Crywolf - Rising, Rising

The next weeks at the Vault began to run together. I had my lessons, trained on my own, and tried to avoid sleep as much as possible. I ignored my headaches as often as I could, and called on Angel names when I couldn't, which soon became daily. Before long I couldn't even remember what it felt like to not have at least a bit of Heaven's power coursing through me, dampening the pounding in my head.

I asked Abby if there was anything he could do to help my dreams, my mind, but he had looked genuinely sorry as he shook his head. He said he couldn't take away Angel gifts any more than he could give them. I knew that would be the answer, but I still had to ask. I was desperate to be able to rest, be able to sleep without waking in terror, in a panic until I realized it wasn't real. Each morning I woke wondering if I had just had a vision or a prophecy, if the atrocity I had just witnessed would actually come to pass.

Danny said I would know when it was more than a dream, but I doubted everything he said. I didn't trust him and found any excuse I could to avoid my sessions with him as often as I could. I even admitted to Ailech how bad my headache was once just to get out of his tutoring. Ailech made a fuss over me for the next three days though, making me never pull a stunt like that again. I downplayed my headaches ever since.

Even Abby asked about them on occasion, but the last thing I wanted was to be given a sick day and have to stay in bed desperately trying to not fall asleep or let my mind wander instead of training. When I was alone was when my mind underwent the worst attacks, when my past flared up in me, making every breath hurt, every thought burn. I'd rather deal with my headache and be able to train than have to deal with my emotions alone in my room.

Abby usually joined in my meetings with Grayson, and my Sight got stronger each time I sent it out, something I was proud of even if Grayson refused to admit I was learning as quickly as his star student had. I was getting slightly better at being silent too, at planning each step before I made it, each movement, at running through my options faster.

My shields got better, and I found myself liking Zodi more and more, her compliments bolstered my mood every time she gave one. Her lessons were always interesting, and though I still hated when we worked with guns, I was getting better at controlling my anxiety around them.

Parish and Prey still always tired me out, which was a blessing and a curse. I usually had to call on at least two Angel names after our sessions just so I could have the chance of being able to fight sleep until morning. I could tell I was getting faster, calculating their moves sooner, deciding with better accuracy what hits I should take, what ones I should avoid, how to block more efficiently, using less energy while taking the least injuries. Sometimes my body moved without my mind even telling it to, sometimes I reminded myself of how graceful James looked when he would spar with Kael and Nevaeh, like he was using each movement to the fullest advantage.

Cordelia's lesson's never seemed to get better, I never saw improvement, though she promised me I was doing well, that I was able to undergo more with each meeting, it all seemed the same to me, it all seemed like torture. Every thirty minutes felt just as terrible as the one before, each lesson just as hopeless. Her notes showed that I was able to stay silent longer, stay still, and she assured me she was able to add levels without adverse effects, but I didn't feel any satisfaction at her words.

She apologized before each session with me, even after I told her she didn't have to. I knew she didn't enjoy our practice, didn't even enjoy her gift. She quietly cried almost every time, though I never said anything about it. I didn't dislike her like I did Grayson and Danny, but I didn't look forward to our times together like I did with Zodi or Katz or Levi, or even Parish and Prey.

Katz and Levi were my favorite lessons, Katz because she made me feel so at ease and Levi because he was impossible to not like. Soon he was as much my brother as Ailech was his, soon I smiled whenever I saw him, a real smile, and it came easily. He was the only person I smiled with.

There were many times I wished my block would come along faster, just so he wouldn't have to hear my worries, see my dreams and burdens. Sometimes I wondered how someone so young could see the horrors that were in my mind and past and not be terrified of me, scared to be around me, but he never shied away from me. My lessons with him often included Ailech, and though my block was 'puny' as he worded it, at least I had the beginnings to one, a real one.

The opposite was becoming stronger too; my own Gift. Katz was a great teacher and soon I could get through many of the Vault's charges' blocks, though Katz and Ailech's minds were still silent to me. I never tried my Gift on Abby, it seemed disrespectful, and I assumed his was still too strong for me.

I often felt like I was where I should be, like I was meant to be at the Vault, though I was still frustrated that I didn't know any more than I had at my arrival. For all Abby's schedule had taught me, and for all our meetings, he still didn't tell me the prophecy about my Pair and I, or anything about the Collector or the war or even True Pairs. I was surprised his secrecy didn't upset me more, but I begrudgingly trusted him, and there was nothing I could do to make him tell my anyway, so I stopped asking, opting for patience instead of persistence.

I started a dream journal at Danny's prompting, but I never wrote in the one he gave me, I wrote in my own instead, one I kept in my room, secret from even Ailech. Secret from everyone except Levi. We had no secrets with each other, we couldn't. Levi would often pick through my dreams with me, trying to find whatever positive pieces he could. He tried to point out reasons they weren't real too, things that didn't make sense and though it never helped, I was grateful for his efforts. It amazed me how young yet intelligent he was, how he could so clearly be a child, underdeveloped in many ways, but still be able to see things I couldn't.

One lesson with him shocked me, pulling at my heart and making my fear for his safety double.

I tell people you're my sister, you know, just like Ailech's my brother. I like having a family.

I like having you as my little bro too, Lee.

Do you love me? Ailech says you do, but a bunch of minds here say Halflings can't love, and I can't tell by your mind, or I think I can, but then...I don't know. Maybe you love differently than we do.

I remember pausing, not because I didn't know my answer, but because my answer scared me. I had loved very few people in my life, and adding Levi to that short list worried me. My love had never been good for anyone, it had never even been good for myself. I wouldn't survive if I was responsible for the little boy's death. I wouldn't even want to live. Levi's thoughts drifted into my mind before I could answer him.

I know you're afraid for me. You don't want to love me for my own protection, and you don't protect people you don't love, so in a way you trying to not love me is you loving me. Thanks, sis. I love you too. Even if the bad man got me because of you, I think it's worth it, having you as a sister. I think family is worth the worst of things. I love my family.

That was the day I realized I did love him and I would protect him as fiercely as if he really was my little brother. I wouldn't let anyone hurt him, ever. Hell itself could come for him and I would stop it. I knew Ailech felt the same. Sometimes I felt like Levi's mother, talking with Ailech about him as if he was his father, he even teased me about it on occasion.

It worried me how fond of them I was becoming, but I tried to push those feelings away. I wasn't putting anyone in danger who wasn't already a target. I wasn't making the same mistake I had with Chi's Clan, putting people in a war they were never meant to be a part of. I still dreamt of them often, of Chi and Spade and the twins. I dreamt of Syn the most though, and I woke with tears on my cheeks each time.

I tried to avoid telling Danny my dreams, but I broke my rule one time, when I had two dreams in the same night that seemed too similar to ignore, though they hadn't felt like anything more than nightmares.

The first started like many others, I was running from someone, something dark, and I knew it was going to kill me. Suddenly the evil chasing me was a faceless man. I thought I had won, though I didn't feel any joy. I thought I had killed him, separated his head from his body. I saw his blood pouring out, his spine shattered, strings of flesh and gore hanging from his neck. But then he was back, alive again and I knew I couldn't beat him. How can you beat something that can't die?

I knew the evil wanted to use me, to control me. He would torture me until I broke, until he could mold me into a weapon. I had no other options, I knew what I had to do.

There was a lake not far off and I knew that would be my salvation, my solution. I ran for it, pulling my knife as I approached, still slick with the faceless man's blood. I prayed that my plan would work, that I would die fast enough as I pulled the knife up my arm, cutting from wrist to elbow, digging the blade into the soft spots on the insides of my arms before crossing my wrists and diving into the water. I could feel the blood leaving me, pouring from my veins, the burn of sharp pain turning to cold, the water helping my blood run faster, red all around me. I wouldn't be used as a weapon, I would rather die.

The second dream started right as the first blurred away, right as I should have died. I was running from a heavily guarded complex, a woman yelled for me to be stopped. I had escaped, but I knew I wouldn't make it far, there were too many people, and my body wouldn't move like it should, wouldn't run as fast as I knew it could.

They were going to twist me, to warp my power into something disgusting, into something that would hurt so many, kill so many. I couldn't let that happen. I would never let her use me, but I had no weapon, I had no way to defend myself. I didn't even have a way to kill myself. But then I saw a greenish swampy lake, half frozen over at the bottom of the hill the complex sat on, partially cut down trees and forest debris covering the slope down to it.

I looked back at the woman just once, a smile on her face as she thought I was trapped, as she thought she had won. Then I ran, tumbling down through the brush at times, leaping over broken trees others. I dove into the icy water, forcing myself under, moving as quickly as my frozen muscles could. I was trapped under the ice within moments. I remember looking up, seeing the greenish water and the sky beyond it through the ice, and then I breathed, opened my lungs and pulled the frigid water into me, willing myself to die so I wouldn't live to see what I'd become.

I had woken up gasping, clutching at my chest, terrified that my deepest horror, the only way of dying I truly feared was coming true. I remembered my response when James had grabbed my neck in training, when he learned I was an Air, that I panicked when I couldn't breathe, when I couldn't feel my Sign in me. I didn't want to die that way, but if it came down to being captured or stealing the air from my own lungs, I knew which I would choose. I wouldn't be a weapon for the Collector, for anyone, ever again.

Once I had calmed myself, reassuring myself that it had only been a dream, my first dream came to mind, just as detailed as if it had been real, as if I had actually experienced it. I wrote both dreams, and asked Danny about them in our next meeting. Unfortunately, he had offered little more than I already knew, that I didn't want to be used by anyone, that I didn't want my power and gift perverted, and that I didn't like water much. His lessons were often disappointing.

Ailech had been more helpful, as was Levi. They both agreed that they were just dreams, that they didn't mean anything beyond that I was scared, that I was determined to not be used, that I would never give in.

They didn't focus on my terror at drowning, but instead on the common factor; the lake. Ailech thought the water represented cleansing, forgiveness. Levi thought it represented steadfastness or courage. Both agreed that my willingness to drown myself, to die in a way I was afraid of, only showed even more how determined I was, how I would never bend to the Collector.

They said my dreams should be looked at as good, as encouraging. I wished I agreed more.