Year Two: Rebels - Cara Wylde Page 0,16

me on the lips. The memory of Davien, the incubus, was elusive. But then again, most days I didn’t even remember myself. Who I was, where I was supposed to be. Who I was supposed to become. Most days, I just ate, slept, ate, and then slept some more. I couldn’t call what I had a life. I was dead to the world, since neither Corri, nor Mila knew where I was. I’d been gone for half a year, if not more, and Mila hadn’t tried to find me once. Was she that busy? I couldn’t blame Corri, since she was my pixie, and I was the one who was supposed to call her if I needed her. And oh, how I needed her! I needed her like I needed air to breathe! Everyone had forgotten about me. Even Aunt Katia… No, I couldn’t blame her either. For all I knew, she’d tried to visit me countless times. Maybe she’d even succeeded, but because of the heavy drugs I was constantly on, I couldn’t see her. As Seth had said, they blocked all my senses, except for the most basic ones: smell, taste, touch, sight…

Sight. Could I truly say I still had the sense of sight when I couldn’t actually see what mattered? Most things worth seeing were beyond this material world.

I was about to lose all hope when Adrian came to visit again. I was in the common room, and he slipped Nurse T a few fat bills to move me to my room and leave us alone.

“Yolanda.” He said my name with purpose and looked deep into my eyes to see how I’d react.

I blinked. “Adrian.”

He nodded. “I just wanted to make sure you’re here.”

“I’m always here,” I chuckled.

“No, you’re not… I’ve visited you almost every day in the past month, and you were rarely… present. But you are today. Thank God.”

I bit the inside of my cheek. My hands turned into fists in my lap, and my heart beat wildly. I was filled with anger. Adrian had been on my side all along, and because they kept me so drugged and confused, I couldn’t even remember his visits! This had to be illegal.

“I wanted to give you this, and now I finally can. I couldn’t just leave it with you and hope you’d find it among your things before the nurses did.” He placed the small golden bell in my hand.

I furrowed my brows. This was ridiculous. “They’re going through my things?”

“I don’t know, but I assume they do. Just in case you might be hiding something you could harm yourself with.”

“Adrian, for the last time! I’m not…”

“... suicidal. I know.”

“I need to get off the meds. They’re not helping me. I can’t go on like this, okay? Or I’ll never be able to get my life back.”

“I know,” he whispered.

I was furious. Not only at the nurses for wanting to control everything, but also at him. How could he leave me here for months?! How could he allow this whole charade when he knew I hadn’t actually tried to kill myself? Sure, he didn’t want me to dream jump to the cosmic beings’ universe. He was afraid I’d lose myself for good if I tried to get the flower again. But it wasn’t his decision to make. If I wanted to try again, then it was my right to. It was my life, my sanity.

I rang the bell, and Corri materialized out of thin air, her tiny wings sending pixie dust flying all over the room. I sneezed, then pinched my nose. It had been too long.

“Mistress, where are we?” Her big brown eyes grew bigger and darker. She knew exactly where we were, she just wasn’t comfortable saying it out loud. I had to do it for her.

“The Karmic Asylum.”

“What happened?!” She proceeded to fly around my head, studying me from head to toe, sniffing me and touching my face and my hair. “You look terrible! Who did this to you? Mistress, you shouldn’t be here!” She was working herself up into a frenzy. “Every time you call me, it’s bad. That’s it. I’m not leaving you anymore. I will stay by your side no matter what.”

I smiled. “Corri, settle down. It’s okay. You’re here now.”

She didn’t want to hear about it. “Why haven’t you called me earlier?”

“I… didn’t have the bell. They took it from me.”

“They? Who’s they?” She crossed her arms over her flat chest, her tiny face turning red with fury.

I glanced