Dream of Us
Chapter Five

Denali’s POV.

I wake when I reach the airport. The woman on the PA system announces that we have arrived at Ryton airport. I almost miss the stop and have to rush off the carriage with my bag. Standing on the platform, I look around for the right signage and follow the arrows to the departures terminal.

My ears are sensitive. They have been unused for so long, accustomed to the quiet dripping of that leaky pipe, that the onslaught of sounds at the airport is overwhelming. I wince as the wheels of suitcases roll past, combined with endless announcements on the PA, excited chatter from travellers, screaming kids and whirring machinery. A low whine leaves the back of my throat when I pass a coffee shop and one of the baristas releases a loud squeal of steam from the wand of one of the coffee machines.

It is all so intense that I have to rush into the toilets to get an escape. I go into one of the cubicles and put my hands over my eyes, squeezing my eyes shut when I can still hear the mechanical hand dryers blowing loudly just outside the cubicles. There is no relief from sound in this place.

I don’t know how long I sit hunched forward on the toilet. Someone knocks on the door and asks if I’m okay. I manage to choke out a response before returning to my meditation in an attempt to calm my mind. My ears slowly adjust, learning to only tune into certain sounds and lower the amplitudes of others.

When I’ve recovered, I exit the toilets and find the departures board that lists all of the flights available for the rest of the day. There are so many options. I scan over them all, feeling out for any sign that one will be more promising than the others.

I close my eyes and send a silent prayer to the Moon Goddess. I ask her to help me find my way. I need to find Dyani. I can feel strangers staring at me as they pass by. My closed-eye contemplation clearly confuses them, but I pay them no heed. I have my focus.

I slowly open my eyes. My gaze naturally lands on Laleston. It’s a city I’ve never been to before, but I’ve heard of it. If memory serves me correctly, it used to be about nine hours away from my hometown, making it roughly seven hours from Ryton.

The flight is in one hour and the gate has been listed already. I tighten my hand around my luggage handle and head for the ticket desk, where I book one of the last seats on the plane.

Security is next. I don’t have any weapons on me, I don’t need them when my body is a weapon. The security guard remarks on my height, I am 6”6, but lets me through without a hitch.

I use cash to buy myself a sandwich. Although my flight will be registered electronically, I’d like to leave as small a footprint as possible to make myself less traceable. I keep my hood up and avoid CCTV as much as possible too, without looking suspicious.

A good feeling settles in my stomach as I sit down at the gate and wait for boarding to become available. This flight will take me one step closer to finding my mates.

I’ve been on planes before when I was younger. My father would take me all around the world, visiting other packs and meeting estranged family members. Sitting in the uncomfortable plane seat with the clip-on seatbelt and stiff armrests brings it all back. Suddenly, I’m twelve again and annoying the person behind me by reclining my chair as far as it can go.

I slip in the headphones that I bought and close my eyes in an attempt to get some more rest. I’m going to use this journey to regain my full strength, that way I’ll be ready to take on whatever waits for me in Laleston.

I dream of Dyani. She’s waiting for me at arrivals, a huge smile on her face. She’s bobbing up and down, she’s so excited to see me. I drop my bags the moment I see her. I push through other passengers, uncaring of how rude I am being, desperate to have her in my arms. As I reach her, I wrap my arms around her small frame and stumble forwards as she dissipates in nothing. She disappears into thin air, leaving my arms empty and my arms aching.

I wake from the dream with a start, scaring the man next to me and causing him to spill the water he is drinking down himself. I apologise as he grumbles under his breath and mops his shirt.

A glance to my right shows me that we’re far above the ground, nothing but clouds surround the plane. It was only a dream, but it has left an uneasy feeling in my stomach. I feel as though it was a sign, a foreshadowing of sorts. It can’t be, though. There’s no possible way for anyone, including celestials, to disappear into thin air. I know it’s merely a construct of my own fear of losing Dyani again.

It was clearly a dream and not a vision. Dyani looked the same as she did when it all went down ten years ago. In my dream, she was still fifteen. I hadn’t thought about how different she might look, now. She’s twenty-five, she’s an actual adult. A woman compared to the teenage girl that she was when she was taken from us. I wonder if she still loves R&B or is still obsessed with buffalo wings and vanilla milkshakes.

I know that it won’t be all sunshine and rainbows when the four of us are reunited. It’s going to take some time for us to get used to knowing each other as adults rather than as teens. So much will have changed, and we’ll probably have to get to know each other all over again. To be honest, I’m almost excited about that part. It’s a rare opportunity that you get to fall in love with someone twice.

Reassured by the thought, I close my eyes and slip into a dreamless sleep. When I wake, the air steward is announcing that we are preparing to land in Laleston. Already, I feel closer to her.

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Laleston is further south that Ryton. It’s balmy with just the right amount of humidity, not enough to make my clothes stick to my skin and not so little that the air feels dry as a desert. I look around for a taxi and head towards the nearest one. I have no idea where to start, but I’m hoping by heading into the city centre, I can try and get a feel for where Dyani might be. Tracking used to be easy for us. I’m hoping that it still will be.

The cab drops me off at Laleston Central, the train station. I get out and immediately lift my head, sniffing the air and trying to catch a scent of anything that might help me. As with most cities, there is a lot of scent pollution in the air, foreign scents that disrupt my identification of the one I want to smell most.

I wander around the city for an hour or so, sticking to the high streets and main roads, but I find nothing. The sun starts to lower in the late afternoon, and I realise that I need to find somewhere to stay. I visit a couple rental companies and they manage to find me a flat that I can move into the following day.

With the contract for my new flat signed for a month’s rent, I walk a couple blocks and find a hotel that has a room for me for tonight. I take a shower to wash the plane smell off and then look at the maps on my phone, trying to work out where I should look tomorrow.

I try searching for her on social media, but there are no accounts listed under her name, Dyani Decoteau. The ones she had before are gone and I’m guessing that has something to do with her father. My own profiles have been removed, too.

Without a clue where to start, I pick an area at random. I’ll get the bus there in the morning. I order a burger from room service and eat it on the bed while watching TV. At some point, I turn it off and fall asleep on the hard mattress.

During my time in the magic-induced, comatose state I was put into in my cell, I occasionally got flashes of my brothers. I know from those visions that they are being held in the same way that I was. I’ve seen them in my mind, bound in silver chains, their eyes closed and their breathing steady. They’re not in any pain, but they’re frozen the way I was, petrified and unmoving.

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