Marked

by Jasmine Derriman

  “You’re wrong,” Isaac said strongly. “I do understand, Lily, which is why I can’t let you just go.”

  Our eyes met and I felt him loosen his grip on my arm but he didn’t let go. If I didn’t know any better than I would think Isaac was referring to me, and he probably was. He put himself in the greatest danger possible by going alone to that hospital which was demon breeding ground, just for me.

  Even with that in mind I still couldn’t forget about Rhys. I had known Rhys longer, I loved Rhys longer and he was everything, my only true friend and he could die because of me, because of something he doesn’t know about it. If he died I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself, I would be able to live with myself, and I couldn’t live without him.

  I pulled my arm out of Isaac’s grip and stepped backwards. Isaac was too far in front of me now and I knew I couldn’t make a run for the door.

  “I’m not going to stay in this house, I have to help him,” I said.

  “You can’t,” Isaac said firmly. “I won’t let you.”

  “You…won’t let me?” I wanted to laugh at him because he thought he could control me. “What makes you think you have control of me?”

  “It’s my job to protect you, isn’t it? Isn’t that what everyone had been saying?” Isaac stood firmly.

  “Protect me?” I asked him. “You call putting yourself in a dangerous position and almost dying protecting me? How can you protect me when you’re dead, Isaac?”

  “And how can you save Rhys when you’re dead?” Isaac asked. “It works both ways doesn’t it, Lily?”

  “Don’t you do that, don’t you dare do that to me,” I said firmly. “Compared to what you might think of me, I don’t have to follow your orders, I don’t have to listen you, and this time I won’t.”

  “You don’t get it, do you?” he asked me, raising his voice slightly. “This isn’t about me, this isn’t about you and your friend’s life. They get you, they get that dagger and the whole war could turn to crap because the demons will win, and all because you would risk it all to save one person. That dagger-.”

  “Is power,” I interrupted to him, “and power should only be given to those who deserve it, who don’t want it, not to those who do.”

  “Why did you say that?” Felix suddenly asked, making me jump as I completely forgot him and Hadley where in the room.

  I turned my head to look at him. “I…one of the books I got from the council, its Annabeth’s diary. It’s something she said about the dagger.”

  “You have Annabeth’s diary?” Felix asked surprised.

  “Why didn’t you tell us?” Isaac asked me.

  “I…I didn’t want to. I’ve been struggling with all of this stuff, and reading this…it makes it all more real. She’s the only one who knows about the dagger, and I didn’t want to you all of this,” I told him.

  Felix shook his head as he stood up and picked up the diary from the coffee table. “You don’t understand, Lily. No one has ever seen this, as far we know…a diary didn’t exist. Eve couldn’t’ have possibly given this to you.”

  “Then who did?” I frowned.

  I looked back at Isaac who had made eye contact with Felix and I saw the same worried look on their faces and I suddenly didn’t feel like I had convinced Isaac into letting me go anywhere.

  “Look…in her diary…she talks about a lot of things…but…. I know what they’ll do to Rhys if we don’t get to him,” I whispered softly. “They did it to her friends. It’s why she runs away from everything, so many people get hurt.”

  “Lily.”

  I turned back to Isaac who now didn’t look like he was in the mood to argue with me anymore, instead I saw something else on his face, something I couldn’t work out.

  “You can’t go after Rhys, but I can,” Isaac said, “and I will.”

  “No-,” I started to say.

  “This isn’t a choice, okay?” Isaac said strongly. “Hadley, you’ll stay here and keep an eye on her and make sure she doesn’t go running off. Felix, you’re with me.”

  “No,” I said again. “What do you think you can do? How do you think you’re going to find him, you don’t even know him. I can find him.”

  “This isn’t open for discussion anymore.”

  It really wasn’t either. Felix put the book down and he glanced at me as Isaac opened the front door and Felix walked out first. Isaac looked back at me one more time and I wanted to scream and hit him and tell him he was being unfair, but somehow I didn’t think that would help. He just walked out the front door and he shut it behind him and I felt my heart sink.

  I turned back to Hadley who still hadn’t moved from her seat and had her arms crossed over her chest. She had her eyes focussed on the diary but I knew she wasn’t thinking about it, I could see it in her face; her mind was elsewhere for the second.

  “If you think you can keep me in this house right now, you’re crazy,” I told her.

  “If you think you can get past me, then you’re crazy,” she stated without looking at me.

  “I’m not just going to sit here!”

  “Yes, you made that quite clear.”

  I groaned quite loudly as not I was not getting much out of Hadley frustrated me greatly. I walked by her and picked up the diary and she suddenly snapped out of her trance to look at me. I knew that if I could convince anyone to help me, it was Hadley. Isaac’s only thought was to do anything to protect me, and that meant no risks for me. No matter what I said to him, no matter how much I stressed Rhys meant to me, I knew it wouldn’t get through to him, and maybe I would’ve had a chance with Felix, but I know that Felix didn’t want to go against Isaac. Hadley on the other hand, I knew something that would appeal to her soft side.

  “Help me then,” I said to her. “Help me find him, because Isaac won’t and he’s only going to waste time and he’ll just find himself facing more demons.”

  “He’s not alone this time,” Hadley shook her head as she got off the couch. “He’ll be fine.”

  “Even if he is,” I said, “this isn’t about him. It’s about Rhys. He is my best friend, Hadley. He has stood by me when no else would.”

  Hadley didn’t say anything and I could see the cogs in her head turning and thinking.

  “What if this was Isaac?” I asked her. “You would do anything to find him, just like you did before. It’s like that for me now, Hadley. I need to find him.”

  She had her back turned to me until now. She turned to face him slowly and I saw her eyes sweep over my face, like she was trying to read my facial expression or something. It was then though, I noticed the sympathy on her face. I had gotten through to her.

  “Fine, “she whispered. “I’ll help you find him, but not demon fighting. We see a demon we turn the other way, okay?”

  “As long as we can find him,” I said with a small smile. “We can go to his place, and-.’

  “No, that won’t help,” Hadley shook her head. “For one, that will be the first place Isaac and Felix will go and if a demon was there, they don’t exactly leave a trail of breadcrumbs for us to follow. I know a much quicker way.”

  “You do?” I frowned. “What is it?”

  “An ex-boyfriend of mine, his mark is the tracker mark,” Hadley told me.

  “Tracker mark?” I said but the moment I said it I saw it in my mind. “He can track people by simply using a map, no matter where they are…right.”

  “Yes, exactly,” Hadley said, “and it doesn’t matter where he is in the world, he’ll find him.”

  I nodded at her as she walked to her room and returned very quickly. The only thing that had changed this time was that she seemed to smell nicer.

  “We have to walk since we don’t have a car, and I want to get back before Isaac knows so he can’t blow his top off at me,” Hadley muttered and she picked up her shoes beside the lounge and started to put them on.

  “Okay,” I nodded as she stood up. “Hadley….thank you.”

  Her eyes
met mine and I thought I could tell what she was thinking. She wished Isaac would see her the way he saw me. She wished that he felt the need to do anything to protect her, and she wished she didn’t feel that way about him.

  “Don’t mention it. Now let’s go.”

  Chapter Twenty Four

  The walk to where Hadley was taking me wasn’t as far as I thought, but then again it wasn’t as close as I hoped. We must’ve been walking for at least fifteen minutes, and we didn’t say anything to each other the whole time, so it was a relief for Hadley to finally stop and she beckoned me up a set of stairs to a block of small apartment buildings.

  If the front door needed to be opened by someone buzzing us in, it didn’t seem to stop Hadley from just opening the door and walking in anyway. It became apparent that she knew exactly where she was going as she ascended the flight of stairs with a fair amount of hast. I guessed there probably wasn’t something so pleasant about seeing her ex-boyfriend.

  We stopped after climbing about four sets of stairs and Hadley turned to a door with the number fourteen on it and she didn’t even hesitate to knock. It wasn’t an immediate reaction for the door to open but when the door finally did both Hadley and the boy answering the door, froze up a little.

  The boy that stood at the door was tall, dark and handsome, well to say the least. It was clear he had fair bit of muscle on him, evident from his tight shirt. He had long brown hair that managed to kind of stick up and not fall down, and it looked completely natural, not to mention his strong jaw line. He was definitely Hadley’s type.

  “Hadley,” he breathed. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  “Well…don’t flatter yourself, I’m not here to see you,” Hadley said immediately. “I need your help.”

  “You need my help?” he asked. “With what?”

  Hadley sighed and stepped back from him, leaving room for the boy to see me standing behind her. He looked over at me and I saw him look up and down before I saw his eyes stopped slightly at my arm as he noticed my shield mark.

  “Right,” he nodded. “Okay, you better to come in.”

  He opened the door and Hadley walked in and I followed close behind her. His apartment was a lot smaller than Isaac’s, but it was kind of nice. The whole lounge room setting was to the right when walking into the apartment and he had managed to fit a lounge and TV in there quite nicely. There were a few planks of wood that divided the room in two from the front door we had just entered, and on the side he had imagined to fit a small dining table and a study desk up against the window on the side of the room, and near that I could see an arch way that lead to the kitchen.

  “Well, it would be nice if could introduce us,” the boy suddenly said as we shuts the door.

  Hadley sighed. “Lily, this is James, and James, this is Lily.”

  “Lily Clarke?” James asked slowly.

  Hadley and I immediately exchanged glances. I turned back to James who now hadn’t moved and he looked like he realised he had said something wrong.

  “How do you know that’s my name?” I asked him.

  James now looked at Hadley and Hadley was looking back at him. I felt like there was some unspoken conversation going on and when Hadley suddenly threw her hands in air I knew I was missing something.

  “Oh god, James, really?” she asked him, putting her hands on her hips.

  “Really? Hadley, it is my job. When the council comes around and asks me to keep track of someone I can’t say no,” he snapped at her.

  “What is going on?” I interrupted them before I could let an argument flare up.

  Hadley sighed as she walked over to James’ study desk. “James’ tracking mark can come in real handy a lot of the time, especially when the council want to keep an eye on someone. He does that more than he fights demons. He did it once with Isaac, tracked him all over America he did, and if I’m not mistaken he got asked to track you.”

  James hung his head a little and only lifted it only a little so his eyes met Hadley’s. She had her arms crossed over her chest now and I could tell she wasn’t impressed, but to my surprise she didn’t start lecturing him about it.

  “How often do they come by?” Hadley asked him.

  “Once a week,” James answered looking at her and back at me.

  “And did they say why?” she asked her tone becoming more aggressive. “Do they tell you why they want you to track her all the time?”

  “No, they don’t tell me why,” James snapped back at her. “You know how it works, Hadley. They bring me something of hers they tell me her name and I track her and then I report it to them. If I question them I don’t get answers, but I know…it’s something serious because I get the elders visiting me.”

  “Well, you’re right,” Hadley stated looking at me. “Lily…she…she’s the ‘chosen one.’ She has the dagger and she can use it, and they want that dagger.”

  “Oh,” James mouthed looking at me, “not quite what I thought. Wow.”

  “You haven’t spoken to them lately, have you?” Hadley asked as she walked over to James’s study desk.

  I turned my head to look down at the table and I found myself frowning. I walked over to the desk and stood near Hadley and it was now I realised what was actually on the desk. I realised now it was a map, a map of pretty much the whole state of New York. He had a few red dots on the map and lines, but I noticed a dot near my house, and a dot that had to be on Isaac’s house.

  “What do you tell them?” I asked James, looking over my shoulder to him.

  “Where you are,” James shrugged “That’s all they ask and that’s all I tell them.”

  That explains the dots.

  “And you’re always at that same house,” James said. “Expect for yesterday.”

  Hadley stood up at straight and I saw her glare at James.

  “You’re not going to tell them where she went yesterday,” Hadley said strongly.

  “Wow, you’re serious about this, aren’t you?” James asked.

  “You have no idea how serious any of this is,” Hadley told him, moving the maps around to relieve more.

  “I can only imagine if you had to come here and see me,” James replied.

  “Well, we need your help,” Hadley said looking to me. “They took her friend and we need to find him.”

  James nodded a little as he walked over to us and stood next to Hadley and moved the maps back into place and Hadley rolled her eyes a little.

  “I can help,” James said, and then looked at me. “Do you have something of his? I need something so I can connect to him and find him.”

  “Ah,” I opened my mouth and looked over at Hadley.

  “We didn’t exactly have time to stop by and get something,” Hadley told him. “Do you really need it?”

  “Yes, I don’t know who he is and I need something otherwise finding him is impossible,” James said in a frustrated tone. “I need something.”

  “Oh, wait, I do have something,” I said to them before an argument could erupt.

  I didn’t think of it straight away and I had no idea why because it was the only thing on me that reminded me of Rhys. It was the tiny leather bracelet Rhys had given me that night we had Chinese before school went back. I hadn’t taken it off since Rhys had gone back home, well since he had been forced to forget about me. It was the only thing on me I had that reminded me of him constantly.

  “He gave me this bracelet,” I said pulling it off my wrist. “Will that work?”

  “If that’s the best you can do, then it will have to do,” James nodded taking it from my hand. “Sit there and Hadley stand back.”

  Hadley rolled her eyes but moved away from the desk and I moved to the chair James told me to sit on, across from James on the desk. He sat in the chair across from me and moved the maps in front of him, so they were set out differently to the way they were before. He gripped to the leather bracelet in his left hand and put it on the corner of the map. He held up his right hand to h
old it over the map and I saw him shut his eyes.

  I glanced over at Hadley who I noticed was just watching James’ hands quite intently. I turned my head back and did the same. I realised now his hand was shaking a little. He started to move his hand around the map and around and around. I didn’t know what was supposed to happen but as I moved my eyes to James’ face I realise he was screwing up his face in frustration. Something wasn’t right.

  James’ eyes flung open and he pushed the first map aside to relieve a map of the states. He did the same thing again with his hand and this time he let out a groan of frustration and moved that map aside again to relive a world map. Something really wasn’t right.”

  “I can’t…I can’t… I don’t know,” James shook his head and he slammed his fist on the table.

  “You can’t find him?” I asked James desperately.

  “I should be able to,” James said, gritting his teeth. “But…but it’s like he doesn’t…exist… but he does.”

  “What are you talking about James?” Hadley frowned.

  “Whenever I try get a lock on him, it’s like the location changes before I can see it,” James said as I saw his fingers grip onto the corner of the map.

  “What does that mean?” Hadley asked leaning over slightly. “Is…he moving constantly or something?”

  “No, no,” James shook his head. “It’s like…wherever he is…it’s like it’s protected, like I can’t see it.”

  “Like some sort of spell?” Hadley whispered.

  “A protection spell.”

  I didn’t say it as I question, it was more of a statement as I could see Hadley working it out to as she spoke. Hadley turned to me and she straightened up and turned around and started to pace a little.