Hurricane Heart

Arjan

Hurricane was keeping something from me. No, in fact she was keeping many things from me. The meeting yesterday evening; her middle of the night conversation with Jonas; her research she was doing this morning, and something relating to my dream.

I knew for a fact that we were being hunted. Although I couldn’t ‘feel’ the Soulless like Hurricane claimed to be able to, I still knew when she was afraid, and I had rarely seen more fear in her eyes than today. Even the news of my dream, which should have been pleasing, was little comfort to her this morning. Something was up. Something was very, very much up.

We kept driving through the day, and I didn’t fail to notice how, so unlike normal, she seemed to be taking things so slowly that she was almost stalling. I had seen how we hadn’t left until nearly ten am today, and then we’d driven in the outside lane for some sections of the highway, and now we’d actually turned off and stopped to eat a late lunch.

We seemed to be on a sort of ring road; a motorway which we just kept following round in circles, and it would take an idiot not to notice the countless signs pointing towards Berlin. We were circling the capital, no doubt, and that proved, perhaps more than anything, how fearful Hurricane was. She wanted to be near her people, and I didn’t blame her.

‘When’s this mess gonna be resolved?’ I asked sometime in the afternoon.

She glanced at me, shocked that I was talking, even after all this time being together.

‘What do you mean?’

‘How long are the Soulless going to follow us?’ I asked.

The mask was still there, but, with a considerable amount of effort, I could try to look beyond it. My assumptions were far from perfect, but I could begin to see beneath her. And I was certain there was something she wasn’t telling me. However emotionless she thought she was, it could all be brought back so quickly if need be.

‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘but I’m sick of it. And Carl and Jonas are practically screaming with boredom. That’s why they came out last night—just for something to do. I don’t reckon it will last much longer at all.’

‘And the Soulless know where we are now too,’ I added.

‘That too,’ she agreed in a musing tone. Finally, after so long, she said something which I knew to be concrete truth.

‘I want to stay in Berlin tonight,’ she admitted. ‘I get the feeling that there’s going to be one hell of a storm.’

Hurricane

What was I saying? Why was I saying it? My life was now a web of lies intertwined with little silver strands of truth. They were so tangled up in one another that I could no longer tell which was which. Love. Was love a lie? Was anything, everything or nothing that happened between me and Arjan a lie?

And what about what Jonas said?

Carl had said, on behalf of both of them, that Arjan might have to die. Even last night, though, I believed that to be only a very vague and distant possibility. Now, though, things had changed. After the conversation this morning, the conversation that I believed to be too dire and too insane and too far-fetched to even talk about, it suddenly seemed like so much of a distinct idea.

Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.

Was Arjan my enemy then? Because I was keeping him damn close tonight.

My phone rang. I pulled over before answering it.

‘Carl?’

‘Hi.’ His voice did not convey the enthusiasm that it normally did. ‘You spoke to Jonas this morning, right?’

I grimaced, slowly getting out of the car. ‘Yeah.’

‘What do you think?’

‘I think it’s a ridiculous theory.’ I was never afraid to speak my mind. ‘It can’t be right. It just can’t.’

‘You’re in Berlin,’ Carl said, dashing any hopes I’d had for a third opinion on the so-called theory.

‘Don’t worry, I’m not coming back. But we’re in the area.’

‘You seem to have been in the area for a while,’ he commented, and I’d have to be an idiot to not notice the suspicion behind his voice. I felt anger bubbling in my veins. How dare he question what I was doing? This quest was entrusted to me for a reason, and there was still so much left to do. I still hadn’t found out why Arjan was so important.

‘So what?’ I challenged. ‘We all know there’s Soulless around. I’m keeping on the move; I’m not endangering you lot, but I think it’s wise to keep close to a Dreamer base in these times.’

‘I don’t deny that you’re clever, Hurricane,’ he said, ‘but just be careful. And, as for what Jonas said, you know it’s true. We’re going to give it another shot, but if things don’t work out after that then we’ll have to think again.’

‘Yeah,’ I whispered. I knew only too well what ‘think again’ meant. It meant Arjan’s demise, no doubt. And, as much as I wanted to deny it, I couldn’t take that. I...cared about him. We were close.