Chasing Shadows (Saving Galerance, Book 1) (12 page)

Aleta’s eyes widened in fright, but she nodded her head
anyway, realizing that they would have to try to get out of this crowd
eventually.

Trying to maneuver through the people a second time was a
lot harder with another person wrapped around her. She couldn’t fit through the
same small spaces, and she had to develop a strange kind of rhythm to finding
the right times to move forward or stay put. By the time she finally made it to
the girl, Willow was bent over on the ground, crying.

Using Aleta as her support, Norabel reached down and
difficultly hoisted Willow to her knees. Willow screamed in alarm, thinking
that someone was trying to kidnap her, but Norabel quickly called out to her.

“Willow, it’s me! It’s Norabel. Please, I need you to get to
your feet!”

Willow stopped screaming and held tightly onto Norabel’s
arm. Her fingers were digging into her skin so feverishly that her small wrist
felt in danger of cracking under the pressure. Then, finally, Willow was up on
her feet and was throwing her arms around her. It was an oddly comforting
sensation, Norabel realized, to be hugged from the back and the front at the
same time. And the three girls, together, almost made a kind of stronghold so
that neither of them could be knocked down.

“My brother!” Willow called out in her ear after a moment.
She seemed to catch onto the fact that she shouldn’t let go or try to break the
hug they were in.

“Where did you last see him?” Norabel asked, trying to crane
her head to look around.

“He…he was standing right next to me. I…I don’t know!”

Before Willow could panic any further, a loud, commanding
voice boomed through the village square.

“STOP!” the voice yelled. “EVERYONE WILL FREEZE THIS
INSTANT!”

Norabel turned her head to see Chief Auberon on the stage. A
few of his men were behind him, trying to put out the fire and cut down the
rope that held their unconscious friend captive. With the presence of Auberon,
everyone in the crowd immediately stopped and turned to obey him. Norabel
couldn’t believe it, but she was actually glad that he was there.

“You are not in danger!” Auberon called out. “The only
danger you face is from yourselves. You are trampling each other to get out.
You will stop this. You will think rationally. And you will leave here safely.”

Then, turning to where the unconscious official was being
lowered down, he scooped him up in his arms and began to carry him towards the
stronghold.

With the lull in the crowd, Aleta and Willow slowly
detangled themselves from Norabel and looked around them.

“Dek!” Willow called her brother’s name out, pointing to a
spot in the crowd.

Norabel looked to where she was pointing and saw Dek, a
teenager of fifteen that was considered one of Malachy’s best Whispers, making
his way towards them.

“Willow,” he said, giving his sister a brief hug before
pulling away. “You shouldn’t have let go of my hand,” he scolded her. Then,
turning to Norabel, he said, “Thank you for finding her.”

“We should get you to Malachy’s,” Norabel told them. It was
in the same sector as they were in now, and even though the crowd seemed to
calm down, she wanted to get them out of there as soon as she could.

They all agreed and, holding hands, Norabel led the three of
them towards the ink shop that lied just a block away. When they finally
stepped inside, they saw that Malachy had been waiting by the front store
window. Seeing who it was, he hurried to grab both Willow and Dek into a fierce
hug.

“I was so worried about you two,” he said, hugging their
heads to his chest. Then, pulling away, he closed the door behind them and sent
Norabel a sharp look of anger. “I would appreciate it if your little group
would inform me next time they decided to start a full on revolution in the
middle of the village square! I would have advised my kids to stay away!”

“I’m sorry,” Norabel said, at a loss for words. “I…I had no
idea that they…that they would…they didn’t tell me everything.”

Malachy’s face softened. “There now, Norabel. I know it
wasn’t you.”

She felt a tug on her arm, and she turned back to see Aleta
staring at her with wide eyes.

“Do you think…did Logan know?”

“I…” Norabel stuttered, not knowing how to answer that. “I
can’t say for sure. My guess is he only knew as much as I did. Our only job was
to light the flags on fire.”

Suddenly there was a knock at the door, and Malachy hurried
over to it. He put his hand to his lips to tell them all to be quiet. Then,
inching the door open, he peeked outside. The moment he saw who it was, he
opened the door wider. Immediately Logan entered the shop, and upon seeing
Aleta standing there with them, he breathed out a sigh of relief. Striding over
to her, he swiftly wrapped her up in his arms and pressed his lips to hers in a
fervent kiss.

Pulling away just an inch, he whispered, “I was so worried.”

Aleta touched a loving hand to his cheek, responding, “I’m
alright. Norabel helped me out of the crowd.”

Logan took a step back so that he could find Norabel. When
he did, he gave her a silent nod of thanks.

“The other side looks a little different than I imagined,”
Norabel said, looking to the front window in a daze.

“You have to believe me,” Logan said, adamantly shaking his
head. “I had no idea that they were going to do that to that man. Mason assured
me they wouldn’t hurt him.”

Before anything more could be said, there was another loud
knock on the door. This time when Malachy went to open it, both Mason and
Archer came bursting in.

“Good,” Mason said when he took inventory of who was in the
room. “I guess we all had the same idea.”

“Hardly!” Logan exclaimed, charging over to his brother in
anger. “You told me you wouldn’t hurt him! You left me in the dark! Your own
brother!”

“What’s the big deal,” Archer said, blowing out a puff of
air. “So we beat up a scumbag leacher. He’s done way worse to the people he’s
preyed upon.”

“Oh! You told
him
!” Logan said, gesturing to Archer.

“Because I knew he wouldn’t blow up like you!” Mason said,
shoving his brother out of his face.

“People were trampled upon because of what you did,” Malachy
said, using his age as authority over Mason. “Kids with broken bones!”

“Look,” Mason said, taking a step closer to him. “We didn’t
know that’s how the crowd would react. Ashlin said the Pax would be the ones
creating a riot, and the crowd would be too scared to do anything.”

“Oh, that’s what she said, is it?” Logan said, pointing to
the window. “Well, where is your little girlfriend so I can give her a piece of
my mind?!”

Mason shot him a glare and responded in a dead-panned voice,
“Not here. She’s somewhere safe.”

“She’s probably already in the woods,” Archer offered
helpfully. “That girl can sneak around so fast, it’s scary.”

“Yeah,” Logan replied harshly, turning away from them to
stand next to Aleta. “She
is
scary.”

Before Mason could fire something back at his brother,
Willow pointed to Norabel exclaiming, “Oh, Norabel, your arm!”

Norabel blinked in confusion for a second, wondering what
she was talking about. Her eyes shot down to her arm, and she saw four narrow
bruises forming on her wrist. It must have been from when Willow had grabbed
onto her. But she couldn’t tell the others that that’s what it was from. Any
normal person would be fine after having their arm squeezed a little. This was just
another curse from Jotham.

“It’s nothing,” Norabel said, trying to draw attention away
from herself. She pulled her cape around her so that it was covering her arm.

“That didn’t look like nothing,” Willow said, not willing to
simply forget it.

“You didn’t hurt yourself when you were pulling us through
the crowd, did you?” Aleta asked, rushing over to her in concern.

“No, I’m fine.”

“You are not!” Willow insisted.

“Come on, Norabel,” Aleta said, reaching for her cape. “Just
show us your arm.”

Norabel’s heart thundered in her ears. If she continued to
refuse, it would seem even more suspicious. Her only option was to show them
her arm and hope that they didn’t realize what it had come from.

Hanging her head, she brought her arm out from behind her
cape. Aleta gasped when she saw the purple and red bruises forming, and
gingerly held her wrist in her hands.

“Norabel,” she whispered out in worry.

“How did you get that?” a voice demanded.

For a moment, she didn’t recognize who had spoken. When she
looked up, she found Mason standing in front of her.

“Who did that to you?” he demanded again.

Norabel clenched her jaw and turned her face away from his.
“It doesn’t matter how I got it.”

“Well, it matters to me!” Mason said, taking a step closer
to her.

“Hey, give her some space, will you?!” Logan said, coming to
her defense. “She doesn’t want to tell you, so just back off. I think she’s
earned the right to keep secrets from you after you kept her in the dark about
half your plan tonight.”

Luckily Mason’s attention shifted to his brother, and he
took a few steps away from her. “Look, I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry about
what happened in the crowd. But I’m not going to apologize for what I did. The
only way the Pax will take us seriously is if we pose at least the slightest
bit of a threat to them. So, yeah, people are going to get hurt. And if you
don’t like it, you better get out now, because people are going to continue to
be hurt. I don’t like it any more than you do, but it’s the only way we can
bring down the Pax.”

Mason turned away from everyone and stared at the door. He
ran a charged hand through his hair and strained out, “And I’m sick of living
in this supposed peace! I’m sick of people telling me that everything is
alright. Well it’s not alright! And the only way it can get better is if it
gets worse.”

He turned back to them and continued. “It’s like a fever,
don’t you see. The Pax is a sickness, and the more the fever goes up, the more
we are fighting it. And I know that means that it hurts. But if we don’t fight,
if we don’t raise the fever, then we’re giving up. And a sick animal that
doesn’t have the will to run a fever is a dying animal. So, would you take the
chance that the fever might eventually make things better, or will you just do
nothing and die quietly in the night?”

Nobody spoke as he stared back at them, catching his breath
as if he had just come over a fever himself. Then, in the silence, someone
spoke out.

“Well I thought it looked cool.”

All eyes turned to where Dek stood in the corner of the
room. Norabel had almost forgotten that he was there with them.

Noticing that everyone was staring at him, he shrugged,
saying, “What? I thought it looked cool.”

“Thank you!” Archer exclaimed pleasantly. “I thought I might
have been the only one!”

Suddenly the tension in the room seemed to fade. Mason lost
the fire in his eyes, and Logan seemed to forget that he was mad at his
brother.

“Look, Mason,” Logan said, going over to his little brother
and putting a palm on his shoulder. “I’m with you. You know I am. Just, next
time please trust me enough to tell me what you’re doing.”

Mason’s face fell in apology and he nodded his head. “I
know. I’m sorry.”

“You’ve got a big brother,” Logan added, giving him a
playful shake. “So remember I’ve got you’re back, no matter what you get
yourself into.”

As the two brothers reconciled with each other, Norabel
wanted to slip away before anyone could remember about her arm. There was a
back door to Malachy’s ink shop, and she turned around and started to slip
towards it. She made it safely into the second room, away from the view of the
others, but before she could make it to the back door, Aleta’s voice called out
to her.

“You’re leaving?”

Norabel’s heart sank, and she turned around. There was no
light in the back room, but she could see Aleta’s outline as she strode over to
stand in front of her, blocking her path to the door.

“Will you please tell me what’s wrong?” she pleaded. “Why
won’t you tell us what happened to your arm?”

“Please Aleta,” Norabel begged, clasping her hands over
hers. “Please, can you just forget it?”

Aleta looked down to their hands and got another look at the
bruises on her wrist. In the dark, all that was visible was a faint shading on
her skin, yet it somehow sparked a memory in Aleta’s mind.

“This wasn’t from when you pulled up Willow, was it?” she
gasped.

Norabel’s shoulders fell, and she closed her eyes in defeat.

“Norabel, is that…is that what this is?”

She reluctantly nodded her head.

“But, I don’t understand. How…”

Norabel took a quick peek to the front room to make sure no
one else was listening in on them, before admitting in a strained and pinched
voice, “I have Jotham’s. I didn’t want anyone to know.”

Aleta put a hand up to her mouth in shock, but didn’t utter
a sound.

“Please don’t tell anyone,” Norabel pleaded. “Not even
Logan. Please, Aleta. Promise me you won’t.”

Aleta blinked and stuttered, trying to process what she was
hearing. “Wh—yes, I promise. But why don’t you want anyone to know?”

She held up her bruised wrist, responding, “Because a
Harbinger team is no place for a Jotham. They’d kick me off the second they
found out.”

“So
be
kicked off the team!” Aleta whispered
furiously. “I don’t see what’s so horrible in that.”

“You don’t understand,” she said, looking away and shielding
her face in the shadows. “If I’m not on the team, then I’ll never see him
again.”

“Wha…” Aleta started to say in confusion, when she stopped
herself, realizing what she meant. “Oh, Norabel,” she said, rubbing her arm in
comfort.