The Turn: Chapter Twenty-Three

The Turn

Chapter Twenty-Three

~Just You and Me~

Two Years before The Turn

Zara lay in bed. The rain from the day before was starting to let up. The early rays coming though the morning clouds. Slowly, Zara sat up. She had been unable to sleep very well the night before. Puppetmaster had been kind enough to walk with her all the way home pushing her bike for her. Later that night, she lay awake in bed thinking about how she was going to talk to the rest of her team. She was thinking about it still when the doorbell rang.

Curious, Zara made her way toward the door. She looked through the peephole and sighed. Zara rested her head against the door for a brief moment. She then opened it. Chaud stood there in a black sleeveless shirt and his usual cargo pants.

“Hey, Chaud,” she stated.

“Sup,” Chaud glanced at her bandaged arm, “What happened to your arm?”

Zara shrugged, “Guess biking in the rain was a stupid idea. Look, about almost running you over…”

Chaud shrugged, “I’m alive aren’t I? No harm, no foul.”

Zara smiled, “So what are you here for?”

“Just thought we could hang out,” Chaud said.

“Hang out?”

Chaud smiled, “Yeah. You’re not doing anything are you?”

Zara shook her head, “No, not really. I’ll be right out.”

She closed the door just to be a little mean and make Chaud stand out there. After changing her clothes, she grabbed her house keys and walked out of her apartment.

“Where are we going?” Zara asked as she locked the door.

Chaud shook his head, “I don’t know yet.”

Zara looked at him and rolled her eyes, “You’d better figure it out soon.”

“Do you have the key to the roof?” Chaud asked.

“I might,” Zara stated.

“Good,” Chaud walked toward the stair well, “We’ll start there then.”

Reluctantly, Zara followed him. Her building was a decent height. It defiantly wasn’t the tallest of buildings but it also wasn’t the smallest. It also had a lot of stairs. Not that there was anything wrong with walking up stairs, it was just a tedious work out.

When they reached the roof, Zara unlocked the door with one of her other keys and they both walked onto the roof. It wasn’t a great sight. There was garbage and trash lying around, vents spewing steam or smoke. The waist high cement wall was slightly off color being exposed to the elements. The floor was even worse. Zara tip toed through the disgusting mess behind Chaud so he wouldn’t see her acting so squeamish.

Chaud stood up on the cement ledge. White wings sprouted freely from his back. He stretched them, extending them to their full length, and flapped them once. After that, he looked back at Zara and held out a hand.

“Chaud,” Zara looked at him with skepticism, “What the heck are you doing?”

Chaud shrugged, “Thought you might want help getting up.”

“I think I can cope by myself,” Zara’s pride spoke for itself.

Zara made her way onto the ledge. She managed for the most part and stood beside Chaud looking down at the ground below.

“Can I have your right hand?” Chaud asked.

“Maybe,” Zara looked at him, “it really depends what you need it for.”

“Just grip on to my shoulder,” Chaud answered. Zara did, “Hang on tight,” Chaud said, “I don’t want to lose you.”

“Chaud wait—!”

Chaud leaned forward off the ledge, pulling Zara with him. Zara closed her eyes and threw her left arm around his neck and held on for dear life. Chaud’s wings spread to either side, trying to catch the wind. When they did, Zara could feel the change in speed that they were going. It wasn’t much but it was enough for Chaud to change his direction. His wings flapped to regain altitude. Soon though, they stayed extended as the two of them soared.

“Um,” Chaud said after a while, “I kind of need to breathe so if you could, I don’t know, loosen your grip on my throat?”

Zara forced herself to relax her left arm. Slowly, she pulled her right arm around his neck as well, making sure that she didn’t choke him. She realized that she was shaking as she situated herself on Chaud’s back. Her head rested on his left shoulder closer to his neck.

“You can open your eyes too,” Chaud stated.

Zara shook her head no. She just wanted Chaud to land as soon as possible so she could have both her feet firmly planted on the ground. But curiosity got the better of her. She slowly opened her eyes. They were not that far above the Island. They would have been just above the Tower if they flew over it. It was unnerving being so high without being inside some sort of aircraft.

The Island suddenly disappeared into blue as they passed over the ocean. Chaud flew up higher into the high cumulus clouds. Reluctantly, Zara sat up. She placed her shins against the base of Chaud’s wings. After that she gripped firmly onto his shoulder as she extended her other arm and tried to touch the clouds as they passed by. It was as if they were in a temporary fog. Zara’s arm got wet because of the water droplets.

“If I jumped, would you catch me?” Zara asked.

Chaud looked over his shoulder and smiled, “No.”

Nevertheless, Zara tried to stand up on Chaud’s back. She spread her arms to balance herself.

“You’re kind of heavy you know,” Chaud teased.

“Shut up!” Zara kicked him lightly in the back of the head.

She leaned back and fell. It was both the most liberating and frightening experience she had ever been through. Every muscle and fiber in her body was screaming for rescue as she hurled back down toward earth. Yet there was an underlying calm that she couldn’t explain.

The waters were getting closer as she fell head first. She couldn’t help but smile as she felt Chaud’s usual presence behind her. He gripped her arms and turned her body so that they skimmed the top of the ocean. Water sprayed in her face and Zara found herself laughing with the wind in her face.

Chaud increased his speed by flapping his wings a couple of times before gliding again. They headed toward a canyon that partially split the Island in two above the water. He flew between the two masses of land. Rock bridges connected two sides together providing passage for land travelers. Ocean water washed in and out below. Chaud never once slowed down as he flew under the walkways.

The canyon started to narrow, the sides of the walls getting closer and closer together. Zara looked ahead and saw the end of the canyon. It was a relatively flat wall, about a little more than Chaud’s wing length wide. The surface was riddled with caves and tunnels. Water even trickled down the face of the cliff from some of the caves.

“You trust me?” Chaud called as he flew toward one of the smaller tunnels on the cliff face.

“About as far as you can throw me,” Zara answered back.

Chaud smiled and he pulled her closer to his body. He wrapped his arms around her waist. A moment after that, they entered in to the cool darkness of the caves. Chaud dipped suddenly, avoiding a stalactite. The cool rushing air struck Zara in the face. She nervously gripped ahold of Chaud’s arms.

With the constricted air flow, Chaud had to exert a lot more effort to keep them both from smashing into stalagmites and stalactites alike. The darkness didn’t help either. Most of the time Chaud only saw the coming danger seconds before they crashed into it. But he seemed to know where he was going, Zara concluded. Sure there were a few unwanted surprises but for the most part she trusted Chaud.

There was a trickling sound that soon grew into a roar. Water dripping from the ceiling or coming from the ground seemed to all flow into a stream. Soon the stream turned into a rushing river as they traveled the underground passage. Chaud followed the water’s flow, avoiding disaster as best he could.

By the time Zara saw the light at the end of the tunnel the underground river roared so loud that she almost had to cover her ears. As soon as Chaud saw the end of the tunnel it was smooth sailing, no more dips or sudden jerks. Together they flew out of the tunnel frightening the birds near the mouth of the cave as they did so. The water fell down into a large basin.

Chaud flew around, gliding slowly. The basin was surrounded by wall of jutting rocks. The water was a crystal blue. There was one way the water could exit once it entered the basin and it was through another cave to the far left. In the middle of the basin was an enormous tree. In the tree was a wooden platform. Chaud landed on the platform, setting both him and Zara down gently.

The crashing of the waterfall was amplified by the surrounding rock walls. It was cool in the shade of the trees. Zara sat on the edge of the platform, her legs dangled over the edge and Chaud sat next to her. For a long moment neither of them said anything to each other.

“You know,” Chaud stated after a while, “No one on the team hates you.”

Zara looked at him, “You brought me all the way out here to tell me that?”

“Somebody needed to,” Chaud shrugged, “Thought it best if it was me.”

“And just how exactly is it not my fault?” Zara asked, “I allowed us to go in there without a backup plan and we almost got killed.”

“If I recall correctly,” Chaud stated, “in Cairo we had a plan worked out but as we got off the plane, we had to fight our way off. That defiantly wasn’t part of the plan. We could have died, but we didn’t.”

“That isn’t the same thing,” Zara muttered.

“Point is,” Chaud continued, “We could have died, but we didn’t.”

“How is that a point?”

“We could have died but we didn’t.”

“Chaud will you stop—”

“Say it with me, WE COULD HAVE DIED…” Chaud paused.

With a small smile, Zara finished the sentence, “But we didn’t.”

“Good! I always consider it a successful mission when everyone gets back with all four limbs and their head. That’s usually a good thing,” Chaud said with a smile.

“How’s Hina?”

“Pissed. She can’t wait to get her hands on one of those New Order folks.”

“And Naru?”

“He’s going okay. After the surgery, he went through some special treatment stuff that helps you heal faster, you know. Guess who the doctor was.”

“Oh, boy,” Zara could help smiling, “You’d thing Dr. Jekyll is doing this on purpose now.”

Chaud nodded in agreement, “Knowing him, he probably is. He probably gets some kind of sick pleasure off of tormenting him.”

“Poor Naru,” Zara nodded slowly as she went over the information, “And the others?”

“Well, Deontay’s chill as ever. Nothing seems to faze him too much. Vicky seems to be especially motivated. She’s been at the boxing gym frequently. She’s even on a winning streak against the guys.”

“That’s good,” Zara smiled.

Chaud looked at her, a smile on his face, “What are you thinking?”

“I was thinking how I don’t want this smudge so early in my career,” she looked at Chaud, “I don’t think I want to sit around.”

Chaud’s smile grew, “As always, you plan and I execute.”