Traveler - The Price (Book 3)
Chapter 7

When I was looking in the mirror, I saw a total mess, a tormented soul hidden behind a beautiful but insecure face. My memory was coming back slowly, but I still felt a part of me was missing, and that was unpleasant. With every memory that was coming back, I was living those feelings at the highest intensity. Andy had explained why everything was over between us, but it was evident he was not telling me everything. They were all hiding something. It was something strange in all of that, and I constantly had an uncertain feeling. Besides that, I felt regret in his voice.

When I got down the stairs, I saw all of them gathered in the middle of the room.

“We’re going to town for supplies” says Ivy. “We were heading there when we found you. Are you okay to come with us? Or do you want to stay here with someone?”

“I’m coming!” I said determinedly.

I went to get my backpack, which Deby had prepared for me, and I found a little man made of springs hanging on it. Something seemed familiar, so I picked it up, and I smiled. I had a safe feeling when I touched it. I hung it up from my backpack, and I walked after the others.

The road wasn’t long, but I wasn’t staying very comfortable, so I rushed to get down of the car first when Andy stopped. I blocked in the door. There passes in front of my eyes a lot of images, sounds, lights. That was how I remembered Aaron and Julia jumping in front of our car. That day was now fresh in my mind, and I realized that Aaron pissed me off from the start.

“Are you ok?” he asks me when he saw I wasn’t moving.

“Yeah” I said, and I walked forward, without looking at him.

It’s restless to feel some things again, as it is the first time. Something was struggling inside me, and it was not the hunger. A weird energy was trying to get out, and I felt I was ready to explode.

I followed Deby in a demolished store. When she opened the door, a cloud of dust had raised. She made a sound of discontent and started looking through the shelves, knocking down what was useless. She saw I was staying and staring at her, so she handed me a bag.

“I thought I don’t need to make you the training” she says. “You put in there whatever is not expired and you think is useful.”

I nodded my head, and I started working. When I filled the bag, I wanted to get out of the store, but the door opened, and Aaron was thrown through it. A woman was coming angrily at us, and I was just standing there, with a knife in my hand, which I wasn’t sure I was able to use it yet. I saw Ivy and Andy down outside. Aaron was trying to get up, and I was not sure what I was supposed to do.

Then I felt someone grabbed me. Deby threw me aside, and she knocked down a shelf of boxes over me. I managed to see how she and Aaron put down that woman, but not for a long time. She was ready to attack them again if Andy didn’t shoot her when he got the chance.

“You can come out now, Jo!” shouts Deby at me.

I got up from the rubbish, and I looked at her angrily.

“What the hell was that?”

“It was a nymph” she said. “She was probably looking for me because she didn’t know that you are alive.”

“No, the fact that you pushed me there and threw that shelf over me!” I said revolted.

“Oh, that. Well, I didn’t want you to lose your leverage. I thought it’s not ok if she saw you, in case I couldn’t get rid of her.”

I made a face, and I joined the group.

“We’re not going back to the cabin” says Andy. “It’s too dangerous. They found us.”

“You’re right” confirms Ivy. “We’re going further.”

When we got out from that store, Ivy stopped for a second and put her hand on the head. She wiped the blood off her face and continued walking. Andy gave her a napkin.

“Jo, next time something like this happens, just use that knife because I gave it to you for a reason!” says Deby passing by me.

“Easy there” says Aaron to her.

I grumbled something that didn’t sound like a confirmation, and I got in the car. Aaron and Andy were standing in the front, and I was looking how Deby was helping Ivy to clean her head injury. After a while, Deby looked at my backpack.

“Where did you get that?” she asks.

“I don’t know” I said touching the little man. “I found it on my backpack before we left, but something seems familiar about it.”

“I thought we left it behind when we ran from the griffins” says Deby.

“Me too!” said Ivy.

I looked at the window. I closed my eyes and images with Aaron, Ivy and the cave came across my mind. Then I remembered how Aaron seemed to be a good man, but he almost left me to die for that box. I felt those feelings of hatred, confusion, uncertainty and revolt again and without wanting to, I found myself with the head between my hands. I made a sound of pain. Too many information, too fast. I felt Deby’s hands around me, and I opened my eyes. I was confused, so it didn’t take long before I said my dissatisfactions.

“What the hell?” I said revolted.

“What is it?” asks Deby.

“I remembered! Ivy, I know how we met! Aaron, I remember you too. I don’t understand a thing. How are you still with us after what you’ve done and how you behaved?”

Ivy put her hand on the forehead, but I wasn’t sure it was because of her injury, and Deby was stuttering. Andy stopped the car and Aaron didn’t even dare to look at me.

“What’s happening?” I asked.

“Look what, Jo. When you’re about to say anything, just think that everything has to continue somehow!” says Ivy.

I opened the door, and I got out from the car. I walked a few steps, and then I felt pulled back.

“What are you doing, Deby?” I ask perplexed.

“We’re not doing this now! she says. We don’t have time to sit and chat. You saw what’s after us! They want to kill us! Do you think that’s something more important than our lives right now?”

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“God! Jo! I don’t know where the hell we’re going because since you touched that box, we don’t know anything!”

“Let’s calm down…” says Andy.

Deby pushed me inside the car. I saw the anger on her face. Something was bothering her, maybe it was me, but she didn’t say anything else. All she said was to shut up, a thing I did, without knowing exactly why, but I noticed it was a general state of anger.

It was evening, and we were on an empty road, and the others were exhausted. I offered to drive, but from an unknown reason, they preferred to sleep in the car, on the side of the road. I couldn’t understand that idea, but I had a hunch that they didn’t trust me enough to drive.

Deby had pulled a pillow over us, but it was too hot in there, so I put it aside. Ivy was sleeping for a long time, and Andy was snoring. I didn’t hear anything from Aaron, and I wasn’t feeling sleepy at all. I was looking outside the window, on the piece I could see without moving because I didn’t want to disturb anyone. I was trying to control even my breath, not to make a noise, when I heard a rustle and then the door slamming hard. Aaron had got down from the car. The others didn’t seem to be disturbed by the noise. I wanted to get down too because I felt I had no air in there, but I couldn’t just go down then, after what I had said about Aaron.

After ten minutes, I decided it was the time to get out or die from the heat, so I stepped over Deby, and I opened the door. A cold breeze awoke my senses back to life. I closed the door victoriously because I didn’t wake anyone. I looked around. There was no sign of Aaron. I stayed there for a while, thinking about what I was supposed to do. I didn’t know where he was or if I should have told someone about his leaving. While I was thinking, I started walking around the car. At some point, I arrived in front of it, and I saw a silhouette leaning against it.

“Damn!” I said.

“It’s just me” says Aaron. “Did I scare you?”

I looked at him lost. Something was not how it was supposed to be.

“Look” I said sitting next to him. “I don’t get you. Why on earth do you seem like the most decent and educated guy, but I remember you as the biggest jerk?”

Even if it was dark, I saw him nodding his head negatively and making a face. He made another sound of disapproval, then I thought he was going to answer, so I waited. He didn’t say anything, though.

“Are you not talking to me now? Can you just understand that I’m trying to figure things out? Maybe you’ve changed, I have no clue! I didn’t want to sound like that in the car, but I just don’t get it!”

“Jo, you will get it someday. People change for different reasons.”

He was giving me just short and evasive answers, or he didn’t answer me at all. We both remained silent, rested there. In that silence, I could get my thoughts in order. That was how I realized I had started to have different feelings for him since we had left that cave. Then I remembered how he left me to die for that box and I started getting angry. I remembered something else, how he had saved me when we weren’t getting along so well, a thing that made me wonder what the hell had been in my head before losing my memory. Then I remembered how I had fallen asleep with him in bed, thinking it was Crista. I started laughing. At that moment, he turned his head to me.

“Sorry” I said. “Look, if we’re about to spend the night here together, let’s make some conversation at least.”

He looked at me calmly, and then he put his head on the car.

“Or not…” I said irritated.

I supported myself on the car too, and I closed my eyes. Not to fall asleep, but to relax. Pictures of Julia flashed before my eyes when she was saying her brother was changed. Along with the images, feelings were coming back too, conflicting feelings, feelings that I was trying so hard to push away. I remembered about Kate and Andy, and I finally understood what had happened with my life. The image when I first jumped into Aaron’s arms flashed through my mind, and I jumped as burned.

“Everything ok?” he asks me.

“Ha! Are you talking to me now?” I said irritated. “No! Nothing is right! I want someone to explain to me what the hell is going on here!”

“Stop yelling, Jo. You’re going to wake the others.”

“Explain to me what the hell happened! Why isn’t anyone telling me everything? You left aside so many details, which I remember now!”

“What do you remember?”

“A lot of things and weird feelings that I can’t explain!”

He was looking at me calmly, without moving or doing something. Andy put his head out of the window.

“What is with this noise?” he asks.

“Nothing! Just go back to sleep!” I said even more irritated.

I walked a few steps away, to try not to wake up all people from the car. I realized that Andy wasn’t the one who was going to tell me the truth. I saw Aaron going at the window and telling him something, and then I turned around. I sat there, on the ground, waiting for something, but I wasn’t sure for what. After a while, I looked behind me. I didn’t see Aaron anywhere, but I didn’t bother to look for him either. I made a face and threw on my back. What was happening to me?

Suddenly, he was next to me, throwing a bottle of something to drink between us. I couldn’t tell what it was because of the darkness. He took a sip and handed it to me. I felt a smell of rum, which misinterpreted my already tangled memories. I sighed and took a sip too.

“I’m sorry I hit you with the car, but you just jumped in front of me. I couldn’t avoid you” he finally said.

“Do you think all of these are because you hit me? Oh, damn! You were driving! I didn’t think to ask who was behind the wheel.”

“Be patient. Your memory is coming back, and you will understand everything, regardless the things you’re feeling now. You’re the only one who knows how you feel and what’s inside your head. Don’t tell the others to explain it to you because you’re the only one who can know that.”

In his calm attitude, he was right, and I was embarrassed to admit it.

“I remember you with long hair, but it’s fine this way too” I say.

“Personality crisis” he said.

There were a few minutes of silence, which I thought it was odd, but it was something familiar at that moment too.

“Do you want to talk about something?” I finally asked him.

“A thing I know for sure, and that is we both like the silence.”

I felt somehow relaxed and at peace when I heard that. I had a weird feeling of “home,” that made my spine shiver. When the sun was sending his light on us, we were sipping the last drops of rum. I had avoided all night to look at Aaron, and now I just looked at him. He was a mysterious man. He looked at me too.

“Are we going to wake the others up?” he says making things easier for me.

“Sure” I said.

I felt the ground spinning with me when I got up, but I tried to keep my balance and not embarrass myself. I saw Aaron hitting Andy’s window hard. Andy winced scared, and the girls from the back too, then I heard them grumbling something, probably swearing. They all had woken up ready to attack. Aaron started laughing. I looked at him, and I realized I remembered that big smile, and when I had seen it for the first time I had thought it was another person.

“Ready?” he asked me while I was staring at him.

“Ready” I replied coming to my senses.

Damn, it was bullshit not to know everything about me, my feelings or my thoughts. I couldn’t wait for my memory to come back so that I could explain certain things to myself. We hit the road again. I stretched my legs on the cans of gasoline. If they had taken so many of them, I figured that they didn’t plan on settling somewhere too soon. Or maybe they were just cautious. Anyway, I was about to replace out more soon. At least I was hoping to. I couldn’t figure it out what I was feeling. All I knew for sure it was that something was missing.

It is said that soulmates always replace each other because they have the same hiding places. They recognize in the dark, and they know one another. It’s all about their vibes, their energy, and time is not an essential element when it comes to souls. They will always replace the perfect moment for timing.