Chapter Text
My phone dinged with a notification, I pulled it from my pocket and the screen lit up.
“Where are you?” asked the text on the screen. I sighed, it hadn’t even been five minutes since I left for Avery’s place. But I couldn’t really blame her for being worried, because I was too. I had checked over my shoulder more often than usual and took care to hide my face from cars driving by as I briskly walked to Avery’s apartment. Aaron and his friends where definitely the kind of cowards to catch me alone. I turned my hand and looked at the thin, bruised skin that stretched over my knuckles.
“Hope that rich asshole enjoyed the trip to the ER.” I thought to myself. My mind wandered to the memory of punching him in the face, it was yesterday in college algebra. I was trying to read the assigned pages in the textbook as best I could with the group of guys laughing behind me. eventually I was able to drown them out and focus on the text, until I was pulled out of it by a loud voice. It was one of the boys behind me,
“no way Christina let you hit!” I rolled my eyes and wondered what that guy did to God to be given a voice that annoying.
“Yeah, she must’ve been drunk.” Said a different voice. I clenched my teeth and kept my head down, however shitty and annoying they may be they were just joking. That was when a third voice jumped in,
“Well, she was wasted by the time she finally agreed to go upstairs.” My blood ran cold and fire burst from under my skin at the same time. I stood up and turned around to face a guy named Aaron, the owner of the third voice.
“What did you say?” I asked. Aaron looked at me dumbly, seemingly coming up with a retort. One of his little buddies chuckled,
“This fucking legend was just telling us about how he has some serious game.”
“What, you want some?” jeered the other. My hand balled into a fist, and my eyes didn’t stop searing into Aaron’s face.
“Oh, so it’s game when you fuck a drunk girl.” My eyes narrowed, “Funny, I thought it was called rape.” Aaron looked a little rattled by that word, he looked at the teacher that was still facing the board and writing.
“Look, why don’t you quiet down” he said, “Why do you even care about that slut-” he didn’t get to finish his sentence. My fist smashed into his nose and knocked him to the ground. Before I knew it, I was dragged into the Dean’s office. No one wanted to hear my reasoning for hitting him, and I later found out that was because Aaron’s parents where wealthy donors to the university. And it may have also been a contributing factor to me getting expelled. The school gave me a day to pack up my things and get out of the dorm, leaving me nowhere to go. So here I was, walking to my best friend’s apartment with my suitcase in tow. I entered the complex and took the elevator to the fourth floor, walking down the hallway until I got to Avery’s apartment.
“Here” I texted back. The door opened to reveal a very worried looking best friend. Avery and I looked pretty much the same except for some key differences. We had the same big dark blue eyes, the same slope to our noses, and freckles that dotted our faces. We might have even passed for siblings if she didn’t bleach her nearly black hair blonde and spend lots of time keeping up a tan, just those two things created a harsh contrast to my pasty complexion and dark hair. We were even more dissimilar when it came to the personality department. She was so put together, and never had trouble keeping calm, something that would have served me well. I knew that if Avery where in my place she would have done something levelheaded, like report Aaron to the authorities instead of punching him and getting expelled. Avery came up to hug me,
“Sabrina! Are you okay?” she asked.
“I’m fine, just bruised my knuckles a bit.” I reassured her. Avery pulled back from the hug and looked me in the face,
“You know that’s not what I meant.” She said. I was afraid of that, leave it to Avery to immediately start asking how I feel.
“I haven’t even taken off my shoes yet, geez!” I laughed, and it felt like a lie. Avery rolled her eyes a bit,
“Fine, come inside. But we will talk about this later.” She grabbed my bag and brought it inside, and I followed behind her. Avery’s apartment was very nice, it was much bigger than my dorm room, decorated in pinks and creams, full of plush rugs and soft blankets. I sat down on a pink couch and got out my phone while Avery was putting my stuff in her bedroom. I opened the same email I’ve been stressing over all day. I don’t know why I continued to read it, looking at the contents could not have been good for me. The only reason I could go to college in the first place was an academic scholarship, one that had been revoked when I was expelled. The email was from the university, notifying me that I owed them $15,000. I didn’t know what to do, $15,000 was more money than I had ever seen in my life, and even if I took out a loan it wasn’t like I had a degree to get a good job to pay it off. The weight of my consequences pressed in on me and the text of the email grew blurry through unshed tears. Avery walked back into the room, and upon seeing my distress sat beside me and wrapped her arms around my shoulders.
“you’ll be okay, Sabrina” she whispered. And at least for that moment I chose to believe it.
Soft snores floated through Avery’s bedroom. She was sleeping next to me, wrapped up in her pink down comforter, blonde hair splayed about her pillow. I laid on my back, dark hair put up in a messy bun. I was wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt Avery threw across the room at me when getting ready for bed. She said she saw it at the thrift and bought it because she knew I liked “The moth thing” I was confused until I looked at the shirt properly and saw Mothman printed on the front, the words “I want to believe” where under it in classic horror movie font. My arms were folded across my chest, and I was staring at the ceiling. I knew I was imposing on Avery; I needed to get a job soon so I could at least contribute to rent. I turned my head to look at her. I remembered what she asked me when I called and told her I was getting kicked out of the dorms.
“So when are you bringing your stuff over?” It wasn’t even a debate for her, I didn’t have to ask. There was no pause in her voice, no hesitation about having someone in her apartment for an undetermined amount of time. Of course she didn’t think twice about it. She never did. My thoughts wandered to our friendship in high school. I would go to school with tired eyes from my parents yelling into the late hours of the night. Me and her would sit at the very back of the class, and she would smile at me “I’ll take notes for you, don’t worry about it and get some rest.” She would give me snacks she had packed, waving off my protests with a “I’m not that hungry anyways.” And when my parents found out I was a lesbian and I had to get away from them for my own safety, I snuck into her room through her window, and she held me while I sobbed. “It’s okay, don’t worry. One day we’ll get you out of there.” And we did. Avery and I chose to go to an out of state university, her parents where helping her pay the tuition but I was in a different boat entirely. We spent many a night studying so I could get a scholarship to go to school. When I got accepted Avery cried, and then I cried because she was crying.
Looking at her now I wondered where I would be without her, it couldn’t have been easy getting me out of my shell, but she never wavered. Thinking back on it I’ve changed a lot from the girl who profusely apologized for just existing. But here I was in her apartment. And here she was, helping me just like she has been all these years. A different me would have beat myself up over this situation, calling myself a burden to her. Maybe I had grown selfish over the years, because in that moment I didn’t mind imposing if it meant I got to be this close with her.
I began to realize I was staring at my best friend while she was sleeping and was suddenly aware of how creepy that was. I looked at the alarm clock on the bedside table and sighed deeply when I saw it was 2am. I slowly got up out of bed trying not to wake Avery and made my way into the kitchen. The apartment was quiet and dark, the only light was provided from a salt lamp on a coffee table by the couch. In the warm subtle glow I walked over to the kitchen side of the room. I had been over to Avery’s apartment so many times that I knew where everything was and opened a cabinet door, reaching past the Hello Kitty mug I got Avery for her birthday, grabbing a white one instead. Then I opened the cabinet above her oven, sifting through the fifty boxes of different teas to find the chamomile vanilla one. I reached for the electric kettle to fill it, but thought about the noise it would make. After consideration I decided I would microwave the water and stop it before it beeped. I kept my eyes on the rotating cup and the timer counting down on the microwave. With one second left I stopped it and pulled out the cup, the glass warming my cold fingers.
When I closed the microwave, I felt something odd, as if the darkness in the apartment had become deeper. Then I heard footsteps from Avery’s bedroom, and I froze. I knew what her footsteps sounded like, and that was not it. Someone else was in there with her. During the short distance from where I stood to her bedroom door my mind raced, were they going to hurt Avery? Who was it? How long had they been there? How did they get in? I finally reached the door, debating on what I should do to get Avery away from this burglar. I looked down at my left hand and realized I had brought the mug of water with me. it was worth a shot. I shoved the door open and light filtered into the room, the door handle made a loud noise as it smacked into the wall. A very tall man with a buzzcut and a harsh face looked up, startled by the disturbance. He was bent over Avery and had a lock of her blonde hair in his fingers. He looked at me and something flickered in his eyes. He walked toward me and I was sure this is what a prey animal felt like when being pounced on.
My eyes found Avery in the semi dark, she had been woken up by the door slam and looked at the man with fear that morphed into panic when she saw I was in his sights. I wish I could say that I ran purposely to lead the man away from Avery, but really I was just scared. I made it to the front door when I realized this man was between me and her. Remembering my original plan, I turned and threw the nearly boiling water in the mug right in his face. Simultaneously I heard a loud thud, the man yelled and his hands flew to the back of his head, coming away bloody. The only thing I saw in the strange man’s face was rage, rage that paralyzed me. I watched in horror as he turned around to Avery, I couldn’t see much from behind his large frame, there was a flash of white light that came with a sickening crack. I heard what I assumed to be Avery falling on the floor, the man took a deep breath and turned back around.
His movement gave me a partial view of Avery. She was lying on the floor, her eyes where sightless and in her hand was a blood splattered lamp. I took another step back, trying to get as far away from him as possible. But before my body could press into the door, it bumped against something that felt an awful lot like a person. The strange man’s eyes looked just above my head and he raised his hand, but before he could do anything there was a flash of blinding light that made my eyes shut in pain. the light quickly died, but before I could recover the person behind me put their hand on my shoulder and I felt the shadows once again grow deeper. Only this time they enveloped me and it felt like I was wrapped in a thick, velvety cloth. When I once again opened my eyes I shut them immediately, needing time to adjust to the sunlight.
“Wait” I thought to myself, “It’s two in the morning, why is the sun out?” This time I kept my eyes open, looking around at the forest I was in. after the initial shock I felt the hand that was still on my shoulder. I quickly turned and saw a woman looking back at me. She was taller than me, possibly around six feet, her hair was between shoulder and chin length and dirty blonde, she had brown eyes and her face had a stoic expression. I looked down and saw she was wearing a white linen tunic, brown pants, and some leather boots. During my scan of her body something caught my attention midway through, and I did a double take. This lady had a sword on her hip. I glanced back at her face, and she must have seen the intent in my eyes, because hers widened slightly in turn,
“Don’t-” she said right before I turned and ran from her as fast as I could.
“What the fuck, what the fuck?” I thought, “Where’s Avery? What’s happening?”
I heard the woman call out from behind me “Come back! This place is dangerous!” If I hadn’t just been kidnapped, I would have been touched by a stranger sounding so concerned for me, but I kept running. I followed the path through the woods, and eventually turned a corner to see a clearing. There was someone on a horse, they where probably close enough to hear me if I yelled. I slowed down a bit, taking a breath to scream for help. But I had forgotten about my pursuer, my slowed pace allowed her to body slam me to the ground knocking all the air out of my lungs. The woman wrapped her arms around me, and in trying to get us out of the potential eyesight of the person in the clearing rolled us toward the tree line. But she must have not seen the very steep hill, because once we started rolling, we didn’t stop. I gasped for air while we tumbled down the hill, the woman’s arms forming a kind of protective cage around me. The world turned into a blur of color as we fell, and I expected the ground would level out and we would stop rolling soon. Unfortunately, I was wrong. I felt the ground disappear, I was facing the sky and my captor was holding on to my torso. I panicked, waiting for us to slam into the ground, wondering if the fall was something we could survive. Then there was a splash.
The water was cold and all around me, the sudden change and fast pace of the current was disorienting, and I might have panicked if the woman didn’t grab my wrist and drag me to the surface. I breathed in so hard it hurt a little, then I looked around and silently, furiously cursed the fates. I was in a river with a crazy woman from a ren fair, and the unmistakable drop and thunderous sound of a very steep waterfall was fast approaching. The now soaked stranger looked at our imminent doom and scanned the riverbank, eyes locking on a tall tree about 50 feet away.
“Grab my waist” she commanded.
“What?” I asked, astounded. “How would that possibly help?”
“Just do it!” she yelled. I decided it couldn’t possibly make anything worse than it already was and complied. She kept her eyes on the tree, and when it was about 10 feet in front of us, she held her hands in the air. Suddenly the tree bended like it had been commanded to. She grabbed onto a branch, and the tree shot back up, pulling us out of the water.
“What the hell was that?” I asked the universe more than the woman I was clinging to. “What the fuck? Trees don’t do that!”
“They do here.” Strained the woman as she began to climb down the tree.
“Here? What do you mean here?” I demanded. “In what fantasy world do trees do that?” The woman responded with silence as she was climbing down the tree. “Are you really ignoring me right now? After what just happened, you’re ignoring me?”
“I’m trying to safely climb down a tree with you hanging on my back. I’m not ignoring you; I’m trying not to kill you.” The woman said with short breath.
“Oh” I replied. “I’m sorry, I can get off-” I started to look around for a branch to put my feet on.
“Don’t. Move.” She said firmly, “The last thing I need is you falling out of a tree.” Looking down and seeing how high up we were, I agreed and stayed quiet the rest of the way down. My feet hit the ground first, and the strange woman sighed in relief when she no longer had a grown woman hanging on her back. I briefly wondered if I should use the couple of seconds she would take climbing down to run, but considering how it went last time, I decided not to. I didn’t trust this woman, but I was no longer sure she was trying to kill me. for whatever reason, she cared about my safety and that was reassuring.
“I have questions.” I stated when she made it to the ground. She didn’t even look at me, instead looking around, as if she was expecting to find someone in the trees, then she took a strap off her shoulder, swinging a backpack I hadn’t noticed to her side. She pulled out a map that somehow wasn’t wet despite the both of us being completely soaked. She unrolled the map. “Okay, now she’s definitely ignoring me.” I thought to myself. I opened my mouth to tell her off, but I saw a look of worry on her face. “What is it?” I questioned. She put the map back, readjusted her backpack and grabbed my wrist.
“We need to get you out of here.” She said with a serious tone. I dug my heels in, and she looked back at me with a frustrated glare.
“Why should I go with you? You’ve already taken me to a second location, I’m not gonna let you take me to your kidnapping lair or whatever it is you’re leading me to.” The blonde pinched the bridge of her nose and spoke.
“Because General Stallus has likely already reported back to Lord Tolmir, which means everyone in this gods forsaken land will be looking for you.” The brown eyed woman looked at me with a grave expression, “If anyone here finds out who you are, you will die. I can’t protect you here.” She seemed almost pained to admit that last part.
“Okay…” I said with bewilderment, but something urged me to believe her. “Okay I don’t really know what’s going on and I’m kind of freaked out. Just tell me who you are and what’s going on.” I said.
“Alright, I will answer your questions if you agree to come with me. No running away.” She replied as she put her hand out to shake it. I hesitated at first, but I thought about how earnest she was when telling me I was in danger. If she was right and people really did want me dead, I wanted someone with a sword on my side.
“Okay, I promise.” I put my hand in hers and we shook hands. I noticed the middle of my palm get a little warm but I shrugged it off. The woman turned around and started walking, and I followed her. “So who are you?” I asked.
“My name is Elwyn, and I’m a general for the rebellion.” She said, still looking ahead.
“That’s a pretty name.” Elwyn looked a little unprepared for the compliment, her face wavering a bit from her usual stoic expression. “My name is Sabrina”
“That’s nice.” Elwyn said. I smiled, pretty sure that was her version of a compliment. We walked in silence for a minute while I thought of my next question.
“So who is General Stallus?” Elwyn’s face tightened and the tone of her voice made the disdain she had for the man clear.
“He is the man that I saved you from before, he’s a traitorous bastard, and a very talented General.” My thoughts hovered in my head for a moment, before they landed on a face. She must have meant him. Without warning tears welled up in my eyes, and the words I spoke next came out watery and strange.
“Avery- the girl in the apartment with me. He attacked her,” Elwyn’s body tensed upon hearing my tears. “Please I have to go see if she’s okay.” Elwyn slightly turned, giving me a look at the side of her face, her eyes were cast downward as if she couldn’t bear to meet me in my grief.
“I’m sorry, when General Stallus attacks it’s always to kill. Your friend is dead.” I put my hand over my mouth, bending my knees to crouch on the ground. I looked down and noticed my feet where bare, I didn’t have shoes on when we left. They were covered in scrapes and cuts, some new bruises already beginning to form on my knees, and now that I looked at the injuries they came to life with a stinging sensation.
“Huh,” I thought to myself, “I didn’t feel any pain until just now.”