Chapter Three #2
Loki walks down the line, and she moves behind him, watching him like a hawk as he picks up a couple of sandwiches, some crisps, a chocolate bar and a bottle of blood.
“I can have anything?” She asks.
Her voice sounds a lot harsher than it did this morning, almost as if she’s not used to using it, or even that it’s taken some damage.
“Yep,” Loki replies. “It's free.” He adds quietly, and I frown. It's hardly like she has to worry about money.
At least that’s what I thought until I see the relief briefly flash across her stunning features.
Fucking hell.
She picks up three sandwiches and a packet of crisps and when she thinks we’re not looking, she places a couple of granola bars in her trouser pockets. It’s all signs of someone who doesn’t know where their next meal is coming from or when. I should know I’ve lived like that, and so has Loki.
She shouldn’t have had that sort of experience though. Something just isn’t adding up.
My mouth drops open in shock when we take a seat as she finishes her food within five minutes. I’d be willing to bet that she had timed eating when she was allowed to eat. I nudge the others, so they stop staring, and Loki clears his throat, looking at her as if he’s just realised something.
“You’re not what you appear to be, are you?”
“It depends on what you see.” She replies cryptically, a slight smile tilting her lips for a fraction of a second before it disappears. “I’m going to bed.” She pauses, looking us over. “Thank you.”
I nod, staring after her as she leaves. As soon as she’s out of the cafeteria, I turn to the others to say I’m not going through with what Storm wants us to do, but I’m interrupted by Reaper.
“I’m not doing it. Something is going on with her, and I want to know what.” He says firmly.
“Me too.” Loki agrees. “When I showed her the room, she was almost shocked, and for a brief second, her barrier dropped, and I could feel the sheer joy radiating from her. It was gone within a second though, and I assumed she was being sarcastic. Now I’m not so sure.”
“She just sewed up her lip right in front of me. She didn’t flinch, not once, and I couldn’t see any numbing stuff in her supplies.
Not only that, but she actually thought I was angry at her because I needed to use the sinks.
Not because I know full well that you have to be damned used to stitching yourself up to do it that quickly and without fucking flinching. ”
“That’s another thing though, she’s not healing,” I muse. “Most supernaturals would have healed by now, even the weaker ones, and she can’t be that weak, or they never would’ve let her in here, magistrate father or not.”
“Come on. I’m not hungry anymore. Let’s go back to the room. She’s there alone with Storm and Mayhem.”
“You sound protective of her,” Reaper observes .
“I guess I am?” Loki replies, confused by his own reaction.
“Me too,” I mutter, and Reaper agrees with a nod.
“She’s bleeding,” Loki says quietly as we walk the halls.
“What?” Reaper asks.
“Farren, when I got close to her earlier, I could smell fresh blood, and it wasn’t from her lip, there was too much of it.”
“But there were no weapons allowed in the fight, and we would've noticed if she got an injury that large during it,” I say.
“No, which means she had the wound before the fight,” Loki says, a dark look crossing his features.
“Fuck.” Me and Reaper curse at the same time.
We need to get to the bottom of this.
We increase our pace as we make our way back to the room. Mayhem and Storm are lounging on the couches when we get there. Farren is nowhere in sight. A panicky feeling that I don’t understand stirs inside me, and I frown.
What the fuck is happening?
“Where’s Farren?” Reaper asks, trying to sound casual, but there’s a tense undercurrent in his tone that has Storm frowning.
He points in the direction of her room, and I relax slightly, knowing she’s in there.
“Think she’s asleep.” Mayhem replies and I catch the worried frown he gives her door.
“Look,” I start, “I think we need to consider the fact that the spear has never gotten it wrong before, and she’s meant to be on this team. There’s something more. ..” I start, but Storm jumps up.
“No. She will never be a part of this team. She’s weak. She’s not even healing!” He exclaims.
I have known Storm ever since we were kids, and I can hardly remember a time when he showed emotion. But he has shown more brief flashes of it in the last few hours than he has for a very long time, and I can't help but feel that there is something he’s not telling us.
“Come on, man. Listen,” Loki tries, but it’s no good.
Storm is in no mood to listen to us and glares harshly before getting up and walking to his bedroom door, his stoic facial features back in place.
“What about you?” I ask my twin.
“I agree with you to some extent.” He replies. “Something more is going on with her, but I’m not sure it's our place to figure out what.”
He gets up quietly and goes to his own room, leaving the three of us in the living area together.
“Well, that went well.” Loki scoffs, hopping over the back of the couch and landing with a bounce next to me.
“They’ll come around. They need to.” Reaper replies.
“What’s the plan then?” I ask.
“Well, we observe, and we try to get her to open up to us. We can’t help her if she doesn’t trust us.”
“I have a feeling she doesn’t trust easily,” Loki says, darkness once again crossing his eyes as his past rises. “I recognise something in her that’s in me, and that fucking terrifies me.”
Without another word, he gets up and quietly makes his way to his room.
“That statement was more worrying than anything else he could’ve said,” I say into the silence.
“We’ll figure it out. We have to.”
The rest of the night I spend tossing and turning, the unknowns about Farren driving me crazy and what’s worse is I don’t fucking know why I care so damn much.
∞∞∞
“Someone needs to wake up, Trouble.” Storm mutters as he fills up his mug with his third cup of coffee this morning.
It looks like someone else didn’t sleep very well either.
“I’ll do it,” Loki offers.
Just as he’s about to knock on her door, the main entrance to the dorm swings open and in walks a muttering Farren, she shuts her mouth abruptly and darts her eyes to the side as if she’s looking at someone.
My mind stutters over what she’s wearing, tiny running shorts and a tank.
She’s got far more tattoos than I ever thought the daughter of a magistrate would have.
“Where the fuck have you been?” Storm says his only emotion is apparently anger.
“For a run.” She answers simply, walking to her room and closing the door behind her. A few seconds later, we all hear the shower turn on.
“Well, you can’t call her lazy,” Loki comments, making Storm scowl.
He strides up to her door and bangs on it. “We’re leaving in five minutes!”
He’s barely made it across the room when her door opens again, and she walks out fully dressed, raising her eyebrows at Storm and smirking. It's pretty clear that she enjoys sparring with him. There’s a change in her today, almost as if she’s made a decision.
“It’s weapons training today. Do you need to borrow a weapon?” Mayhem asks, and I'm glad to see he’s not sneering. I'm rarely at odds with my twin, and I hope that he sees what the rest of us do soon.
“No, I stored mine in the locker yesterday,” she replies, as she makes a beeline for the coffee.
She pauses just as she gets to it. “May I?”
“Of course, help yourself,” I reply, smiling softly. I’m rewarded with a small smile in return, and for some strange damn reason, it makes my heart hurt.
What is this girl doing to me?
Not just me actually, but the others as well. She’s a mystery and one I want to solve.