Uprising

Chapter 10

I had hoped, with my mind feeling a little lighter, that I'd sleep pretty peacefully for once, but that didn't happen.

Blood-red eyes seemed to watch me as I stood in black nothingness. I turned away to try and escape the gaze but it seemed to follow me no matter where I went. I could feel panic rising up in my chest as a cold laugh began to fill my dream.

"You can't hide from me. They found you and now you are mine." The voice came out cold and raspy, but underneath it, I could tell it was a woman's voice. Just like the symbol, it was both familiar and strange at the same time.

"It's only time, Isabelle. They kept you hidden all this time, but they can't hide you anymore."

"W...w...what are you talking about?" I stuttered. I was confused about what was going on.

"You'll wake up soon, then you'll know." Out of the darkness, a tall woman with long black, messy hair walked out; her eyes were the blood-red ones that had been watching me. Her skin was white and pale and she looked almost sickly. I went to reach forward to her when I stopped myself as I realised on her cheek in blood was the same symbol I'd seen in the picture, which had caused me to step away from her.

"That symbol..."

"It'll soon be burned into you." She laughed coldly as she went to lunge at me.

"Isabelle... Isabelle, wake up."

My eyes flew open and Jake stood next to me with his hand on my arm. My head was still spinning about the dream as I felt a cold rush of air over me for a moment and then it was gone as I sat up in bed shaking. Jake had unwrapped me from the cover that I hadn't remembered going to sleep with over me.

The bed dipped next to me and then a glass of water was in my hand. "You'll feel better after having a drink."

"Thanks." I muttered and took it in my hand, took a couple of sips and then felt the weight of the glass leave my hand as Jake took it from me.

"Want me to get you anything?" He asked quietly and was clearly concerned for me. That had made me wonder if I'd started crying out in my sleep again and that had been why he'd come into me. I wasn't sure, but I was pleased to not be alone after this dream this time.

"I'm good." I told him just as quietly as he'd asked the question. I glanced over at him and noticed he'd rushed in wearing just some tracksuit bottoms they looked like and nothing else on his chest. I quickly turned my head away, as I could feel myself blushing deeply.

"I know it's a stupid question, but do you want to talk about it?"

"It was just the breakup." I told him as I looked over at him, keeping my eyes focused on his face.

"Oh, I thought it was worse than that, considering you seemed to be screaming bloody murder. I thought someone had got into my house and was killing you." At his comment, I looked away, feeling guilty about the fact that I'd been screaming. I knew why I had; it had been those eyes and the comments.

"I'm sorry if I scared you." I looked back at him. "I guess my head was just overreacting to the breakup." I shrugged, trying to play it down.

"Don't worry about it." I felt the weight of the bed lift as he got up, put the glass back on the bedside table and then went to leave.

"Wait!" I told him simply. I had no clue why I'd asked him to wait, but I had, and now I knew he was going to wait until I had something to say. "Did you get any closer to dealing with business?" I asked him simply.

Jake laughed a little at my comment and shook his head a little. "No, I didn't, Isabelle." He told me simply. "After you went to bed, I found that I couldn't focus as I was too busy wondering if you'd be ok." He seemed to tell me honestly.

"Why?" I asked curiously.

"I just wondered why you seemed so defensive around me before we had our understanding break through." I noticed in the shadows that he seemed to turn his body towards me to look at me properly again, as if this were something that was truly interesting to him.

"I...I..." I began to stutter. I knew my reasoning wasn't fair to Jake and I knew Eric had asked me to give him a chance and I had. I just hadn't expected Jake to be so curious. "I had a bad experience with a hunter once. This was before I met Eric." I told him simply.

"Oh." Jake seemed honestly surprised by my comment. "What happened?" He walked back towards me and sat down on the bed next to me again.

"Something bad happened and then... we went to get help from your kind but they turned us away." I wasn't going into details with it, but I knew Jake was going to try and dig for more information. Or at least that had been what I'd expected of him.

"I'm sorry to hear that, Isabelle..." He seemed to trail off with a sigh. "You see, as much as I want to tell you all hunters are good, I'd be lying to you." He took my hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. "If you came to us because you were in trouble, then that means you have ties to my world. As much as I want to pester you about it... I know you won't tell me until you want to tell me." He laughed a little. "Fast learning that and to top it off, Eric warned me not to piss you off or I might regret it and if I'm honest, I respect you for standing your ground with me." He laughed. "And not only that, after hearing you say that, I want you to know we aren't all the same. Some of us take our vow to protect much more seriously than others. So no pestering on the matter, only the words; if you want to talk about it, I'll listen and it doesn't matter how long ago it happened, I'll try and make sure the person who turned you away is made to answer to punishment for that."

"Thank you." I told him softly, as I could feel myself warming up to him. Eric had been right. He hadn't been a bad guy when he dropped his armour around him, which he seemed to wear all too comfortably around people. "It happened a long time ago and trust me, when Eric told me what he was..." I shrugged a little, as if I wasn't sure how to explain it to Jake.

"You felt hurt?"

"A little and I felt scared that he was just using me to find out whatever it was he wanted to find out, but a part of me seemed to argue that I already knew Eric and he was still the Eric I knew; he just had ties to that job. After a little while, I let it not bother me and Eric promised me he wouldn't introduce me to any other hunters because he knew how I felt about them after being let down."

"I can understand that and it explains why he never introduced us." Jake laughed. "He was just trying to protect you from being hurt again."

"Yeah." I looked down at my hands as I could feel them shaking a little and Jake squeezed my hand again lightly and let go.

"I'm not like that other hunter you met. I take my job seriously and I certainly would never turn away anyone in need. If you need any help, don't hesitate to ask me. I know you'd probably prefer to go to Eric with your troubles, but just know he's not the only one who will help you."

I glanced up to see that his face was serious. He really did take the job seriously. "Why do you do this job?" I asked him curiously.

"I want to make the world better and safer for everyone. There's people out there who hurt people and there are people out there who turn to the dark side if you want to think of it that way to get what they want and will do whatever it takes to destroy what we've worked so hard for."

"What have you worked so hard for?" I asked, still curious. As I listened, I heard the passion in his voice for the job, and I felt like I had begun to understand Jake. He simply wanted to make things better for everyone.

"Personally, I work hard to try and keep a balance and to try and let everyone live together without worry and fear. That's why I do this job. I want the likes of Eric to be able to walk with you and I and not fear that people will try to kill him because he's different. That is what the job is—to try and keep peace and to give everyone a chance to feel like they have somewhere to go since Mirror's Edge turned so corrupt." At his comment, I frowned a little. I knew that he'd know about the city, but I certainly hadn't expected him to make such a comment about the city being corrupt. "Sorry, I'm rambling on and you probably have no clue about Mirror's Edge..."

"I do know about it and I know about how broken the city has become." I told him simply as I got up and walked to the window. I needed to catch my breath and I needed to get my head straight as well.

"I should let you be. I can see I've struck a nerve now and I don't want to upset you anymore than I probably already have mentioning that."

"No, it's fine." I turned to see that Jake had also got up and stood near the bed. "I...I was the one who asked you why you did what you do and you told me." I laughed quietly. "I...I...just hadn't been expecting you to say such a thing as what you did and I certainly hadn't been expecting your reaction either." I rubbed my arm a little nervously in hopes he wasn't going to pry into how I knew about Mirror's Edge.

"Mirror's Edge has always been broken since I can remember. I know things got worse once the High Priestess of the Coven, Cordelia, just vanished." The news threw me a little again. Things got worse when Cordelia left. How was it possible? She had told me that the council had a new High Priest or Priestess in training and they'd simply take over and everything would be ok.

"What do you mean?" My curiosity got the better of me, as I really wanted to piece it all together.

"Sorry... I'm probably confusing you now with talk of Covens and things." He ran his hand through his hair, making it stick up and making it even more messy than it had been when I'd woken up. "If you want to, we can talk about it at a more reasonable hour and I can tell you everything, since you seem to already know a lot about all of this."

"No.. I'm not confused about Covens and things. I mean, how have things got worse? I mean, I thought there were systems in place..." I broke off as I could feel a sinking feeling in my stomach.

"There is, but like I said, things are broken. Cordelia was fair; Cordelia always knew what was going on; however, she couldn't always do things about things that were going on behind her back. Like her sister..."

"What do you mean, like her sister?" My heart was beginning to hammer hard in my chest. What did Jake know about my mother that Cordelia had kept from me?

"Look, I don't mean to be rude, Isabelle, but can we finish this another day? It's really late and I've got to get up soon to start all over again with this job."

"Yeah... Sorry. I'm sorry I woke you and disturbed you." I told him softly.

"I promise we'll finish this conversation another day." Jake seemed to smile. "Good night."

"Night." I murmured as he left the room and shut the door. My head was spinning from everything that Jake had said and the fact that he'd known something about my mother made me wonder if he knew about me and knew who I was. I went and sat in the window, looking out of it. There was no way in hell that I was getting any sleep tonight, not with my mind so awake and in need of answers now.