Chapter Sixteen

I think the place we arrived at was supposed to be a hospital, but it wasn’t like the ones in the human world. The ones in the human world are many stories and smell like disinfectant and rubber. This "hospital" was more like a cottage. It was bigger than the regular houses I’ve seen in the villages. I sort of liked the feeling of it; comfy, cozy, roomy. It felt more like a house than a hospital, and the "doctor" wasn’t dressed in a long white clock with a mask covering his mouth. He was dressed like a regular person, or how a regular person would dress in this land.

He suddenly saw us approaching him at his desk and smiled, but that friendly smile disappeared as soon as he took a good look at me. I knew my wound looked worse than it felt, because now I could barely feel it at all.

"She’s a human." he said to no one in particular.

"I don’t CARE! I need help now!" I was used to that complaint so I knew how to respond to it quickly.

All the doctor did was shake his head back and forth. "No, no, no. I can’t help her. I can’t touch her." He put on his gloves and I rolled my eyes.

"You all are PATHETIC!" I exclaimed. He didn’t seem affected by that statement, all he did was turn and escape into a different room.

I was almost to the point of tears until Fumio interrupted.

"I do know of something that can fix your wound, it can fix any wound."

I looked up at him curiously. "You got my attention."

He swallowed. "Golden stakes can protect you from anything, but they can also help you fix your wound if you can’t save yourself in time." he explained.

Tomo was staying out of this conversation.

If only my golden stake wouldn’t have been crushed, then I would have it and I could fix myself to be good as new! Or maybe if Raiden were here he could whip out a few more for me. But I had no idea where he was at the moment. Tomo still wasn’t talking.

"Tomo, do you know where I can get a golden stake?" I asked quite loudly so he couldn’t ignore me.

He crossed his arms over his chest stubbornly and his face was almost blank as if he were concentrating hard on something. While he was debating on whether to answer my question or not, I turned to Fumio for a quick second.

"You knew this all along and you still brought me to this hospital?"

He was suddenly shocked as he opened his mouth to argue. "You wanted to come here. Tomo brought you here, not me!" he objected.

"You could have said something about the golden stake earlier so we could have went looking for one." I pointed out.

"You have no idea how long it could take to find one."

"Maybe if we found Raiden." That statement caught him off guard and he opened his mouth, but then clamped it shut and shrugged.

"We could do that now."

I mentally bet Raiden was already looking for me. Had he been in the forest back when I was almost killed by his brother? I doubted it, because he would have jumped out to save me like he had so many times before. But if he hadn’t been there, what was taking him so long to find me? Was he hurt? What happened to Mitsoki and Hikaru? I had so many unanswered questions it was boggling my mind, I wanted to break down and scream, or cry.

I felt lost in this world mentally without Raiden. I would never know exactly where I was because this land is so confusing and different, but I felt more—safe, so to speak, when Raiden was by my side helping me, even if his family did want me dead.

Instead of looking for me, he was probably going to help his mother. I wondered if she was still captured or what happened to her. What do Lunar Faeries do to creatures that have seen a human? It didn’t sound like a punishable crime to me. If she was dead, I would blame me, and Raiden would never want to see me again.

And yet, he was the one that stuck up for me and came with me, he had to have known the consequences before he made up his mind to help the poor, lost human, right? Would he blame himself if something had happened to his mother? I couldn’t live with him living with that, if that makes any sense.

"This land is bigger than you can imagine. You’ll never find Raiden here." Tomo interrupted my thoughts, and then I realized he hadn’t answered my previous question.

"Do you have a better idea?" I asked, sounding almost cocky.

He thought long and hard, but then sighed out as if defeated. "I give up, follow me." Tomo ordered as he turned and headed for the door. I rolled my eyes; here we go again.

I went up to his desk and began touching everything that was on it.

"I’m touching all of your stuff!" I shouted mockingly so he could hear me through the thick door. "Human cooties!"

When I was finished, I went by Fumio’s side as we escaped the hospital, and as we did, I held the most glorious smile.

Tomo has been hiding this from me the whole time! He knew he could have helped me right then and there when he saw I was wounded. Instead he took us on a ridiculous journey to that stupid hospital with that stupid doctor.

"Why do you have to be an idiot?!" I asked Tomo as he handed me his golden stake.

He simply shrugged. I wondered where he got this stake. Raiden said there was only a few in the world, and Raiden was the one that had a ton in his back pocket. Had he lied to me? But for some reason, I was suddenly suspicious of Tomo.

"Where exactly did you get this golden stake, Tomo?" I asked.

He took a long pause like he always does before answering my questions. He seemed to change too much, what had Toru done to him?

"Tell the truth." I demanded in a stern tone to let him know I wasn’t joking.

"I borrowed some from Raiden." he admitted innocently, but he was far from innocent.

"You stole it?" I accused.

"Stole is such an irrational word." he explained.

"Well were you going to give it back?" I demanded.

Tomo shrugged like he usually did, not fully answering my question. "Probably not."

"Then borrowing is an incorrect word." I scoffed. "You disgust me!"

Suddenly Tomo scowled and got defensive. "Well give it back if you don’t want it, but if you’re going to stop yelling at me and take this seriously, then you better use that stake on your wound right now before it’s too late." he shot back.

I rolled my eyes and continued on to a more important subject. "I can’t believe I’m not dead yet, I’ve lost way too much blood." I pointed out, suddenly curious as to why I hadn’t even passed out yet from blood loss.

Fumio’s eyebrows scrunched together as I spoke my last sentence.

I looked at him as if to say, "What?"

"Don’t go by your basic human knowledge in this land, Jamie." Fumio told me, reminding me of my name once again. It’s so common now for me to casually forget it I don’t even know at the time I forgot it.

"What do you mean?" I asked in a low voice, confused and worried.

"I’m trying to explain to you why you haven’t died yet."

I stared at him, listening intently.

"We age quicker here, but our appearance is slow at aging." he began and I understood. "Wounds are worse here, but it takes longer for a person to die. Usually wounds don’t kill anyone here anyway, since we have magic."

Magic.

"Speaking of magic . . ." I began but was cut off.

"We know, we know. You need magic to get out of this land." Tomo finished what I started. "We have been looking."

"We?" I emphasized in disbelief. "If either of you has been trying to help me it would be Fumio. You are the one that nearly brought me to my death!" I shouted in rage. I had tried to forget and forgive Tomo since he was Fumio’s twin, and I didn’t have a great problem with Fumio, but Tomo has gone off the deep end. Toru did something to Tomo, like I had imagined. It is bluntly obvious because Tomo was never like this when I first met him. Come to think of it, both Tomo and Fumio have changed in some way. Maybe changed in maturity or forcibly changed, I don’t know. Someone wasn’t telling me something and I was done playing mind games.

"I’m sorry, I told you Toru was going to kill us. Do you want me to keep repeating that? I thought you understood it the first time." Tomo snapped with a hint of annoyance ringing in his tone.

My fingers balled up into fists and I took an automatic step towards cocky Tomo.

"Go ahead, punch me for being honest. Right here." Tomo taunted, pointing to his left cheekbone.

"I’m tempted." I grumbled, but let my fists loose and turned to Fumio who was watching anxiously in almost a defensive stance, looking as if to pounce on us if we got physical. As I relaxed, so did Fumio. "Thank you for the golden stake." I told Fumio, even though it was Tomo who lent me it. "But if you two can no longer assist me in my journey to leave this forbidden land, we must separate now. I can find Raiden by myself, and even if I can’t, I can still continue to search for someone powerful enough to hold the magic I need." I thought to myself as no one replied to my statement. "If only Trista could have helped me I would have been out of here long ago." I mumbled, almost to myself, and turned away from the two, ready to bound out of the tree they called their home. Unlike Raiden, they lived on top of the tree, not in it. They were Shape Shifters, not Elves.

"You’ll never make it out there alone. If you don’t find Raiden–or anyone–soon, you will surely die. And I won’t be there to help you." His tone was cold. If I would have been facing him right now he would have spat in my face.

I scoffed. "Like I need your help." With that, I walked away, my pace rather fast. I wanted to get away from them as soon as possible.

It almost made me sad that Fumio didn’t try to stop me. He knew as well as Tomo that I would be killed, but apparently didn’t care enough to at least follow me, or try to convince me to stay with them. When I thought about it, I wouldn’t have stayed with them even if they begged. It was time to do this alone. All my time here I have had assistance and no one has been any use to be, besides Raiden of course. But Raiden was gone. I didn’t know if he was dead or not, I didn’t know if his mother was dead or not. I didn’t know if Raiden was even trying to save her, or if it was too late. I began to mentally punish myself already just at the thought of something bad happening to him or his family. If it did, it would be my fault.

Just like it was my fault Toru was dead. No that that mattered to me any, but it would matter to Raiden, his brother. How would I explain to his mother–that is, if she was still alive–that it is my fault her oldest son was killed?

But he was a murderer, I tried to calm myself, to convince myself it was the right thing to do. He was going to kill me. Toru was a murderer, or at least was going to be one. But then I thought, in a way, so was I.

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