Recovering

I wake up, squished between Mia and Skylar. I breathe a sigh of relief to see that we’re all still in my palace, safe and unharmed. There isn’t a logical reason why we wouldn’t be, but after last night, I’m still really shaken. I reach out to Ivy mentally, finding that she’s already up and about, making breakfast for the ten of us.

I lay my head back on the pillow, enjoying the warmth of my girlfriends, letting my mind wander. It took me about an hour to get to sleep last night. Mia damn near passed out the second her head hit the pillow. I’m not entirely sure about the rest of us. It was a scary night, and I know we’re all affected. I’m a little worried about Paige. She barely said a word last night.

The text of the achievement isn’t very reassuring, but I’m happy with the level up nonetheless. Distributing my statpoints is almost automatic at this point, and Ivy pokes her head around the doorway so I can do hers too. She smiles at me. ‘Don’t think too hard about it. We’re okay. That’s what matters.’ My caregiver says mentally. I smile at her, and she smiles back, before she heads back to continue making breakfast.

Ivy’s right of course. The main thing at the moment is that we’re all okay. One by one, the others start waking up, enticed to the kitchen by the smell of Ivy’s cooking. I wait till Paige opens her eyes, then ask her to come join us for breakfast. She sleepily says she needs more time in bed, so I leave her to sleep and join the rest of my guild in the kitchen.

Elsa is already sitting at the table with the others. Olivia and Belle are nowhere to be seen, but Ivy assures me she’s texted them both about breakfast and that they should be on their way down any minute. Ivy’s made us a simple but delicious looking breakfast of a stack of pancakes each, with ice cream and fresh strawberries and blueberries on top. “Are we really having pancakes right now? After what happened last night?” Emma questions, furrowing her brow.

The nature spirit shushes her and sets down a plate in front of her. “I thought a nice breakfast would help us all put last night behind us.” She says earnestly. “Oh fuck it, I’m starving anyway.” Emma says, picking up a fork. Suddenly, the atmosphere changes. Looking around the table, we can all feel it. Olivia and Belle walk into the room. Olivia sits down and shoots a glare at Belle.

Belle pointedly avoids looking at Olivia. She instead walks to the plate Ivy made for her, and picks it up, along with some cutlery. “Ummm, the food looks great. I’m gonna go eat in my room. Later.” She says, giving the rest of us a cursory glance, before striding out of the room.

“What was that about?” Mia asks, looking back to Olivia. Our mentor sighs. “Don’t worry about it. Let’s just eat.” She says wearily, picking up her cutlery to do just that. The rest of us follow suit. “Wow Ivy, these are amazing! Thank you!” Elsa says softly, her gentle voice barely raised above a whisper. Ivy smiles warmly at her.

“She’s become a really good cook. I taught her everything she knows.” Mia boasts jokingly. Lena and I snort at that. “I’m sure Ivy could use some help in the kitchen. She prepares amazing meals for us all, and puts a lot of work in for that.” Emma teases. “Hey, maybe you should help her Mia! You know, since you’re a good cook yourself!” Lena plays along, never missing the opportunity to mess with someone.

“Hey! I do help her! Who do you think helps her stock up everything and put together our nice hot dinners?” Mia fires back, and I smile. The banter continues from there and it’s really nice to see some semblance of normalcy among my guild, even if Skylar, Olivia and Elsa are really quiet.

The sudden ringing of a phone makes us all fall silent. Who would be calling us? Everybody who I could think of is already in the barrier with us. I realise it’s my phone that’s ringing, and thankfully, it’s not my emergency phone, just my normal one. I don’t recognise the number on the screen.

I answer the phone tentatively. “Hello?” I ask. “Gemma, hi! Lovely morning, isn’t it?” The voice on the other end returns cheerily. My blood runs cold. I recognise that voice. “It’s Mathias.” I whisper to my guild, covering the mouthpiece. I put the phone on speaker so everyone else can hear. “What do you want?” I ask.

He laughs. “Not going to ask how I got your number?” I shake my head, despite knowing he can’t see it. “I know you have technomancers. Just tell me what you want.” I say, my heart sinking. “Laying it all on the table, I like that. Well then, let me be clear. I know you pulled your little escaping trick, and I let you. I have no need to stop you. I assume that Mia girl got away with you, since we couldn’t find her after you left.” He says.

“Spit it out.” I say, unable to contain my anger. “You have three days. Saturday morning, 9AM, you’ll be at the Opera House, ready to offer your power to me. I’m a reasonable man, so I’ll give you an hour’s leeway. At 10AM, we start killing hostages. One for every hour you’re not at my doorstep.” He lays out.

I feel a stab of anxiety in my stomach. “I know you care about people. You don’t have it in you to sacrifice others to make sure you win. That makes you weak. Exploitable. That’s why I’ll have what I want, whether you like it or not. 3 days.” He says. There’s a moment of silence, and I look at the phone screen. He hung up.

I sit back in my chair, running my hands through my hair. The rest of my guild exchanges glances in horror. “Oh god, why’d he have to do that?” Mia asks, her eyes filling with tears. Skylar stares at the plate in front of her, having stopped eating. Elsa has an expression on her face that I can’t read. After a few seconds, it changes.

“Gemma, I need your permission to connect with your barrier.” She says pointedly. I look at her, confused. “Uh…sure?” I say uncertainly. She nods at me in thanks. Elsa reaches into her coat pocket and pulls out a small vial full of bright red liquid. She looks at it for a moment, then uncorks it and sculls it quickly. She closes her eyes to concentrate. I can feel something shift inside the barrier after a few seconds, I’m not sure what.

Elsa opens her eyes. “What’d you just do?” I ask her. “I didn’t have enough power to do what I wanted to, so I drank a potion to help. I’ve slowed our experience of time in the barrier.” She says. She pulls out an odd looking pocket watch with two clock faces. Nodding to herself, as if satisfied, she turns back to me.

“We’re in 7:1 time dilation. You should have about 3 weeks now instead of 3 days. If I can keep this up without hurting myself too much anyway. I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but…” She says, shooting a meaningful glance at Mia, who has her head in her hands. “I care about you all. I want to help, even if this is all I can do.”

“Thank you Elsa.” I reply earnestly, and she gives me a strained smile, before sitting back in her chair at the dining table. “What are we gonna do?” Lena asks, her voice sounding scared. Emma looks really unsure on the situation. Olivia claps her hands together to get everyone’s attention. “First, we stay calm. We’ll figure it out, but we need to be calm about this.”

“This is all my fault. I’m so sorry girls.” Mia sobs, her shoulders shaking. Ivy pulls our girlfriend into a hug, soothing her the best she can. “Nobody thinks it’s your fault Mia.” Skylar reassures quietly. “Nah, that Mathias guy would have found us anyway, the way y’all told it.” Lena chimes in, her tone shakey. “It’s not your fault babygirl. I promise.” I tell her, walking over and wrapping my arms around her.

She hugs Ivy and I close. I give her a kiss on the forehead and she sniffles and asks Ivy for a tissue. Ivy fiddles around in her inventory. I kiss Mia on the forehead once more, leaning down to look her in the eyes. “We’ll deal with this together, okay? This isn’t your fault.” I tell her. She sighs, looking down. “Thank you Gem.” She says, her voice breaking.

I step away, and Ivy takes over fully, doting on our girlfriend. I walk around the table, closer to Olivia, barely managing to hold in my own anxiety over the whole situation. “We can’t plan like this. We need some time to calm down first. We’ll figure out what to do afterwards.” I tell her, my voice quivering. Olivia nods. “That is a good idea.”

I look back to Mia. Ivy and Elsa are both comforting her by this point. I sigh. This is such an awful situation. “I’m gonna go check on Paige and see if I can find Belle.” I say, to no one in particular. “Is Paige okay?” Emma asks. “She said she needed more time in bed. I have no idea how she’ll react to this.” I say. “I’ll go with you.” Emma says, standing up from her chair.