Missed day! Extra special giveaway.

I am so sorry, I missed a day of posting. To make up for it, this weelk's postings will all be extra
pages of the unedited version of The Azemeon. I'll also be cooking up an extra special giveaway for you my loyal followers. Stay tuned and feel free to post, to share, and to tweet. Thanks for being awesome.

Back at Jacqueline’s house, Jacqueline dabbed at Dephon’s eye with a herb that appeared to be … drooling. Dephon tried not to cringe, opting to ignore the abnormal feel of plant spit on his face, because it appeared to be helping. His vision had cleared and the pain had subsided.

“I can’t believe Virginia sprayed me with mace,” Dephon said, blinking against the brightness of the light.

“I can’t believe you’re surprised.  That’s what girls are supposed to do when a strange boy chases them around the mall. Were you expecting a greeting card?” she waved her hand dismissively, “Tell me about future me.”

“I wasn’t chasing them,” Dephon said adamantly. Jacqueline gave him a disbelieving glance. Dephon shook his head. “Whatever. As for future you, she still knows it all and tells nothing. The future you wouldn’t have told me about the mace either.”

“In my defense, I yelled after you, but you ignored me. I was going to warn you, but you didn’t listen. Hopefully, lesson learned. Tell me about the future. I’ve never met a person who has time travelled. Twins are rare and royalty is even rarer. You might be the first time traveler.”

“Lucky me,” he said drily. “There’s nothing to tell really.  The Treptonian government has taken over the planet. We have to stay inside, schools and sports are illegal. The government controls everything and anyone who doesn’t obey is shot to death. ”

“So I sent you back to save the future. Sounds like the type of brilliant plan that I would come up with.” Jacqueline said, smiling to herself.

“Some plan: my mother thinks I’m a stalker, I’m stuck in the past, and I have no idea what to do to keep history from repeating itself.”

“I didn’t give you any instructions at all? That doesn’t sound like me.”

“You told me to read my mom’s Exemeus. That’s it. Some advice.”  

“Well, did you read it?” She asked, resuming her ministrations on his eye.

“Um— ” but before Dephon could evade the question, the doorbell rang.

Jacqueline froze.

“What’s wrong?” Dephon asked.                                      

“The doorbell isn’t supposed to ring.”

“It’s not? Is it broken?”

“No, I just didn’t foresee it happening.”

“Who is it?” Dephon asked peering over her shoulder as though he could see through walls.

“I don’t know,” Jacqueline said, thoroughly perplexed. “I think your presence is throwing everything off. We’ve got to be careful; time shouldn’t change too much.”  She headed to the door. Dephon hopped off the counter and followed her.

The door swung open and on the steps stood a girl in a flowery white and pink dress.

Dephon recognized her instantly. “You,” he yelled pointing at her. “You’ve been following me.”

The girl stepped around Jacqueline and reached out to touch Dephon’s face. He swatted her hand away in surprise and took a tentative step back.

“You two know each other?” Jacqueline asked.

“No,” Dephon said. At the same time the girl responded “yes”.

“Who are you?” Dephon asked staring into her brown oval eyes. Her stare was intense, he shook it off, taking another step back.

“I’m your energy match. I felt like you needed me,” she said, her voice sounding hollow like she was whispering, but managing to do it at a regular volume.

“How could I need you? I don’t know you.” Dephon said, glancing to Jacqueline for confirmation. Jacqueline watched the exchange with barely constrained amusement.

“We’re energy matches. We’ll always know when we need each other.”

Dephon hoped to one day meet a female he didn’t think was weird. Today was clearly not going to be that day. “Firstly, you and I are nothing to each other, but strangers.  Secondly, you can’t just show up at someone’s house rambling on about energy matches and expect people to not think that you’re crazy. What is an energy match, anyway?” Dephon said looking back and forth between Jacqueline and the strange girl. Jacqueline shrugged, clearly as ignorant as Dephon was. Not comforting.

The strange girl reached out and grabbed Dephon’s hand. His skin began to glow an ocean blue color-- and so did hers-- an energy hummed along the surface of his skin, the room was brighter, his vision was sharper, and he felt the strength of his powers practically crackling at his fingertips. It was intoxicating.

She removed her hand way too quickly and Dephon had to forcibly hold himself back to keep from following her hand.

“You need me,” she said simply.

Dephon had to agree.

“That was amazing,” Jacqueline said with excitement. “Who are you?”

“Valentina,” she said, paying attention to Jacqueline for the first time. “ And your Jacqueline.” She said simply.

“How do you know that?” Dephon asked.

“I had a feeling.”

“Of course, you seem to have a lot of feelings.”

“I do. I felt that you needed me and I felt your sadness and your pain.”

Dephon furrowed his brow, “I think your feeling device is off, because I’m not sad.”

Valentina smiled and reached up and brushed her fingers past the corner of his eyes.  Dephon gasped as an overwhelming sadness pervaded his body. He had to grit his teeth to keep from crying. His mind was a jumble of all the times in the future that didn’t exist yet, where he would long for his mother, but she wouldn’t be there. His mind raced through this first time that they met and how she let her friend mace him. He remembered the moments in the book when she was so loving and tender to those around her, but he had yet to experience any of her kindness.

“Make it stop,” Dephon said to her, through gritted teeth. The jumble of thoughts was more than he could handle.

 “Only you can make it stop,” she said taking his hand in hers. “Command it away,” she said to him as his skin lit up and his powers thrummed to life.

Dephon mentally pushed the thoughts away. Almost immediately they disappeared, but the sadness remained. “I’m still depressed.”

“I know, but that is your decision. You’ve always been sad about your mother’s absence and now what you feel is a second betrayal; I just let you feel it. You shouldn’t hide from your feelings.”

Just great. Now he was suffering from depression on top of all of his other problems.

“On that note, I think I’m going to leave you two to get acquainted,” Jacqueline said. “You’re both welcomed to stay as long as you like.”

Dephon didn’t protest. He couldn’t, because Jacqueline was gone, leaving him alone with the girl he didn’t quite trust.

That's all for now, hope you enjoyed.

Loving ya

Folami