We called another car and they drove us quietly back to the station with our drunk friend. We rode back even quieter on the insanely fast train. The train's stops felt worse and worse. Delusion's short body laid atop me and Stella.
"Wha… where am I?" Delusion woke.
"Thank the gods."
"Yeah, praise be." I grabbed my blackhole church necklace tight, forgetting to pray with it till Delusion went down.
Delusion got off our laps. I forgot she was on it with how light she is. She spun and sat like a child in between me and Stella.
"I… I should be fine."
"If you say so."
"I thought that was a dead body." Another passenger said before moving farther from us.
"What should we do from here? We've confirmed the curse, every loved showed their emotion is still heavily affecting their lives." Stella asked.
"We need information on Limerence too."
"And how would we get that? You said the records were wiped." I asked.
"Paukena."
I saw the timezone on my phone change automatically. The time was no time to see the queen, we'd have to go in the morning. I also read a notification from Jace responding to my message.
"Don't trust Delusion."
I closed my phone and acted as if I didn't see that, instead restating how late it was. We were going first thing in the morning. It might be another hard day with zero breaks for food, so we ate a big dinner, emptying our pockets. Delusion filled up, and we were off to stay the last night we could pay for at the usual hotel.
We got a hotel room. Me and Stella brushed our teeth and prepared to sleep for the night. Me and Stella again slept in the same bed. Stella showered, but I felt my body continuously sweating like it did the night before. That's weird, I should be really immune to heat.
When we turned off the lights and slid into bed. I still sweated so I stuck a foot out from the comforter. I turned over pushing my leg out more. In the dark Delusion's eyes glowed green. I felt them when I closed mine. I turned over again, pulling sheets over my head this time. What the hell! I couldn't get the image of Delusion's bleeding next and horrid horn sticking out of her head.
I stretched my hands down straight looking at them. I've gotten a little more muscle. Sweat rolled down my arm and stained the sheets. My leg twitched violently from the stretch. I peaked an eye out from under the comforter into the dark room again. I saw Stella's body under the comforter next to me.
Delusion laid in the bed. I saw only half of her green eyes. I could have sworn she had brown. I stretched myself more to see her face better. My head lifting more off the bed. Delusion's head snapped to look at me.
"Shit! Sorry, I was wondering if you were still up." I shook the bed and Stella muttered under her breath something then returned to sleeping.
"I am."
I apologized and hid my head under the comforter again. For an agonizing next couple of minutes I stayed still. I felt like I was in a room with a bomb. Jace said not to trust her, Is she gonna kill us? No, why us? The lack of oxygen got to me under the blankets. I lifted a little part of the comforter and tried to breathe in the air. The air in the hotel room felt suffocating too. Maybe I should go work out, get away from her and thinking about her.
I pulled the comforter off of me and made sure Stella's phone was facing down. I texted her that I was exercising. Delusion's eyes weren't glowing when I walked out. Maybe she fell asleep. I shivered. This is so odd.
The hotel had a gym along with a swimming pool. The gym was empty for the time of day. In the corner was a treadmill. Its purple dial gave flashbacks.
I started training my enhancement abilities, but Delusion and her bloody neck wouldn't go away. Neither would all the thoughts of the loved both from the dream and my interactions with them.
"Ahh, Shit!"
I cranked up my training. I activated all the enhancement skills I currently had. Maintaining all them at once was hard, but after an hour I could hold it for a second. Then I was flashed with an image of Appealing, her desk, her hand on the brick wall. I shook my head harder losing concentration on the enchantments and the strain I was trying to force on my head.
Practicing more, I could hold it for a few more seconds. After another hour I could hold it for a minute. Then Eluding's paintings, her voice catching in her mouth.
"Ahhh!"
I looked back at the treadmill. Turning the dial to the number I cautiously remembered, staying far away from the mountain option. Unclear's room and her door. My face wrinkled slightly and I turned the dial up a bit more. The strain similarly crushing me.
I trained running while keeping them all activated. It took hours but I was finally able to. A headache hung on me for a while. Eventually I drowned the thoughts out. I went on, pushing myself for hours. My mind becoming rid of the loved. I ran, my headache numbing over time. I slowed my pace and turned the machine down.
My mind was clear. I smiled with my sharp teeth.
"Hah! That's how you get someone-"
Appealing's lecture room. "We never had a class, but I sure wanted to see him a bit more. Haha." She laughed. "Don't tell my husband. You alright?" She looked towards Delusion then said. "How would you have known I knew him before he was king?"
Appealing in the hallway. Her hand ran across the bricks, her ring shined with the lights down the hall. Delusion stopped abruptly and distorted uncomfortably.
Eluding's house. While everyone took their shoes off I looked at the pictures on the wall. They were full of Eludings family, friends, and animals. There was her wedding photo with her best friend, her wife.
Eluding's paintings. Scattered on her floor were sketches of a much older woman next to a younger girl. Four eyes hung on the drawing everywhere. Her wife was nowhere to be found. The younger girl looked like Eluding. There was painting, she was commissioned to paint Āpala actually, and recently. She was scared of him, but her wife would beat him up.
Eluding's sketches. She wanted to draw the loved the curse the way her pain is forced upon her by living so much healthier than her wife. It's weird to her, that now she might live for a much longer time when she was preparing to die within the next ten years. She was prepared to die within the average life span of humans and dragons, one-hundred and ten to one-hundred and twenty.
Releases email. 'I've always loved being there for people, that's why I became a representative.' I read this yet blindly glanced over it. Āpala couldn't have cursed him from birth. Āpala couldn't have possibly altered his memories. My head ached, and fell to the floor.
Unclear's room. The entire fucking time her husband was in there. The room wasn't for her. It said on the door it was for her husband. What is even going on. I felt Unclear leaving my mind. I stood up and pressed a more deadly weight on myself.
"Don't! LEAVE MY HEAD!" I remembered. "I deleted you for a purpose." My memories flooded back.
Ludus' family. "She said our dad really only held her back, she wanted to always have that freedom, but she was swept off her feet more than a couple of times."
I hit my head on my hands. What they hell? I remember that. How could the curse be there? My legs wobbled, the full crush was coming. I turned off the machine, my body frozen in place. I reached my hands up and cupped my flames. I brought them down and wrapped my hands in the hardened form.
I stumbled out of the room. The clocks in the dark hallway read three am. My hands shaked violently, hurting constantly. I grabbed the door handle. Flaming cracks formed on my hand as I turned the door knob. I fell into the room. A new tense settled in the room.
I pulled my sheets back. Behind me was a flash of green. I stretched my hands, delivering a flash of red. The room went dark completely and I went under the covers. Turning and falling asleep for the night.