Traveler - The Price (Book 3)
Chapter 17

I have always loved the storms. They are the real proof that even the sky cries sometimes. The wind was blowing hard, a sign that the rain was close. We all needed a break. What had happened to the blind trust we had in each other? Since I had lied to Andy about Kate, something had changed. I didn’t like the Aurora situation, but if the others couldn’t trust me, what was I supposed to do? I was thinking how could I expose Aurora, to prove that gun discharged.

I was sitting on the ground, a few steps away from the car. It was dark for a couple of hours and that night seemed to be so long. I heard footsteps behind me. I turned around, and I saw Aaron sitting next to me.

“Are you ok?” he asks me.

“What’s the point of this question? No one believes me! Not even you!”

“I have always trusted you, and I won’t stop now. Explain to me what happened.”

“I need a moment alone. I will tell you in the morning.”

“Fine” he says and kisses me on the cheek.

Ivy and Deby got inside the car with Aurora and Andy had sat by the fire. Aaron went next to him. I couldn’t hear their conversation, but I couldn’t care less. I lied on my back. I felt my tears in my throat, but they weren’t because I was sad, but for I was furious. Angry on me because I wasn’t able to prove my innocence. I closed my eyes to keep the tears inside, but I fell asleep.

I was woken up by Deby and Ivy’s voices. I opened my eyes, and I stood up. I saw the boys exactly where they were the night before, waking up disoriented. I walked to the car. It was morning, and the sun was already burning my skin. The girls were desperate.

“What the hell happened?” I asked angrily.

“Aurora’s gone!” shouts Deby.

“What? When? How comes that no one heard her?” asks Aaron revolted.

“She was next to you! How the hell did she leave without any of you seeing her? Is there something missing?” Andy asks.

Ivy was turning all the bags from the car upside down. She was throwing with food and clothes all over. The guns were all, but I could read on her face the desperation. She came out from the car with tears in her eyes, shaking, and blue-faced.

“Oh, God! No!” she screams putting her hands on her head.

“What? Tell us!” shouts Aaron.

Ivy looked at me, and she started crying, then she ran at me and grabbed my shoulders. Aaron was out of his mind, just like the others for they couldn’t understand what had happened. I had a thought.

“I don’t believe it…” I whispered.

“I’m so sorry! We were a bunch of idiots for not trusting you, and you’re going to pay for our stupidity! God, how could we?” she cries.

I was looking at her, and I realized that had been Aurora’s plan all along.

“Can anyone explain to us what the hell is going on?” shouts Aaron irritated.

“The weapon that Jo gave to me to take care of it… it’s gone! Gone with Aurora!” screams Ivy like she was going crazy.

“What?!” shouts Aaron.

I felt a wave of rage inside me, but I managed to control it in time, just enough not to break something, burst into tears or hurt someone. I leaned back on the car because I felt I was running out of the air. Aaron approached and hugged me.

“Why didn’t she kill me last night? I was asleep, and she could have done that! What’s she after? To drive me crazy? God…”

“Jo, I’m sorry!” says Ivy.

“Me too!” continues Andy.

“Just shut up!” I shouted.

Deby didn’t say anything, but she was looking at me with regret.

“We should have trusted you for the first second” she grumbles in the end.

“I screamed and blamed you in front of her! God, I feel like the last person on this planet!” says Ivy.

“I will not let anyone touch you with that weapon!” says Aaron determined. “We will get it back!”

“Aaron, it’s no one’s fault. This is the way it’s supposed to be…” I said in a whisper.

“If we have listened to you and left her there to rot, we wouldn’t have been desperate right now that someone had the only weapon that can kill you!” shouts Andy.

“You’re used to me being hunted down, killed…” I grumbled.

I looked at them, and I saw on their faces profound regrets, a thing that didn’t warm me up, now that the weapon was missing. Then, a worse idea crossed my mind.

“Oh, no!” I shouted.

“What now?” asks Ivy desperately.

“I can’t just stop thinking about it, even if it seems impossible. I think I could have been fooled too.”

“What are you talking about?” asks Aaron.

“Aurora… Aura… Rings a bell? What do you say? Could it have been her?”

“How can that be possible? Didn’t you say that you remembered the night she came to you?” asks Deby.

“Yes, I do, and she didn’t look like her, but nothing surprises me anymore. She was her age. What if she had done some spell to take the weapon from us?”

“You may be right” says Andy. “But why did she steal it without using it?”

“Thank God that she didn’t!” exclaims Ivy.

“A spell? She wasn’t supposed to use magic!” says Aaron.

“Yes, but she couldn’t use magic to find the place where the spell is supposed to be done or to get there. But to find us…” adds Andy.

I was sure that Aura had messed up with us and she had loved that. I wasn’t sure why she didn’t end all of it that night, but I had a feeling that everything was part of a most elaborate plan. How hadn’t I thought about the similarity of the names before? Since when she had started laughing when the gun discharged in her, I should have thought that something was not right.

“You should have shot her in the head! Not in the leg!” shouts Deby.

“Jo didn’t shoot her…” says Aaron. “Aurora… Aura put in a scene all that show, for us to push Jo aside and lose our trust in her! Everything was about that weapon! This means she has found out what you are, Jo! She knows that weapon is the only way to stop you!”

“We will not let her touch you!” says Andy coming close to me.

I nodded my head as an approval, but I was very disappointed. We needed to figure what she was after, and we needed to do that fast. We gathered the things Ivy had thrown on the ground, and we got into the car. This time, Aaron changed places with Ivy because she was too ashamed to sit next to me. After all, she was the one who pushed me away like I was the last man on the Earth when Aurora got shot. Probably I would have done the same. Or not. In fact, of course, I wouldn’t have done that. I would have trusted her.

“Damn it, Jo!” she screams from the right seat, after ten minutes.

I looked up at her.

“You haven’t said anything. You haven’t blamed us, and you didn’t hit me in the face or something! We didn’t trust you, and we don’t deserve your silence! We deserve screams, reproaches, but you’re just sitting there, all calm, and you’re not saying a damn thing!”

“What do you want me to say, Ivy?”

“Something! Anything!” she shouts.

“All I have to say is that I would have trusted you.”

It was silence after that. There was nothing left to say, and a state of profound regret was floating in the air. It was like someone had died, that sad they were. Maybe my trust for them had vanished, at least for a part of them, besides Aaron, who had decided to support me the night before. Maybe he had done that because all of them were revolted on me, or maybe he had believed me from the start. Anyway, nothing could have changed the things.

I felt his hands around me. I was standing on him, feeling his breathing on my neck. I was hoping to get over that uncomfortable moment for it was a huge possibility for that gun to be used on me, and I haven’t planned on leaving behind a bunch of people who felt guilty about that.

We sometimes play with feelings and trust. But it comes a time when we need to take everything seriously, and we realize that they have been playing us all along. We don’t have to be afraid of losing people, but we have to be scared by the fact that we might lose ourselves in the process of trying not to lose others. I was proud of the fact that I had always been a loyal person, and I had believed in myself this time, even if when they couldn’t do it.

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