Traveler - The Price (Book 3)
Chapter 2

When I was a child, I wanted to work hard to have a life that would make my soul dance of joy inside my body. I remained only with my sister when we were too young, so I gave up on that dream to take care of her. I started working at the bar from the town to bring home some money, and I went to school only when I had time. I wanted to give her everything, I wanted to make her feel she had all she wished for, and I managed to do that. Every month I saved money, and after two years I bought a second-hand car.

Life made me forget about my childhood dream, and I slowly closed inside me. I became a cold person to avoid the critics. In time, I was already immune. Then something happened that changed me: the world went crazy, I was forced to get used to it faster, and I met her. Then I lost my sister, and, in the end, I lost her. I was here, driving on a broken road, without any destination in mind, without the two women I loved the most in my life. I felt like a part of the old Aaron was crawling to get outside again, but I tried so hard to stop him. The only thing that was keeping the Aaron I had become still here, was her memory. I saw her in every detail, I was dreaming about her, and that reminded me I had to keep trying.

I was slowly falling into dreaming, and without noticing, I was getting out of the road. The car started shaking, and Deby, who had moved to my right, pulled the wheel. I woke up, and I pressed the break.

“Have you lost your mind?” she shouts.

I stared at her lost. My heart was racing, so I got out for a break.

“Aaron, what’s up with you?” asks Ivy, who got down too.

“Sorry, I didn’t realize what I was doing. I think it’s better if one of you drives from now on.”

“Are you ok?” asks Andy.

“Yes” I said unsurely.

I got in the back with Ivy, and Andy took my place behind the wheel. When we were about to go, we heard a strange noise, like some huge wings. We put our heads down. On the side of the road were often abandoned cars, so we didn’t bring the attention to us if we stayed there. The griffin landed somewhere near the forest.

“What now?” asks Andy.

“I think they have a hiding place here” says Deby.

“I say we sneak and see what it’s there” whispers Ivy.

I nodded my head. We took our guns, and we started walking quietly through the forest. We saw it. It was alone and waiting for someone. After a few seconds, a woman showed up. I couldn’t see her face, but it was something familiar about her.

“Did you replace them?” the griffin asks her.

“No! I looked for them weeks! Not weeks, months!” she says.

“Aura mobilized all of us. We have to replace them!”

“I’m doing my best! I will keep in touch!”

“Do you have something else for me?”

“No, for now.”

The woman turned around, and I realized it was Ema.

“Crap!” whispers Ivy.

“Ema betrayed us!” says Deby.

“Quickly, let’s get out of here!” I say.

We ran to the car and waited for the griffin to fly away, then we hit the road. Ema had worked all that time for Aura. Nothing had sense. She had talked about us with that griffin, thing that made me go crazy. I felt betrayed, and a hatred feeling awoke in my heart. I remembered the time when I wanted to kill her in that cave, and I was regretting that I didn’t do it. Jo had loved her and trusted her, more than any of us. Ema had messed with her feelings and played all of us.

“I can’t believe this! Kate left with her! Maybe if she hadn’t left, she would have had a chance!” says Andy.

“Andy, we couldn’t have known! She played all of us how she wanted to!” says Deby.

“If we haven’t trusted her or listened to her, maybe Jo and Kate would have been alive now!” whispers Ivy.

“We can’t change anything now!” I shouted. “We have to learn not to trust anyone else.”

Just when we thought our problems were not so significant anymore, we had found out this. I knew Ivy was right, that we could have changed something, but it was too late for regrets and remorse. Still, the general atmosphere was one of guilt.

“They want me!” shouts Deby desperately. “They will kill me! Like they did with everybody else!”

“Calm down. Nothing will happen to you!” I said.

“No, Aaron! Don’t you see it? Everybody dies! We don’t stand a chance! We will be exterminated!”

“Deby! Calm down! No one is going to exterminate us!” yells Ivy.

Deby was looking at Ivy terrified. She had a panic attack.

“I don’t want to die like Jo! Or like everybody else! I just can’t!” she continues.

“Deby, I promise you nothing will happen to you” says Ivy calmly. “Trust me, ok?”

After another set of crying, Deby nodded her head. I took the bottle of water, and I threw it to her. She opened it, and she poured it on her head. Ivy opened the backpack to look for some tissues. I saw how she remained blocked. I left her for another minute, but she didn’t change her face expression of shock or her position.

“Ivy?” I asked curiously.

She looked at me. I saw goosebumps on her arms.

“Something’s happening” she says.

“Did you have another vision?” I ask.

“No. It’s the box. It’s shining again.”

“What?!” I said pulling the backpack from her hand.

I took out the box. After all this time, the box was shining again, quite bright I could say. We stopped to take a breath. Our mission didn’t end, as we thought, with Jo’s death.

“We have to replace that stupid key!” I said determinedly. “It’s the least we can do for those who died!”

I got some approvals from them. Deby looked up at me.

“Let’s do this!” she says. “Let’s do it for Jo! For Kate, for Julia, Crista, Stefan, Adam. For George, Sabrina, Robert and Nadia!”

These names said out loud sounded strange. We were the last ones left, so we had to end what they had started. They all deserved it. We had a purpose again. We weren’t running without a destination anymore. We were more determined than ever to succeed, this time without losing anyone in the process.