Chris Quinton ~ Author

Amethyst 4 – Dylan Cunningham

 

Prompt Used – we can’t let this continue

 

Dave was back. Elation rocketed through me and for a long time I didn’t think any further than that. We’d been kids when he’d disappeared, best friends and blood-brothers thanks to a solemn piratical ceremony and a sharp piece of flint when we were seven. I still had the small scar on the ball of my left thumb.

 

The day his eyes first began to change, he’d been mopey and short tempered for a few days, and complaining of headaches. I’d teased him–of course I did, that’s what best friends and blood-brothers are for, right? Usually he joined in and insulted me right back, but not that time. He’d struck out at me, knocking me on my arse, and taken off running through the woods behind our homes. I’d chased after him, tackled him to the ground and we’d rolled in the bracken, scuffling like fox cubs. When he scrambled to his feet and backed away, he’d been laughing and crying at the same time.

 

“You’re glowing!” he’d shouted, knuckling his eyes. “Everything’s glowing, Lan, and it won’t stop”

 

“What?” I’d stood up and grabbed his arms, holding him still. He was taller than me, but not by much. “Did you hit your head?” I’d peered into his eyes and seen the bright blue fracturing with purplish shards. “Dave,” I’d said. “Your eyes have gone funny.”

 

“They have?”

 

I’d nodded. “They’d got weird-coloured bits in–” Then I’d realized what that meant and all the horror stories I’d ever heard flooded into my head. But I hadn’t pushed him away. I’d held him tighter. “Davy,|” I’d whispered, “you’re turning into one of Them!”

 

“No!” He’d wrenched away from me. “Don’t be stupid!”

 

I’d followed and took hold of him again. “Don’t worry,” I’d said. “We can hide in the forest and They’ll never find you!”

 

God, we’d been so young and naive.

*

I dreamed that old memory over and over that night, and by the time dawn painted the forest with pale light I was up and running through the dew-soaked grass. I vaulted the wooden fence separating our orchard from the forest proper, and plunged into the waist-deep bracken. It soon thinned out under the hazel and birch, sycamore, beech and oak, and I found the overgrown but faint path I’d made as a child. Found it and followed it, running fast and free.

 

The last time I’d run this trail was the day the Westons handed Dave overt to the Institute. I’d fled to the den he and I had made deep in the forest behind walls of dense holly and ivy. I needed it now because I wanted to be heading for the Westons’ home and David.

 

“Until we know what the Institute has sent back,” Dad had said last night, “and why.” Those words still reverberated in my head. And they hurt. Maybe because they were cold hard commonsense and the truth. But I couldn’t believe Davy would be so changed that he’d betray me. Had he been excluded? That would mean blocked and memory-wiped, or so the rumours went.

 

The holly barrier was suddenly in front of me, far sooner than I’d expected, and the narrow gap formed by a fallen tree was even narrower. I sprang up onto the trunk and lunged between the sharp leaves, hardly breaking my stride, moving too fast to stop when pressure hit between my eyes. I’d never felt it before, but I knew instinctively what it was. An Adept was close by and he would have sensed me the moment I sensed him.

 

Davy.

 

I skidded to a halt where the first shattered branches clawed dead arms to the sky and stared at him. He stood in front of the makeshift door of our den, poised on the edge of flight, and he was a stranger. A dear familiar stranger. And, God, he was tall, and handsome, and—

 

“Dylan?” he said.

 

“What happened to your hair?” I blurted.

 

He laughed and it sounded more like a sob. “They cut it off.”

 

“Fuckers.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

We moved at the same time, striding towards each other and meeting in a rib-crushing embrace in the middle of the clearing. He wasn’t taller than me any more, and he smelled of morning and green and summer. I didn’t want to let him go and by the way his arms stayed locked around me, he felt the same way.

 

We stood there for a long time. When we finally broke apart he kept one hand on my shoulder as if he thought I’d disappear if he let go. His eyes, his incredible, beautiful amethyst eyes were wild, haunted.

 

“Davy,” I began.

 

“Unregistered,” he said at the same time.

 

“Yes. It hit me late, only a couple of years ago. God, Davy, I wish we could have kept you away from them!”

 

“Me, too,” he whispered.

 

“Have you been Excluded?” I asked. “I never heard they let Adepts have holidays at home. What happened?”

 

“They don’t.” He took a deep shuddering breath, let it out in small gasps as if it hurt him. “I—” He tried to say something, and screwed his face up in pain. “They—I—” His breathing became ragged, as if his lungs weren’t functioning properly.

 

“Whoa!” I caught him by the upper arms. “Don’t try to speak! You’re blocked?”

 

Davy nodded, his expression miserable and hurting. “Standard procedure,” he said.

 

The old anger flared up in me. It had been smouldering in me for years, ever since I was nine and the Psionics Institute took my blood-brother away. The helicopter a few weeks ago had started the fire and this was fuel to the flames.

 

“We can’t let this continue! They can’t keep getting away with ruining people’s lives!”

 

“Break the block,” he said. “Break it and I—” He broke off with a choked cry, clutching his head. I pulled him close and wrapped one arm around his waist, the other around his shoulders.

 

“I will,” I vowed.

 

TBC

 

Now clicky on these links for some great Silver Flash Fics:

 

Sui Lynn (m/m) http://suidlynn.blogspot.com/?zx=57a5d3d27a15dbfa
Catriana Somers http://catrianasmuse.blogspot.com/
Julie Hayes (m/m) http://julielynnhayes.blogspot.com
Freddy MacKay http://freddymackay.blogspot.com
Lily Sawyer (m/m) http://lilysawyerbooks.blogspot.com/
Victoria Blisse (m/f) http://www.victoriablisse.co.uk
West Thornhill (m/m) http://wthornhillauthor.blogspot.com/
Ryssa Edwards (m/m) http://www.ryssaedwards.net/blog/