Chapter Four

I woke up trying to pick out all the images from my dream. All I could remember were flashes of lights, an evil laugh, and my two best friends falling to the ground. The images of those events were still blurry, though. The only thing I could clearly remember was the same picture I didn’t want to have in my head. I saw Nick’s face; pained and tortured, as his mouth opened to let out a scream with the word “No” forming. He started running towards me, his arm extended, reaching to me, as I slipped away. The last thing I remember was his glassy brown eyes letting a tear escape. Then I woke up to find myself out of breath. I found Nick sound asleep on the cot in the middle of the room, and Felicity’s bed still made. She must have snuck the night in Liam’s room.                    

I heard a snore come from Nick, and chuckled. His face was turned toward me, and his eyelids relaxed over the beauty of his eyes. I threw my legs over the edge of the bed, and made my way to the bathroom. I focused on becoming invisible, until I couldn’t see myself in the mirror, just in case Nick walked in. He wouldn’t, I knew. He had that super hearing that could hear the shower running but better safe than sorry. I took off the loose t-shirt that I slept in and let it fall to the tile floor, followed by my shorts, then stepped in the shower. I turned the knob to the hottest I could stand, and let the steam run up into my nostrils to soothe my tired lungs. It was refreshing, and my nerves seemed to calm down immediately. I finished washing the shampoo suds out of my hair when I heard something. I opened my eyes, and turned my body to face the wall in which the shower head was attached to. I looked up to see it rattling. Hot floods of steam were being produced, and I felt my skin burning. Suddenly, I saw a long thick stream of dark red liquid come streaming out. The strong rusty metallic smell burned my nose, and I realized that it was fresh blood streaming from my shower. I worked up a scream in my throat, and stumbled backwards toward the back wall of the shower. The blood was flooding around my feet and I continued to try to escape my way out, but the curtains kept tangling around me. “Help!” I shouted. “Nick!” Tears of fear streamed down my face. The blood kept coming, filling in around my body. “Nick!” I yelled again through my sobs.                            

I heard a bang on the door, and felt the cold air rush in at its opening. “Nick, help!” I saw the curtain open. “Juliette, I can’t freaking see you.” Nick said with frustration in his tone of voice. In my panic and desire to stop the sticky blood from touching my skin, I let my body become visible to his eyes again. He didn’t take the time to look at my nakedness, and quickly pulled me out, as I clung to him. “What the hell is going on?” He asked, setting me on the floor and kneeling beside me. He wrapped my towel around me, as I continued to cry from my fear. “The blood; it’s everywhere.” I cried. Nick gave me a confused look. “You can’t see it?” I asked. He shook his head, and I turned back to the running shower, where there was clear water, like nothing happened. “No…” I breathed. “No, it was there. I swear, Nick! You have to believe me.” I started to sob again. I know what I saw, and there was blood everywhere. Now there was nothing, like I just dreamed up the whole thing. He probably thought I was mental. I felt his arms pull me closer to him. “I believe you, Li. Trust me, I do.” He assured me. I let out a sigh of relief as I held the towel tighter around my shivering body. He departed his arms from me. “Everything’s okay now, Li. Get dressed, and call me if you need me.” I nodded and watched him walk out the door and shut it back again. I took a few deep breaths before making my way to the mirror.               

I frowned at the appearance looking back at me. I usually didn’t care about my looks, and looked average anyways, but right now, I looked worse than ever. My face had lost what little color it already had. My hair was damp and all over the place and my eyes were red. I looked at them deeper, and realized my blue-gray hue in my iris had changed to a darker tone. I didn’t worry about it. Instead, I dismissed my appearance. I wasn’t going to have a breakdown again. Maybe after I fixed everything up, I would look like myself again. I would look like Juliette.                                     

I ran my brush through my wet hair, eliminating the tangles, then pulled it to the side, and braided it. I held it together with an elastic and let myself fall invisible again, ready to go grab my clothes out of my drawer. I opened the door, to find Nick sitting across the room reading the Charmer Central Newspaper. He looked up when he heard the creak of the door then looked back down as my unseen body made its way to my dresser and pulled out a white tank top and another pair of sweats. I would have dressed up to make Felicity shut up, but after that scare, I wasn’t up for anything of the sorts. I threw both articles of clothing on my body, and turned off my camouflage. “You okay?” Nick asked. I nodded in response.                                                     

“There’s a Charm for that, you know.” He said. I turned toward him with my forehead wrinkled in confusion. “For what?” I asked. “For what happened in there. You saw that because of a charm, well, more like a hex. Charms are only for the good. Hexes are those of the darker branches of Charmers - although, they’re technically known as Morters. That hex was called Cruor, which is Latin for,”spilled blood”.  It triggers the curse when the victim is most vulnerable. In the shower, your guard was down because you were invisible, and it chose the shower to give you the hallucination.” I took in all of this information, and processed it in my mind. I wasn’t crazy. Oh, thank God, I wasn’t crazy.              

I breathed a sigh of relief, and Nick flashed me his famous smile. “You wanna get breakfast? They’re having pancakes. You know how much I love pancakes.” He said. I gave him a genuine smile. It seems like it had been forever since I had a real smile on my face, but just because it was him that was able to give that to me, didn’t mean I was going to let him off the hook of what happened that summer that easily. I nodded, as he stood up and walked towards the door. I followed him as he opened it. “Ladies first.” He commented, as he swung his arm out and back in pointing out the door in a sweeping motion, and bowed as if we were back in the Medieval Times. “Maybe chivalry isn’t dead.” I giggled. “Ah, m’lady, chivalry never dies when Sir Nicholas is around to keep ‘tis alive.” His voice supported a British tone, and I directed a small crooked grin towards him. His eyes shimmered as he returned the smile. It was then I finally felt I was missing something. Then, that I realized how right Liam and Felicity were. I just wouldn’t admit it.