Chapter Fourteen

Skay and Nick are arguing in hushed voices in the bathroom of the hotel room as I sit in the corner of the bedroom trying to process everything. After Skay had told me that, I hadn't been able to say a word, I just crouched my little corner and buried my face in my hands. Why the hell would he kiss me if he knew about what could happen? I could care less about this whole 'fate' thing, we make our own decisions. We control our own bodies, and I definitely wouldn't have kissed him if I knew about this prophecy. 

This keeps getting more, and more insane as I try to recap everything. Prophecies are a thing, the devil is real (and I met him), Nick's my brother, and I'm destined to love Skay. No, you know what, I didn't sign up for any of this. I've lived my entire life by someone else's rules. I'm done with living this way. I don't care about this prophecy, as far as I can tell it doesn't even apply to me. I didn't grow up in this magical world knowing anything about its rules. It's provided nothing for me but pain, so why should I obey their 'fate'? 

I jump up onto my feet and walk over to the bathroom. Nick opens the door when I knock on it. He looks down at me grimacing as if he's expecting a full-blown breakdown. 

"Look, I'm angry, no furious, at both of you for lying to me about all of this. Nick, I feel like you being my brother should have been brought up from the very beginning, and Skay I honestly can't comprehend how you could have the audacity to kiss me while believing that the prophecy was true. Having said this, I don't give a s**t about 'fate'. I make my own choices, and I'm not going to allow them to be dictated by a prophecy and some seer."  

I make eye contact with Skay and stay there for a few seconds. The way he's looking at me, makes me wonder if the prophecy was true about something. He wants me, and the way the pit of my stomach is feeling right now, tells me that I want him too. That doesn't mean that I'm going to allow us to end up together though. 

"I'm tired of just sitting around a talking, let's go find your guys' friend and see what we can do from there." I don't give them time to argue with me, I just turn around and grab my bag off the floor to leave. 

The car ride is fairly short from the hotel. We end up at what looks like a farm that goes on for miles. There are a few rows of what looks to be corn behind the house in a fenced in area, and on the other side, I see three horses eating grass. The home is a tall two-story ranch-styled house with white shutters over the windows. 

Before I can even get adjusted to my surroundings after stepping out of the car, something whips past me and jumps onto Skay. A tall, blonde girl with pretty flowing hair, is on top of his back laughing hysterically. He's grinning, half-halfheartedly trying to get her off of his back. 

"Skay, I haven't seen you in forever!" She jumps off of his back and slaps his chest, "Why haven't you visited?" They continue to talk and laugh, catching up with each other. My eyes narrow, for reasons beyond me. Nick comes up from behind me and puts a hand on my back. 

"Jealous?" He asks with a forced teasing sound to it. He's just as concerned with this prophecy coming true as Skay is. I shrug his hand off of me and shake my head. 

"As if. He can do whatever, or whoever, he wants. There's no way I'm going to let that prophecy come true anyway." The words felt as if they were tearing at me as they left my mouth. I'm more stubborn than this though, I'm not letting them win. 

Nick nods towards the house and I immediately turn my attention there. "Good," he says, "But you won't have to worry about anything happening. That's her girlfriend." I give a small wave to the girl that's leaning against one of the porch pillars, and she gives me a tight smile back. 

"Why don't you guys come in?" She calls over from the porch at us. As we head over I realize that her tight expression was not directed towards me but at Skay and her girlfriend. She subtly grabs Skay's arm as he walks past her and gives him a knowing look. He grimaces but nods. 

I nudge Nick's arm and gives him a questioning look about what's going on between Skay and her. Nick leans down to my ear and whispers, "You'll find out soon enough." 

The blonde girl leads us straight into the living room as we head into the house. She gestures to the rocking chair and two couches for us to sit down and then hops into her girlfriend's lap on one of the couches. Her girlfriend gives her a small laugh before whispering something into her ear. She frowns, but nods and gets up and leaves the room. 

Her girlfriend turns to us and glares once she's completely out of earshot, "What are you all doing here? And why didn't you call? You know I don't like Ally mixed up in all of this." 

Skay grunts and says, "Yeah I know, that's why I haven't been able to see one of my best friends in nearly ten years" The girl's face slightly softens, but she still remains strong.

"I can't be mixed into whatever grand schemes or drama you have cooking up only to drag her into it. She doesn't deserve to be in danger because of what we are." She runs her fingers through her short brown hair looking extremely tired at that moment. Skay leans over to grab her hands. 

"Stevie, you can't stop fate, no matter how hard you try. You know that." She yanks her hands away from his. 

"That's funny coming from you, all things considered. What do you expect me to do anyway? Let her get hurt? That's not going to happen. Don't you ever ask me of that, I'll pick her over you every single time." 

Skay pulls his hands away in the 'I surrender' position and shrugs. "Fine, we just need a little favor, and then we'll be out of your hair," he gestures over to me, "I need you to help her block out other people from her mind." 

Stevie immediately pales and stands up, "Who's after her? Who strong enough that she needs to block them?" Skay gives her a guilty look. 

"I swear to god Skay! Did you really come to me while you have Lucifer after you?" 

Skay also stands up and puts his hands on her shoulders like he's trying to calm her, "Please just help us and we'll be gone. I'll do everything in my power to keep you two safe. 

"Fine, but if Lucifer comes for us I won't think twice to save her over all other things. Be prepared for that," she mutter. "Come over here, I'll do the spell." She says this towards me and I walk over to her. She puts her hands on either side of my head. 

"I must warn you that the feeling of this is going to relate quite literally with what I'm going to be doing. It'll feel like a brick wall is being built inside your brain. It's excruciating." I glance around at Skay and Nick feeling a little uneasy. Skay immediately walks over to me and takes my hand in his. 

"Do it," He grunts at her clearly irritated that she was trying to scare me off. All of the sudden a burst of pain shoots through me as she begins chatting. I gasp and shake as I squeeze his hand as hard as I can. She was right, it literally feels like a brick after brick is being shoved into my brain to build an exoskeleton. Tears begin falling down my face, it hurts so bad that I just want to collapse, but I can't because her magic is holding me up. Skay looks down at me and grimaces from seeing me in pain. He removes his hand from mine and them puts both of them over hers. 

I gasp as the excruciating pain is suddenly dulled. While the sharp pains are still there after each brick is laid down, it feels like a wave of soothing ice strokes through me right after. I accidentally let out a moan and feel immediately embarrassed, but the feeling soon goes away, consumed with how grateful I am over the pain subsiding. She finally removes her (and his) hands from my scalp, and the pain completely disappears. 

"All done, but you're going to have to stay here for a few hours before we can know for sure whether or not it worked." Her eyes search my face as if she's feeling slightly guilty for hurting me,  "Sorry about being so harsh, but I really have to protect my own before anyone else." 

"I understand and thank you for helping me despite that." I give her a tight smile, "If it's any consolation, I don't believe in fate, but if it was real I'd be fighting it just like you are." She squeezes my arm and gives me another tight smile. 

Turning her attention to Nick and SKay, "I hope you won't mind, but I'd like to catch up with them in private. If you'd go spend some time with Ally that's be wonderful." 

I raise my eyes brows at Nick as if to say, 'I've been dismissed?'. He just grins at me and waves me off with his hand. Rolling my eyes, I walk out in the same direction that Ally had. Out of the living room is a tall staircase to the next floor. I go up it to find a hallway with a few rooms on either side of the walls. The first one I walk past, the door is cracked open and I see Ally sitting on the bed in there alone, picking at the thread of blanket. 

I give the side of the door a small knock and then walk in hoping to not startle her. She looks up at me and then rolls her eyes and looks away. "You were sent to up here babysit the human, huh?" She asks clearly irritated that she keeps being dismissed. 

I laugh, trying to cheer her up a little bit, "No, in fact, I think I was just dismissed too." She lets out a bitter laugh and gives me a sarcastic high five. 

"Welcome to the club, at least they trust you enough to be in a part of the conversation anyway. She doesn't want me to be involved in any of it." I nod trying to understand how she was able to handle any of this. She's a human who just casually knows about the magical world and apparently has a prophecy made about her. 

"Well, you can't blame Stevie for wanting to keep you safe. After all, everyone here seems to believe in this whole 'fate' thing." She glances up at me, her eyes wide with surprise.

"And you don't? Believe in this 'fate thing', I mean?" It makes me sad to see how excited this concept makes her. I wonder how long she's lived thinking that whatever that prophecy had said restricted her from living her full life. 

"No, I don't believe in the prophecies or fate. People make their own stories and choices. We can't blame anything on fate." She shakes her head, looking defeated again. 

"You're new aren't you? You've never seen one of these prophecies play out. It will happen, I swear that it will. I just have to make my time with her count, which she's making really hard with how suffocating she's being. " I nod, not wanting to argue with her over whether or not fate is real. 

"What does this prophecy, that you're so afraid of, say anyway?" I ask genuinely curious. 

She sighs as if she's heard, and told, this story a million times. "Basically when she was really young, a seer came up to her and prophesied that she'll fall deeply in love with a human. We'd have some great times together and it'd be amazing, but before we can take the next step and get married I'll have a dramatic death. Blah, blah, blah. She did everything o prevent falling in love with a human, yet here we are. To prevent the next part from happening, she even ditched Skay and Nick when she met me because they were always getting us into trouble. The worse part is, the prophecy says that I'll die to try to protect her in battle. Ironic isn't it? Since she's now trying her hardest to protect me."  

I don't know what to say to any of this, it's tragic. I just nod for her to go on since she clearly had more to say.  

"I won't ever tell her this, but there's no way that I'm going to choose my life over hers anyway. You see, I perceive the prophecy to mean that I'll be saving her life in battle. If I don't do that, she'll die. So, even if fate was not real and nobody could force me to save her with my life, I still would in a heartbeat." She stares intently at her hands, looking very uncomfortable with the whole situation. 

"I'm scared though. I really don't want to die, but I just don't think I could live without her anyway." Her bravery leaves me speechless. I honestly don't know if I could ever die for someone else. Maybe that's extremely selfish, but I've barely lived as it is. It'd be nice to not have to suffer for someone else's gain ever again. 

"Well, maybe it'll never have to happen anyway. I mean it's our choices that create fate, right? We are the ones who decide our future. No one else, not even some seer." 

She grins up at me, "I'm not really one to believe in such things anyway. Stevie just won't let this prophecy go. I feel like I'm going to suffocate." She groans falling back into the mountain of pillows on the bed. I laugh as an undeniably stupid plan begins to form in my brain. 

"Well, why don't we get you out of here?"