Chapter 3 W is a Police Officer (Part Two)

I continued to stifle my laughter with my towel. “Xavier might be coming over for a visit. Sarah will probably be focused on him. They are boyfriend and girlfriend you know.”

“I know. I should thank him someday.”

I looked at Sarah, she was rubbing her eyes. “Breathe Sarah!” I said, grinning at her dramatics, “My mental shields are down. So Thanos and you don’t have a privacy screen between your conversations.”

“Really?” She quipped sarcastically, “I didn’t notice.”

“Oh come on. I bet Xavier promises you similar things over the phone at midnight.”

“How do you know he calls at midnight?” Sarah said defensively.

“His ringtone, Secrets. If you remember that’s one of my favorite songs too. I hear it and what to keep listening. I don’t listen to your conversations though. I’m too busy having one with Thanos, usually.”

“Well that’s a relief.” Sarah said, even though she looked tempted to find a way to get Thanos out, that involved pain, and lots of it. “Come on. Lets go let W question you before your headache returns.”

Shrugging, I followed Sarah out on a eucalyptus scented cloud of steam. I headed to my room, making my way towards the closet. Grabbing a plain white tank top and a pair of deep blue jeans from one of the hangers. I scooped up a pair of underwear from the drawer and dressed quickly. Hoping that W hadn’t found out that I was up. For all I knew, if he knew I was up he might decide to pop in to my room to ‘see that I was okay’. More like to start the questioning earlier than wanted. When I was dressed, the kitchen became my destination. I met Sarah out in the hall. We chatted about normal things. What was for breakfast, would there be rain today or would it freeze into snow, was Nate grumpy...normal stuff. Sarah teased me about the rain, saying that I’d make it turn into fog. Just to spite the weatherman and confound everybody. We bantered lightly back and forth until we reached the kitchen.

“I think I want a smoothie this morning.” I said, picking out the frozen mixed berries bag and picking a banana as I spoke.

“Sounds good to me, but I think I’ll have some buttered toast with it too.” Sarah responded. I could almost hear her thinking, mmmmm....

“I’ll have two pieces. Hey is Xavier coming over anytime soon?”

“Okay, and yeah he is.” Sarah had a dreamy look on her face. All concerns and worry vanishing in the face of her excitement to the news that Xavier was coming. “He’ll be here in two hours, if he doesn’t get pulled over for having shadows running rampant in his car. Usually they try to block his view and it becomes a game of ‘Survivor’.”

“Oh geez. Let him make it here. I don’t want to have to go pull him out of our woods, or the lake back there. On a regular day I could get him out of the lake, but today? Nope, it’s not gonna happen. Thanos would get protective and then we’d all be in trouble.”

“He probably wont. I hope.” Sarah looked unsure of me, along with Xavier’s ability to make it to the house safely without hitting anything. Knowing Xavier, we’d be lucky if he made it here at all. Good thing I’d worked with Sarah all night on a protection ward, elf style, for Xavier’s car. I just hope it worked, and that way Sarah could stop worrying so much.

“Hey, if he doesn’t have enough motivation to get here alive for you, then he’ll do it just to prove he can. That, and he likes to impress you with how well he can drive without getting a scratch. Even when blinded. I should know. I had to ride with him for two hours!” I let the horror of it lace my voice.

“You’re right.” Sarah had perked right up at the thought of Xavier impressing her. She was probably trying to keep a positive attitude. Walter might wake up today, she’d told me in the steam room. We sat down at the kitchen table, enjoying our smoothies. It probably wouldn’t last. We’d enjoy it while we could, before W came and questioned me about what had happened to Walter. A comfortable silence followed and I continued to hope that W wouldn’t walk in and crash it. A questioning right after getting relaxed was going to be brutal. Maybe I’d ask Sarah to get the steam room started up again. I sipped my smoothie, lost in thought, I really hope that Sarah talked some sense into W. As if my thoughts had summoned him, W walked in to the kitchen, heading straight for the fridge. Trying not to hope that he hadn’t seen me, I slid deeper into my chair. W dug through the fridge, looking for who knew what. When he stopped, pulling out a chocolate pudding cup, he shut the fridge and looked at me. I sat up in my chair and smiled at W.

“Uh, morning W?” I said uncertainly, not knowing what to expect.

“We need to talk.” W said, not even a ‘Good morning,’ to Sarah.

“Is this about what happened during training?” W didn’t answer. He just walked out of the kitchen, expecting me to follow. I shot Sarah a Help-me! look, which she ignored.

“Oh come on, Sarah! Please give me some warning on how bad it will be.” I desperately thought to her.

“Sorry Tori, I don’t know.” Sarah thought back, looking at me sympathetically. “I’ll tell you one thing...It’s going to be harsh.”

“Gee, thanks. I already knew THAT!” Exasperated, I let sarcasm and annoyance color the thought.

“Well you didn’t specify. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Guess we’ll find out.”

“Yeah, I guess we will. Please be okay, I really don’t want to have to worry about you and Walter at the same time. Xavier freaks out about it. I’m sure he’d give a mental yell to Thanos to get you better. IF I worried about you enough.”

“I’m sure he would. It’s not like he hasn’t done it before.” Realizing my mistake too late, Sarah gave her own mental yell.

“WHAT?! When did this happen? Tell me. NOW!”

“Uh, Sarah, I have to go get questioned. I’ll tell you afterwards though. I promise on my scythe!”

“Well...I guess that’s okay. IMMEDIATELY after though.”

“Okay, okay. Take deep breaths ‘till then.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Sarah said distractedly.

“I mean that Sarah. I really don’t want to have to remodel the kitchen the hard way.” Hoping that Sarah listened, and didn’t set the kitchen on fire, I followed W. He led the way down to the basement. Taking a fortifying breath and taking reassurances from Thanos, I walked down the darkened stairwell to the basement. As soon as we reached the bottom, the questioning would commence. W wouldn’t go easy. He’d use every resource at his disposal. Whether it was emotion, fighting, or using Thanos to get to me. EVERYTHING would be used if he thought it would get the truth out of me. Wishing that the Council of Dark Elves would swoop in, and delay the questioning, I drifted over to one of the chairs. W followed, heaving his lower body onto the couch. We had a staring contest for a few minutes. I was sure that he’d start at any second. I tried to piece together from his expression the questions he’d be asking me. I quickly gave it up. W could lie through his teeth and make it sound like the absolute truth if he wanted. I started to get uneasy when he still didn’t ask questions.

“Breathe,” Thanos said soothingly, “breathe, my Current. You’re okay.”

“I am breathing Cloak Scythe.” I said, using the nickname I’d given him. Cloak Scythe was his because the first time I’d seen him, he’d been in a black cloak, and had pulled his scythe from seemingly nowhere. Current was mine because he said he always thought of the ocean. The name made me feel better as I sat waiting. I returned my focus to W and knew that now was the beginning of a interrogation.

“Breathe, you’ve got this V.” Thanos. Getting his last say in. Then, W started a different version of torture.