Journey 'The Chosen One Trilogy: Book Two' (36 page)

*****

“I still don’t understand how they did
that.” Jasper took my hand as we left the movie theater and headed
back to the truck. “How does the camera know to…
record?”

“Well, there’s the power source, right?
So when you turn on the machine, it starts to record and inside the
camera are mirrors and stuff that capture the picture.” I glanced
at him and smiled. “I think.” Having Jasper here was showing me
exactly how I had taken things for granted growing up. Just trying
to explain something as common as cell phones and cameras had me
feeling pretty ignorant. “Do you want to stop at Quick’s Corner and
grab some wings on the way home?”

“Alright.”

I put the truck in gear and headed
toward one of the small restaurants where I liked to eat. They had
some of the best take out wings in town. I pulled into the parking
lot and we headed into the restaurant to order.

“Hey, Bruce.” I gave the owner a wave.
The short grey haired man behind the counter looked up. His grey
eyes met mine and he smiled. He was in his fifties but could have
passed for a forty year old.

“The usual, Hayden?” Bruce, the owner,
manager, and employee scribbled down a few notes at my nod before
heading back to the kitchen. Jasper headed to sit at one of the
tables while I went to use the washroom.

“Hey, Bruce, someone used a permanent
marker on the walls again.” I looked behind the counter as I walked
back to the table and almost fell to the ground as a tall teen, the
only other customer in the restaurant, shoved into me with his
shoulder. His hand caught my arm. I turned to thank him for
catching me and stopped at the look on his face. He spun me around
so that my back was against his chest. He had a knife against my
throat before I had a chance to react.

Jasper stood with a growl. The teen
turned us in his direction then pulled us a few steps
back.

“Bruce!” The yell almost blew my ear
drum.

Bruce came running to the front and
stopped short.

“Open the cash and put it in the bag!”
He kept angling me back and forth between Jasper and
Bruce.

“Vais sil faur sant?” Jasper was
looking from me to the young man behind me.

Will he do it? I got myself to calm
down and focused on the teen’s body language. His arms were too
tight around me. His body was shaking. The way he moved around made
me think he was extremely nervous. He was scared and had obviously
not done this before. I didn’t think he would kill me if it came
down to it.

I looked at Jasper. “Brut.”

“Alright, then.” He sat back down and
leaned back in his chair. I felt the teen jerk in
surprise.

“He doesn’t seem too concerned for you.
Not that great of a boyfriend if you ask me.” As the teen talked I
felt the knife move away from my neck a bit.

I laughed. “He’s my
husband.”

“Well, either way.” He jerked me back
toward Bruce. “Hurry up!”

He made the mistake of pulling his
knife away from my throat to wipe his hand on his pants. I pushed
back against him as hard as I could and reached back along his arm
until I had his wrist in my hand. I turned and pulled him toward
me, lifting my knee so that it connected with his groin.

He inhaled sharply and dropped to the
ground. The knife fell and I kicked it away. By this time, Jasper
was beside us with a table cloth. He tied the young man’s hands
behind his back, picked him up by the shirt and dropped him onto a
chair.

“Good job, Shlova.”

I grunted. “One scared teenager isn’t
exactly a challenge after everything we’ve been through, hun.” I
was thankful that the only ones in the restaurant at the time had
been us.

He chuckled. “What was it you told me
before you crossed back here the first time? Ah, yes. I think it
went along the lines of ‘geez, Jasper, it’s way safer over there
than it is over here!’” His sky blue eyes were filled with
amusement. “The last time you crossed, I found you on the verge of
being raped. Now this time around, we’re here just over a month and
you manage to get held up at knifepoint.” He shook his
head.

“Hayden, are you ok?” Bruce had made
his way back around the counter and held me out at arms’ length to
look me over. He pulled me into a hug. “I’m so sorry!”

“About what?” I laughed. “This was
hardly your fault.”

He let go of me and turned his
attention to Jasper. “How long has it been since you’ve
crossed?”

My heart jumped and Jasper’s eyes
widened. Both of us tensed. Bruce waved away our
concern.

“What I mean is, if I call the cops, is
proving your identity going to be an issue?”

“Oh. Umm, yes. The person we were told
to contact hasn’t gotten the proper documents back to us yet.” I
wasn’t sure how much I should be telling him.

Bruce nodded and motioned to Jasper.
“Care to give me a hand?” He grabbed the teen by the shirt and
pushed him toward the kitchen. Jasper and I followed behind
them.

“Ow! You’re hurting me!”

Bruce didn’t loosen his hold on the
thin arm. “Sit down!” He pushed him down into a chair. He turned to
the only cook, his wife. She frowned and waited.

“This young man decided he should hold
Hayden at knife point so that I would empty the cash register for
him.”

Her light blue eyes widened. “Oh, my.”
She made her way over to the counter. “Well, we can’t have that,
can we?” She pulled two large chef’s knives from the block and
tossed them to Bruce and Jasper.

I’m not sure which eyes were bigger, my
green ones or the teen’s hazel ones.

“You come in here quite a bit. There’s
a whole group of you.” Bruce tested the sharpness of his knife on a
tomato. The tomato didn’t stand a chance. “It’s Eric, if I remember
correctly.”

Eric, if that was his name, refused to
acknowledge.

“So, Eric, here’s what’s going to
happen. I won’t call the police today. You will use your get out of
jail free card this time around.”

Eric stood and made to run away. Jasper
grabbed him by the back of the neck and sat him back down
roughly.

“I’m not sure running is such a good
idea, Eric.” Bruce shook his head. “You see, I happen to know that
my friend, here, is extremely experienced with knives.” He turned
to Jasper. “Maybe Eric would like a demonstration of what might
happen should he try to run away before we were done with him.
Eric? Do you see that bag of flour by the far wall?”

I was sure Eric’s eyes were going to
pop out of their sockets.

“Imagine that bag of flour is
you.”

Jasper followed Bruce’s lead, tossed
the knife in the air a few times to get used to the weight of it
then threw it at the bag of flour. The knife slid into the bag
noiselessly right to the hilt.

Bruce pushed Eric’s chair back against
the desk and brought the knife down where it stuck into the wood by
the teen’s shoulder with a thump. Eric stared at it and his lip
started to tremble.

Jasper stood him up roughly, a smaller
knife already in his hand. He pressed it against the teen’s
throat.

“Oh, god, please! I’ll never do it
again! I promise!” Eric’s words were hard to hear between his sobs.
I was actually starting to feel bad for the guy.

“What do you think, Bruce?” Jasper
looked over the teen’s head and smiled, his blue eyes full of
amusement.

Bruce chewed on his lip thoughtfully.
Eric looked at him pleadingly, tears running down his
face.

“Ok.” Bruce nodded. “Eric, run along
home.”

Jasper pulled the knife away from his
throat and untied his hands. “I think you owe Hayden an
apology.”

Eric wiped his arm over his face. “I’m
sorry. I wasn’t going to hurt you. They dared me I wouldn’t do
it.”

“How old are you, Eric?”

“Sixteen.” He turned his attention to
Bruce. “Sorry.”

Bruce patted his shoulder. “Everyone
makes stupid decisions. Make sure you learned something from this
one.”

Eric nodded. “I did. Quite a few,
actually.” His eyes met Jasper’s. “How did you do that? With the
knife?”

“I’ve had a lot of practice.” Though he
kept his face serious enough I could see the smile glinting in his
eyes.”

Eric stood in front of us awkwardly,
looking at the ground. “Can I go now?”

Bruce nodded. “You can.”

I waited until he was out of the
restaurant before I started to laugh. “Oh, god, that poor kid!” I
shook my head. “You guys are mean.”

Jasper smiled. “Mean? The boy had a
knife to your throat, Shlova. He’s lucky I didn’t kill
him.”

“Had we been back home, he wouldn’t
have walked out of here.” Bruce shook his head.

Madge gave him a pat on the cheek
before turning back to my wings, which were almost ready. “We were
told we can go back now that Hayden has found her way home. You’re
the one who insisted on staying.”

He smiled. “What can I say? After
twenty years, it’s hard to leave this place.”

“You’re Wedelves, aren’t you? Tara told
me there were other Wedelven guards sent to watch over
me!”

The two of them nodded.

“Anyone else?”

“No one knows who the others are.”
Bruce grinned. “Top secret, you know.”

I laughed.

“How did you know I had just crossed?”
asked Jasper.

He shrugged. “I can pick out a shifter
from human. There are small hints to watch for. The eyes are the
most important. There aren’t that many humans out there that need
to hide the amount of pain you guys have to go through.” He went to
the front door and put up the ‘closed’ sign. “Do you guys have a
few minutes to catch us up on everything?” He smiled at our
nod.

Madge brought over the wings and waved
away my money. “It’s on the house tonight, dear.”

The four of us sat and talked until the
small hours of the morning.

*****

It was midsummer and the weather was
beautiful. Jasper and I were sitting by the horse trailer, watching
the two horses I had brought to the horse show. The grey shook his
head lazily to get rid of some flies and the bay blew out of her
nose.

“What time is the first class again?”
Jasper pulled off his baseball cap, ran a hand through his hair,
and put the hat back on.

“Ten.” I looked at my watch. “We’d
better warm these guys up.”

We saddled the horses and led them to
the ring. I swung onto the grey and watched as Jasper hopped onto
the bay. He pulled the horse’s head around and had her moving
nicely off of his leg. Due to his experience on horseback and his
catlike balance, it had taken no time at all before he had caught
on to the style of riding required for reining.

“Are you sure you don’t want to ride
the bay in one of the classes?” I pulled slightly on the reins and
asked the grey to give me his head.

“No. I’ll just watch. Carl is paying
you to ride these two, not me.” He looked at me and smiled.
“Besides, she slides better for you.”

I looked around the ring at my
competition. “Well, here’s hoping it will be enough. There’re some
nice moving horses here today.” I glanced toward the concession
stands for Shawn and Shay. My heart jumped in my chest.

“What’s wrong?” Jasper followed my
gaze.

I frowned. “I…I’m being paranoid. It’s
nothing. I thought I saw Dave standing over there.”

“He’d better hope he’s not dumb enough
to show his face around you again.” Jasper’s jaw clenched and I
knew he was remembering how he had crossed over and found Dave
trying to rape me. The bay sensed his change of mood and
tensed.

“Jasper, breathe. You’re making Tika
nervous.”

I saw him relax and Tika followed
suit.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I’ll ask you to
please exit the ring. Those of you in the open class, please make
your way to the holding pen.”

We rode the horses to where the other
riders and their mounts were starting to congregate.

“If you do see him, don’t do anything.”
I glanced at Jasper to see his reaction. “You can’t just beat the
crap out of people here; you’ll get thrown in jail. Understood?” We
had already gone over what was and was not acceptable behavior
here, but I thought I had better remind him just in
case.

He nodded. “You should have just let me
kill him when I had the chance.”

“Maybe.” We watched as three riders
took their horses through the pattern.

“Next up, number fifty-six, Hayden
Carlson riding Poco Shadows Prince.” I nudged Shade with my legs
and proceeded to enter the ring.

“Good luck, Shlova.” Jasper
smiled.

And good luck we were having. Shade ran
through the pattern with very few faults and ended the production
with a slide that took my breath away. We made our way back to the
holding pen.