Tim grabbed Jason’s arm and sent him the memory of that day in the castle. Jason immediately fell back and froze as he watched the scene unfold. He saw his father surprise them in the castle. His father had an expression on his face Jason had never seen. He looked evil. He watched as his father froze and everyone ran from the room following the mustached man. He watched as his father grabbed Anna, who looked different. She was just a little girl! How was that possible? He watched as Tim, who was younger, as well, tried to free Anna from his father’s grip. Anna told Tim to let go of her. He saw Anna’s hand light up like it had a few minutes earlier, but then it kept getting brighter and turned blue, until there was nothing but that blue light. When it faded, he saw the younger Tim and Anna, alone in that hallway and the walls were falling in. He saw Tim pull Anna, urging her to run. The images faded and suddenly, he was back in the present. The real Tim was on top of him and Anna appeared behind him suddenly out of thin air. He shrank back, suddenly afraid of them both. He scrambled to get away from them. He looked around frantically for his gun. He saw it, but before he could reach for it, people rushed into the room. “Police! Hands in the air!”
Anna and Tim both raised their hands. Jason didn’t at first and eyed the gun and debated if he could get to it in time. “Don’t even think about it, kid.”
Jason looked at the cop who had a gun trained on him. It was the same cop from the other night. “Don’t point the gun at me! They’re the dangerous ones! I was just trying to protect myself.”
Officer Abbot looked at Tim and Anna. He spoke quietly into the radio on his shoulder and a minute later Einna and Tre burst back into the room. “Folks, we need you to verify which young man abducted you and which one came with the girl.”
They quickly pointed at Jason as their abductor, and then ran to Anna and Tim and hugged them both. “I guess that answers the question,” Office Abbot said, chuckling.
He took out his cuffs and walked towards Jason. “Son, you’re under arrest. You have the right to remain silent-”
Jason didn’t even let him finish reading him his rights. “But she has a blue light! It exploded everything. It killed my father!”
Officer Abbot looked over at Tim, Anna, and her parents. “Don’t worry, folks. He’ll get the help he needs!”
He motioned to another officer to take Jason away. They could hear the other officer again, trying to tell Jason his rights, over his rambling as they left the room.
After asking a few more questions, Officer Abbot said, “Okay. We have enough for now. Go home. You’ve all been through an ordeal. Rest. We’ll send an officer to your house tomorrow to take a formal statement.”
He motioned to another officer who led them back outside and to a waiting police car. The drive home was quick. Tim vaguely wondered where Adam’s car was but figured it could wait until tomorrow.
An hour after they arrived home, Tim had showered and was finally able to relax in bed. Everyone was happy that their ordeal was over, and no one could still believe Jason was the one responsible. He heard a soft tapping on his door. Can I come in?
Sure.
Anna opened the door and walked in, stopping at the foot of his bed. “I know. It’s okay,” he said, moving over to make room for her. He didn’t know what was happening between them, but that could be something figured out later as well. They had had an eventful few day and neither one of them wanted to be alone. The silence stretched and Tim felt the need to break it. “So, uh, school Monday should be interesting.”
Anna sat up next to him and exclaimed, “School! I forgot about school. Everyone will be talking about this and I haven’t done any homework yet this weekend. Not to mention the English assignment. We only have a week and a half left! We still have to find out what’s on that laptop and Eimaj’s letters! I almost forgot about them! We have to read them all and see what else we can learn!”
Tim pulled Anna back until she was laying down again. “Calm down. There’s still so much we don’t know, but I think we have time. Whatever happens, though, I know we’ll be okay in the end, as long as we’re together.”
Anna smiled and snuggled in the crook of his arm with her head resting on his shoulder. She didn’t say a word. The silence filled the room again, but this time, they both drifted to sleep, comforted by each other’s presence. Yes. They knew as long as they were together, they’d be okay.
Epilogue
Candlelight flickered, eerily, making shadows bounce off the filled bookshelves lining the walls. Randomly, the titles of the books flashed as the light hit them one by one. Intimidation, Invigorate, Invisible. The books, fourteen bound and one still free, told a very interesting story; as did the many, many pages of writing, first scrawled in a childish script, which had evolved over the years to a beautiful penmanship.
Ronnoc looked at his shelves, lovingly. He gently caressed the spine of the book closest to him. He was quite thankful his insolent nephew had brought these books to this world and so carelessly left them for him to find. He now knew quite a secret. A secret hidden in those beautiful pages, displayed, plain as day, under the boy’s nose when he barged in a few hours ago, taunting him with his own son.
Ronnoc smiled to himself. The boy wasn’t as clever as he thought he
