Infinity Academy

Chapter Eight

~ADRYAN~

“Why would you tell her, Adryan! Have you completely lost your goddamn mind!?” Kaiser had been yelling at me for the last half an hour. Since I told them all what happened -then repeated it three times so that they could dissect everything that happened- he had been ranting on about how I’ve ruined everything and that his father was going to have his head when he found out that Emerald knew the truth. “Do you know how hard I’ve worked to keep Emerald out of this, and now you’ve thrown her head first into everything!” 

“I think you should calm down, Kai. You know you don’t think straight when you’re angry,” Cerberus commented, moving closer just in case Kaiser lost control. “I did what was right. I know we weren’t supposed to say anything, but she overheard Wren talking about her past and I couldn’t just change the subject. You know all too well how stubborn she is.” It was the truth. I hadn’t told her because I wanted to, I told her because I felt like I had to. She was going to find out at some point, there were just too many people here who knew the story. Jesus, we had grown up hearing stories about the ‘Kidnapped Princess’ and how she was going to be the saviour of our kind once she was brought back to us. “It doesn’t f*****g matter!” Kaiser screamed again, “You should’ve told her that Wren was just being stupid, that you didn’t know what she was talking about! You better figure out how you’re going to tell my father about this, Adryan, because I’m not doing it for you!” He stormed from the room, slamming his bedroom door behind him. “I know you meant well, Adryan, but you should’ve at least waited for us to be here for it. Do you know where she went?” Ansel asked, sitting in the armchair with his arms crossed over his chest. He had been nervously running his hands through his red hair since I told them all what happened. “I don’t know, she just said she needed to go and then left. I went looking for her before I called you guys, but I couldn’t find her and nobody had seen her since yesterday.”

“I’m sure she will come back soon,” Cerberus commented, forever the optimist. “You didn’t see her face when I told her. She looked… broken,” I mumbled, feeling worse by the second. “You should have waited for us. We could’ve stopped her,” Ansel said, standing from his seat, “I’m going for a drive. Maybe she went back to Liam’s parents’ place.” I nodded at him, hoping that he would find her there, but doubted it. If she had gone to get some space to think about everything, then she wouldn’t go to the people who had helped hide the truth from her. “I need a drink,” Cerberus said, as Ansel headed off. “Me too, grab me one too.” 

Cerberus and I sat in the living room, downing a few drinks each before calling it a night. “If she’s not back by the morning, I think we should all split up and search for her,” Cerberus suggested, his hand on his doorhandle. “I agree,” I slurred, desperately wishing that she would come back. Kaiser had told us all about Emerald before she got here. Told us how they grew up together before she was taken, and that she was always a bright ray of sunshine on a dark day. He said that when he had to erase her memories and create new ones, she cursed at him, telling him that he would burn in the pits of hell for his doing in what she believed was a k********g. Even Ansel had told us about the night he was tasked with retrieving her. Cerberus’s cousins’ gift was being built like a tank, able to demolish things with little to no effort. He was the one who found Emerald hiding under a bed with the son of her parents’ murderers. Ansel was almost on a high when he returned, telling us how amazing it felt to take the life of the man who stole our princess and claimed her as his daughter. The despicable creature even killed his actual daughter- before Ansel ended him- who was apparently only a baby, because he wanted people to think that we would take the life of anyone affiliated with his cause. He knew it would cause an uprising against the Effigy, that the remaining humans would start a war with us because of it. He was deadly, a snake in the grass if ever there was one, and he had planned everything out perfectly, to portray us as the evil in this world. I eventually drifted off to sleep, thinking about Emerald and when she was going to come home. 

Thumping on the bedroom door woke me up with a start, then Ansel barged through the door, looking scared but also sporting dark rings under his eyes. “They took her!” he yelled, breathing heavily. “What are you talking about?” I said, sitting up and throwing my legs over the edge of the bed. I was definitely feeling the after effects of the drinks Cerberus and I had drunk last night. I hoped he was faring better than I. “The humans, they’ve taken her,” he yelled, waving his arms around, “ I went to Liams house but his parents said they hadn’t seen her. So I went for a drive. I thought if I could just think like Emerald, maybe I would find her. I drove down the highway until it ended. Just when I was about to give up and come back, I spotted a car laying upside down in the embankment to the side of River Road. You know how we used to go down there as kids and swim in the lake?” He was really puffing now, trying to rush the words out between breaths. “Yeah, I know the one.” “Well I went down to the car and there was blood everywhere. I thought maybe it belonged to someone else but then I found this.” He handed me a keyring that had a pink love heart on the side with the initials ER. “This is Emerald’s keychain,” I whispered. “Who do you know that would want to take the effigy princess?” he asked. He was right, “The humans. Go and wake up Cerberus and Kaiser, we’re going to find her.”