The Time Turner Society { Undergoing Edits! }

Chapter 14:

I feel like something should happen.

I don't know what, exactly, but something. When you find out a stranger you met out in a warzone is your brother, certainly some big thing has to accompany that. Like a dramatic hug, or hours spent getting to know one another, or... I don't know. But since when is that new? I never seem to know anything these days, including who my own siblings are. Well, except for Net, but he's not related by blood.

I almost expect myself to see Eryl differently, but in reality I don't. He looks the same, and my initial trust and even weariness of him is still right where it should be. Is this what it felt like to know things? And by this I mean completely indifferent. Because if that's the case, I'm not sure I still want to know everything I wanted to know before.

No, I take that back. I definitely still want to know those things. I need to know those things, and I hope when I finally get to Blayke that he'll tell me. I think back to what Net said, about some things being better off unknown to me. I'm not saying I have to know everything about everything, but something about this war, something about how my family and even my enemies are strangely tied into it, makes me sure there's something more to it all, something that I need to find out. I try and think back on everything that's happened since I got back from my mission in Brazil. Everything seemed normal, at first. Until Net gave me Blayke's safebox, I had no idea that anything had really changed.

Maybe that's my problem. Not that people are hiding things from me, but that I'm too blind to see what is right in my face.

As I contemplate this, I feel the rain begin again. Luckily, it returns without the suddenness of last night's downpour; it's only a light drizzle, but it still worries me. And I can tell it worries Eryl, too.

"Please tell me we're almost to the..." I bite my lower lip thoughtfully.

"The port," Eryl finishes for me. I nod. Quentin nods, if you could call it that. It was more like an exaggerated roll of his head to his chest, like he had no control over it.

"Could it be we're annoying them?" Eryl asks, feigning offense. I laugh.

"I think everything irritates Eros," I reply. Eryl and I laugh, and the action seems oddly out of place. I had spent every moment since Blayke left in a kind of depression; everything felt bleak, even when I was happy. But now... Now I'm on my way to see him. And I have a brother and a small possibility that my father may be alive still. I still have plenty to worry about, sure, but for once, that doesn't hold me down.

"How long were you with them? Mom and Dad," I ask Eryl. He squints at the ground, thinking all those years back. I can tell it's hard for him.

"Well, I was living with them for twenty years before they were taken into the war. But as far as actually being with them... Collectively, probably no more than ten years. Or maybe I'm exaggerating," he shrugs. "I started turning young, and they had to keep turning in order to please the Society. God forbid you tell them no - you'll wind up blown to Goddamn pieces." Eryl shakes his head, disgusted. I wonder if I should tell him, if the weight of the news will hold as much for him as it is for me.

"Before I escaped from the structure, my bro - well, Blayke's brother, he flew off on some important mission with a turner co-pilot. I saw him off, and a woman told me that his co-pilot's name was James Kai." I feel like I should stop, to let the news sink in, but I just keep talking. "It makes sense, in a way. Dad was a fantastic turner; they wouldn't kill him if they had any other option. Maybe they threatened to kill Mom, and Dad agreed to be sent back if they kept her alive. Or, maybe-"

"Whoa, Evaline - what are you talking about? You thought they were dead?"

"You didn't?" I almost shout at him.