Page 24 of Thrust into the Light
Connor sounds more and more mad as he speaks. I need to tell him about the phone. He said he was my match, and the voice on it said there was another match. He said he hopes we could find more of them. Maybe this will make him happy. I reach up and grab one of his hands with mine and try to pull on it to get his attention. I didn’t like the way the Instructor talked about my voice, so I don’t want to talk again. He doesn’t seem to notice me yet, and I keep pulling on his hand. His stupid big muscles are so much stronger than me. How can I get him to look at me? I look over at the Instructor, and he is staring at Connor.
Connor won’t let him hurt me. I trust Connor.
“Connor.” He still doesn’t look at me. “Connor.” I try again. This time he looks down at me, not looking angry anymore.
“What is it, sweetness?”
“Fone.”
“What about your phone?”
“Her phone went off during class, notifying her of a found match. She needs to have it on silent when in classes, and I would recommend not opening messages where everyone in attendance can hear them.” He blurts.
Connor looks down at me and my phone on the table. He reaches over and grabs it. The Instructor makes a funny noise but stops when Connor looks at him. He opens up the phone, and the message plays again. Connor looks to me, and then to the Instructor, then back to me.
“We are in match house 46. Come over when you get a chance and we can talk. My name is Connor Fitzgerald. I am one of herother matches.” He puts his hand out to the Instructor and the Instructor hugs his hand and they move it up and down again in that strange way.
“I have classes until three, here is her class schedule, I will make a note in her file that she is having a hard time seeing the boards, and would be beneficial to have notes read out loud while the Instructor is writing them, and she has a recording device, so if anything sensitive comes up and doesn’t need to be recorded she can be asked to pause it. This shit should have been in her file to begin with. If I would have known, I wouldn’t have given her the fucking paper.” He rubs a hand over his face and looks down at me. He has that same sad look on his face that Connor gets sometimes. I look up at Connor and he is looking at me the same way. With both of them looking at me like that, my stomach feels funny again. I wonder if it’s something I should talk to Healer Daniel about. Maybe something else is wrong and he’ll know about it.
Connor rubs the back of his neck. “Alright then, I guess we will be seeing you around three.” Connor grabs my bag and puts away my things. He hands the papers back to the Instructor, but keeps the one I was working on. He looks down at the paper and back at me.
“You did such a good job sweetheart, look at how much you managed to do today!” He smiles at me, and it’s easy for my face to smile back at him. When he looks at me that way, it’s easy for my face to smile at him. He helps me stand up and we walk out of the classroom. I don’t know how to say all the words with my mouth that I want to ask him. I touch my head in the way he told me to when I need to talk to him with my brain. He nods at me. So I ask him the questions that I have.
If you are my match, and that means you are my soulmate, does that mean that the person the message said is also my soulmate?
He nods his head to me.
I always dreamed of your eyes, and the eyes of six others. I never saw anything but their eyes. But now that I’ve seen you, you are all there, not just your eyes. Does that mean when I see my othersoulmate, he will be there too?
Connor stops walking. And pulls me close to him.
“I didn’t know you dreamed about our eyes before, sweet girl. If your dreams have changed since you’ve known me, and I have now taken a physical form in your dreams and not just my eyes, then it is safe to say that yes, your new match will replace the eyes you have always known.” He pulls out the paper the Instructor gave him. “Looks like you have some time before your next class. Why don’t we go get you some food? Your next class looks like it is going to be physical training. So we are going to keep the food light. I am not sure how much they are going to try to put you through to test your physical endurance, but I don’t want anything too heavy in there that might come back up.”
I don’t know what that means, but I nod my head at him. He takes my hand and we walk around the academy. There are little carts parked all over the pathway. Some of them have lines of people standing there, others there is just a person standing behind them. Connor looks around for a few minutes, then begins walking us over to one without anyone in line.
The male behind it is smaller than Connor and looks between the two of us and just stares at Connor. He didn’t stare at me! Maybe it had something to do with the funny rumbling noise Connor made.
“A small peach pineapple smoothie. And a small strawberry passion fruit.” A few minutes later, Connor has two small cups, and he hands me the yellow one. His is a strange color of red, like it’s red but not red. He grabs my hand that isn’t holding the cold cup. I don’t like how cold it’s making my hand. He leads us over to one of the flat chairs and sits down, and pulls me down next to him.
“Alright, this is going to be cold, so take small sips, like the ice cream kind of cold.” I take a small sip of it, and it does taste like the pineapple I tried, but it also tastes like something new. I like it. I look at his cup. I wonder what it will taste like. I haven’t heard the words he used when he got his cup. He holds his cup out to me, the straw next to my lips. “Do you want to try mine?”I nod my head at him and he laughs and puts the straw closer to my lips. I take a small sip of his. Oh. It is very different from mine, but I like it too.
He chuckles and takes a sip of his drink next.
“Well, I think we found out two more things you like.” I smile up at him. We sit here in the sun for a while drinking our cold drinks, and mine starts to taste funny. The taste isn’t as strong as it once was. And I look at it, trying to figure out what is wrong with it.
“What’s wrong, sweet girl?”
“Not taste the same.”
“Here, let me see it.” I hand him the cup and he looks at it. “The reason it doesn’t taste the same is because all that is left now is ice. You’ve drunk it all. So let’s find a place to dispose of them and we can walk to your next class. We’ve got a little of time to get there, so no need to rush.” He stands up and walks over to one of the metal things I’ve seen all over the path and throws them in it. I see a small puff of something come from the metal. I stop moving, and Connor looks over at me.
“Hey it’s okay. There is magic on the trash bins that magically destroy the items, but it only works on nonliving things.” He sticks his arm in the metal thing and I hurry over to him and pull his arm out. It looks fine. “See, I’m fine. It won’t hurt us.” He takes my hand and we begin walking in a different direction. I don’t think I’ve been to this part before. There are less and less trees as we make our way out to a big grass area. We cross over a strange path in the ground, and Connor leads me over to a building.
“Alright, this is the changing room. For this class, you’re going to have to change into the clothes they provide for you. Sometimes magic can escape during the first year of class, especially if someone gets stressed out. So they provide some clothes that help protect against some type of magic. There should be showers in there. Don’t take a shower here. After this class, you have no more classes for the day, at least until we know your magic. So when you’re done here for the day, we will go back to the house and you can get cleaned up there. ButI want you to go into the shower and close the curtain to get changed, okay? See this symbol on the door? This is the symbol for females. It means this is for females only. No men are allowed inside, the same can be said for all the restrooms across the academy.”
I look at the strange thing. It’s round, but squiggly too. Like there are arms extending from it trying to grab something. I look around and see people walking our way. Quietly I say, “Toilet?” hoping Connor will hear me. That cold drink is making me really have to go.
He nods. “There should be one in there. Go on in sweet girl, this is one class I can stay around for. Though I’m not allowed to be involved, I can at least stay close by.”
