Just In Time

Chapter Five

"You're supposed to be dead."

"Which time are you exactly talking about?"

Aubrey's remark was instinctive as if she had no control over her own mouth. Something had made the words literally tumble out of her mouth and the boy who sat across her raised his eyebrows curiously.

It was true though what he had said, Aubrey ought to have been died.

In fact she should have died, three times before.

She should have died when the Hurricane Katrina had destroyed her entire neighborhood in New Orleans, not leaving even one house standing.

Except hers.

All around the pretty two-story house she lived in, the homes of everyone she had grown up with for the first nine years of her life had been reduced to a meaningless pile of wooden beams that buried their owners underneath them.

And yet her frail looking house had withstood the storm, with not one stray leaf on its lawn.

The second time she should have died was when her parents drove their car off the mountain right here in Spade. She had been in the backseat of the car as something bright flashed in front of the windscreen knocking the entire car off the mountain.

She remembered the crash, she remembered the burning rubber, she remembered the blood and then she remembered the golden eyes of the boy who had taken her out of the car.

And then she remembered waking up to call of the phone booth in her bedroom at her aunt's house, two hours before it had all happened.

And she should have certainly died when her grandmother had tried to kill her, just over a week back.

And yet through it all she was standing in one piece, mostly in front of the boy who she could tie down to everything that had gone wrong in her life.

RUN!
RUN!

The prophecy must be complete,
He will break it,
Our queen shall never rise,
The heir shall die,
The god must-

The voices were so loud that Aubrey could barely stand on her feet.

"Aubrey?"

And just like that the voices vanished. She turned around to see Michael standing behind her puzzled, his blonde hair sticking up in all directions and his blue eyes trained on her.

"What are you doing here?" Michael asked before his gaze landed behind her where the boy sat. For a horrible moment Aubrey thought that may be the boy had once again been a figment of her imagination which she desperately wanted to be true.

"Declan?" Michael's tone was only slightly accusing as he addressed the boy behind her.

He's by the waterfall, he's always by the waterfall.

Aubrey was too shocked to react or even attempt to think of an excuse how she had just landed in front of the boy out of pure instinct.

"She seemed to have been wandering around." Declan responded,"And me being chivalrous as always decided to strike up a conversation with the pretty lady offering to help her find her way back."

Declan's eyes flashed at her as if challenging her to say otherwise. Instead Aubrey simply cleared her throat and turned to Michael as she said,"Yeah it was my bad I kind of wandered off listening to water and happened to come by your cousin, fortunately. who knew what could have happened? I might have landed up dead wandering all alone in the forest."