Traveler - The Price (Book 3)

Life is funny sometimes. Just when you think you understand everything ad you put your thoughts and ideas in line when you feel you are free, then it hits you hard, and it dizzies you so that you don’t know where you are or what you’re looking for. Everything around you changes, and you remain there small, lost and praying for the strength to move on. Then it doesn’t matter who you used to be, but who you’ve become after that test. You can be hurt, tired, gone through Hell, but it’s important if you come back. And if you do that you become stronger because you have fought. And one day you will thank that stubbornness.

I opened my eyes. A powerful green disturbed me. I stood up dizzy. I was lying on the grass, and there were trees all around me. I had fallen. I was scratched. I stood up on my feet, and I took a moment to remember what I was doing there.

I made a few steps, and I heard a noise in the leaves. I bent down and what I saw terrified me. A huge creature with red eyes was digging a few steps away from me. I didn’t know what kind of animal it was, so I started running. With every step, I was more desperate. I was confused. I was sad. I felt the tears struggling to get out, and I closed my eyes. When I opened them again, I had made the first step out of the woods. I saw a big car approaching from my right, but I couldn’t avoid it. It hit me. I couldn’t open my eyes and my ribs hurt me. I certainly had something broken. I heard some voices and my head was ringing.

“What the hell?”

“This is not possible!”

“Aaron! Get out of the car!”

I felt some hands on me, but I couldn’t say anything because I was about to faint.

“Is it her?”

“Is it really her?”

“It can’t be her!”

For a few moments, it went silent. I felt some hands again on me.

“This is not possible! Someone is screwing with us!”

“Aaron, it’s her!”

“She’s dead, Ivy!”

“Let’s take her to the cabin. We hit her pretty bad.”

“It’s a trap… it’s something else! Something is not right!”

“Can you drive? Or do I drive?”

“You…”

Then I didn’t hear anything. When I opened my eyes, I was in a room inside a cabin. I was on a mattress, and four people were staring at me. Two women and two men.

“She’s waking up” says a voice.

“Jo? Is it really you? How is this possible?”

“What happened?”

I woke up, and I winced. I wanted to get up, but a strong pain hit me in the abdomen, so I remained there.

“Who are you?” I asked confused.

I read the shock on their faces, but I should have been the one who needed to be understood because I didn’t know who I was, where I was or who were those strangers gathered above me.

“Jo, it’s us! Your friends! Your family!”

“I’m sorry, I don’t remember anything” I said lost.

“It’s not her! It can’t be her! Someone is screwing with us! Don’t you see?” says a man.

I took a closer look at one of the women. She had a face that I had seen before. She had something that reminded me of my childhood.

“You look familiar” I say.

“It’s me, Deby!”

“Do I know you from kindergarten?” I asked.

“Yes! See? That’s the spirit!”

I didn’t know the rest, so I didn’t know what to say to them.

“It’s no point for me to ask how are you here because I think you don’t remember” says Deby.

“I don’t remember anything and anyone!”

“Look, she’s Ivy, our friend and also our doctor. He is Andy, your ex-boyfriend, and he is Aaron…”

“Another good friend” he interrupts Deby.

She turned around with a shocked face at him. He approaches me.

“She doesn’t have the scars on her hand!” he says to the others.

“Now, what are you saying? That it’s not her?” asks Ivy.

“How can you explain this?” asks Aaron. “She doesn’t have any marks, not to mention the logic of the situation!”

”Don’t you remember all the weird situations we have been through?” asks Andy. ”Why don’t you want to believe she’s here?”

“Hey, I’m standing right here!” I say. “If you know me, you can tell me what I was doing in that forest.”

It went quiet again. I saw the concern on their faces. They all had tears in their eyes.

“Josephine Elena Martin” says Deby in the end. “You fell from a cliff right in front of us. We looked for you in the river for days, but we couldn’t find you. It’s been three months since then. We didn’t believe that we will see you again.”

I was staring at her, and I couldn’t understand either what I was doing there.

“I think I need a moment” I say.

“Look, I will stay with you” she says.

I saw Ivy approaching Aaron and touching his shoulder, but he pushed her hand away angrily. He went outside, and the other two followed him. It was just Deby and me. I looked at her confused.

“Don’t you remember anything?”

“No… If I haven’t recognized you from somewhere, I would have been long gone. I’m still not sure that you’re not some psychos.”

Hearing that, Deby started laughing, and she grabbed my hand.

“Look into my eyes, and you will see I’m not lying” she said.

“Yeah, sure, because the eyes never lie, no? Believe me, I feel so lost…”

She started telling me all my life, since we left Vals, about the fact that I was a Traveler, but she couldn’t explain more. She told me how many people I’ve lost and how I resisted. She mentioned something about how we met Aaron and his sister, but I couldn’t remember them. She didn’t tell me more because the others came inside.

“Now what?” I ask.

“Now we have to follow the box” she says. “Aura must not find out you are alive. This is your advantage. We have to find that key and stop this madness!”

“You said that the box started shining recently. Today I woke up in the forest without knowing anything about myself.”

“What are you saying?” asks Ivy.

“I want to see it” I said.

Ivy took it out from her bag, but she had a withholding in giving it to me. At the moment I touched it, it started shining so bright lighting the whole room. I got scared, and I dropped it, and it stopped shining. Ivy picked it up, but it didn’t shine. She handed it over to me, and when I touched it, it started shining again.

“How is this possible?” asks Andy.

“You still have doubts she’s not Jo?” asks Deby.

I saw hope on their faces. I stood up, and I look in my pockets, everywhere, but no sign of a key.

“I don’t have the key” I said.

“Now what? The box is not shining, and apparently, it goes crazy every time Jo touches it!” says Ivy.

“I say we stay here until we set things up” says Andy. “Jo needs to adapt. Maybe she will remember everything.”

The others nodded their heads in approval, and I tried to get up. All my body was hurting, and I desperately needed a shower. Deby gave me some clean clothes, and she took me to the bathroom, letting me know it was just cold water.

I took off my dirty clothes, and I entered in the shower. I looked in the mirror. I didn’t recognize the person I saw there. I put my hand through my hair, and then I turned on the water. It didn’t bother me the fact that it was cold, so I let it flow over me. After ten minutes, I got out from the bathroom, I dressed up, and I wanted to go down to the others. Before I stepped out, I looked again in the mirror. I took a deep breath, and I walked down the stairs. They were waiting, and when I got there, it went quiet.

“You can keep talking” I said. “I’m going to drink some water.”

I understood them because from what I knew of them, they thought I was dead. I imagined their shock, so I decided to give them time. I wanted so bad to remember them, but especially Andy because I wanted to know more about him. After all, we had been together.

I saw some mattresses on the ground, in the room where they were all settled. I figured that was the sleeping place because upstairs was just a bathroom. I sat on one of them. Ivy brought me a pillow. I wanted to sleep. After a few hours of deep sleeping, I opened my eyes. I surprised Aaron’s eyes on me.

“Hey” he says.

“Morning” I said politely.

He was looking at me in a strange way, but I couldn’t remember anything about him.

“How are you feeling?” he asks me.

“Pretty shaken up.” I responded.

He got up without saying anything more, and after two minutes, I saw him leaving the kitchen. He bent down near me, and he gave me a bottle of water and a can. I accepted them, and I smiled at him. He looked at me sadly, and then he went outside on the porch.