Chapter Forty-Five

A week passed, and most people who should’ve been with me here at college were gone. Some of them had stuff to do with everything that was happening, not to mention Fred who had important Alpha business to attend to and took Apollo and Strider with him, obviously, and therefore I was mostly alone.

Not that I was clingy or something, but I wanted Fred to be here, with me…

The only ones left at college who needed to “watch over me” were Bastien and Maria. Bastien accompanied me to classes, which went on as if everything was cool. Bastien was a great guy, though, very sweet and shy, but once I befriended him, I got to know his humorous side which was hilarious. I found myself more than once crying from laughter thanks to him.

One night, when we walked with Maria to the dining room for dinner, Bastien told us about one of his adventures with Magnus and Ryan to The Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. He told us many joked, especially ones about Magnus, who didn’t handle the heat there very well - and the girls he conquered on the way - and Maria and I were holding our bellies from laughter by the time he was done.

“You’re seriously the most hilarious man I’d ever met, Bas,” I told him, wiping tears from my eyes. “It’s official.”

Bastien let out an evil smile. “And you haven’t even heard the stories I have about the ways Magnus had tried to get Vermillion into his bed, even though she was, like, fifty, and he was centuries older…”

And so it went on all evening until Maria got a phone call and walked away to talk to whoever it was. Meanwhile, Bastien and I finished eating, and when Maria came back, her face was white as a sheet. Bastien and I looked at her, concerned, but she didn’t look at me, only at Bastien. “I need to speak with you,” she told him quietly, and then, without even looking at me, she said, “Angela, go to your room.”

Of course I couldn’t immediately obey. “Why?” I demanded, a bad feeling crawling into my stomach.

“Please,” Maria’s voice was distressed, not like her usually calm, peaceful voice that always made everyone feel at ease.

I decided not to argue with her, because if Maria was stressed, it meant something bad had happened. So I collected myself and my entitled ego and went to my room, where I forced myself to shower and wait patiently until they came back - every week they slept with me in the room instead of Fred, Apollo and Strider, who were sleeping somewhere in the city because of all of their business.

I waited fifteen minutes, then thirty, then an hour. Near the end of the second hour, I was already nervous. I couldn’t concentrate on anything, and when I tried to read, the words mashed together on paper. I wanted them to come back and tell me what happened.

They arrived halfway through the third hour. I was sitting cross-legged on my bed, staring at the door impatiently, and when they entered, I saw that the usual amused glitter in Bastien’s eyes was gone and replaced by worry. His face, like Maria’s, was pale, and two seemed scared.

“What happened?” I asked, the bad feeling in my stomach returning.

Bastien sat next to me on the bed while Maria remained standing. “Something bad happened in the city,” Maria said quietly, her voice shaking. “Something very, very… bad.”

“What?” I turned to look at her. “Spill it out!”

“Evander,” Bastien blurted, looking away. “He’s here.”

I froze at once. “Evander?” I asked in disbelief. “What the hell is he doing here?!”

“It seems like he’s been here for a long time,” Maria took a deep breath. “And now he’s looking for certain people. Fred gave an order to everyone who’s in college to stay within the college’s walls and not leave.” She seemed sadder than I’d ever seen her.

Shaking, I asked, having to confirm, “He meant us as well, didn’t he?” When they didn’t respond, I got the answer. “Fuck this!” I yelled, angry. “I want to help!”

“There’s nothing to help with, Angela,” Bastien murmured. “Fred and the rest are going to fight him and his troupe, and they don’t want to involve you.”

“Why the hell not?!” I looked at him, infuriated. “Why can’t I help?! I’m as strong as they are!”

“But you still don’t have full control over Tempest and your powers,” Maria reminded me with a sad smile, “I wish it could be different, because then you would’ve been a great weapon, but for now, we’re under orders to protect you, so you wouldn’t do anything reckless - “

“I don’t care, I’m going to help them!” I jumped off the bed and ran toward the door, but Bastien was faster and he grabbed my hand, holding me to him.

“We were told we cannot let you go, Angela!” he snapped when I struggled in his muscular arms, but he was stronger and kept me immobile without a problem. “Please respect Fred’s decision in this!”

“Besides, they don’t go fighting them tonight,” Maria said, tears in her eyes. “Evander sent them a letter to the Headquarters in the city. He planned a ‘meeting’ with them in one week exactly, in the woods on the end of the city, where Tempest fought us. Therefore there’s no point for you to go there now.”

I stopped fighting Bastien’s harsh hold, and he let me go when he realized I was listening now. “I want to help them,” I said explicitly.

“We can’t - “

“I. Don’t. Care!” I screamed, bearing my teeth. “I will help them whether you let me or not!”

And with these words I went to my bed, snuggled into my blanket, and showed them I wanted to be left alone. And so they did.

The week after Evander’s letter, I ignored Bastien and Maria, angry with them at their lack of understanding about my need to help. I skipped classes, not caring anymore about my Biology BA, and instead surreptitiously worked on control, which, as they kindly mentioned, I still didn’t have full grasp on.

Tempest, for a change, didn’t complain about the meditation I did. She got how important it was to me. With each day, I got better in meditating and connecting to my powers. Tempest herself went along with it an eve helped me, giving me comments here and there, as though she didn’t have anything else to lose - and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the truth.

Bastien tried to lift up my mood with his joked, but I had no laughter in me. My worry toward the others, my burning passion to see Fred and make sure he was okay and not crumbling under pressure, was all I could think about. Besides, I couldn’t keep on being angry with Maria and Bastien, who still didn’t allow me to go and help with the organizations towards the “meeting” - or, more likely, fight.

So I drowned in my own shit and didn’t do anything.

\When the day in which the fight had to happen arrived, I realized something I forgot thanks to the events of the past few weeks. In the morning, when I saw the date was April second, I blinked a few times, trying to grasp why the date sounded familiar, and then remembered.

“I have a birthday today,” I told Maria and Bastien at breakfast in a somber voice.

“You don’t seem particularly happy about it,” Bastien stated with an arched eyebrow.

I shrugged, feeling the tension in the air for the upcoming fight tonight. “I don’t know,” I said honestly, “I’ve never celebrated my birthday or anything like this. Besides, nineteen isn’t a particularly special birthday to be happy about.”

“You’re nineteen?” Maria’s eyebrows shot upward in shock.

I flushed. “Don’t I look like I’m nineteen?” I shot back defensively.

“It’s not it,” Bastien murmured, “it’s just the way you act sometimes…”

“Oh, so I’m childish,” I felt a spark of annoyance at his implication.

“I didn’t mean that - “

“I’m childish and reckless and egocentric, this is what you’re trying to say,” I was already on edge, and here he was, flaring my temper up.

“I’m not trying to - “

“So fine, I don’t act like a nineteen-year-old girl! Nothing’s wrong with that!” I yelled, rising to my feet in anger, and left the room in favor of the backyard to train myself in meditation, which was hard with the anger boiling my blood.

What surprised me most about it was that I didn’t break any window or make the earth shake. Usually, in this kind of situations, Tempest would go into action and we were both losing our marbles or something. It seemed like my control over Tempest got better.

The entire day I meditated. I skipped lunch even just to connect my Spirit, and try to get hold over my stormy self. Eventually, when it was sunset, I returned inside and into the dining room for an early dinner. Bastien and Maria waited for me there, and I saw they arranged for a cake.

I sighed, apologizing about my burst out, and thy forgave me and ordered me to blow off the candles on the cake. I smiled a little smile despite myself, and after I blew the candles off, I tried talking with the two easily, as thought ignoring what was soon to go down in the forest…

But all of it was over when Rachel and Jason came to our table running. They weren’t a part of the Millennium Force, and the only connection they had to the Alpha was through Strider, because they were his friends, and that was why they had also stayed in college, even if they’d kept a distance from us. “We’ve got a problem,” Jason said, seeming more scared than I’d ever seen him - he was usually an arrogant, shallow, carefree dude.

Rachel also seemed distressed, and swallowed hard before she dropped the bomb. “The humans - Jane, Etha, Hazel and Charlotte - they aren’t here.”

“What does it mean?” I rose from my seat, feeling my bad, ominous feeling growing stronger.

Jason lowered his head when he said, “They went out together for a spontaneous picnic.”

I felt the blood flowing down from my face - no one should’ve left the college area! Bastien, who saw my face, turned them and asked, “Where?”

Jason and Rachel didn’t look at me, and Maria started crying. “Oh no,” she sobbed, “oh no, oh no, oh no…”

“They went to the forest,” Rachel’s voice was choked, “to the forest where… where everyone is at.”

And at that moment, I knew there was no fucking chance I was staying behind and doing nothing.