Dream of Me

“God, you don’t know anything, Gabe! You just don’t know anything.” I squabbled as I moved down the hall with him hot on my trail, trying to get to my bedroom to put some sort of barrier between the two of us.

“You’re right, but what I do know is that it’s only been four days, Angel. Four days! You’re acting kind of ridiculous about this boy.” Gabe continued down after me until the door slammed straight into his face.

Throwing my back against the barrier, I slid against it as I waited for the world to stop spinning. “Just go away and leave me alone! I’m trying to get ready for school. I don’t know if you noticed, but you verbally attacking me wasn’t a part of my morning agenda.”

I heard his steps distancing themselves from the bedroom door. Finally, I could retreat into my closet and grab some jeans and a flannel to dress myself. Secretly and very slowly, I crept to my bed and grabbed my duffel bag and opened it up, thinking about what else I wanted to take with me. I had long sleeves, short sleeves, tank tops, jeans, sweats, shorts – I had all assortments of clothing present in the bag and had no idea if it was naturally warm or sunny or what-have-you in Spaten Reich.

Noah had explained that it was a beautiful place, which was filled with brick mansions and old beauty and bright green grass. He told me that this realm lived between realms and it went on for miles and miles, acre upon acre. I couldn’t help but fall into a reverie as I thought about it, slipping in and out as I pictured this beautiful place that Noah explained to me the previous two nights.

I heard steps following back up the hall. Acting fast, I picked up the bag and threw it into my closet, worrying about the mess when I would get out of school. I slipped on my moccasins and grabbed my shoulder bag all in what felt like the same second as I adjusted the sunglasses on my nose. Safe to say that I hadn’t taken them off since I got home on Sunday and since Gabe worked most of the day, and I was grounded, I had nothing to explain to anyone. I just had to keep to myself and keep the sunglasses on whenever someone else was in the room and ignoring class and keeping my face pivoted towards the desk seemed to be working – for now.

I hopped to my door, whipped it open, and walked past him gingerly. I gave no goodbye when I walked out the door and kicked Jules’s door, waiting for her lazy butt to get moving. After another minute, she pushed her way out of the door and past me without another word. It was the exact same way yesterday morning, ignoring whatever eye-contact I could offer and no such remedy for striking up conversation.

“Come on, Jules! How long are you going to be angry? Was I angry when you went out and drank or you ended up going back to some kid’s house? Or when you’d sit and cry about them and then be onto the next one a week later? You have no right to be angry with me right now.”

She huffed as we left the cul-de-sac, tossing her hair over her shoulder and retorting, “You know, I never said it was you dating him that bothered me.”

“Then what is it?”

“Everything, Angel, it’s everything about him. I hate him.” Jules spun around on the pad of her foot and spoke through gritted teeth, her hands balling into fists and swiping through the air in a cloud of anger.

My brows rutted together and I conveniently found the grass highly intriguing when she turned her head toward me for explanation. “What’d he ever do to you?”

“What’d he do? He slammed Donny on into a concrete wall, grabbed him and choked him into it! He’s violent and scary and you shouldn’t be with someone who could hurt you so easily!”

My feet had ceased to move as I stared at Jules, and how upset this all made her, while I tried to make sense of what she said. The world was spinning, and I felt as though I should have come to his defense, but there was nothing I could say. Why would he hurt Donny? Why would he hurt another human besides Zak Saturday night? My breathing came in quick breaths, short gasps as my hand moved into my hair.

“He did what to Donny?”

Jules came over by me and wrapped an arm around my shoulder, still not understanding that it wasn’t that I was afraid, but that I couldn’t see how Noah could be capable of such a crime. “Don’t you see why, now, babe? I’m just looking out for you. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

I nodded and pushed away from her, mumbling something about space, and how I needed it. She welcomed the fact that I was highly disgruntled at hearing this and relished in it, offering every open second to telling me that she just didn’t want to see me wind up with bruises and that I deserve better, and an assortment of other things that went to “evidence” of breaking up with Noah.

By the time we were let out for Spring Break, and we started back for home, I had heard enough. “So, are you doing to do it today, or what?” Jules asked offhandedly, innocently.

My eyes snapped toward her, teeth gritting, and shivers rippling through my body, I finally snapped. “Stop it! Okay? If I want to break up with him, I can do it without your help. If I want to break up with him, I can make my mind up for myself. If I want to break up with him, I can consult him without your insight. If I want to break up with him, I’m damn well capable of doing so, but here’s the kicker: I don’t want to break up with him!”

Jules went silent then and I noticed it wasn’t at anything that I had said, but because Noah was leaning against his lovely “Bumble Bee” Camaro. He was wearing low-riding jeans with a belt, and a dark grey V-neck. It really brought out his eyes, which forced goose bumps filling over every aspect of my body. I looked at Jules and hoisted my bag onto my shoulder once more, adjusting it for comfort. I had to drag Jules with me, holding the sleeve of her shirt and pushing her towards the front entrance. “Goodbye, Jules.”

Without another look or word, Jules swung the heavy door open enough for it to crash into the wall and retreated behind it. I watched her punch her door before she opened it and whip it shut the moment she was across the threshold. I looked back at Noah with a smirk and a sigh.

“She hates me.” Noah emphasized as he pressed his hands to my hips and rounded closer to me.

As he dipped his head to press against mine, I found myself getting defensive, as I had earlier that morning. “What happened Saturday night?”

Noah’s face contorted into confusion, twisting around his face as his eyebrows merged together. His hands released my hips and found my cheeks instead as he angled my face from the ground to look into his eyes. This was his way to ensure that he wasn’t lying – that he couldn’t ever lie while looking in my eyes. I only knew this because I could feel the cold, overwhelming jabs of distrust that he felt right now.

“What do you mean, what happened? I came to you. I broke the most sacred law of the Spade race for you. I kicked the living life out of Zak and successfully stole you away to our apartment. That is what happened Saturday night.”

I nodded, licking my lips and digging my teeth into my bottom lip. “What did you do to Donny?”

Noah’s face livened, his eyes turning cold and brightening at the same moment as he pulled his face away from mine. “I needed some answers and I was prepared to get them any way I had to.”

I pulled out of his embrace, still unsure of how to take this information and the fact that he could hurt another human being, unless doing something so wrongful that the anger got the better part of him. My face contorted in a pained kind of way, “By slamming him into a wall?”

Noah’s tongue snaked across his lips in a slick fashion, wetting them quickly and slipping back behind his lips. “I did what I had to.”

“You didn’t have to hurt him!” I choked out, not even daring myself to think about the other people he could have hurt trying to get to me.

His finger went beneath my chin, dragging my eyes away from the ground to lock with his in an authority-filled fashion. His thumb rubbed smoothly against my bottom lip as he stressed his words. “Whatever I had to, Angel,”

I jerked my chin out of the gentle embrace between his fingers and turned my back on him completely as I spewed over my shoulder. “You didn’t have to hurt him, Noah!”

There was a sigh, loud and clear and pointedly aimed at me. “Let’s just agree to disagree.”

He was behind me, pushing his arm around my waist as he towed me to my apartment. He had to practically drag me up the stairs and throw me inside the confines of my apartment. Facing Gabe was the last thing I wanted to do right now, and what was worse was having to watch Noah push into his mind and place the information there while he talked him into it. That was next to the worst thing that I was going to be encountering the days to come. I didn’t want to see him manipulate and “persuade” someone’s mind. That took away their free will, and that wasn’t fair. Especially my brother’s mind, no less.

“Hello, Gabe.” Noah called from the front room, I was a mess beside him, dreading this moment in a way that didn’t make sense to much of anyone else but me.

“Oh, holy hell,” Gabe grumbled from the kitchen, throwing himself into the front room next.

The second Gabe stepped into the front room, something took hold of him. He went silent, his face fell vacant the moment Noah captured his gaze. Out of curiosity, I turned my eyes to Noah and saw his pointed gaze, hard and focused in on Gabe’s thoughts and memories.

“Gabe, I’m over to ask your permission to take Angel away to Hawaii for a little bit. Is that okay? I know she’s been asking you since Sunday when I sprung it on her.”

Looking up at Noah quickly with some sort of scare to my face, eyes wide, I whispered quickly. “Noah! I haven’t said one thing about Hawaii.”

A smile crept over his features as he slipped his finger beneath my chin and rubbed his thumb against my bottom lip, “What he lacks in knowledge, I make up in lies and new memories.”

I clamped my lips shut. If I was going to reply, it got cut off before I could even attempt a single word. Looking back at Gabe, a sort of confusion flooded his features. “Hawaii? But she’s grounded until Friday.”

A disbelieving, light laughter left Noah’s lips as he shook his head slow enough to keep the gazed locked. “You don’t remember, Gabe? You told Angel this morning that she was off her sentence this morning before school.”

Gabe laughed heartily and nodded just as slow, so as not to break the gaze. “You’re right, I totally forgot!”

I was sick to my stomach watching this display that I broke out of Noah’s light hold and stormed to my bedroom. Whipping the door shut, I let my head fall into my hands as I inclined on myself. I understood that we had to do this, that we had to manipulate a lot of people’s minds along the way, and I understood that it would have to be people that I was close to as well. I understood all of these aspects, but watching Gabe blindly agree to everything, especially when I knew he wouldn’t, made my stomach churn and my chest heave.

Pushing my hands up through my hair, gripping it in a vise grip, I looked around my room and started slowly for the closet.

“Angel, baby, can I come in?” I could hear a light rasp on the outside of my door before it opened and closed slowly. I ignored it.

Noah walked slowly towards me, the floor beneath my carpet groaned with each slow step he took. “Angel?”

I looked briefly over my shoulder and crouched down as I started to refold my clothing angrily and shove it back into the duffel bag. “What did the clothes ever do to you?” He joked lightly, laughing musically to lighten the mood. The mood didn’t lighten.

Switching my eyes over my shoulder, I shook my head and reached into my closet further to grab socks and a pair of tennis shoes as well as flip-flops. I could barely even look at him, all I saw when I did was that determination and focus that he pinpointed to my brother’s mind. Still, my stomach churned in the grossest way when I thought of it.

“Angel?” He whispered against my shoulder, bending down onto one knee and pressing his hand against my arm.

My eyes closed tightly in ignorance, closing myself off to his touch and voice the best I possibly could. I sighed slowly through my nose as I opened my eyes back up a few seconds later to throw other articles of clothing down into the duffel bag.

“Damn it, Angel, you knew this was going to happen! You knew I was going to break into his mind and persuade him. I don’t know if you’ve realized yet, baby, but this was something that I had to do.” Noah finally snapped.

I twisted around and grabbed his shirt as he stood up full-length, dragging me up with him. “Promise Gabe will be the last person that I know.”

He shook his head slowly as he cupped my cheek, trying to bring me closer to his lips but I didn’t. “You know I can’t promise that, sweetheart.”

I sighed slowly, nodding to his words as I hoisted the bag onto my shoulder. He pressed his lips to mine slowly, moving his hand under the strap to the duffel bag. He slipped it onto his shoulder. Claiming my hand, his free hand reached up and rubbed a beat against my cheek. “Come, it’s time to meet Felix. He’s waiting back at the apartment.”

****

When Noah opened the door to the apartment, I could tell that this unwanted visitor was here. It hung in the air like a bad odor and no sort of spray could rid it of the air. Noah touched my cheek softly before he retreated to the bedroom to grab his belongings, leaving me to stand cumbersomely in his front room. Looking around the familiar room blindly, since I had already memorized it, my eyes stumbled upon an unfamiliar face. He was tall, dark, and handsome as the saying goes, but he couldn’t ever compare to my Noah.

“You must be Lid – Angel.” He corrected himself quickly, almost abashedly as he looked toward Noah’s room and back towards me cautiously.

“I’m going to take a nice guess and assume you’re the one who’s going to be hauling us into your car and taking us away to a temporary safety, then?”

He laughed. He laughed as if I was joking, as if I hadn’t meant every last enunciated syllable. I stared at him with a hard gaze and his laughs quickly sobered as he cleared his throat and nodded once. “Right, yes. I’m Felix.”

He held his hand out and I gave him mine, shaking it once. Cocking the sarcasm to my statement, I replied, “Mmm, can’t you tell I’m jumping with joy to this meeting?”

Clearing his throat once more, any sort of reply he could have thrown at me was caught in his throat when Noah came out of his room and up through the hallway. “Angel, not so much bark to that bite, okay, baby?”

Rolling my eyes, I crossed my arms and nodded towards our unwanted guest. Mumbling mostly to myself, “My sincerest apologies, Felix.”

A jabbing finger pointed at me and poked my shoulder as Noah grabbed my hand and tightened his fingers through mine. “I heard that.” Turning his head toward Felix for a quick second, he sighed, “Let’s go, then.”