Chapter 14

[The following chapter contains strong language. Reader caution is advised.]

Friday 2nd October 1998

“You look stressed,” spoke Melody, more out of curiosity than consideration, as I took a seat in our form room.

“It’s fine,” I countered, resting my elbows on the table and my chin in my hands. Even if it was something I could tell her about, I wouldn’t want to.

“Subpar deflection. 0 points.”

“When did you become a game show host?”

“Since you made a game out of this conversation.”

I would imagine most people would show at least a little pride in a comeback like that, but her face remained completely neutral.

“I’m not making a game out of it,” I argued. “I’m fine.”

The ins and outs of the past week or so had mostly been white noise to the persisting paranoia over the threat of Nick’s return. I’m not sure if his absence throughout that time made things better or worse, as we were on constant, exhausting alert. Anything out of the ordinary suddenly became a potential hazard or a possible sign that we were in imminent danger.

As promised, Dakota had phoned Neil once we left that day. His immediate solution was to send down two members of his team to both guard us and to try and track Nick down. In an attempt to lighten the mood some, Dakota neglected to tell us when they arrived… probably not the wisest decision considering the edge we were perpetually perched on, as we freaked out when we walked into her living room and found two strangers sat there.

“Easy, easy, we’re friends.”

Clyde Tyler, a mountain of a man, 6’-something and loaded with more muscles than clowns in a clown car. His raised hands looked like they could easily smother one of us – I was thankful that he was a friend.

“Neil sent us. Did Dakota not tell you…?”

Amelia Castello. While Clyde was physically imposing, she seemed at first glance to be an ordinary woman. Over time, though, it became apparent that she had a certain aura about her – of someone intensely alert and doggedly determined. At one point, she described herself as the team’s field tracker, which is not really something I ever expected to hear a grown adult say with a straight face.

“I thought it’d break the ice if I didn’t tell them in advance,” Dakota had explained sheepishly. “In hindsight, not the best idea…”

Once Bao, Kendal, Zahid and I had stuffed our hearts back into our chests, we were informed of Neil’s current intentions with the weapons. If the situation becomes dire, he’ll be retrieving them from us and taking whatever measures necessary to keep them away from Nick. Anything short of that, we were still responsible for them. We’d pledged that much, after all, so he was going to treat us like adults and hold us to it.

“On our part,” Clyde added, “we’ll keep watch over the house while you’re absent and work on locating Nick when you’re here. We’re support. That’s it.”

“And of course, if he confronts you again at any point and you’re able to call us, we’ll come,” Amelia assured us. “We’ll have our mobiles on us at all times.”

“We’re immortal anyway so we should be okay, but thanks!” was Kendal’s cheery response.

“We still need all the help we can get looking after the weapons…” Zahid reminded her.

“Speeeaaaking of,” Bao began, leaning forward with a grin. “You guys have got guns, right? Can I see them?”

This from the guy who had been shot in the head all of two days earlier…

“If it’s a secret, then fine.”

Melody leant back in her chair, and yawned softly.

“Who would’ve thought Alex Matthews had such stressful secrets?”

I’m not surprised it was showing on my face that much. Even with Clyde and Amelia around, we still had to make our journeys to and from school unaccompanied to avoid raising suspicions (and so that they could remain at Dakota’s and keep watch over the weapons). I was having to push myself to focus in class because my mind kept wandering. All the possibilities, all the precautions I might have to take if Nick were to come after us. And would Clyde and Amelia be enough to keep the weapons safe in the day? Especially as more time passed, and Nick’s lackeys had more of a chance to scope out what was going on…

“Yeah, well, I guess you don’t know me that well,” I replied bluntly.

“Guess so,” she nodded. “Not that I ever claimed to.”

“Then stop bugging me.”

I immediately regretted saying that. Melody isn’t the type to leave a remark like that alone.

“I’m trying to take an interest,” she scoffed at me. “My dick-head of a psychiatrist said I need to try investing in people’s sob stories.”

…

“You’ve got a psychiatrist…?”

I was honestly unsure whether she was telling the truth or not. I’d learnt from experience that you couldn’t take everything she said at face value. Still, of course I would give her the benefit of the doubt.

“Sure. Since summer. Maybe you would’ve heard sooner if you came to the party.”

Not that Bao, Kendal or Zahid had mentioned anything about it in the past two months. My doubt was increasing.

“Why? I mean, y’know… have you been diagnosed with anything or…?”

“It’s fine,” she smirked at me.

“… no, hang on, you don’t get to do that…!” I whined back at her.

“I’ve got my own secrets, Alex.”

“But…!”

Take two…

“You lured me in!”

“Oh?”

“You started… talking about your dick-head psychiatrist!”

“And you looked stressed,” she reasoned. “How’s that not luring me in?”

“I didn’t do it on purpose!”

Did she seriously think me being stressed was an open invitation for her to probe me?

Her smirk had now been replaced by a genuine grin. Even then, it seemed to be at my expense.

“Do you really care anyway, Alex? Do you care about me in the slightest? I’m not convinced you do.”

… that almost came across as a cry of low self-esteem, but it was said with such disdain for me that it felt more like a personal attack.

“Well…”

And what could I really say? I’d only been asking out of curiosity anyway. Now she’d cornered me.

“Go on. Say it.”

“Say what…?”

“That you don’t care about me. That you find me abrasive,” Melody purred, staring at me with predatory eyes.

I froze up. Who can tell someone they don’t care about them? Even if I don’t particularly like her at this point, it’s not like I can say it to her face. Maybe that’s two-faced, but it’s certainly… polite? Or is that just an excuse?

I was beginning to figure out how to answer honestly and address why it was true – why she threw me off, what it was about her that attracted me initially, what she could perhaps work on changing – when she spoke up again.

“I love how much you struggle to lie.”

She placed an elbow on the table and rested her chin on the back of her hand, smiling smugly.

“Anyway. Let me guess. You’re agitated because Bao’s got a girlfriend and you still can’t confess to Dakota?”

Sticking with his new lease on life, Bao had his date with Harriet… which lead to another earlier this week, and then they became official. In fact, Bao’s ability to compartmentalise his joy for his new relationship and the stress over Nick’s looming threat was quite remarkable. Like a switch in his head. Or perhaps they were simply both so all-encompassing in his mind that his memory could only handle one at a time.

I was happy for him. Honestly, I was. Harriet is a great girl and they go together surprisingly well.

Err, by which I mean, I never would’ve thought of them as a potential couple but they just work.

But… yeah. It goes without saying that a part of me is jealous. That all it took was him asking her out and bam. It’s not like I could do the same. It’s not like I’m like him. Dakota would definitely turn me down and I’d ruin everything. And now I was being confronted with that fact every day.

I was happy for him, but annoyed with myself.

“That’s not it…” I told Melody honestly.

“Of course not,” she sneered. “You’ll just tell yourself that it’s what you deserve and keep on being miserable.”

My heart started beating faster at that accusation. Primarily because she was right.

“You don’t even know me.”

Who the hell was she to suddenly say things like that?

“It amazes me how much you struggle to do what you want,” the girl continued. “I can’t get my head around it. Why can’t you just be happy? Just do what makes you happy?”

I said nothing. What could I say? I didn’t have an answer and I was hardly in the frame of mind, or at this point the mood, to start navel-gazing.

“Seriously, you threw me when you tried to ask me out last year. I didn’t think you had the balls.”

She hadn’t looked thrown. She’d kept exactly the same neutral expression the whole way through my mess of a confession and her swift refusal of anything to do with me.

“But hey. No skin of my nose. Live your life as you feel. I dunno why I’m taking any interest in it.”

The form room was filling up now, students chattering away. No sign of Mr Davies yet.

“Oh, yeah. My psychiatrist told me to.”

I exhaled through my nose, hoping this now-one-sided conversation would end at any moment.

“Awh, now you look upset,” she jeered lightly.

“Go away…” I whimpered, folding my arms on the table and burying my face into them.

“Sorry, my days of truancy are behind me,” Melody claimed just as lightly.

I just… groan-grunted at that.

“The bottom line is this. Whatever you’re stressing over, whatever’s upsetting you… screw it. Screw it all. Life’s too short to get worked up over the little things.”

“I’m not like you,” I spoke past the crook of my elbow.

“I’m well aware,” she chimed.

“I can’t shrug everything off.”

Certainly not a gun-toting psycho who wants to take back the super-powered weapons we’re in possession of for his own likely-messed-up ends.

“Then what are you going to do?”

She remained exactly as she was, chin on her hand, staring down at me.

“If you’re not like me, then what are you like? What does the great Alex Matthews have up his sleeve to fight back his woes?”

“Can you please just…!”

I raised my head, glared at her as frustration beat through me fast. I’m pretty sure most of the form group stopped talking and turned to look at me.

“I suppose I’m not helping, am I?” Melody cooed, her expression unchanged even for how sudden my outburst was. “Suppose I’ll pass that on to my psychiatrist. ‘I tried taking an interest but the boy just spurned me.’”

“Whatever. Go tell your psychiatrist whatever you want,” I advised her.

“Good idea,” she concurred. “I think I will.”

And so, silence fell between us. Beautiful silence.

Guilt quickly began rising through me like pins and needles. I shouldn’t have snapped at her. For all I knew, even if she didn’t show it, she was bothered by it…

Trying to distract myself, I looked around the room, trying to find anything affixed to the walls that I could take an interest in. Instead, of course, I found-

Oh, right, I forgot to talk about all of this…

There, next to the blackboard, was a large eye embedded in the wall. Gazing right at me.

The five of us had seen plenty of these over the past several days. All over the place, appearing and disappearing. Sometimes one, sometimes dozens. Never blinking. Never doing anything but watching us.

They seemed to be monsters – I know, shocking – but destroying one didn’t stop more from appearing. If there was some kind of… master eye out there, we hadn’t seen it yet.

Bao had suggested that they were created by Nick, somehow – that he was using them to watch over us. That made us wonder if all of the monsters were his… if they were really after the weapons, then it made sense. Of course, how he was materialising the monsters was a whole other question. Were they tied to Lokonessence itself? If he could create monsters, why would he be so focused on getting the weapons?

Whatever the case, we were literally constantly being watched.

“Hadn’t noticed that there,” Melody remarked.

… I turned to her, and found her looking at the spot where the eye was.

Prior experience had shown that only those of us aware of the weapons – the five of us, Neil’s group and Lucy – could see the monsters. Not a soul had pointed out the eyes during classes. So surely Melody couldn’t see this eye? I hadn’t told her and I don’t believe anyone else had spoken to her about the weapons either.

“What d’you mean…?” I asked her.

“Don’t play dumb.”

“I’m not playing dumb. I’m… I’m asking what you’re talking about.”

“What do you think I’m talking about?” she responded dryly.

Naturally, that was the point at which Mr Davies entered the room, carrying a particularly tall pile of textbooks.

“Sorry, everyone! Couldn’t find these anywhere and I need them for my first lesson,” he spoke behind the pile, before carefully placing it down on his desk. The tower remained like that as he sat down at the front desk.

I didn’t get to talk to Melody again until the bell rang and we all set off to our classes. It was only in-passing as we set off to, through, beyond the door.

“You saw it?”

“Did I?”

“Please. Just tell me.”

“What would it mean if I did?”

“That you know…”

“I don’t know,” she sang dismissively as she disappeared into the hustle and bustle.

The walls around us were covered in eyes and even as they looked at me, I no longer knew how many people could look at them.