell right on top of me. Then I even gave you the sweater that I picked especially for you. God knows you wouldn’t bring one for yourself. When I saw you with my sweater on, I couldn’t help but like the way it made you look. That is when I knew.”

I stared at him with wide eyes. He drove quietly, waiting for a response.

“But what about all those things that you said to me about me being too easy?”

He sucked in a breath and rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, I was a real dick, wasn’t I? I wasn’t sure if you were ever going to like me, and I got annoyed.”

“That doesn’t justify those things you said.”

“I know, Obsidian, and I am really sorry I said them. I was weird all of that day. Even Willow noticed, and Mason gave me this talk before that, and I wasn’t sure what to do with my feelings for you, so I was mood swinging like crazy between saying the things I wanted and the things I knew would tick you off enough to completely shut this off, even though I really didn’t want that to happen.”

“What!” Mason said something to him? That is why he said such awful things? “What did he say?”

“All he said was that you didn’t like me like I liked you and that I should give up and stop trying. Also, he said that after losing Peridot, you would be in no mood to do anything with me, let alone give me the time of day.”

I growled, and it slightly scared me, but I was not as scared as Mason was going to be. I am going to kill him!

“Bunny, you can’t blame him entirely for this. I guess I was tired of messing things up with you. I couldn’t take it.”

“So you decided to make me not like you and then kiss me and then break my arm?”

“What a crazy day that was. The arm thing wasn’t entirely my fault, though—you know that.”

“Yeah, I do.” I looked down at my lap, calming myself down a little. It was quiet again.

“Can you say something? I just told you I like you, Obsidian.”

I looked at him and realized I hadn’t responded to what he had just confessed to me. I smiled through my anger toward Mason and said, “I like you too, Damian.”

“Well, this sucks,” said Damian.

Confusion rolled onto my face like a bike rolling down a steep hill. “What do you mean? Isn’t that what you wanted me to say?”

“Obviously, but now we have a problem.”

“And that is?”

“How are you going to pretend like you hate me in the play? You’re not as good of an actress as you think you are.”

“You’re right. That is a problem,” I said, genuinely worried.

He laughed loudly, and all the tension from the earlier conversation vanished.

“Are we going to drive through that?” I said. We were driving up to a mountainous terrain, and I didn’t see any openings to caves or anything on the outside.

“No way! I’m not wrecking my baby for anyone.”

“Glad to see you’re still selfless.”

His lip twitched at the corner. “You know it. I’m a saint.”

“More like a devil in disguise.”

I whispered the words, but he heard me, and he gave me a devilish grin, one that could have made girls pass out. But to me, this was just Damian being Damian. We stopped the car after about 10 more minutes of driving, at the base of one of the mountains. He got out of the car while I was still fumbling with the seat belt. Once I got it off, the door opened for me. Car was standing there holding the door open. He swept his leg out and bowed in the old, courteous fashion. “My lady, your adventure awaits.”

Still stunned that someone had opened the door for me, I just sat there. He looked up at me. “Are you going to come out of the car, or have you changed your mind?”

I shook my head and, with the help of Car’s hand, got out of the car. Damian was standing a few feet behind him, glaring. I glared right back at Damian, matching his stare, only to see him wink. What a turd. Only he could do something as old school as a wink and make it look good. Then he stretched. Watching him stretch was completely different from seeing Car stretch, because Damian was lean, and Car was broad. I’d always personally preferred a lean guy to a broad one. At first, I’d been annoyed that I seemed more attracted physically to Damian than Car, because Damian was a jerk.

However, now I knew that Car was always good to everyone. When Damian was secretly good, somehow that made Damian’s goodness more rare, more attractive and exclusive. I seemed to bring the worst out in him. After a second, I realized that I was staring. I quickly looked at the ground before he could see me, make a sarcastic remark and get a major ego boost, as if he didn’t have a big enough ego already.

Mason and Willow were talking by his car. I felt an urge to run in there and punch him as hard as I could, but I stopped myself when I saw the way Willow was looking at him. However, I was going to punch him at least once on this excursion. We were all mentally preparing for what we had to do. If Peridot was in the cave, there was a reason they wanted her, and they would probably do anything to keep her, even kill. I had to prepare myself mentally for the fact that one of us might not be returning. I glanced over at Willow just in time to see Mason sneak a kiss on her cheek. She smiled and blushed, and then they acted as if it had never happened. I would have to have a talk with Willow later on.

Mason looked over at me, and I glared at him, but then I smiled at him, evilly telling him that I had seen what had just happened. He blushed. What a girl. He came back into man mode, getting ready to give out orders.

“Okay, guys, we had our break. Now it’s time to walk.”

Before anything else happened, I walked up to Mason while Willow was busy talking to Damian about something, and I shot out my arm as hard as I could.

“Ow! Obsidian, what the heck was that for?”

He rubbed the spot on his shoulder that had made contact with my fist, and I glared at him and said, “You know what you did. Now we are even.” I turned around, walked back to where Car stood and prepared myself for our mission.

Damian stood on the right side of me. Car was already on my left side. Damian took my hand in his, which startled me because I didn’t think he was one for public displays of affection. It turned out he wasn’t; he was just “claiming his territory” in front of Car, who noticed and stiffened. I looked up at Car, feeling guilty, so I took my hand out of Damian’s hand. It wasn’t fair that Car had to be alone through this. Whatever this was, it was going to be dangerous, and I didn’t want any of us to feel alone. Damian understood, but he sulked. I didn’t mind.

We came to a rocky gorge at the mountain’s base and had to walk through, over and under big rocks. We made our way through narrow passageways. I was starting to get claustrophobic. Every time we got through a narrow passage, the area we were walking through got smaller. My breathing quickened when we came to a little cave entrance. It was the opening of a little tunnel. It was so little that we had to crawl through the entrance.

The sight freaked me out, and I backed up, as if my legs had a mind of their own and didn’t want to go in there either. I backed into Car. He was warm. I hadn’t felt his presence for a while, and we had been walking for hours. The sun was setting.

“I thought you said only forty minutes, Mason,” I said.

He turned around, concerned because of how shaky my voice was. “Yeah, forty minutes to get to the cave area, the cliff where we left the cars. This”—he pointed toward the cave entrance—“is a whole other story.”

I inhaled shakily. “Oh.”

Car put his hand on my shoulder. I relaxed a little. Damian turned around and held my hand. I started breathing slower. This was it. Mason began to crawl through and then Willow went in behind him. Damian looked back at me and smiled reassuringly. I smiled back, still shaking. He went in, and Car and I were alone. Mason had told everyone to wait for a minute before going in, in case there was a trap.

I was about to go in, when Car spun me around and crashed his lips into mine. He pulled back slowly, and I just stood there blinking like a deer in the headlights. I stared at him, and he smiled and put my hair behind my ear.

“Sorry. Just thought I would never get to do that with Damian around. To be honest, this might have been my only chance to do that. Who knows what will happen to me tonight?”

I couldn’t say anything. At least with Damian, I’d had a bit of warning before he kissed me, but now I was officially stunned. Car laughed, turned me around and whispered for me to go. So I did. I wasn’t as panicky as before. The crawl wasn’t that bad. I didn’t even focus on it, to be honest. I just focused on what had happened one minute ago. Car had kissed me. If Damian found out, I didn’t know what he would do—probably beat Car senseless.

My lips tingled. Car’s kiss had been different from Damian’s kiss. Car’s kiss was more eager, and it felt as if I had satisfied something that had been bothering him for a while. He wanted me, and he wanted to kiss me. Damian’s kiss had been soft, as if he knew me already, as if he missed me. He wanted to kiss me not because he hungered for it but because he wanted to be closer to me.

I crawled out of the hole, blushing. Damian eyed me suspiciously. Just five minutes ago, I had been pale, sweaty and close to hyperventilating. Now my cheeks were red, I wasn’t sweating and I was breathing evenly. Willow noticed the change as well. She surprised me with her worried expression. A minute later, we were all in a big cave. Willow eyed Car, who remained unchanged. He, I guessed, was good at acting. I, on the other hand, had everything displayed on my face; I was an open book. Damian came up beside me, and I leaned into him. He put his arm around my shoulders.

I knew I needed to tell Willow what had happened, but I didn’t know how to tell her that both of her brothers had kissed me. However, I knew a talk was coming soon, because she was walking over to Damian and me. I looked at her, feeling ashamed, even though I didn’t need to be. She looked down at me with a smile and said, “Damian, why don’t you walk with Mason and figure out a battle plan? I will walk with Obsidian.”

“Sure.” He leaned down, kissed my cheek and left.

My cheeks flared. He had done that on purpose. I glanced at her through my eyelashes, and she smiled at me. We walked slower than the others did so that we could talk without the possibility of eavesdroppers. All of the siblings’ eyes glowed like flashlights in the dark, lighting up the cave as we walked. It was strange to see. When Willow looked at me, it was as if the light were coming from around her and not her eyes, so I could see her face. Yet when she looked away, I could see the beam of light blue light that came from her eyes. This defied logic, and I didn’t want to dwell on it.

The cave was beautiful, lit up by green, blue and violet light. The light engulfed us, as if there were a spotlight on all of us, as if the light expanded and stretched out. I could see almost all of the details of the stone floor we were walking on; it was flat, with pebbles here and there. Willow decided to jump in on the conversation since nothing seemed to be going on around us. Judging by the look of this cave, we would be walking for a long time.

“So? What was that all about? I know you already. Something happened, so spill. Just spare gross details. Remember, they are my brothers.” She whispered because of the echo.

“Nothing big.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on! Obsidian, if you tell me your story, I will tell you mine.”

My head snapped up so fast to look at her that I felt my neck strain a little. She smiled and winked.

“Fine,” I said. “Where do you want me to start?”

She put her finger on her chin, thinking back to the events involving her brothers and me. “Start from English class. You came back so red,” she teased, and I coloured again.

“Well, when I ran out of the classroom, I ran at my speed to the tree where Carson and I used to hang out.”

Her eyes widened when I mentioned Carson, but she said nothing. I eyed her suspiciously but continued.

“He followed me. I don’t even know how, but he did.”

Her eyes widened as she soaked in my story.

“Anyway, he climbed up my tree. Long story short, he found out I’d never had my first kiss, so he kissed me.”

Her eyes almost popped out of her face. She squealed a little, jumping up and down. I rolled my eyes as the boys all turned around in unison.

“Don’t worry. We’re fine. Willow is just freaking out about something girlie, like a sale on bras at the department store,” I said.

Damian turned his head as soon as the word girlie left my mouth. The other two turned their heads when I said the word bra.

“I knew it!” She seemed excited. “Okay, okay, now, what happened with Car? Did he kiss you too? Because your face was the same as with Damian but just a few shades lighter.”

I nodded. She squeaked, and the boys turned again, but I waved them off.

“He told me he wanted to do it while Damian wasn’t there and that he didn’t know if he would get another chance.”

She squealed again. This time, the guys didn’t turn around. She spent the next 20 minutes asking me questions about the ride there. She freaked out that Damian had comforted me over the dream. Each time she squealed or squeaked, I saw Damian’s shoulders stiffen and then relax. He likely knew what we were talking about. Finally, after 30 minutes of walking, I said, “How far does this cave go?”

She shrugged. “As far as the mountain line goes, I think. I’ve never been here.”

This worried me. “Have any of you been here?”

“I’m pretty sure Mason has heard about this place before, but I don’t think we will get lost. There is only one way so far. So I think we are going the right direction. He found the entrance, so I don’t think we are in bad hands.”

I shook my head. “I hope you’re right. So what exactly are we going into? And do our gifts even work against them? Like, I mean, aren’t they super powerful?”

“Well, from what I have heard, they have different strengths. Some can deflect the gifts of others very easily, while others cannot.”

We walked in silence for a little while as I thought about what she’d said.

“So what happens if one of us ends up facing someone who can deflect our gift?” I asked.

“Well, that is what the guardians are for. Technically, any male can be a guardian. However, only one can be compatible with a Halfling. I’m pretty sure that is why you have Mason. He was always able to protect you and heal you without any problem, even when you were a kid.”

“So you’re saying that only a guardian can heal a charge?”

“Well, your guardian as well as anyone who has a gift for healing.”

“Okay, that makes sense.”

Willow nodded, and I changed the subject, looking at the floor. I said, “You know what Mason said to Damian?”

“Oh yeah, that thing about you not being interested? I told him not to, mostly because I could tell you liked Damian the whole time.”

“You could?”

“Oh yeah, you had it bad.”

I looked at the floor and smiled slightly. “I did.”

Willow sighed and looked at the ceiling, making almost a million shining lights shimmer from holes in the rock. My guess was that glow-worms covered the ceiling, which looked like the night sky.

Then she spoke quietly. “He told me that when the Peridot thing is over, we should go on a date. I said yes, obviously, but are you sure you’re okay with it? He is your guardian and all.”

“Yeah! Of course I am! It’s not like Mason is my opposite. Go for it!” I said as I smiled at her softly.

“All right, because I wanted to tell you before we made anything public. I didn’t want to betray you.” She looked at me with wide eyes, as if it were possible that this could be like betraying me.

“I am really happy that he likes you,” I said. “To be honest, you are the only girl I could ever see him with.”

“Great! He also told me he’s wanted to ask me out since grade eight. Isn’t that adorable?”

I stopped walking. “Grade eight? But we just moved back here this year.”

She panicked. “Yeah, I meant, uh …”

My tone hardened, but I wasn’t angry. “What do you mean grade eight, Willow?”

She lowered her head. “Well, I think you should know—we have obviously known you for more than a year. I have known Mason since I was in diapers.”

My mouth dropped open. I ran ahead to the boys and interrupted their argument about sports. I grabbed Car’s shoulder. “What is your real name, Car?” I had turned him around to look deep into his violet eyes, to make sure he didn’t lie to me.

His eyes opened wide, and Mason stepped in front of him. “What’s this about, Obsidian?”

I shoved him out of the way. My extra strength allowed me to do so. Car’s face showed panic as he looked over at Willow and Mason for answers. I didn’t let go of him. I shouted, “Tell me!”

My words echoed. Everything else was still. It was as if everything were holding its breath, waiting for the answer along with me. He looked me straight in the eyes. The panic was gone.

“Hey, No One. It’s me—Carson.”

I let go of his shoulder.