Daeva: Black Diamond Chrysalis - Danielle Bolger (essential reading txt) 📗

something I covet."

"Yeah, you lazy bones!" I bumped her shoulder. "Half the time when we come to pick you up you're still in bed!"

"Well, not lately!" Bethanie defended. "That sunrise is just too bright!"

"I know!" I gushed. "And the sunset too, aren't they just the prettiest! It's like the aurora borealis!"

"Aurora australis!" Bethanie interred.

"Huh?"

"Aurora borealis is the northern hemisphere but we're in Australia so that makes it Aurora australis."

"Oh... but they're meant to occur at the poles!"

"They do..." Bethanie replied thoughtfully. "But that's because of the earth's magnetic field there, but with the aura we see I think it has more to do with natural light hitting this other kind of soul light and how they interact."

"Wow, Bethanie...  You've been hitting the net for all this haven't you?"

"Hey, I could know these things myself!" She refuted without much effort.

"Sure, but then if location isn't important then it shouldn't matter whether I call it Aurora borealis or australis!"

Bethanie leered playfully. "Fine, that makes sense, I suppose."

I giggled. "You shouldn't try to beat people with verbal arguments, you're much better at the physical!"

"You're one to talk, your mum and little sister annihilate you!"

"Yeah, that's true." I agreed. "But you see, it's because I let them."

"Oh, what bull!"

"No, it's true! They're all having so much fun and I can't deny that I don't enjoy it myself so I don't really try too hard to fight back because that will just kill it all! But... on the topic of arguments, you've been fighting with someone lately, haven't you?"

"Someone?" Bethanie replied dryly.

I took a deep breath before broaching the subject. "Kieran was very upset in maths today. Matthew said that you humiliated Kieran in tennis before lunch with your supernatural powers..."

"That boy is blabbing that all over the school!?" She cried incredulously.

"I know how Matthew can embellish things but it sounds like you really upset Kieran. He's the grade's top male athlete and you beat him with the whole class watching, you gotta think how about how he's feeling. Boys aren't like girls, you know, their strength is their masculinity and it sounds like you just destroyed that!"

Bethanie laughed dryly. "So you think I should have let him win so his ego wasn't hurt?"

"No, not let him win, just don't, I dunno, make such a big deal about it..."

"I didn't make a big deal about it." Bethanie interrupted me. "I didn't because I was in too much shock at how I... moved really quickly across the court. I... just showed the whole grade that I was a freak."

I breathed in deeply. "So you did use your powers! Bethanie, you shouldn't have pulled your sword out in front of everyone!"

"What!?" She exclaimed. "Sword? No! I just ran really quickly."

Laughing I waved that away. "Well that's fine then! No one saw anything! Matthew said the same thing himself."

"But they all saw!"

"Bethanie, when does the school not stop and stare at your athletic prowess. Trust me, there's been rumours long before now that you have super-human speed so as long as you keep it to that..."

"Hold on!" She interrupted hurriedly. "There's been rumours that I wasn't human... before I wasn't human!?"

"Yes, yes, but quit going off on a tangent, the important issue here is Kieran! What happened there?"

Bethanie shook her head. "I dunno know. So much was going on and as you can see I'm pretty confused, then Kieran was trying to get me to..." She trailed off.

"To what?" I prodded ruthlessly.

"He wanted me to hang out with him."

"And what's so bad with that?"

"Like we used to."

"Oh." I responded as memory dawned on me.

"Yeah," Bethanie repeated. "Oh."

"I guess that means he's having trouble with his mum again."

"Exactly. He told me he was having problems with his mum but I just told him to leave me alone. Actually no, it was worse, I told him that his issues were insignificant compared to my own. I shut him down completely."

"Just after you beat him in tennis..."

Bethanie laughed mirthlessly. "Yeah, just after I broke his manhood to boot. I guess that officially qualifies me as a terrible person."

"But why push him away now? It's not like you have to go back to how you two were acting. You're past all that truanting and graffitiing and that. You can hang out without it going back the same way."

"Maybe... but I'm not as over it as you think and if I get too involved with Kieran I think I will end up going down that road again."

Then I remembered that night we were attacked near Skyward mountain's lookout. As that strange snow fell and the voice sung I recalled Bethanie running off towards some phantom which I since had come to think was her mother. And then there was all this happening also, so much to process and so much that someone might want to run from. And when it came to Bethanie she was the best runner I knew.

"I see. You're worried that by hanging with him you'll both fall back to your old ways but, Bethanie, when you reject him, try not to hurt him. His issues may not be like yours but that doesn't mean that they're not important." I counselled.

"Yeah." Bethanie murmured. "You're right."

We were only a few blocks away from our neighbourhood, walking through a stretch of slope with no homes in sight, when a quiet high-pitched noise caught my attention.

"What was that?" I called with consternation creeping within my chest.

"What was what?" Bethanie asked perplexed.

"The noise, ah, there it is again!" I cried as I heard the high frequency carry for longer this time as it penetrated from the trees down the slope by the road.

Bethanie heard it this time as she tried to decipher its cause. "It's like a squealing. An animal, maybe."

With that notion I was soon fumbling down the hill.

"Abigail!" Bethanie called after me. "It's probably just some bird-cry. Don't run down there, it's too steep, you'll lose your footing!"

But because I heard it again, more clearly this time, I persevered. It was a long call, one that trailed off at the end, as if losing strength to its desperate plea. That made me even more certain that an animal was in trouble.

Miraculously I managed to keep my feet until I reached a kind of flat land.

Bethanie arrived beside me a second later. "Like I said, there's no one here, sounds like it's just some animal."

I shot her a warning look. "Animals are people too, you know!"

"Well, people and animals..." She started before I grunted and cut her off.

"They're still important, okay? And I can hear that there's one up ahead that's in pain!"

After a few more footsteps where the forest became silent Bethanie interred, "Well it doesn't sound like it's in so much pain anymore."

Determinedly I grabbed Bethanie's hand and drew her through the forest at a run towards the direction from the where the cries had come. Despite the irony of me leading Bethanie in such a highly difficult area to navigate with its brush knee-high, branches and twigs poking out every-which-way and sudden spider webs that caused me to squeal a meagre moment before ploughing into them, my friend followed me without complaint. So we ran, or at least I did, Bethanie's pace was probably more akin to a power-walk, until a clearing became evident ahead where the sun broke through the canopy of leaves.

It was upon seeing this that I stopped, Bethanie colliding into my back and gasping just as I caught the sight of a dark human shaped silhouette placing its hands onto an unconscious rabbit.

"All this, for a rabbit!?" Bethanie exclaimed as we peered through the trees.

"It's a living animal, just like we are!" I reminded. "And those things are hurting it, we have to save it!"

Bethanie smirked. "Yeah, I'll get the shade bastard stealing the bunny's aura, only, well, I never expected to encounter something like this."

"You'll... you'll save it?" I asked timidly to which Bethanie shone me a confident smile.

"That's right, just you watch me save the little cry-baby!" She roared so loudly that it seemed to attract the attention of the black being where it raised its head.

But Bethanie was already in there, running so dazzlingly quickly into the clearing and then suddenly, out of nowhere a gigantic black blade with red webbing on its steel formed within her hands.

The sword was incredibly long, seven feet total in length, far greater than Bethanie's height and dwarfed me, but she somehow managed to pull its weight up off the forested floor. Only barely though, for it the tip was just a few inches from the grass beneath, but still pulled it across with earnest zeal.

"These eyes," I analysed softly to myself. "They make it all look different. That shade... I can see its outline."

And that shade had barely a moment between lifting its head and trying to dodge away. But Bethanie was too fast and despite my reassurances, she could have only been described as a super-human blur. Then she stopped just a metre from the shade but her momentum continued and with a roar she slashed her massive blade sideways through the air, over the top of the sleeping rabbit, then straight through the torso of the fleeing aggressor.

A sound like breaking glass ensued as the shade form collapsed with a rain of black crystals before falling towards the grass but disintegrating into nothing before ever touching.

"Wow!" I called as I raced towards her. "You're really incredible, Bethanie!"

My friend dropped her weapon which fell with gravity's pull before likewise disappearing into a mist of white. Then she picked up the rabbit, one that was white in colour and smiled at me. "It's just sleeping. Its aura has been diminished but it'll live to see another day."

Then when I finally caught up I threw myself around Bethanie, careful not to crush the animal in her arms. "Thank you, Bethanie, you just saved its life!"

Bethanie's smile widened before a curious look entered her features. Handing me the animal which I accepted only too zealously she stepped back and lifted her school skirt to reveal the skin of her thigh.

"Bethanie?" I asked.

"It's... gone." She stammered, then repeated with excitement. "It's gone!"

"Um... Bethanie? Do you mean the shade or your dignity?"

Bethanie quickly dropped her skirt with a cheeky grin. "Maybe both, but what does it matter, it's only you here!?"

"And the bunny!" I reminded loudly which seemed to stir the animal from its slumber where quickly it leapt from my cradelling arms and deep into the forest.

"Aw..." I complained.

Bethanie giggled. "Well there you have it, just us two again!"

"Maybe not..." I murmured as a distant female voice broke through the trees, softly and bittersweet.

"Bethanie?" I breathed nervously just as blue particles moved through the air.

Bethanie's face hardened. "The horizontal snow, just like before, only this time its blue."

I took a couple of steps through it, catching a few soft ambient flakes on my hands. "The colour, it's because we can see the light in its true form now, isn't it?"

"And just like before there's singing." Here Bethanie materialised her long blade back into her hands.

"Bethanie, why did you bring your sword back?" I asked, apprehension giving a tremor to my voice.

"Because." She turned back around to me with blue eyes so deep it caused me to shiver. "I'm not done fighting."

Chapter 15