Post by StoryGirl83 on Nov 9, 2011 23:24:41 GMT -5
Chapter Twenty-Two – Consequences
“I see I’ve caught your attention,” Daniel commented wryly.
Cassia inhaled slowly, still having no clue how to answer. She smiled as she saw the air ripple behind Daniel, leaving behind a man in a doctor’s uniform.
The man approached them and addressed Daniel. “Do you mind if I steal her away for a minute?”
Daniel turned a steely gaze at him. “Actually, I do.”
Cassia pressed her lips tightly together, trying to keep from laughing. Daniel didn’t know who he was up against.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” the man replied, not looking the least sorry. “I will return her to you as soon as I am done talking with her.”
“I said, ‘no’,” Daniel repeated.
Cassia put her hand on Daniel’s shoulder. “Sorry, I need to talk to him.” She ignored the frown on Daniel’s face and walked away with the man.
Once they were far enough away that Daniel couldn’t hear them she turned an annoyed look at the man. “Two months and you ignore me the entire time. Now, you show up?”
“I haven’t ignored you,” the man answered, sounding annoyingly patient, maybe even patronizing. “I heard you every time and when you weren’t insisting that I get you out of her, I dealt with whatever needed dealing with.”
Cassia scowled. “And now that I’ve got a way out?”
“Now that you’ve got a way out,” he repeated, “I wanted to make sure you understood the potential consequences if you took it.”
You mean it’s not set in stone, she retorted, mentally.
He gave her a look to say he knew what she was thinking, and didn’t say anything.
She sighed. “You mean that I could lose my wings or have my soul recycled?”
“Yes,” was his only reply.
“That Daniel’s memory will probably be wiped, that I will probably never see the rest of my family,” she continued.
He nodded.
“I’ve thought about this,” she assured him, “and you presence has only made me sure of what I should do.” She paused and looked at him. “Or have they changed their mind and decided to help me?”
He shook his head. “The decision stands.”
“I figured as much,” she commented, unsurprised. “So what is your advice?”
“You want advice?” he looked surprised. “You didn’t want it twenty-one years ago.”
“You gave it anyway,” she reminded him. “Odd though it was.”
“Give me a break,” he laughed. “I was sixteen. All this power, all this knowledge; it’s heady for a sixteen-year-old.”
She chuckled. “Not exactly confidence inspiring,” she admitted,” but then I was only seventeen when I became a whitelighter, so I’m not really one to talk. About that advice?”
“Convince him to walk away,” he instructed her. “Convince him that his search must stop.”
“He knows that it’s me,” Cassia informed him. “And I think he knows that I’m a whitelighter. How can he know that?”
“I heard him,” he admitted. “That’s why I chose to intervene. I don’t know how he knows about whitelighters, but you’re right. He does know, but not about you. He thinks that you are you, but he’s not sure. I would suggest you take advantage of that.”
“And what would you do?” he asked, defiantly.
“Let’s not go there,” he suggested.
“Oh, no,” she pushed. “We’re going there. I want to know if you’d follow your own advice.”
“You know the answer to that,” he answered cryptically.
She chuckled. “That’s what I thought. Daniel could always see through me, so there’s not much chance I could convince him that I’m not his sister. If you won’t even help me by talking to him . . .”
“I’m a stranger to him,” he reminded her.
“And that’s what you want me to convince him that I am.” She shrugged. “I can’t lie to him. He knows it and he’s using that against me.”
He was silent as he considered her. “I see the problem.” He sighed. “I don’t know how much good talking would do, but if you want, I can do that much.” He glanced over her head at where her brother stood waiting impatiently. Daniel looked like he was about to come over there. “Is that what you want?”
Cassia cast a quick glance back at her brother.
I’ll see you at Thanksgiving. Come home early, okay?
Cassia’s eyes widened and she quickly looked away.
Can’t you stay in Sacramento? It’s bad enough that we had to move, but I’m losing you to the East Coast on top of that. Who will I talk to?
Cassia gasped. “What on earth?!”
Her companion looked at her worried. “Cassia, what’s wrong?”
“Memories,” she whispered, “but I don’t understand where they are coming from.”
It’s been so quite these last few days. Are you sure you can’t come home?
“He didn’t want me to go,” she commented.
Her companion didn’t reply. He just allowed her to talk.
“He wanted me to go to school in California.” She chuckled. “And then he went to school in London for a year, right out of high school.” She shook her head with a smile. “Gotta love his logic.”
“You were gone,” he reminder her. “Perhaps he didn’t want a reminder of that conversation.”
She nodded. “Perhaps.” She sighed. “He’s been looking for me for fifteen years. He’s gathered enough information in that search to learn what a whitelighter is and that they answer to elders. A simple talking to won’t discourage him. And it wouldn’t be fair to him either.”
“You understand what you are doing?”
She nodded. “I’m throwing away anything I might do in the future to help my brother deal with the fact that his sister is dead and he has to accept that.”
“Is that what you’re doing?” he asked skeptically.
She gave him a shrug. “I guess we’re going to find out.”
“I expect you to go Up There as soon as you get out and say good bye,” he informed her.
“I have something I need to deliver first.”
He gave her a look.
“I promise, it won’t take long,” she assured him. “It’s just those papers I’ve been trying to get together.”
A smile tugged at his lips when she said that. “Okay, then. That I’ll let you do.”
“I guess I’ll see you Up There,” she commented, before she walked away toward her brother. It was time to stop hiding, even if it meant she’d never do anything else, again.