felt the comforting pull in my chest before I heard his voice say, “You’ll have to forgive them, Cormac. They’re a couple of idiots when it comes to these things.”
“Alex,” said Mr Anderson, ignoring the jibes, “‘Cacti’ or ‘cactuses’?”
He stepped up behind me and placed his hands on my shoulders, grazing his thumbs up and down the back of my neck. “I believe it–”
“Cacti,” Chloe announced loudly, holding a large volume from one of the bookshelves. “C-A-C-T-I.”
“Ha!” Mr Reid barked. “There, you damn fool, I told you so! And that’s nine points,” he said, making a bit of a show writing the number down on the sheet. “Thank you, lass,” he said to Chloe.
“Pleasure,” she said, not hiding her sarcasm as she closed the book with a slap and stuffed it back on the shelf.
“That’s weird,” Alex said as Chloe returned to her table, “I was sure both were correct.”
“Sst!” Chloe hissed, shushing him quickly while glancing over to the game table to make sure no one else heard. “And have them fighting all day?” she whispered, giving Alex and I a sneaky smirk before returning to her work.
I felt Alex chuckle behind me. “You up for a walk?” he asked quietly, squeezing my shoulders.
I nodded still smiling, and we left the lounge hand in hand. “Where are we going?” I asked as we paused at the stairs.
“I wanted to go down to the lake, but it’s a little cold for that, so balcony?”
“Great.”
He waited until we got up to the second floor to ask, “How are you doing?”
“All right,” I said, knowing he was referring to Jocelyn. “Better.” I waited until the balcony door was closed behind us before continuing, “Still afraid to see him. Still have no idea what to do, or think, or how to feel. I have spent years hating him, and part of me still does. But now there is this other part of me that doesn’t, and the sick thing is, I don’t want that. I want to hate him, even though I know that’s horrible, and yet, at the same time I don’t want to hate him…” I squeezed my eyes shut with a frustrated huff. “I don’t know.”
Before I had a chance to open my eyes, I felt a pair of arms holding me securely.
“You’re not sick,” Alex said quietly, lightly kissing my forehead, “and you’re not horrible. What you’re feeling – all of it – is natural, and no matter which side you come out on, what really counts is that you’re trying.” He took my chin between his thumb and forefinger, lifting my eyes to meet his. “One step at a time.”
“Yeah, I guess,” I said, letting out a long breath. “And step one is getting over being weirded out by the whole name change thing.”
“What do you mean?”
“Think about it: he actually changed my name and I had no idea! How creepy is that? It would be like someone telling you that up until yesterday the sky had been purple, even though all you can ever remember it being is blue. I can barely even wrap my mind around it, not to mention that the whole idea is scary as hell! He could do anything he wanted! He could change history, and no one would even know!” I sat down on the window seat with a deep breath, trying to quell my paranoia. “I guess I just figured that if someone messed with my mind like that I would know. Or at least know that something wasn’t right, but there is nothing.”
“It’s a dangerous ability to have,” Alex said sitting next to me, “which is why it is so important that we stop Darragh before he is able to do any real damage.”
“Speaking of Darragh, how did it go? Did Jocelyn get anything useful out of Taron?”
“No.” Alex shook his head, clearly disappointed. “Nothing else. Just that same name, Ciaran Shea.”
Well that was a little let down. “What do we do now?”
“Jocelyn looked into it, and it appears Ciaran is one of the Originals, or that’s what they call themselves, anyway. They are a group of Holders who live in Dublin,” he hesitated with a slight eye roll, “but they are not like us.”
“What do you mean?”
“Let’s just say, they don’t like to get their hands dirty.”
“And Ciaran is one of them?”
“Looks that way. Jocelyn is arranging for some of us to go and meet with them, and see if we can find this Ciaran for ourselves.”