Broken Past, Good Path

It is never the same

                Noah Walstead stood in his new clothing, feeling like a whole new person since that morning. His wound was cleaned up and forgotten about except for a small limp that changed the way he walked. The world he had been living in had flipped so suddenly that for once there was more on his mind than Morgan Dylan. It was rather on the subject of protecting what he cared for and to do that he would have to go away for a short time. Still, as he stood in the doorway of the kitchen, staring at Ryland, Jax, Bradley, and finally Morgan, he felt a sense of losing reality. He no longer appeared to be the most important person in Morgan’s life. He tried to tell himself it was for the better.

                “Are you telling ghost stories? Your faces are appalling!” Olivia chimed in next to him. She had also cleaned up, sporting fresh clothing while the sling for her arm remained the same. Noah remained still as Olivia moved towards the table. The table shifted, allowing Olivia to sit with them with a few questions asking how she was.

                “Noah,” Morgan stood, capturing Noah’s attention with a glint of sadness in her eyes. He paused for a moment, putting on a smile before walking over to her.

                “You look like you are feeling better,” Noah patted her shoulder. She smiled with a sniffle.

                “I am ok, as long as you are ok… I was just telling everyone about our escape in our senior year of high school,” Morgan informed him.

                “Noah was with you?” Bradley’s voice echoed across the table with unsure anger.

                “I was,” Noah responded defensively. The charge of static electricity built up inside the large room between the two men. The silence grew louder and still the two men stared at each other, both with angry expressions written on their faces. Why does he want to know that? Noah pondered. Can I really trust Morgan with him?

                “Dinner is ready!” A domineering lady’s voice broke the silence and the static electricity between the two men. They all turned to find a lady trailed by two servants coming through a door behind the kitchen, all of them carrying a dish in each hand. All six of them licked their lips as their mouths watered at the sight and smell of the food.

                “Alexandra!” Morgan leaped off of the bench, meeting the domineering lady halfway. Noah looked between the two women with curiosity. They looked similar in the way they behaved and dressed. “What are you doing here?” Morgan asked the woman once they convened in between the kitchen and the dining table.

                “My lady! You look so grown! The master sent me here saying I would be more useful. How right he was!” Alexandra answered, her facial features unchanging even though her voice sounded less domineering and more cheerful than it had previously. “Eat first and we will catch up later!” Alexandra walked past Morgan, set her dishes upon the table, and promptly disappeared back through the door in the kitchen.

                “An acquaintance of yours?” Noah asked Morgan as she returned to the table. Everyone was holding their breath, waiting for the answer to the question they all had wanted to ask.

                “More than that. She is the woman who raised me after my mom…” Morgan’s words trailed off leaving another awkward silence in its absence. Noah took a seat on the bench, patting the spot where Morgan had sat previously.

                “Let’s eat!”

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                Talking gave way to the clatter of silverware on china and the munching of delicious food. Shadows continued to grow in the dimly lit room as the sun sank beyond the horizon. Morgan Dylan ate swiftly at first, excited that she would be able to eat Alexandra’s food once more. However, as the meal continued, she slowed, knowing that it wouldn’t be much longer before Noah and Olivia would be whisked away. When the clanging of dishes slowed Morgan lifted her head and glanced at Noah from the corner of her eye. How long would it be till she got to see him or hear from him again? Even the question made Morgan fill with doubt, uncertainty, and anguish.

                “Excuse me,” Bradley stood, leaving the room without another word from the door behind the kitchen. No one else at the table stirred as they all picked at the leftover food on their plates.

                “Morgan. Stop staring at me, please,” Noah laughed and continued to eat of his plate. Morgan turned away, feeling the heat rise to her cheeks.

                “The transportation has arrived for Mr. Walstead and Miss Hodgens,” A man that Morgan had not met announced from the doorway to the hall. Morgan gasped and grabbed onto Noah’s hand tightly with her own.

                “Listen to me, Morgan. I will see you again soon! I am still your best friend! Just promise me you will abide by the rules while I am gone! Please,” Noah turned to her, closing his own hand around hers. Morgan nodded, refusing to let her tears fall. In unison, everyone stood, following the man through the hall back to the glass cubicles. The unknown man left first followed closely by Jax and Ryland. That left Morgan, Olivia, and Noah standing by the exit.

                “Come back safely!” Morgan wrapped her arms around Noah, letting the barrier she had built up around herself fall like broken glass. Tears welled up inside of her, flooding her vision, and spilling down her cheeks onto Noah’s shirt.

                “I will! Make sure you are wearing sunglasses when I come back! I may blind you with my physique,” Noah joked, sadness in his voice as he spoke. Morgan hid her face into his chest briefly. She forced herself to break away from the hug, hiding her face behind her hands instead. She let a distance grow between her and Olivia and Noah before she followed them through the smaller house in the front. She sobbed as she watched them exit the house completely. She stopped in front of the front door, looking out of the glass and through her blurred vision from her tears. Noah and Olivia walked directly to a sleek black Audi S4. Morgan watched closely as Noah disappeared into the back seat of the car. Insecurity transformed the normal, strong way she held herself into a pile of mush as she collapsed onto the floor, letting her final barriers tear down. The tears and questions washed over her, haunting her. Everything had been her own fault yet she couldn’t shake off the emptiness that invaded her already empty soul.

                “That is enough my dear,” Alexandra whispered into her ear and pulled her into her embrace. Two warm hands grasped her and pulled her up. Morgan nestled her head onto the woman’s neck, continuing to sob. “Let’s get you into bed, warmed up with some tea, hmm?” Alexandra coaxed her away from the door. Through her tears and sobs that racked her entire body, Morgan made out another figure by her side. His face was worn with pity. Morgan closed her eyes. She did not want to believe that there was a side of Bradley that could be warm and kind, even as her heart skipped another beat.

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                Olivia Hodgens lingered by the door of the car, looking back in the direction of the front door. So many things had happened in so little time and now she was even facing a secondhand emotional burnout between Noah and Morgan’s feelings. Even though she felt pity for the two, she was rather looking forward to getting away for a while. She lowered herself into the backseat of the car, glancing at Noah in the process. His eyes grew increasingly restless behind invisible caged bars as the car lurched forward. Lines began to crease the side of his eyes making him looked older. Olivia turned her eyes away from him, nestling herself into the back of the seat. From the two occupants in the front of the seat and two behind, not a sound was muttered, filling the car's contents with lonesome dread. This wouldn’t do, Olivia thought. She hated silence, which was part of the reason why she ended up doing so much talking.

                “It will get easier!” Olivia blurted, turning to Noah once more. “Eventually.”

                “You have a way to talk to Bradley?” Noah ignored her concern, asking another unexpected question. She nodded, pulled out a radio, and pressed the talk button.

                “Leader, come in,” Olivia spoke into the receiver, eyeing Noah suspiciously.

                “Leader here. Go ahead, Lady in Pink,” Bradley’s voice came through.

                “Noah would like a word.”

                “Put him through.”

                Olivia handed Noah the radio, watched him grasp it awkwardly for a moment, and then with more confidence.

                “Bradley… How is Morgan?”

                “How you would expect her to feel, I expect. Alexandra is comforting her now.”

                “That is good… Listen, I know you have no reason to do this but… don’t let Morgan be alone too often… listen to her when you can and try to give her as much freedom as possible.”

                Olivia struggled to watch Noah give up his thoughts to Bradley on how to make Morgan happy. She could sense the hate building up in the man beside her as he was torn farther apart from the person he loved. She turned her eyes out her window, wishing that she could be the one to hide those feelings from him. The darkness outside loomed ever darker as they drove through the countryside. So absent of light or warmth it felt like they were crawling into a cave blocked off from human contact or falling into a black pit so deep that you could no longer see which way was up or which way was down. Until a pair of headlights cut through the night sky, angled in their direction. They continued to grow bigger and brighter the longer that Olivia continued to stare.

                “Noah!” Olivia’s panicked voice cut across the near inky blackness of the backseat and cutting off the conversation that Noah was holding with her leader. Her warning had come too late. The pair of headlights disappeared into the backside of their car with a scrape of metal followed by sounds of metal twisting and bending unnaturally. Olivia let out a loud cry, her voice overpowering Bradley’s voice through the radio. The car continued to rock, the driver working hard to keep it in control.

                “What is going on?” Bradley’s voice echoed through the car as the headlights of the other car gained speed once more. Olivia dug her fingernails into the side of the door, trying her best to control the nerves that were threatening to overrun her thoughts.

                “Another car is attacking us… out of nowhere… It’s going to hit us again!” Noah’s voice made its way through to Olivia in spurts as her eyes focused on the car that was now parallel with them. “Get away from the window!” Noah shouted and pulled Olivia away from the door as the car swerved violently against the side that Olivia had just been leaning against. Olivia closed her eyes tightly, her ears picking up the sound of broken glass along with her own loud screams. Her body rocked unstably on the seat at first. As time went on, she was whipped back and forth. She tumbled over with the grinding of metal on concrete and rough ground. She continued to scream as her body continued to roll and roughly slam from her front to her back several times, with the screeching of metal and more breaking glass falling in and around her. Even after everything became still, Olivia kept her eyes shut for a very long time, assessing her own condition in her mind. She could feel a few aches and some severe bruising in some areas of her body. A few scratches stung but she would survive. Slowly. Very slowly, she opened her eyes. She couldn’t see anything at first as it was all a blur. However, as time passed and her eyes adjusted, she was able to take in every shard of broken glass, the metal that was twisted in a horrific statue of the event they had just been through. At last, her eyes landed on the unmoving form twisted unnaturally on top of her.

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                For the past week, Morgan Dylan had barely left her room, or for that matter, her bed. Except to eat the daily three meals, she had no reason to leave. Alexandra came by when she was free. They would talk pleasantly about what they had been up to since Morgan’s departure for college, making sure to not breach on the subject of Noah for even a moment. She had cried and sat aimlessly for seven days straight since Noah had left. But today was going to be different, Morgan told herself, as she rang out her hair from the shower she had just finished taking. If she moped and pitied herself, the time was only going to go by much slower.

                Morgan left much earlier for breakfast than any day previously, taking her time to explore and get familiar with her still relatively new living arrangements. Eventually, she ended in the large living room. She continued to explore the area finding books strewn about the place along with weird contraptions attached to the TV with wires. She glided past the dining room table, ignoring the pain that stabbed through her of her last memories of that spot. Morgan continued to the kitchen to the door on the other side. She opened it just enough to poke her head in. Another fully upgraded kitchen stood spotlessly behind the door, with the exception of the number of people that filled the room. Servants and cooks ran around with purpose through the large area, unaware of her looking in on them.

                “Morgan!” A deep voice called her name from behind, startling her into an upright position. She backed out of the doorway, letting the door snap shut. She slowly lifted her blue eyes to find Bradley standing with her in the kitchen. His hair looked as though he had just gotten out of bed, even though his baggy eyes said otherwise. Morgan had only seen him at breakfast for the past couple of days, not that she was complaining.

                “You look terrible. Maybe you should go back to bed…” Morgan smiled, putting a hand back on the door. Bradley shifted easily, putting one of his own hands on the door to prevent her from opening it.

                “Morgan… there is something I must tell you…”