Hollow Repentance

- - - - - Torren's POV - - - - -

"Torren, are you ready yet? We need to get goin' soon; we can't leave the girls and David waitin' forever, you know."

I chuckled and stepped out of the room, smoothing the creases out of my shirt as we walked. Hurrying back into Aldin's room, I pulled a smart black blazer from a hanger and raced towards the door.

"Stay here until you're healed, Aldin. I'll know if you haven't and bring you right back. Come on then, Dimi, let's be off."

Quickly dismissing ourselves fom the tavern and apologising to Bill for the disturbance, Dimi and I accelerated to seventy miles per hour and raced towards Le Petite Belle, where Izzy, David and Alexis were hopefully waiting for us, completely unharmed. My imagination started to wander, making me visualise different dangerous situations that they could have faced on the way to the restaurant.

"Torren, what's the matter? You look miles away. To--!"

Grabbing Dimi roughly by the wrist, I ran just that little bit quicker; determined to reach the restaurant as quickly as possible and see for myself that my child was safe. I hadn't been separated from her since the day I took her from her home, but today, I hadn't seen her since we left the hospital, and when she ran into me, trouble began. I couldn't stand it.

Eventually, I pulled to a halt at the doors of Le Petite Belle and dragged Dimi back as he ran too far, yet again. Chuckling, I shook my head softly and hurried through the doors, my eyes scouring the room for any signs of Izzy. Very quickly, I found the right table with, not Izzy or Alexis, but David sat alone at the table, browsing the menu with a puzzled expression. Silently, I crept up behind him.

"Bonjour. Pouves-vous me comprendre?"

Slowly turning in his seat to face me, David murmured in a bland tone,
"I'm sorry, I don't speak fre-- Torren! Trust you to do something like that. You're seat's there. In between us will be Dimi and Izzy on the other side of you. Obviously, Alexis will fill in the final space."

I nodded quickly and glanced around nervously. Where were Alexis and Izzy? I hoped that nothing had happened on the way here. In silence, I took my seat and turned my attention to David; ignoring Dimi as he dragged his chair closer to the table, causing quite a distraction to those at nearby tables.

"David... Where are Izzy and Alexis?"

I glared at David to ward away his forming smirk and sat patiently awaiting an explanation, restraining myself from attacking him to relieve my worry. Dimi laughed lightly and I swung my leg back blindly, hoping to catch his chair. Striking the bottom back leg of his chair, the wood snapped and Dimi and his chair fell to the floor. Spinning around, both David and I burst into laughter, as did almost everybody else in the room. Dimi flashed me a death glare and slipped away with the waiter to find a new chair. Composing ourselves, I turned slowly back to David.

"She's in the toilets with Lexi. We couldn't find anywhere for her to change clothes on the way, so we came straight here. They refused to show me what they'd bought - typical women - and Lexi dragged Izzy away into the bathroom about two minutes after we got to the table. They've been in there ever since."

I rolled my eyes. If human girls took as long as I've heard to get changed, it was going to be a long wait...Unless Lexi used her powers to speed things up, of course. But I hoped to god that she wouldn't. I could only hope. Soon, Dimi returned to the table with a new chair and sat down carefully, watching my feet all the while.

"Hey, Torren. There's Lexi over there, hangin' round the toilet door. What do you think she doin'?"

Jolting my head around, I spotted her. Just as Dimi had pointed out, Lexi was peering over at the table, probably checking if we had arrived yet. Smiling broadly, I waved discretely with my hand on the table and called over into her mind so as to avoid making a scene.

"Yeah, Lexi; we're here. Hurry up in there; we don't have all night, you know. Okay, so we do technically... but we need to get home before the sun comes up. Bring her out, already."

Nodding quickly, Lexi drew back into the toilets and disappeared from sight. Well, only about half an hour to wait now, I guessed. Great...

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