Chapter 9

The Aftermath

∞

Silence, like drifting feathers after a pillow fight, floated down over the clearing. The look of anger and determination in the girl’s eyes changed to a look of realization and then to worry. Reality set in, the reality of what she had done, the reality of her innocent past lost, and the reality that she had taken the life of another, seemed to wrap itself around her neck.

Decker’s reality changed too. His reality, up until that point, was that he was to be a hero. His dreams told him that much, but his perception of how he was to be that hero had been different than what it was turning out to be. He had believed that he would end up wielding a sword and fighting demon-like creatures in a world where civilization was nothing more than a thing of the past, and a goal to reclaim. The warrior in his dreams showed him a dystopian world of chaos, of destruction, and cities on fire with children screaming for their mothers.

There was no doubt in Decker’s mind that the blood splattered girl in front of him was that warrior. Her worried silver eyes, lack of tattoos and scars or not, told him that much. And she, indeed, needed a hero at that point, for without him she was doomed to suffer a life surrounded by prison bars. He could already hear the barking of Jacob’s father’s dogs approaching, which meant that he had already been alerted to what was going down.

“I did this!” Decker announced to his cronies. His announcement was met by dumbfounded stares. “Do you hear me?” he asked, looking around to each member of his gang. “Everything that you saw the girl do, everything that happened, came from me. You all were trying to stop me. You all saw that I had gone crazy and you all tried to stop me!” he added.

His cronies started to come back to reality. They took turns looking at each other stupidly, but the barking of the dogs was getting louder and they all sensed the coming doom.

“We don’t have much time! Tell me that you understand,” he begged.

“But...” Cree’s brother began.

“But nothing! You all have been listening to my rants and going along with what I’ve said; I’ve told you all about my dreams and what those dreams said was coming. I’ve told you all about the warrior that was in my dreams and you’ve all said that you believed me! She,” he said pointing at Whitney, “is that warrior! I am no longer the leader of the Onyx Ravens. She is! From here on out, if she ever needs any of us we will come to her aid! Do you understand?”

At first it was as if their thoughts were wading through tree sap. Their movements and responses were slow and reluctant, but Decker’s message was cutting through the sludge. They were all smart enough to know that trouble was on the horizon and Decker was offering them all a way out of it. He was telling them that he would take the fall, and on top of that, that they could also say that they had tried to stop him.

“Yeah,” they all began to say one at a time. “Sure Decker, whatever you say, man.”

Decker walked up to Whitney and took the staff from her hands. At first her grip was unrelenting, but she let it go. Decker made sure that his hand prints were all over it from top to bottom. Then he went to Cree, began to scoop some of his blood from his chest, and wipe that all over him. “After I killed him I did this to celebrate my victory over him, got it?”

They nodded.

He pointed to Cree’s brother. “I tossed a necklace over there,” he said moving his finger to where the necklace was. “Get it and give it to her. She’s going to need it.”

Cree’s brother walked over to it, picked it up tentatively as if the necklace were a rattle snake instead of a stone on a chain, and brought it to the girl. He gently took her hand and slid the chain into it.

“Are you sure you want to do this, Decker! I mean you’re going to go to prison for sure!” Cree’s brother exclaimed.

Decker marched up to him and stood before him. “I need you and everyone else to get committed to this. No matter what happens. No matter how many questions come, no matter how much pressure is put on you! I did this. I did all of it. Everything that you saw the girl do you say I did. Got it! Your brother died for a reason. Always remember that. If she gets pinned for this then your brother died for nothing! We will all need her later on! Even if you’ve never believed me before then believe me now.”

“Yeah but Decker, she don’t look nothing like what you said,” his cousin pointed out.

“The silver eyes, Ben! You see those, right? She don’t have the scars or the tatts, but other than that she looks exactly like a younger version of the girl in my dreams. Tell me you see that, Ben. Tell me that you are with me!”