[Chapter 19]

Breakfast was spent with the whole gang, with Dru almost in tears about the idea of leaving us behind. We laughed and teased her for her teary moment, emphasizing the fact that we were only separating for one month and not forever. Still, Dru still sounded emotionally unstable as she looked on to us.

It was funny though. The only one she wouldn’t be seeing in one month was me, since Dru would be returning here after half a month with her mother. Sarah had decided to go to her cousin in Paris for half a month too, while the guys stayed back in school.

Noel had woken up the day after the scare happened, and even though he seemed to be having frequent headaches, we had all been assured that he would be alright after more medication and a few more days of rest.

Zane and I had our affinity tested, and the answer came out positive. Zane and I were tied in the same bond Noel and I shared, and I wasn’t sure how it was going to work. Noel was surprisingly happy about that fact, and even congratulated his childhood friend on finding his Faen, me –who was Noel’s own Faen too.

They even celebrated together, and somehow even managed to rope in Xaviel and Logan. Zane and Logan had their differences, I heard, but no fight, animosity or arguments between guys couldn’t be solved by alcohol.

The moment I had geared Zane up to came to light when I forced Zane to apologize his cold, rude behavior to everyone in my gang. Dru had been extremely shocked to see the results of my hard work, but Sarah had been quick to forgive. Of course, the guys had already worked everything out with their respective bottles of whiskeys, beers and wines.

Zane was still silent in our group gatherings, but at least we had included him as part of us. It sure got lots of stares when Zane sat with us at the cafeteria, but we had learnt to ignore the infamity that came with Zane’s name.

After breakfast, Dru and I went up to our room to do some last minute packing, before we were all ready to leave. I had cleaned up most of the mess on the table, stocked up on the pencils there, and found treasures under my bed. All in all, I was ready for home.

Dru and I were making our way down to the Main Area where the rest of our gang was waiting, before Zane pulled me to one side.

“What?” I asked, a little surprised he was willing to talk to me. After we discovered that we were Guardian and Faens to each other, Zane seemed to distance himself away from me, as well as avoided spending time with me alone. It was a big jump from the times we used to spend, just the two of us talking under the moonlight.

But I was fine with it. Zane probably needed time to accept that I played a bigger part in his life than a normal friend.

Looking a little embarrassed and awkward, Zane drew out a teddy bear from behind him.

“This… is for Raun. I was going to throw it away, but if you can use it to placate your little brother, then I’ll give it to you.” He confessed, almost blushing. If I didn’t know better I would think him as a shy boy, trying to confess to his crush.

“That’s so sweet! Thank you, Zane.” I gushed as I took the teddy bear. It looked truly cute and quite in a good condition. Zane had never struck me as the teddy bear kind of guy, but I couldn’t be sure what kind of a boy Zane was when he was young, so I accepted the bear with no questions asked.

“Call me when you reach your home, Ashe. I… just want to know how Raun accepts the bear.” He said, hesitating a little at the reason. I suspected he was just caring about me, and wanted to make sure that I returned home safe, but he didn’t dare to say it aloud.

I laughed softly. “Of course I will. Don’t you worry about it.”

That assurance was all it took for Zane’s blush to disappear. Finally, instead of bowing his head, he lifted it and looked me in the eye as if he hadn’t done something he considered embarrassing.

“Alright. Let’s go.” He said, letting me go first.

“When is your father going back to Europe?” I asked conversationally as we made it down the stairs.

“He was planning to do it a week after term-break started, but the Council seems to want him to stay for something for a little longer.”

“That’s good. You can have more time to get to know him.”

“More time for him to recover from tasting Lindy’s food. He’s going to try it for the first time tonight. Both of us are going to be bedridden for the next two days.” Zane said seriously, but I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Surely, she is not that bad? Lindy just wants to please.”

“Lindy just wants to help us purge the non-existent toxins in our intestines.”

“She’s going to be heartbroken if you keep telling her that. Give her chance for improvement.”

“If she’s going to be heartbroken, she will already have given up years ago. She never knows when to back down. Cooking is just not her thing.”

“That’s just a stubbornness you have inherited from your father too. Enough about Lindy. What will you be doing during the term-break?”

“Noel and I will be training. Logan is begging me to help him improve his control over fire. Above everything else, I will be improving my connection with fire. I cannot lose to Noel, can I?”

His frankness was something I had always admired. “Still competing against him?”

“Yes. I’ll never stop.”

“Up to you; I guess.” I shrugged as we reached the Main Area, realizing that everyone was there already.

Noel met me with a quick kiss on my cheek, helping me to my belongings. They were going to walk us out the gate, where Dru, Sarah and I would be taking the same bus before we changed to different trains. Xaviel had offered to help carrying his girlfriend’s bags, and Sarah had taken liberties to unload her belongings on Logan, who didn’t seem to mind.

Mindless chatter passed between us as we walked to the gate, and it gave me great surprise when I saw Leo and Sniper at the gate. The surprise wasn’t seeing them at the gate, but seeing them bandaged.

Sniper had a black eye and a bandage on his forearm while Leo was in crutches with a badly bandaged foot, along with many bruises on his arms and face.

Sniper tried to wave to me goodbye, but the movement was cut short when it pulled on his arm injury. I ran over quickly.

“Sniper! What happened to you guys?”

“Hey, Ashe. That night you were dangling off the roof; the vampires stormed us. Of course, we wasted them, but boy; they were determined to stop us from getting up the roof to save you. We kept them busy, and sent Jason, Richard and Lance up. I… kind of got distracted when you almost fell off; so I got this black eye for my negligence.” Sniper sounded embarrassed at the end, turning to see Leo glaring at him with intensity for his own fault.

“Oh my… that sure looks horrible… Were there any other injuries?” I asked, trying to inspect Sniper’s black eye. It sure looked pretty bad. Sniper’s eye was almost swollen shut.

“Other than Leo and I? The others had some superficial cuts, and scratches, but we don’t have much problems with that. How about you? You okay? That vampire up there seemed pretty intent to kill you and Zane.”

Sniper’s care warmed something inside me as I smiled sheepishly. “I’m fine, thank you for asking. He wanted to capture me somewhere, but Zane saved me.”

“I saw. Did he really use your element?” Sniper was wide-eyed, like a child who was fascinated.

There was no way to lie, so I nodded. Even Leo’s eyes widened a little, though the war-hardened man tried not to show his shock as openly as Sniper.

“So he’s your Guardian? You have two Guardians?” Sniper’s voice dropped into a whisper as his gaze went behind, presumably to Zane and Noel, who were exchanging soft conversation.

“It seems like it.”

Sniper’s jaw hung open. “Cool!”

I laughed at that. The soldier who was trained to kill vampires was looking at me like a teenager, awed at something I did.

Leo only snorted. “Her friends are waiting, Darren. Let her off from your stupid childish gushing.”

It took me a long moment to remember who Darren was. I had been calling him Sniper for so long that I forgot his true name. Whoops.

Sniper looked behind me at my impatient friends, then back to me.

“Off you go, Ashe. Keep safe! I’ll be waiting for your return when term starts again.” Sniper bade me off, and I waved my departure.

Outside, the guys bade us off. Xaviel and Dru shared a French kiss before all of us, making Logan and Zane mock-vomit. Noel and I were more subtle with a quick kiss goodbye. Holding me, I felt the warm and safety that Noel had always brought me. For a quick moment, I didn’t feel like leaving anymore; didn’t feel like leaving Noel. But I knew that was a stupid thought, so I let Noel go.

“You’ll call me, won’t you?” He asked quietly, and I nodded. The smile he gave was bright and soft.

“Stay safe. Don’t run into trouble. And don’t you dare find some other guy.” He joked, and I laughed.

“Trust me, Noel. You’re the only one.” I grinned as we separated. Dru had already broken into tears, and much as Xaviel wanted to comfort her, he couldn’t because he knew if he did, Dru would never leave the school.

So, with Sarah’s and my help, we dragged Dru away from the gate, waving like hell to the guys of our gang.

Dru calmed down on the bus, and began to continue on her long gossip session as the bus rumbled along the road to the train station. Still, the notion of leaving each other hung over us, and even Dru went quiet as the bus approached the train station. When we alighted, her eyes began to water up again, and even Sarah’s eyes turned a little red.

“I’ll miss you guys! Promise me you’ll send postcards!” Dru demanded, hugging us so tightly, I was sure my ribcage would break.

“We will!” Sarah gasped as she was squashed with me. For a girl like Dru, she sure had a strong grip.

There were more tears from Dru, and more hugs before it was finally clear that we had to leave.

So we kept the tears aside, gave each other a smile, and went on our own ways.

One month. We were separating only for one month.

It was going to be a long month.