I felt nauseous. I felt like puking. Even though the journey to the pack had barely lasted one minute, I felt like disgorging the contents of my stomach from my mouth. My throat was scratchy too.
First time perks I thought, from teleporting.
One second I was holding hands with Diana on one side, and Laura on the other side, connected to the hands of the other party troopers-we were all holding our hands together like a cult would-while the queen stood in the center of the circle and chanted things that I had known nothing about; and the next minute we were here.
The queen; she had been looking ethereal in her white gown which had gone past her ankles, and even shoes. She had worn a white mask too; a white mask that had enhanced the mystery that shrouded her. She hadn’t looked human; she had looked like an angel.
I had seen her sons too, and her daughter. Handsome fellows if I would admit, but I looked nothing as I felt; just blank. I guessed they felt the same as our eyes had connected one time. I had assumed then that their mother had briefed them about her findings and thoughts about me.
“Breathe Maya..” That was Laura. She was still holding my hands. She looked at Diana, but the latter shrugged. I knew she was asking Diana about the drugs.
“I am with it. She gave the bottle to me before we had left the house. You don’t have to worry about me, I will be fine.” I said, smiling a little, subduing the bile that was threatening to spew forth. A smile that dried up as quickly as it came when I beheld the area where we had landed in the pack. It was the borderlines, at the exact spot where I had been left for death.
Why hadn’t I thought of that? I wondered, aware now that my hands were beginning to shake.
“Maya, breathe.” Laura whispered, not wanting the queen to be aware of my situation. But it was too late already, I thought as my eyes connected with the queen’s. She knew.
There was a knowing in her eyes. She knew why I was shaking, she knew I was from this pack. She just wasn’t sure what trauma would make me as miserable as this.
Ignoring her wandering and curious gaze as she told the others to move on toward the hall scheduled for the party, I put my hand into the sling purse to retrieve the bottle. Due to my shaking hands, however, I couldn’t even get a firm grip on the bottle, and it slipped from my hand and fell to the barren dry ground.
Breathe Maya. Breathe Maya. I kept chanting, struggling to follow through with my words, grateful when Diana bent and picked the bottle.
“Here, Maya, take a pill. You will be fine. You are strong. You can do this.” She vocalized, opening the bottle, and taking out a pill, before putting back the bottle in her own purse.
Seeing that my hands had become unsteady when my triggers had started, she must have considered better to hold the bottle herself.
Well, she was right in her calculations.
I took the pill from her hand, and slotted it in my mouth, aware of the queen approaching us now.
Peter sighed, taking a defensive stance, behind his wife. I almost smiled. It looked hilarious. Was the queen coming to fight? She was just going to ask questions.
“What’s wrong with her? Why the pills?” Queen Aliana asked, as she got closer to us.
We were the only people in that dark vicinity. It was still as barren as I remembered it to be. I noticed that the panic attack was beginning to subside. I could breathe properly now, and this time, there were no tears. Good. My make up needed to stay intact.
“She experiences panic attacks sometimes, but she will be fine.” Laura answered, taking her lips in for a moment. We stood still as the queen appraised her reply, appraised us, probably our auras, to gauge if we were lying.
“So, this pack is a trigger.” It was a statement, not a question. The woman knew what she was talking about.
“This is where she is from? But she has no wolf. Was this where you had picked her from?” She made the conclusion, a right one as expected, before throwing the question to Peter. She must have forgotten to ask him all this while, or rather Peter had been avoiding her since that fateful day at her office, trying to avoid the question.
“Yes…” He answered resignedly, his head a bit bowed. That was when I remembered that it was a punishable offense to look at the queen for long in her eyes, as I had been looking now, so I bowed my head a bit. I refused to put my family in trouble.
This act seemed to please her as she murmured. “It is good that you are learning fast.”
If the others heard her, they didn’t show any indication. The only indication I showed was the twitching of my toes placed in my sandal heels.
“I see. Have any of her memories surface?” She asked, sneaking a peek at her behind. Her daughter was there now.
I didn’t know when the girl had arrived, but risking a sneak peak, I saw the queen asking the girl to wait at a farther distance. The girl wasn’t pleased with being put away.
She behaved like Diana. She pouted her lips, stamped her foot on the ground before walking away, not sparing us a glance. Her attention had been on her mother all this time.
After her daughter left, the queen repeated her question, furrowing her eyebrows the next second, when Laura shook her head.
“No, my queen. No memories yet. But I believe we are making progress.”
The queen nodded her head, but I knew somehow that she was checking Laura’s aura to know if the woman was lying. When she was satisfied that Laura had been telling the truth to the best of her knowledge, she glanced at me then. I could feel her gaze right on me.
Her mouth moved like she wanted to speak, but she thought better of it and kept mute, letting out a breath before turning around, and moving in the direction that her daughter had taken, obviously expecting us to follow behind.
As we walked behind her-at a good pace though-I was glad that I hadn’t told Laura the truth about my memories. If I had, she would have had difficulty hiding it from the queen.
Perhaps, this was the reason why I hadn’t been able to tell her; not because I didn’t trust her, but because I didn’t trust the queen.