The Lost Girl... (Faith, Hope and Tranquillity #1)

CHAPTER 19

Silvers POV

She had rung me about 6 times now, but I couldn’t answer. How could I? After what I had just witnessed? I headed back to our apartment and walked quickly towards my room. Tears were threatening to pour out. How could it have gotten this bad, right under our noses. We needed answers and fast.

“Wooooah!” I heard as I nearly bumped into Voronwe. She looked at me worried, as I tried to push past her. She grabbed my arm. “Celeb?” That was all it took. I broke down, no tears were falling but I knew I was heading towards a panic attack. Id failed her… How could I be so blind. Voronwe shouted for the others and steered me towards the nearest chair which was one of the bar stools by the kitchen counters. “What happened?” She asked as the others joined us. I couldn’t speak, I was trying to catch my breath and stop the sobs that were threatening to leave me.

“Sere…” Estel suddenly jumped up, her overprotectiveness annoyed me sometimes.

“What about her? What did you do?” I glared at her, she always assumes I’ve done something stupid even though I’m older than her and nearly a king! I could feel my self-control slipping as my fingertips became icy cold. I took a deep breath and calmed down, willing the tears and ice away.

“Sere, she’s half taken over already…” Everyone gasped in shock. No one said a word. Estel was starting to tear up and Voronwe was just staring at me with her mouth agape. Alda looked thoughtful but hurt.

“What do you mean?!” Morna asked when no one else did.

“When I called to check on her, she answered the door and attempted to communicate with me in the same way she did in the dream, I told you about that Estel.” Estel nodded. “Only when she did, she doubled over in pain again. When she finally made eye contact with me her entire left eye was black…” I stopped.

The words failed me. I couldn’t believe she had this much dark energy in her already. We needed to do something and fast and now I knew who the culprit was. He had been extremely good at hiding himself right under our noses. Suddenly my phone vibrated with a text. Reading it made me extremely curious, but I would worry about that later. She said she loved me. That was all that mattered.

“David is behind this.” I said confidently. Everyone was looking at me. Estel had her mouth wide open, Alda noticed me looking at her and turned, closing her mouth which caused her to start breathing again, gulping loudly.

“David? He’s just a human.” She looked at me, hard. Then when she noticed I wasn’t changing my facial expression she stuttered. “Isn’t he?” I shook my head. “But you said we hadn’t come across anyone otherworldly, or even not human, you’ve been learning how to notice disguises… How?”

“He’s been extremely careful, I only noticed today because he let his guard down worrying about Sere. I don’t know how I didn’t see it before. He has been hiding right in front of us all this time, and it makes sense that it was him who stole her…” I knew what I needed to do. “I need to contact father and possibly your father Voronwe, we need answers and help on how to deal with this. I don’t know why he would do something this bad to Sere.”

“Why? Who the hell is he?” Estel said crossing her arms in anger.

“Dae…”

Lily’s POV

He wasn’t answering my calls, I needed to know what was wrong. Why wasn’t he answering? What did he see? I stopped walking backwards and forwards and stood in the middle of my apartment, I turned very slowly and tried to think what could have worried him besides David being here. Absolutely nothing was out of place or looked remotely strange. My head hurt more, probably from stress this time more than the dreams though. I decided to type out a text instead.

I’m sorry about that, I know David being here makes you jealous, but he’s made some accusations and told me some things about my past that makes me think I might be in more danger than you think. He is a good man and looking out for me, I’ve known him 5 years.

I sighed not knowing how to finish the text.

I love Celeb, and only Celeb, but like you said, I need to figure this out on my own. If you saw something worrying, please tell me, I want to help. Please!

There, if he was Celeb, he would know I love him but if he really is Dae he will know I love Celeb but that I’ve not figured him out yet. I hoped anyway. The problem is, I don’t believe Silver is Dae, something just felt right being around Silver. It wasn’t the bad boy aura or the bike, it wasn’t even the piercing good looks. It was something else, a deeper connection and after all, I’ve seen the golden thread and shared memories with him. The more I think about it, the more I believe David is lying to me more and more. Should I talk to Silver about it? I bit my lip worried. Dae didn’t know I knew about the thread, but I’d had the memory and not told him. He also admitted to lying to me despite his good reasons behind it… He’s also never attempted to actually help me remember anything except for giving me the book… and that was only after I started sharing things with him. Had he secretly hoped I would never remember? Or was Silver right, and everyone was trying to get me to do this alone, so I wasn’t in danger.

I sighed heavily, a few hours had gone by and I still hadn’t received a reply from Silver. I decided it was time to take a nap, my head was killing, and I knew I needed to get up early for training with Estel. I smiled to myself pulling the covers up to my chin. I’d found family and I would be learning about my past and powers. Even with all the confusion of who was who, I did know that Estel and Voronwe were who they said they were. They weren’t lying. I fell asleep, smiling.

Oh brilliant! I thought as another dream started forming in my mind. Well at least it was hopefully another memory. I looked around hopeful that the adult Celeb would be around, but he wasn’t. I was looking at Sere who was crying sat on a swing.

“Sere?” A voice called. Sere wiped her eyes and looked in the direction of the voice. Despite trying to look a bit happier, it was blatantly obvious she had been crying and was upset.

“I’m over here Dae.” She answered, trying to plaster a smile on her swollen face.

“You’ve been crying, is everything ok?” Dae asked as he approached. This time Dae was showing as the silver haired boy again. This was extremely confusing. I shook my head hoping it would clear the vision, but it didn’t. I groaned so loud I was worried the memory might hear me but of course that was stupid.

“Yeah…” Sere looked at the ground, not wanting to make eye contact with the boy. Dae walked closer and put his fingers under her chin.

“So why are you upset?” Dae asked, confused. Sere shrugged and looked into his eyes. She sighed and started to tear up again. Dae shook his head in disbelief. “Really? Still? It’s been two months, Sere. I’m fine, honestly. Your mother and father have been extremely good to me, Voronwe and Estel are nice and you… you’re” He sighed, happily. “You’re amazing.” Sere looked up into Dae’s eyes.

“I know…they’re…good…” Sere sniffed. “But it’s still so awful! Who would kill your parents?” Sere all but stamped her feet. She was angry and sad. “I want to do something for you, for them, but everyone tells me I’m overreacting and you’ve moved on. But it hurts here.” She said pointing to her chest. “I feel like a part of me has died even though I didn’t know them. You’ve become like a brother to me now.” She started sobbing again. Dae walked over and put his arms around her, resting his head on the top of hers.

“How about we do some sort of remembrance for them?” Dae asked quietly. His eyes were full of a deep caring for the little girl.

“Really?” Sere wiped her eyes and seemed to cheer up some. She looked up at him as he smiled down at her sadly. “Will that be enough, they were powerful, loved and your parents. What should we do?”

“Well, I know how amazing you are at flowers… How about a small garden for them?” Sere’s eyes opened wide.

That’s an amazing idea!” Sere said as she flung herself into Dae’s arms. Dae looked at her with so much love in his eyes. Sere squirmed away from Dae and ran to a large clearing near the house. I followed behind them both. I saw how Dae looked at the young Sere. He was absolutely mesmerised by her. There was no doubt in my mind that he did indeed love her, but it was clear to anyone that Sere didn’t like him the same way. She clearly loved him like a brother but nothing more. Dae was almost possessed with complete admiration and infatuation. It worried me how he looked at her. Did Silver or David look at me like that?

Sere grabbed some sticks and began hammering them in the ground, then collected stones for a border. Before turning to Dae. “What was their favourite flower?” Sere asked. David lowered his eyes and looked sad then a small smile crossed his lips.

“Purple Lilies…”

I shot awake, stunned. Purple lilies! They weren’t my favourites at all, he had me plant them for his parents. I did love lilies but the silver ones that Cele showed me. Were those the flowers Morna had destroyed, that had gotten Sere so angry that she almost hurt Morna? Many thoughts were flying around my half-awake brain.

That confirmed it for me, David definitely knew more than he was letting on! I was so sure he was Dae now. How else could he have known about the lilies? Or was it a massive coincidence that both of the guys who were trying to persuade me that they were my “true love” both knew stuff about me that even I didn’t know. Of course not!

I knew Dae cared about me, I could see that from the vision, but why would he lie about being Dae? I mean, he’s like a brother to me, and that still doesn’t explain the black smoke. I realised my head wasn’t hurting as it normally did after a dream like this. The pain was still there and lingering a lot more than usual. Looking at my alarm clock and seeing it was 5am I wondered if Silver was awake. I figured he was the best person to speak to about this. As I was about to call him, I heard a knock on the door.