Traveler - The Price (Book 3)

Vals was the place where my story had started to get a shape. When I looked at this town, I realized that I had lost everything, but I found myself. I couldn’t find any comfort in this thing, but I had to live with it.

It had been two months in which our lives were finally normal. There weren’t any supernatural stuff, magic, fabulous creatures. It was only us, a big and united family, and we felt damn good with each other.

My house had blown up, and I decided not to build it again. Inside were found the bodies of the men sent by Eva to finish the job, but I found out from the others that the job had finished them. Eva had underestimated all of them, so she didn’t know they were good fighters, since the last time we all met. This is how they managed to get out of the house in time, leaving Eva’s people inside. Of course, the final story was about how some thieves got inside, and a gas leak surprised them in there. Anyway, it was a good thing that people didn’t ask a lot of questions in that town.

I had moved with Aaron in the house he wanted so badly when he first came in Vals. Ivy was living with Andy, just two houses away. Deby remained to live with James, and they seemed to get along well. She had kept her job at Andy’s bar, and James with Ivy, who were helping too from time to time at the bar, had offered to help Aaron and me with the D&M contracts. The demands were growing in all over the world, since I had extended my business, without knowing, on my last return in Vals. I had made a partnership with them, in case we needed someone trustful and we couldn’t be around.

They all wanted to remain in Vals, to get things clear with their lives and with all their stuff, at least for now. After all, it was our home. Only Aaron and I wanted to leave for a while, to have a moment just for the two of us, away from everyone, somewhere in the silence of the mountains, to a cabin. We had made a reservation for a peaceful week, and we were so excited to spend the first holiday together.

In the evening, Andy organized a private party at his little bar from the town. He locked the doors, and he turned the music on. We danced all night, and in the morning, only the photos reminded us how much fun we had that night.

It was the last day when we were packing our bags, and we went out, first of all, at Andy’s bar, for one last cup of coffee. We all gathered there and talked for hours.

“Do you remember how it all started?” asks Deby.

“I appeared on the way” says Aaron. “But I am grateful that I have met you guys for that we haven’t crossed our paths then, I wouldn’t have achieved the happiness.”

“And I met you from pure luck or that was just fate, for me to be the Prophet in this whole story, but I am grateful for it” states Ivy.

“You are the family that I have never had!” I hear Andy.

“Enough with this lachrymatory stuff! When you get back from your little escapade, we go together as we talked in that cruise on the Atlantic!” exclaims Deby thrilled.

“Sure thing! I can’t wait for you to get back, so we can all have a holiday together!” says Ivy happily.

It was the time to say goodbye from them, for a week. When I hugged Ivy, I told her that I was very happy for her and Andy. The same I did with Deby.

“Don’t do any stupid things while I’m gone!”

“Don’t worry. Now that everything is back to normal, I think I will get bored here.”

“Leave it be. It’s better bored than living in the madness we’ve been through! By the way, I hope you noticed that James is into you!” I laugh.

“Yeah… I will see what I will do about that. I can’t say that he’s not an incredibly attractive man” she blushes. “I’m such a lucky woman to live in his house!”

“He’s a good man” I whisper while I hug her.

“Bring us some presents!” shouts James.

“Sure! Some bark, some fresh mountain air and a lot of pictures!” responds Aaron.

“Typical!” laughs Andy.

“See you guys in one week!” I said.

We got into Aaron’s car, and we went home to take the rest of the bags, then we hit the road. A week just the two of us, in the middle of nature. What would have been more beautiful than that? I’ve wanted this trip for a while, and now that I was on the road, I was so excited. So was Aaron because it was our first vacation together, as an ordinary couple, in a normal world, where we could be at peace and happy.

On the radio was playing an old song, but I couldn’t remember who was singing it. But we were singing it anyway. I grabbed his hand, which was on the elbow pad, and he showed me his white and out of ads smile.

“I always wanted a tattoo” he says out of the blue.

“Me too” I say.

“On this mini-vacation, we can decide on something symbolic, and we can make it when we get back. What do you say?”

“I want something that would remember us of everything we’ve been through.”

“If I knew how madness looks like, it would take place on my arm” he said amused.

I laughed, and I put my lips on his shoulder. The sun was shining bright, so Aaron pun on his sunglasses. It was the first time I saw him wearing this kind of things, and they suited him. I took out mine too and just then we were ready to go on vacation.

“I think I know” I said.

“What?”

“The tattoos. The mistletoe represents the eternity, and we had the youth for eternity the moment we crossed the barrier of the worlds. Now that we are back to normal, I want something to remember me of that.”

“Sounds good.”

“Yes, and inside the mistletoe, we can put the initials of everyone who had a significant impact on our lives, the ones who are here with us, but the ones who left this world too.”

“Josephine, you are a genius!” says Aaron and kisses me on the forehead.

“I’m sure that we will not be the only ones who will make these tattoos. When the others hear about it, they will be thrilled!”

I smiled. It was that moment of our lives when we were making plans together. We didn’t know until that moment how it was going to be. Aaron was looking at me in a certain way, but he wasn’t saying anything. He seemed like he wanted to share something with me, but it wasn’t the right time. I decided not to ask him because I knew he would tell me eventually.

He suddenly stopped the car, near a tattoo salon. In a couple of hours, our ideas became real. Now we had printed on our bodies those moments, and we were going to remember everything every time we looked at them. We both positioned them on our backs, and we were excited about the final result.

We hit the road again because we had to arrive at the cabin until dawn. We were driving on a bridge, and under it was a big lake, something like a water storage. The view was gorgeous, and we were both looking in front, how the sun was playing with his light on the surface of the water. I was still holding his hand when I heard from my right a loud creak. I turned my head around, and I felt my body shook all over. An accident had happened in front of us, and the car next to us was trying to avoid it. It didn’t make it, and it hit the car in front. We were hit by it too, so hard that we rolled over a few times and we fell with the car from the bridge, directly in the water. The other car didn’t fall with us. It just remained suspended on the edge of the bridge.

The impact had made the pieces of iron from the car to catch us between them. Aaron tried to move, but it was in vain. The car was going down, and the water was flooding us.

“I can’t get out of here!” I yelled at him.

He was stuck between all those iron pieces too. The water was flooding the car quickly, through the holes from the impact. The window next to me was broken, and so was the one from the back, and neither of us could get free.

“I can’t feel my legs” I suddenly said.

On Aaron’s face, I saw something I hadn’t seen before. He knew we had no chance of getting out of there. He stretched his hands to me, and he touched my shoulders. He was stuck from the waist below, and I had the legs crushed under the broken pieces. I realized that we were living the last moment of our lives, so I took his hands too.

“This is not the end” he says. “Do you believe it too?”

“I know it isn’t.”

“Find me, please.”

“We always find our way back to each other, under any circumstances.”

“Do you remember that I promised you I won’t ever let you go again? That you will be stuck with me forever?”

“Yes.”

“I meant it.”

He looked at me with his big and blue eyes, trying to remain calm, but I saw the desperation he was hiding.

“Do you trust me?” I asked him.

“With my life.”

“This is not the time to say this.”

“Everything is fine” he whispers.

I felt him squeezing my hands, just before the car was flooded. I started feeling my body lighter and lighter, until the point when our hands were separated. The water had flooded my lungs, so everything went dark soon.

We are people. We have weird traditions and even more bizarre lives. We are all different, but at the same time, we are alike in some points. We have habits. In the morning, we’re walking in the house with the toothbrush in our hands, and we get dressed quickly, we eat fast, we say painful things, and we regret that we opened our mouth. We curse when something doesn’t work out, we open the fridge from boredom and not from hunger, we make our coffee in the morning, but we leave in a hurry, forgetting to drink it, then we buy another one from the shop. We prepare our clothes for the next day from the evening, and we fall asleep dreaming of a perfect life, of what would happen next, of the schedule and daily routine, without thinking even for a second that it could be our last second on this Earth.

It would be so good if we all had a guardian angel, who would slap us every time we do useless things, when we think of all sort of unimportant things, forgetting to live. And like this, we just wake up one day, and we realize we have no time to do the things we always wanted. Why postpone anything? We have to do things when we feel.

I had had in my life all I had ever wanted, and this because I never wanted expensive cars, luxury, money or travels. All I wanted was to have by my side a family and people who love me. I had found this thing in my friends, who were my true family, whom I had lived through so many things. I had found love in a place and in a moment when I hadn’t expected, and what I had, in the end, was more than I could ever want.

It looks like we all get in life what we ask for if we find the power to believe it is truly possible. After I had received all I had ever wanted in life, I had continued to live a normal life, as an ordinary person. My mission had ended there, at the moment I felt I had everything when I knew I was happy, grateful and filled with joy. I hadn’t thought about having more than that, at a family, kids, marriage, and that because I had always lived the moment. I couldn’t regret any second of it, but I would have been nice to see two kids running in the backyard a few years later.