Uprising

Chapter 16

I found Cordelia waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs. I stopped at the top of the main set and looked at her. "Why didn't you tell me he was coming?" I asked, folding my arms across my chest. I was annoyed with her for not giving me a warning in the slightest.

"He just turned up." Cordelia tried to feint an air of innocence, but I knew it was all crap. Jake was not the type to just show up, especially when he was trying to keep her safe. He would have arranged to meet her.

"Not buying. Jake isn't the type to just turn up when its important to him."

"Come down and we can talk." Cordelia walked away from the bottom of the stairs and headed in the direction of the kitchen. I got the feeling she probably had plans for us to sit and talk in the kitchen in front of the large glass window that looked over the garden. Cordelia loved to be out in nature, but as the weather turned, she tended to keep inside unless it was something really important as to why she had to be outside and I got the feeling that she had wanted to keep this conversation strictly private between us with no one else overhearing, even though there was no one else to overhear said conversation.

I walked down the last flight of stairs and into the kitchen and found Cordelia sitting where I'd been expecting her to sit. I went and sat on the opposite side of the table in front of the glass window that looked out onto the flower garden.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you, Isabelle. Eric called me when you were on your way over, after you'd texted me and said that you and Jake had got into a bit of a fight and it had got heated and that he'd also got heated in the argument too."

"That's one way to put it." I told her, folding my arms over my chest and looking at her.

"I thought you'd still be asleep, which is why I said nothing and left you alone. Although I am pleased to see you two together." The sparkle was there in her eyes again, as if she knew something.

"What is this really about? You seem to want to make sure he and I have each other's backs. So why?"

"You know I cannot tell you certain things as it goes against the oath I took."

"So that means that what you've seen is set in stone and you refuse to tell me because it's about me and him?" I asked simply and shook my head. "If you think he and I will end up together..." I began muttering as Cordelia began to laugh under her breath at me.

"As much as you probably want to run away from the future or you want to sway the future the way you want, there's a path we all have to walk and a role we all have to play. Your part is yet to come, Isabelle, and I won't lie, I am worried about your part in all of this in the future... I do not know which path it will take."

"I don't care about the future right now." I told her starting to get angry. I hadn't come all this way in the small hours of the morning to talk about Jake. Hell, I'd never travel anywhere to talk about Jake. I knew what I'd come to ask and now, because of Cordelia, I had even more questions to ask her.

"You say that, but your future shapes a lot of things, Isabelle."

"Then amuse me and treat me like a customer; you wouldn't thrust crap on them that they didn't want to know, would you?"

"It depends on what they are wanting to know and if it is important." Cordelia seemed to counter me with ease. I pinched the bridge of my nose in frustration at her and closed her eyes. "You want me to treat you like a customer, then fine, they would normally pay; however, it is not money I want from you. For every question you ask me, you answer one of my questions. Deal?"

I turned my head away and let out a small, slow sigh. I knew this game. I'd played it in the past with her and deeply regretted it, as it had been how she'd got me to confess to certain things she already knew about,but I had no other choice but to play along with her. "I'd much rather pay you." I told her, looking into her eyes and then blinked slowly, letting out a sigh. "But I know you'd not take it, so fine."

"Good, you get the first two questions for free for putting up with Jake to begin with."

"That was worth only two?" I complained loudly, making Cordelia laugh and shake her head.

"Take it or leave it." She shrugged.

"Fine. What does the Order of Blood want from me?" I asked her simply. I noticed the way Cordelia seemed to squirm a little at the comment, as if she'd been hoping to avoid that question.

"Can we come back to that question, as first you need to understand some things?" She eventually answered after she'd gained her composure.

"Fine, who are they? Everyone seems to know but me."

"The Order of Blood..." Cordelia let out a long sigh and then began to tap her finger on the table. "The Order of Blood is the total opposite of everything we stand for, Isabelle, and when I say we, I mean the Council of the Elders and also the hunters." She stopped tapping her finger on the table as if she'd grasped a stable thought that made sense to her. "While the original Council of the Elders and the hunters all worked together to bring peace amongst the humans and our different kinds and also worked on keeping ourselves hidden and safe from the humans, the Order... They want nothing but chaos, death, and destruction and to rule over the humans. They seem to think we are above them and that happened after their goddess, if you will, was sealed in her cage."

"Goddess?" I asked, confused by what she meant.

"Mmm, it is a very complicated issue to talk about and explain. The reason I have never told you about them is because I saw no need to tell you as you were safe from them and there seemed to be no need to have this conversation, but like normal, they throw a spanner into the machine just to cause chaos for everyone else to pick up and fix. Anyway, it's my turn." Cordelia began to drum her fingers on the table again, as if lost in thought for a moment and then stopped. "What happened last night?" I noticed all the playfulness in her face had gone; she was in full-on business mode for some reason.

"Umm..." I rested my hands on the light wood table and looked down at my hands with a frown. What had actually happened? It had all been a mess of a night that I couldn't actually remember. "What part?" I asked, looking at her.

"All of it, I need to try and understand what happened, Isabelle."

I bit my lip and then told her the events of the previous night, trying not to leave out anything that might have seemed important, even if it sounded stupid. "Why was that so important?" I asked her.

"I'm trying to figure out how they found you." She told me simply.

"Oh!" I answered. "What do they want with me?" I asked her, hoping she'd now level with me on what was going on.

Cordelia got up and paced around a little and watching her simply set me on edge. What was this all about? "We'll come back to that." She told me again. "Another question."

"Umm..." My brain fumbled around a little for my next question. "Is my mum really dead?" I asked her quietly. I noticed the way she stopped dead in her pacing around and looked at me. I also noticed that all the colour in her face seemed to drain away, as if her worst fear had come true.

"I...I don't know how to answer that one." Cordelia laughed, as she'd clearly been caught off guard. "I'm guessing you heard me tell Jake..."

"Yeah and I want to know the truth: did she escape the fire or not that night?"

"I don't know, sweetheart; I can't give you an answer to something I don't know the answer to myself." I closed my eyes and took a slow, deep breath. So she'd just said it to Jake to get him to drop the subject.

"Are you planning on seeing more of Jake?" My eyes opened and I looked at her in horror. What type of question was that?

"Why? Is this the part where you tell me to keep away from him?" I was confused and totally thrown by the question.

"If they are hunting you, Isabelle, there's no one else I'd rather you be with, as I know Jake is more than capable of keeping you safe from them."

"And what about Eric?" I asked her. "Him being a werewolf doesn't mean I'm safe with him?"

"That's not what I mean." I clenched my fist up and took a deep breath. "Jake is good at what he does and as much as it pains me, I can't keep you safe out there no more baby." I unclenched my fist and looked up at her. "They will come for you because they know who you are, and they will use you, Isabelle, and they will kill you." Cordelia looked at me seriously. "They came looking for you to see if you were of age. They know it's not the time yet, as they will be able to sense that necklace I gave you to keep you safe, but when you come of age..." She walked behind her chair and gripped the back of it tightly. "They will come for you as your the last piece of the puzzle and they know it. As much as I've kept you hidden, they've found you, and I can't do anything anymore to keep you safe, baby, and that is why you need Jake. As much as you don't want to admit it. He will keep you safe."

"So your telling me to use Jake to stay alive?" I was confused by her words, as all my life growing up, she'd always told me to not use people because then it meant they had something against you and that had been the way I'd lived my life and now here she was telling me the opposite.

"If that's what it takes to keep you alive, then yes." Cordelia whispered. "I can't keep you locked up here all your life and besides, they'd find a way to you eventually. They've been following you to figure out your patterns of your life so they know when to strike when the time comes. So you have to be one step ahead Isabelle, but you can't shut yourself away either. I've taught you all I can living here to keep you safe, but there's nothing else I can do."

"Why are they coming for me?" I felt a cold chill fill my body as I slowly got up from my chair.

"Our blood is the last part of the seal that will break the seal of Mirror's Edge."

"Why?" I began to grow confused as to what she meant. "What will they get for breaking the seal to that place?"

"Lilith, our creator, Isabelle. Our ancestors helped seal her away Isabelle and also make Mirror's Edge, if they break the seal to Mirror's Edge, then they are closer to breaking her prison and freeing her. That is why our blood is precious to them. My blood might not be in your veins, but you are my niece, the next descendant of myself and your mother, so that blood still flows through you."

I looked down at the table as I could feel my head beginning to spin a little at what Cordelia had told me. I went to grip the table but I felt a pressure of the chair press into the back of my legs and I collapsed into it as everything seemed to make sense now.

"So Jake was right." I whispered to myself. "Just the wrong reason." I muttered. "The fire... That was them, wasn't it? Trying to make their plan work? But it didn't because... because..." I looked up at Cordelia, who was still standing behind her chair. "It didn't work because my mum didn't die." My stomach seemed to roll and I felt sick at the very thought. I forced myself up out of the seat, ran down the hallway to the guest bathroom and threw up in the toilet. My mum was still alive. After all this time thinking she was dead, here I was finding out for the first time that she was alive and well.