Exaltation (Insight #11)(43)
Lock down. Raven BellaRose put your thoughts on lock down. Do not let your father see you pull that boy to your lips! Raven chanted in her head.
Raven caught her father’s stare. She let one of her lips curl into a half smile and gave him a glance that said ‘not happening.’
Reading her like a book he laughed. Right about then the girls saw their wayward memories and daydreams around them and gasped. Soren turned crimson as he stared at Ash. The images vanished then.
“I’m sure you all get the point,” Saige said. “All right, now I want you to envision your own vim.”
Easy enough. That second a haze of energy, that ranged in colors, surrounded them all.
“Now make it stronger,” Jamison said. “See it as a glass that cannot be broken.”
The haze turned into little domes.
Saige and Jamison looked at each other. “They already know how to do this,” Saige said.
“They didn’t know they did.” Jamison glanced around the circle. “Knock me down, Raven.”
Was he crazy? Raven thought.
“Push vim at me and knock me down.”
Not happening.
“Raven if you do not do this, we’ll have to practice a lot during your free time. You may not be able to skate for awhile.”
Raven knew what he was doing. She gave him a playful glare and let the thought to knock him down come to mind. A wave of vim left her little dome and struck him. He lost his footing, then grinned at her. He made the others do the same. When it was Raven’s turn again he swayed back.
“Challenge her, Jamison,” Saige said.
“I am,” Jamison said with a proud smirk.
Saige raised her brow in admiration. “Then let’s make this more active.”
Right then men in suits appeared. On instinct the girls and Soren were all standing. Soren in front, Raven in the center, the twins parallel just behind her.
“They seal her,” Jamison said, as he realized each of their purposes.
“Engage,” Jamison said. The suits moved close to them. Soren had taken down five within a breath.
It was like standing in a virtual video game which was a world Soren spent the time he was not skating playing.
Raven kept avoiding them. The twins had sprung to action though. This may be some kind of a drill but it made the nightmares Raven had last night all too real.
Happy place. Happy place. I want my happy place! Raven thought to herself as she dodged another man. She did not want to smell like sulfur!
All at once Raven figured out she was moving really fast. Skates. She’d manifested skates and her rink. Hell yes! Raven took off weaving around the men.
The haunts vanished.
Raven glanced around to see everyone staring at her.
“Raven, I need you to focus,” Jamison said in a tone that said he meant business.
Raven’s smile deflated. “This is how and where I focus.”
“And what are you going to do if you’re not on skates when something happens?”
“Pretend I am?” Raven said with a lifted brow.
Soren and River snickered.
“Raven, I wanted you to practice this. You need to be quick if you’re ever attacked by more than a few, or even if you are one on one.”
“Dad, I do not do fear—it blows. You teach me to be afraid of them and my entire head is going to be white. I dig my stripe but no more,” she said, pulling at the long blonde strip of her hair that developed right after the wreck.
Soren couldn’t help it, he had already manifested his skates. He knew Raven was ruthless on wheels.
Right as Jamison went to argue with Raven they heard someone clear their throat. Everyone looked to the side benches.
There they saw a Mark Twain look-alike whittling a stick. Who still whittles? That’s what Raven wanted to know.
He glanced up from under his hat. Jamison and Saige went ridged.
This could not be good. Raven was sure of that until she saw her father dare to let a small smile emerge, one full of respect and honor.
“All right, Raven,” he said, still gazing at the man. “We’ll make it fun. For you are a child of bliss. Because you are the gift that taught me how vital, precious, and important life is. Just as Ash taught me to be curious and River taught me to be balanced.”
The twins and Raven angled their eyes at each other, then to the old man.
Jamison wasn’t talking to them and they knew it. It was like he was thanking this man. And the twins could have sworn Jamison just laid a public claim on them, spoke as if they were truly his.
The old man smiled, winked, then vanished.
Jamison and Saige glanced at each other. The Creator of all appears in many fashions, but you always know it’s him. You feel a calm wash over you, you feel your eyes open. That was him.
The last time Jamison had seen him was when he fell from his life as an Escort, when he asked him what he was to do then. The Creator guided Jamison’s fallen soul to the coven he now ruled. He guided him to the family Jamison would die to protect.
He also made it clear with his silence that Jamison’s girls, along with Soren, had to learn this their own way. Raven’s was fun; that was the only way she grasped anything. Pure joy, pure bliss was all she knew.
Jamison nodded to Raven to tell her to have at it then moved to the side to sit with Saige and watch. To serve as protectors.