Jewel: The Beginning

CHAPTER 10: Dinner and Shocking News

We all stand there, in shock; no one talked. It took a minute before I could muster another nudge at Brayden. He blinked his eyes and walked up to the man he called “uncle”. They looked at each other for a few seconds and then gave each other a big bear hug, like they were seeing each other after many years. Well, that was unexpected.

“Brayden! I haven’t seen ya since before you started school,” Elias says, “And what, you’re graduated now, right?” They get out of their hug. Brayden nods and backs up to me again, taking my hand. Elias gives another confused look, seeing our hands intertwined and asks, “Brayden, what are you doing here? I didn’t know you knew the Talbots.” I knew he had a deeper meaning to that, but I don’t think he wanted to draw attention to the fact that he sees us holding hands. We hear someone clearing their throat. We all look to see Abbey by the table, setting the stew on the table. Automatically, everyone migrates to the table and sits. Brayden and I sit next to each other, and Elias and Carlson sit across from us. Irina sits next to me, with Robert on the other side of her. The twins sit across from them, and Glenn and Abbey at the ends of the table.

Glenn dished out his bowl of stew and then passed it to Brayden before he finally answers Elias’ question. “Yeah. I uh…hold on,” he dishes his stew, passes the pot to me, and continues to answer as I dish myself, “I met Irie at school. Robert, Irie, and I graduated together. Naturally, I met Astro and Pearl once they started. But I once saw Abbey once or twice at the school drop-off point. I met Glenn and Jewel only yesterday.” Elias’ eyebrow raised high again. I think he was concerned about an 18 year-old and a 16 year-old only going out after one day—but he doesn’t understand. “So,” Brayden continued, interrupting my thoughts, “our graduation party was hosted here, and Rob and I decided to stay at a hotel overnight so we could be here today. But as you can see for all but Jewel and I, it ended badly. We went on a picnic at a park out of town, so we didn’t know about this until we got back.”

Carlson spoke before Elias could, “Yes. I see Irina and Robert especially had it bad. What happened?” We all turned to Glenn for story time again. Thankfully, it didn’t seem as horrible as the first time, I suppose it’s because Irie wasn’t on her deathbed. We all had served ourselves stew and eaten it by the time Glenn finished up to when Eli and Carl arrived. They looked at each other with concern. Carl turned to Rob, saying, “Thank you for helping protect them. They need it more than you probably know at this time. If you think Brayden’s situation is bad, the Talbot’s far exceeds it.”

Brayden seemed to perk up to that, paying extra-close attention. “Uncle Eli, can I talk to you about that?” Eli looks at Carl, Carl nods his head; whether it was of understanding or approval, I could not tell. Perhaps it was both. Eli and Brayden get up to go to the living room. Brayden is still holding my hand from after eating and is trying to get me to come. I stand up and whisper, “Shouldn’t this be just a family thing?”

Looking at me meaningfully, he whispers, “My Gem, you are now family. You’ve been in Elias’ family since you were ten, and the way we are now, you are even more so family. All of you are. But only you and Rob know a thing about this.” Blushing at his pet name, I nodded and followed, stilling thinking that I shouldn’t. Brayden lets go of my hand as we enter the living room. Elias is in an armchair. Brayden heads to a couch. I let him sit before deciding to sit on the floor at his feet. I wasn’t in the mood to sit anywhere else at the moment. I would ideally would want to sit at the base of my tree, but going outside wasn’t a safe option right now; neither was letting Elias be there either.

“So, I have ask what’s going on here before I tell you anything, Brayden,” Elias says is a soft, stern tone; like a father. He looks between us again. Blushing, I look up at Brayden, hoping he’s able to answer the question, because I had no clue what to say.

Brayden thought for a moment and inquired, “Did my mom ever tell you about the ring I got from her and dad on my 10th birthday? The legend of it?” Elias nods his head, with confusion written on his face, but waits to speak to see where Brayden was going with this. Brayden reaches for my left hand and shows Elias our rings. Eli gets up to take a closer look. He sees the rings on the fingers and gives an amused laugh.

“Oh!” Eli is still laughing as he is speaking, “I never connected the rings before at all! Jewel, sorry to tell ya, but I’ve noticed that ring on ya since I first saw you. Never thought to take a closer look! Hahaha… Okay, okay. But here’s my question, though: Are you two doing this solely because of them rings, or is it more?”

I think about this for a moment and answer, “Well, we’re still seeing if it’s the rings or not. Either way, though, before I knew he had the ring, I felt drawn to him and that I needed to be with him when I met him. Apparently, he knew I had the other because of Irie, but she never told me a thing.” We laugh for a moment with an awkward pause. Brayden and I look at Elias expectantly, waiting for him to spill.

"Well,” Elias begins, “we moved your mom and sister to my house with your and aunt and myself. We had to do some serious digging to find them, though.” All Brayden did was smirk, like he knew something Elias didn’t. Elias looked at Brayden seriously and said, “Brayden, this is for one sole purpose. And it had the MPA freaking out.”

Confused, Brayden asks, “What is that purpose, exactly?”

Eli paused for a moment, looking like he was struggling to control himself and his emotions,

“Brayden, we found someone working with suspected men of Carey’s. That man... is your father.”