The Goddess’ Gift

Chapter 6

Lucie Pov

I stared at her, flabbergasted. My protectors? Did I just hear her right? What the heck were protectors anyway, and why did she make them sound like they were my…property? “I don’t remember purchasing people,” I muttered.

She stared at me, her eyes wide, before she started to softly laugh. I was surprised, the way her face lit up when she laughed. A stern calm face, that opened up so well when she let it. “I think I’m going to like you,” She muttered, making me smile. That was a first for me. Normally people hated me. Everyone except for Chris, that is.

I sat up abruptly, smacking my forehead into hers. She cursed, pulling back as I cringed, feeling excruciating pain radiating in my forehead as I whimpered. “Crud,” I whimpered, my head was throbbing as I tried to rub it, feeling a small bump appearing over the spot that I hit. I felt so stupid. Here I was, getting taken care of, and how do I repay them? Stupid, so stupid. I flinched, seeing her finger coming at me from the corner of my eye, but instead of smacking me she simply poked me on the forehead. I stared at her with widened eyes, noticing her eyes were…glowing? Her hand was glowing, she was…purple? I was freaking out, to be honest, but whatever she was doing, the throbbing pain was fading away, and I waited patiently for her to finish before I asked her what the heck just happened. “What was that?” I asked as she pulled her hand away.

I realized I was motioning with my hands, showing her from her hand to her eyes as I asked, and blushed. I always spoke with my hands, I hated it. It was a habit I picked up so long ago I couldn’t really help it. She raised her eyebrow at me, staring at me. “Magic.” She said simply, shrugging. “I am not a true healer, but a little headache; I can handle.” She said with a smirk, confusing the crud out of me.

I wanted to ask her what the heck she was talking about, but there was a reason I accidentally tried to knock her out with my forehead. “Where’s Chris?” I asked, gripping the sheet tightly in my hands.

She stood, moving the chair to the side. I took the moment to really examine the room. Earlier when I had screamed and fell out of the bed, I fell into the corner, but it really wasn’t a corner, now that I was looking at it. The wall wasn’t met with another wall, but a tall sheet, hanging from the middle of the room. I automatically stood, pressing my hand to my chest as I walked slowly towards it. My legs still felt slightly shaky from being in the accident, but that didn’t matter. I could tell by the sad look on her face that I wasn’t going to like whatever I was about to see. I grabbed ahold of the end of the curtain, my heart racing as tears threatened to spill from my eyes. “Is he…” I whispered, trying to take deep breaths.

I hated crying, but if he was dead…there was no way I’d be able to stop myself in front of her. “No, he’s not dead.” She said, and I couldn’t help but let out a breath of relief. “But he still hasn't woken up. He was in a coma, Lucie. We don’t really know what happened, just that he was in a car accident. Zain wouldn’t let us leave him behind. We brought him with you. You were in a coma too, you know. From your accident.” She said, her voice soft as she watched me.

I could tell there were a lot of unspoken questions in her sentence. Wanting to know what happened to Chris, but I couldn’t answer that. He’d have to, when he finally woke up. She wanted to know about my accident, as well. I wasn’t ready to talk about that. Not with her, not with anyone. I wasn’t ready to think about that right now. I simply nodded, pulling back the sheet, and stared down at him. He looked…perfect. No scratches, no bruises, nothing wrong. His hands were folded nicely across his chest, and it made me realize I…I didn’t feel any pain either. Absently I looked at my fingers, knowing for a fact that my nails were all ripped off, but here they were, the same as usual. I moved my legs, looking at them. They should have been shredded by the glass, but there wasn’t a single scar. I shook my head, confused. What happened to me after I passed out in the water? I wanted to know, but I was scared if I asked…I’d get more information than I was wanting. Slowly I ran my fingertips up his exposed arm, frowning as I remembered what she said. “Zain, why did he care so much about Chris? I mean, thank you. I’d have climbed out the window by now if he wasn’t here. But…why?” I asked, turning to look at her.

She sighed, looking down at the bottom of her pigtails. I watched her lift the end of one, twirling her finger around it slowly as she thought. “He…loves Chris. He bonded with him, and wanted to adopt him. Before we knew about you, or anything. He dropped Chris off at the house, and drove off, leaving him behind. He regretted it since, and when we found out he didn’t have foster parents anymore, Jaiden hacked into the system to allow Zain and Grayson to be Chris’s parents. As for you, you’re eighteen, so you’re out of the system now. Of course, you’re staying here as well, so it’s not like you’ll be split up from him.” She said, shrugging.

So much information…I wasn’t sure what to do with it. But one thing was jumping out at me. “He knew Chris…before?” I asked, confused. I stared at Chris, then at her. “How?” I asked, confused.

She blew out a breath of air, shifting from foot to foot. I could tell that whatever she was going to say was going to be something big, something that I wasn’t sure I’d be able to handle. “Well, my son, Cain, he’s friends with Chris from school-” She started to explain, before the door burst open. I flinched, turning towards the door as a beautiful woman walked in. She had light blue eyes, shoulder-length black hair with a purple tint to it, and heels so high I couldn’t stop staring at them. The way she walked in them…I was impressed, to be honest. She stopped, staring at me. Her eyes swept over me, looking at me from head to toe as Colette cursed again, walking past me to stand next to her.

“Well, I expected more, but this’ll do.” She muttered, before crossing her arms over her chest. Well…excuse me. Who pooped in her cereal this morning? Absently I ran my fingers through my hair, annoyed with how matted it felt. When was the last time I took a shower? What day was it? I had no idea. I probably looked horrible. I probably smelled.

I shifted from one foot to the other, feeling embarrassed as the new woman looked at Colette. She c****d her hip to the side, twirling a strand of her hair around her finger as she sighed at her. “It didn’t work. The blood didn’t work. It was pig’s blood. Amari is really messing with us. We need to think of something new. He looked so angry,” She muttered.

Colette stared at her, a calm expression on her face, but I had a feeling she was feeling frustrated. She wasn’t easy to read, but she had a tick. A small vein that pulsed at the corner of her temple. I was used to looking for ticks, ways of telling when someone was angry. Automatically I took a step back, remembering the last time I didn’t. I had been beaten bloody that day. “I specifically kicked everyone out, Jade. For a reason.” She muttered, completely ignoring everything Jade said to her.

Jade rolled her eyes, shrugging. “Yeah, cause you want to baby her, and she’s a poor orphan. Well, I fit in well too, Colette. We’re twins, after all. We were both adopted.” She snickered.

I poked my tongue into the corner of my cheek, feeling anger pulsing through me. “I don’t need to be pitied. Don’t ‘Oh poor orphan’ me.” I called out, crossing my arms over my chest. Jade turned to look at me, appraising me with that resting b***h face stare. “I can handle myself.” I retorted, standing up straight. I wasn’t very strong, but I could hold my own. I didn’t grow up in an orphanage for nothing. I was good at defending myself.

Jade snickered, raising her eyebrow at me. “Well, maybe there’s more to her than I originally thought.” She said, smirking. I…I wasn’t really sure if that was a compliment or not, to be honest. While I was trying to figure that out, she turned back to her sister. I had to admit, they didn’t really look anything alike. But the more I looked, the more I could see small resemblances. They both twirled their hair. Of course, Colette wasn’t as obvious about it as Jade was, but she still did it when she wasn’t paying attention. Their height was probably the same, if Jade wore normal shoes. Jade was more muscular and hardened than Colette was, her body looked like she trained a lot, but Colette wasn’t fat either. Actually from what I remembered of the others, everyone who was in this room earlier looked like models. I had to force myself not to poke my stomach. I wasn’t fat, but I wasn’t the skinniest person in the world either. I had a small little pouch on my stomach, a little more meat on my hips than I wanted. It didn’t really stick out at the houses I lived in, where the other kids were either starved or overweight, but standing next to freaking models was hard on my low self-esteem. “She said she doesn’t need us to pity her. She’ll be fine. She looks like she needs a shower anyway. Come with me, leave her be for a few hours. She’s not a baby. Besides, Zain is camped out in the hallway. He doesn’t want to be away from Chris. He’s freaking playing cards with Grayson, Cain, and Jaiden out there. It’s like they don’t have anything better to do.” She said, throwing her hands up in the air.

I tried not to snicker, imagining them all sitting there. I remembered the three she mentioned, all except Cain. But if he was Chris’s friend, he was about nine as well. Three grown men sitting in the hallway playing cards with a nine-year-old. It sounded cute, to be honest. “To think, they’re a bunch of kings.” She said, rolling her eyes. I gaped at her, confused. Kings? Like…royalty? “Co-leader of the Blood Moon pack, two Gammas, just sitting there playing cards.” She finished, making me shake my head in frustration. Nothing she said was making sense to me. She was pretty much speaking a foreign language at this moment.

I felt exhausted trying to keep up. “Go on, I do want to take a shower,” I muttered, feeling embarrassed now that I realized I probably looked awful.

Jade sighed as Colette muttered something to her, shoving her lightly towards the door, before turning to look at me. She stared at me, appraising me herself, before nodding. She walked to a door at the back of the room, pointing to it. “This room is actually Chris’s for now. It’s right next to Grayson and Zain’s room. This is the Gamma floor. We have a room prepared for you through here, it’s combined through this bathroom.” She said. Slowly she led me through it, but I paused, grabbing my bags and pulling them with me through the door as I followed her. Colette surprised me by not saying a word about it, reminding me that she said Cain was the same as me, before. It made me feel slight respect for this woman, knowing she was adopted herself, and chose to adopt a child. She looked healthy, she probably could have her own kids if she wanted to. I followed her into another room and stood there, surprised. It was…so big. A queen-sized bed, the room decorated in a soft golden color. A giant armchair, a tv, and a PlayStation, even a variety of games propped up under it. A dresser covered in a variety of makeup, a hairbrush and hair ties, all kinds of things. Did they buy all of this for…me? “Adaline likes to decorate, so she took the liberty of setting it up. Whatever you don’t like, we can have changed. There’s a laptop right there. It’s yours, along with a cellphone. None of them are locked, you can do all that yourself. We added the pack’s credit card to the accounts, if you want to order anything just go for it. We’ll give it to you when it comes.” She said, smiling at me. I was flabbergasted. Absently a list of books started to flash through my mind, but I shook my head, confused. There was no way this was real.

She snickered, nodding as if she could read my mind. “Cain didn’t believe me either. Not until Zain bought him that switch. Now he’s ordered so many games he doesn’t know where to put them all. That reminds me, I have to get him a new shelf for the new games,” She said absently, before shrugging. “Anyway, the drawers are filled with clothes, Adaline got your size perfectly so don’t worry about it not fitting. The closet is filled with clothes and shoes, a big variety. You can order more if you like, or I can have Jade make you something if you draw it up. She’s really good at making clothes.” She said with a smile. Finally, she clapped her hands, before smiling at me. “Okay, I’ll be back later. If you need anything, as she said, you have a group of impatient guys in the hallway bored just waiting to do whatever you want.” She said, snickering.

I stared at her, trying to form words as I looked around the room. I felt…touched. All of this…it was really mine? Where was I? Who were these people? My…protectors? Protectors from what? But she did look like she was in a hurry, and I had a feeling I’d see her again, and have whatever questions I had answered when I did. So instead of trying to keep her longer, I nodded, gripping my bags tighter to my chest. “Thank you,” I muttered, backing up a step as she reached out a hand towards me. She looked at me, then at her hand, before lowering it with a sigh.

She nodded at me, taking a step back. “It’s nice to finally have you home, Lucie. I know it’s strange, and confusing. But in due time, you’ll understand everything.” She said with a nod, before turning around and walking out the door.