What She Was Thinking
POV: Alexandra
I let the words that Derek had said sit in my brain for a while like it was in a queue in a computer waiting for the processor to process the task. I gasped, “What? Did she say why?” He nodded, “She said I don’t listen to her and she was pissed at something I did.” I was afraid to ask what it was that he didn’t listen to her about and did anyways because I knew that was the case too. I puffed my cheeks and blew the air out, “I’m afraid to ask but…what the hell did you do?” He threw the daisy to the side and looked at me, “Well, you know that guy…” I knew he was talking about the person who assaulted Jess so I nodded with no further commentary. He continued, “I figured out who it was so I approached him for a duel challenge. Jess saw that I was looking at him aggressively so she asked me not to act. I told her if she wouldn’t report him that he would have to pay for it somehow.” I slugged him, “You idiot! Here I was thinking this whole time how emotionally intelligent you were and how Jess was lucky to have a man that would let her stand on her own! I’m starting to rethink that one.” He folded his arms and sighed, “Well that’s probably something like what she was thinking too. She didn’t really express that to me. She just threw up her arms when she heard I challenged him. She didn’t really talk to me until the last night of the run. She said what she said and here I am wondering what to do.”
He pulled his legs up to his body and buried his face in his legs. He looked like a giant little boy that needed a hug. Despite the fact that I was furious at him for at least not talking to Jess about how she felt about the situation, I wanted to give him the hug he seemed to need. I pulled myself up to my knees and scooted over to him on the blanket. For the first time since I met him, I towered over him. I wrapped my arms around him and placed my cheek on his shoulder. I felt him lean his head on top of mine and he sighed the next sentence out, “Have I ever told you that you were pretty much the sister I never had?” I giggled, “I would’ve had the same thought if I didn’t have Ashton. I was thinking earlier too that you were like a big brother to me. So what do you think you need to do?” I felt him shrug under my cheek. I leaned back onto my feet and looked around the place. I widened my eyes remembering something about the couple I was helping to fix. I tapped his shoulder, “Derek, look around this scenery. Does it remind you of something?” His honey-brown eyes scanned the area around the lake and his eyes landed on the place I had thought of. He looked up at me, “It looks a little like the wolf falls I took Jess on the retreat to.” I nodded and we proceeded to talk about the lake that we were at, formulated a plan to try and get this guy to apologize to Jess.
After it all was thought out I smiled at him, “I will talk to her later and try to get her to see some measure of reason. So, how did you do in your challenge?” He sighed again, “It hasn’t happened yet.” I turned my face to look straight into his eyes, “You mean to tell me you can cancel it?” He shook his head, “Nope, it would be a sign of weakness that would get me kicked all the way the hell out of my pack. I have to go through with it.” I rubbed my face in frustration, thankfully I wear makeup, “You damn giant dogs make no sense to me. So when does it go down and can I come?” He patted me on the head, “It is the day after tomorrow, we meet in Blairs Meadow. I can bring you with me as my second.” I sat up straight, “Your second? Does that mean I’d have to fight with you then?” He chuckled, “Nah, you meet with his second, lay down the rules, observe him from his side to make sure he’s following the rules, enforce them and patch me up afterward.” I proceeded to ask him questions about how it would work for me to enforce the rules and I was told that each of them would be wearing something like a shock collar and I would need to press the button if he was out of line. The third of the team coming with each lycan would observe the opposing team’s second to make sure they weren’t being press happy. He was thinking his brother would be his third since that would require more of a brawler touch. He had to reassure me that I wouldn’t get beat up by the other guy’s team since he knew the guy the other would choose as his third.
He said he has respect for women and would likely just flirt with me the entire time. I had questioned why this third for the assaulter guy would be friends with him since he did what he did to Jess. I thought perhaps his pack didn’t know the whole reason for this duel. Derek saw that I was furrowing my brow while thinking about why he would have friends that respect women. Derek explained that the guy was the alpha of his pack and I became worried about Derek being a fairly young man to challenge an alpha. He tried to reassure me about it and I put on a front of being eased but deep down I couldn’t suppress the uneasiness that I felt. I could totally understand why Jess would feel the way she was. He continued to explain the rest of the minuscule rules to me like how they would start, how it would end, and what the fourth does. He said he would ask Toby to be his fourth since Toby was the stealthiest person he knew. The fourth would be the one to keep a lookout for any authorities to be near. This wasn’t exactly legal in Vellum and the two men participating would be in trouble for doing this. I was assured that in the history of these duels, only one pair got caught. He didn’t quite know what punishments the second, third, and fourth of each men’s team faced. It was very reassuring that I didn’t know what would befall me if I got caught helping him out. I didn’t really care either, I just wanted to make sure that I was there for my best friends.
I felt the warmth again and reached into my bag to pull out another clean tissue. I proceed to repeat my actions like the couple of times that day that I had to do to clear this junk from my body. This time Derek was there to watch what I was doing and I felt his arm around me in a semi-embrace. He rubbed my back, “You know, I have to tell you that I know a lot of grown men who would crumble under the pressure of what you’ve gone through since you’ve been in Vellum. I don’t think you really know just how strong you are. I mean, you’re dealing with your own shit and here you are trying to fix mine.” I pulled the tissue away from my face and it wasn’t nearly as thick as it had been since I started out in the day. I thought that maybe I was almost done expelling this junk from my body. I wondered if this was the last round of crap, I was confident enough that I packed up my things and wanted to start heading home. Derek offered to carry the backpack back to the house but I wanted to finish my little trek how I had started it. We had a nice walk back to the house talking about how the run went beside the drama. as we were near the cottage that Vanessa, Talon, and Jheelis occupied, I heard someone calling my name from behind. I turned and saw my uncle running toward me. He hugged me and asked me what we were up to. I explained why I was out there and what we were doing. I looked over at Derek to see if he would be okay with me talking about the duel but he shook his head. I simply just told my uncle that we were scouting out the forest to see if there was a place where a guy could take a date romantically. He told us about the lake and how the fireflies dot the scenery and there were glow rocks in the pool that lightly illuminated it. I did not know that about the place but it was nice to know it sets a nice scene for what we needed it for.
We continued on to the cottage where Jheelis was sitting on the bench outside. He hopped up when he saw me walking toward the cottage. He hurried over and asked why I didn’t come to get him when I was going into the woods and rattled out about how he was worried about my health. He didn’t wait to hear the answer when he saw my uncle. He looked at him, “Talon?” My uncle nodded, “And you’re Jheelis right?” He asked, “Can you come with me? I have some things I would like to ask you.” I shook my head at him, worried that he would bring up painful memories that would traumatize my uncle back into the bad memories. He smiled, leaned, in, and whispered to me, “Don’t worry, I just want to talk about that organization. I won’t .” I felt like that would have been fine if he didn’t ask about the kidnapping Tyleesh went through, they were painful memories for me and I didn’t even really go through it. A woman walked out of the cottage and I understood her to be Vanessa’s assistant. I stared at her a little because she seemed kind of familiar to me. I filed the information to the back of my head because I was anxious to get back home so I could talk to Jess and summon Aphrodite to tell her I was maybe cured. I gave my goodbyes to my uncle and Jheelis and we made our way back to the house. As we stepped into the house, Jess had been walking down the stairs. She looked at Derek briefly and tore her face away from him then stared at the ground. I walked up to her and grabbed her arm, “Come with me.” She was resisting a little, “Where are you taking me?” I pulled her along to the back garden and set her down on the white ornate wrought iron table near the greenhouse. I leaned my arms on the table, clasped my hands, and leaned my face onto my hands, “We’re going to have a little chat about Derek.”
