Chapter Eighty-Four
Fiona’s POV:
“But it’s not like you think, I dreamt about Eleanor and James. I think they’re in danger.”
I take a deep breath and continue, “You need to help me, you need to help them.”
He says something but stops to look into my eyes.
“Have you tried their numbers?” he asks.
I facepalm, slightly embarrassed at forgetting to do what should have been my first action.
Tristan shakes his head at me, a little amused, and inclines his head towards the top of the stairs.
We walk up and into the room together with Tristan stretching his head in the left direction and pressing his fingers into the right slope of his neck.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I must have slept in the wrong posture,” he replies, his face contorted slightly from the pain and effort of trying to straighten the crick in his neck.
I touch his neck before I realize it and withdraw it, feeling my face warm up. Thankfully, he notices neither of my slips and the dark covers my slight blush.
I open the door to the room, and he walks in after me. By the side of the pillow, my phone is beeping rapidly, and I rush towards it, thinking it’s a message from either of my best friends but then I hiss upon checking the notification.
“What is it?” Tristan asks with a raised brow.
“Spam,” I reply. The message was from the Quake Foundation, an NGO I’m sure must have been started up by a nuthead.
I remember and chuckle slightly to myself as I pull up Eleanor’s number, my flash of humor disappearing as quickly as it came as I remember the way she had screamed in terror in my dream when that creature had grabbed her.
The little calm I’ve summoned begins to evaporate as the dialing continues without end and Eleanor doesn’t pick up. I end the call and send her a quick text. Call me as soon as you see this.
I dial once more before finally hanging up and switching to trying Gold instead. It rings once, twice but he doesn’t pick up.
I get his voicemail: Hey, you’ve reached Gold’s phone. Leave me a love message. I decided to leave a message.
“Hey James, call me back ASAP.” Then I switch to text and send him a text of the same wordings by now, Tristan is standing next to me.
He looks at me, a question in his eyes and I shake my head in response, feeling my initial fear and anxiety rushing back.
Sensing the switch in my mood, he puts a hand on my shoulder and pats me for reassurance. “Maybe they’re asleep?”
I fear that it’s unlikely, but I know I have to listen to reason. I sigh once and go back to my phone.
I pulled up our WhatsApp group chat and I noticed a new message there. It’s from Eleanor at 3 am.
“Hey Fiona, are you okay? Can’t sleep over here.” I smile at this and turn the phone up to show Tristan the message and he in tune looks visibly relieved before giving me a playful “I told you, so look.”
I start to type a response then stop suddenly, coming to a scary realization. I quickly messaged her back, “Yeah, where are you?” the message ticks once, then twice.
I start biting my fingernails, wishing for the blue tick and that clicking sound that would mean a response is coming.
When I wait for about a minute and don’t get one, I turn to Tristan again.
“She’s not replying.”
“Maybe she was finally able to sleep?” he says, shrugging. I shake my head.
“You don’t understand. She sent me that message by 4:30 am, I called her by 4:45 am,” I say, pulling up my phone app and showing him the time.
“Her last seen here is 4:40. She couldn’t have fallen asleep within that time. I know her well.”
I start to pace the room. “Even James never leaves his phone on silent or vibrate. He would have heard the call or message I sent,” I stop abruptly and turn to Tristan again.
“I need to go to their place.”
He sighs and rubs his hand over his face. “It’s okay, you can go back to bed. I don’t want to bother you any further,” I say with false confidence.
I’m terrified to go anywhere after that thing we saw the other day and the dreams I have only terrified me further.
He shakes his head at this. “Do you honestly think I would be able to live with myself if something happened to you? I’ll get my shirt.”
He walks out at this, leaving me a blushing mess again. I go around and get dressed appropriately for going out while constantly reprimanding myself.
“He said that about guarding you as part of his duty, you idiot, I muttered to myself while shoving on my shoes. This makes me remember my weird wound and I make a mental note to ask Tristan or one of the others later.
I need to know more about everything, as much as possible to be able to prepare and protect myself.
I hurry downstairs at this, not wanting to keep Tristan waiting. As we walk out and shut the door as carefully as possible, so we don’t wake Veronica who was only able to catch some sleep around 12. We had to give her a relaxing drink before she could finally fall asleep.
Eleanor’s POV
I run my hands over my arm as if trying to pat down the goose bumps that had risen on my skin.
I don’t know what had come over me, actually; for me to leave the house without warm clothing but I had been so desperate to leave the house that it had felt like something was clawing at my throat, wanting to claw its way out.
I almost thought I had been caught when I saw James’ stir as I walked towards the door.