Chapter 64

I look back in a panic to see the we reassuring faces of Adrian and Arden, but yet the moment I look back, I feel I have made a grave mistake.

The looks that both of them have on their face is one of rigid coldness, the sort that would make each and every other person not to be able to read what lies beneath, but as I said earlier I'm a pro at reading people's looks.

Adrian portrays the faint hint of a panic in his eyes, and the way his mouth is clamped shut makes me know that he's nervous. He's nervous for me and he's nervous for each and every one of us. He has lived there long enough to know that though these people might seem like teenagers just starting out life, they are much more than that. They're as dangerous as danger can be, and so I see nervousness in his eyes. I see nervousness and concern, and fear for me, fear for what I am currently doing, and fear for involving myself so much in this plan of mine.

In Arden's eyes I see the flames of a panic, and that is exactly what makes me know I made a mistake by glancing back at them. It has drawn a sort of connection between us in the eyes of these people, like spending basically all my time with them hasn't, but still.

It is only giving people the grim reassurance that I am not just working on my own. With the slow way I walk, and the short steps I take, and now with me glancing back at them, it would seem I was on some sort of errand that they couldn't carry out themselves, and simply did not deem it fit to send someone worthier or more experienced at these things.

It would seem they sent one who hasn't gotten a taste of what living here felt like. It has also exposed a critical part of my weakness to all of them.

I never knew never nervousness could be a weakness, but the satisfaction I see in people's eyes at noticing this makes me want to find my way into the deepest parts of the Earth. It seems there is nothing that will escape the gaze of a predator towards it's prey, and that is the same gaze I see in each and everyone's eyes.

The gaze of people who know now, that if they can seem cold and rigid enough and ignore the hell out of me, I would simply become nervous and that will give them a chance to see through my defences. For a moment I become so unsure of myself, that I want to turn back and walk to the seat I had come out from.

I want to stand up and go back where I came from, and behave like all of this never happened, behave like I never had this stupid plan to go confront someone who is so clearly out of my league, but then Adrian's words come back to me.

The same words he spoke to me when I told him I was feeling ignored at the moment. I have all the attention I will possibly ever need in this place on me, but yet it doesn't seem to make a difference. I'm still as nervous as I was, even when I was being ignored, and I think I'm even more so now.

The words he said come back, as I remember the only word that truly mattered in that sentence. Strength, I am his strength.