Merely two days before, if anyone had told me I’d be walking alongside Jude Malakai, I would have either fainted from despair or laughed my head off. Like, literally laughed until my head fell off.
Yet, here I was, trailing next to my arch-nemesis. Nighttime had fallen and there were only a few cars and pedestrians around us.
We looked like an odd duo. Him, with his bloody, battered face and dirty clothes, and me, with my swollen lips and crazy hair. The rain had stopped, and Jude had dried us off, but my hair was sticking in all directions, as it usually did after a shower, and without my spending time taming it.
After Jude’s jaw-dropping statement, I surprised myself by agreeing to follow him.
“Clue?” I had asked, greatly bewildered, “What do you mean?”
Jude had taken a more serious approach, as he was probably aware it was a topic I was sensitive about. “I’m not sure you could call it a ‘clue,’ but at the very least, it’s something.”
“Okay, what is it?”
“I remember once, when I was younger, my parents kept a coffer in their room. It was placed on the highest shelf. I was never allowed to touch it, let alone look at it.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“The thing is, one day they had gone off to some meeting, and I had snuck inside their room with a chair. I climbed on top of the chair and laid my eyes on the coffer. It was spectacular, mind you, though there were two odd things about it.”
“Yeah?”
“First: I got blasted backwards, and had toppled off the chair. I nearly cracked my skull open when a fell.”
I fell silent, absorbing that last sentence. He'd nearly cracked his skull open? This would imply that he had indeed, hit his head, sometime in his youth. It would definitely explain some things. A lot of things.
Jude continued to speak, “The second thing I saw, before I found myself knocked out on the ground, was a symbol.”
“A symbol?”
“Yes. Two swords in a crisscrossed position, with a snake curled around them. Horizontally twisted into the number eight. Infinity.”
As we walked down the street, his statement pondered inside my head. Infinity. What he had said had definitely rung a bell inside my head, yet I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.
People were staring at us as we crossed their paths. I was embarrassed, but Jude was acting as if nobody else existed.
“Anyways,” he said, “The incident gradually left my memory and I paid no more heed to the coffer. Nevertheless, when you ran away from me that night, I was surprised that all the bodies were beginning to disintegrate. Before they could all vanish, I approached the one that had tried to kill you, and then I noticed something glinting in their hand. It was a gun.”
“I picked it up and what I noticed was absolutely baffling. The gun had the same symbol as the one in my parent’s coffer. The Infinity sign.”
He fell quiet. “During those four months I’d been imprisoned, I conducted my own investigation, snooping around the house. Once again, I snuck into my parents' room and there, sitting on their shelf, was the coffer. I did not approach it too much, though I could tell that the symbols were perfect replicas after all.”
I didn’t know what to say. What did that sign mean? Why did Jude’s parents have a coffer who contained the same logo as the gun who shot my sister?
“So, you think there’s a connection between those objects?” I asked, “Maybe they came from the same company?”
“Precisely. There is no doubt that there is some very dark witchcraft involved. It must have come from some other sorcerer’s establishment.”
“What do you suggest we do?” I asked.
“I can’t touch the coffer. It’s surrounded by a dangerous force field. Even if I wear gloves or chant some protective spells, I will be affected by the venomous, repelling magic. Normal humans would also not be able to open it, as they would probably die from the impact. On the other hand, you're different. You possess a skill that nobody else does. Thus, you’re the only one that can open it, and see what it contains.”
“How are you certain that this will help me? What if it’s only a coincidence? What if it's a trap?”
“If you want to find a lead, we need to take the risk. I will be right behind you, in case something bad happens. I have a gut feeling that everything is connected, that all the puzzle pieces are starting to form.”
In a strange way, I had the same sense.
“You know, Damian, I didn’t only harass you for four months,” he admitted, “I had also been trying to solve this mystery. I wanted to help you.”
There is no word that could describe how baffled I felt. Jude had been trying to help me? Even when he had been under house arrest, he had gone out of his way to try and connect the pieces together?
“Of course, there is also the matter of my proposal,” he added, instantly shattering my newfound awe in him, “I will only side with you and do everything I can to protect you, if you fully submit to me. If you become mine. My pet.”
He was still on that pet nonsense?
Rhea had warned me to stay away from him. His parents - even his freakin' parents! - had told me he was irrational and dangerous.
What the hell kind of benefits would I bring if I were to wag my tail around him, and obey his every command?
I started to understand why they were all so afraid of him, why they felt threatened. I started to understand why all his previous friends, all the people he had supposedly cherished, turned their backs on him and vanished into thin air.
Jude was not only a psychopath, but he was unpredictable. Notoriously calculative. One could not figure out what his next move would be. One could not anticipate his upcoming actions.
He was dangerous because he could switch moods, switch sides and literally switch personalities whenever he wanted to. He was the type of person who could go from hugging your best friend to killing your grandfather, in less than three seconds.
With all that brought onto the table, I had a decision to make.
Was I going follow him back to his mansion? Was I going to get myself involved with him once again, risking my life? Was I going to trust him? Was I going to become his pet?
“What will it be?” Jude repeated, “Will you accept my help?”
“Yes,” I heard myself say, “But before that, there’s someone I must go see.”
* * *
Grandma was sitting at the kitchen table, her back turned towards me.
“Grandma,” I said softly, upon crossing the door’s threshold, “Hello. I’m back.”
She did not respond. I shuffled inside the house, Jude trailing behind me.
“Is she asleep?” Jude asked.
“I think so.” I tapped her shoulder. She did not budge. “Grandma,” I said a little more loudly, “Wake up. I’m back.”
I shook her shoulder, yet she remained completely unresponsive. Alarmed, I shook her harder, “Grandma! It’s me, Damian!”
Once again, she showed no signs of awakening. Okay, now I was in full-blown panics.
“Grandma!” I shouted, “Grandma!!”
Jude grabbed me and dragged me away from her. I struggled to pry myself out of his grasp. “Calm down, Damian,” he said, “She’s alive.”
“Then why isn’t she waking up?”
He sighed and went her way. I flinched when he placed his hands on her head, his eyes beginning to glow. “She’s been put to sleep,” he concluded.
I was dumbfounded. “Sleep?”
“Yes. Do you know of Sleeping Beauty? The princess who slept for one hundred years?”
“You mean that stupid girl who pricked her finger and everything?”
“Same thing happened to your grandmother. She’s been put to sleep, with the exception of it being an evil fairy’s curse.”
I pounced on him, ready to tear him apart. “Was it you, Jude? Did you have something to do with this?”
He slapped my hand away, obviously irritated. “I was around you the whole time. How would that make any sense? Besides, if you took a closer look at her neck, you’d see that the Infinity symbol was carved onto her.”
I realized he was right. I hadn't noticed it beforehand, but I could see a small, tattoo-like mark on her neck. Two swords and a snake.
“What should we do?” I worriedly asked.
“Honestly, I don’t know. All I can get, from the smell of magic in the air, is that some powerful sorcerer has intruded your house a couple of hours ago, and cast a sleeping spell on her.”
“Can’t you reverse it?” I cried.
Jude shook his head. “There is some magic I cannot accomplish. I am limited to a certain amount of spells I’d worked with for years. The only thing we can do is try and find the one responsible behind this. Though, if we do not find them within a week, the spell will become irreversible, like any other one in our world.”
“What?”
“Meaning,” he said, treading carefully, “she will never wake up.”
I was so shaken, I couldn’t say a single thing. This situation was becoming more complicated, by the second. Someone had come in here and done this to Grandma.
A warning? A message? A sick joke? Either way, it was terrifying. Infuriating.
“There’s nothing we can do here, Damian,” Jude said, “The ones behind the Infinity sign, perhaps, have something to do with this. Let’s head back to my place and open that coffer. We have one week. One week to solve the murder. One week to figure out what the significance behind that symbol is. One week to save your grandmother.”
“Then let’s go! There’s no time to waste here.”
Jude helped me carry Grandma to her room and I carefully placed her on her bed.
“I’ll be back, Grandma,” I whispered, kissing her cold forehead, “Just you wait. I will definitely save you.”
I ripped my eyes off Grandma, and hurried outside. It was very hard to abandon her, but it needed to be done.
“After everything is over, Damian,” Jude said hesitatingly, as we headed back to his house, “You won’t leave me, will you?”
“Excuse me?”
“I…I want you to stay by my side.” He lowered his head, blushing. “I am serious. Be my pet and I’ll grant all your wishes. I’ll treat you like royalty. Belong to me forever.”
There were moments where I wished I knew what was going on inside his head. I mean, why exactly did he need me around? To feel superior? To feed his ego? To satisfy his needs?
I had no answer. As a matter of fact, I highly doubt I'd ever receive one.
“We’ll go through this afterwards,” I said, “Now is not the time.”
Sometimes, you don’t know what life reserves for you. I never knew that there would be a day, where I would ally myself with Jude. I never thought there would be a day where he would offer me his support.
Of course, I was going to get him in the end. I wasn’t done dealing with him. He needed to be defeated for good.
Though for now, I could use someone like him. With nobody else around to help me, he was the only one I could count on. Plus, it did not appear as if he wanted to destroy me. Yet.
I would spend seven days in Jude’s company. Seven days under his care and guidance.
And after that week was over, after we solved everything, after Grandma awakened...I was going to kill him.
I was going to kill him before he drove me to death by insanity.
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