The Protectors: Book 1 in the Protectors Saga (10 page)

If telling Jade the cold hard facts weren’t going to
work, Avery decided to try a new tactic…pleading, “Look, I know how
insane I sound. Believe me, I know. When I first met Gumptin and he
tried to explain everything to me that he just told you, I wanted
to call the crazy police and have him locked up, but instead I went
with him.” Jade opened her mouth to say something, but Avery held
up her hand and stopped her, “I went with him and saw that
everything he said was the truth.” Avery decided to leave out the
part about how she had really only gone with Gumptin because he
said the people she cared about could be in danger if she didn’t
go. Avery felt that might not go over too well with Jade right
now,

“Jade you know me.” Avery continued, “You know me
better than anyone else in the whole wide world.” Avery saw Jade’s
face soften, her disapproving scowl disappearing, “I would never
lie to you. As crazy as it sounds, I’m telling you that Gumptin’s
telling the truth. Please, Jade, please just come with us, so we
can prove it to you.”

Jade raised her hand to her face and began slowly
massaging the brow between her eyes with her middle finger. She
always did this when she was struggling with a decision. This gave
Avery hope, because if Jade was struggling to decide, then she
wasn’t completely shutting out the idea of going with them.

Unfortunately, all of Avery’s hopes were dashed with
Jade’s next sentence.

“Avery,” She said, face softening even more as she
looked Avery in the eyes, “you know I trust you. I’d trust you with
my life, but this is just too unbelievable.”

Avery could practically feel her whole body
deflate.

“There’s just no way I’m going anywhere with that
creepy psycho,” Jade nodded towards Gumptin, “and, you know what,
neither are you.”

Jade grabbed hold of Avery’s wrist, hard and pulled
her towards the trailer. Avery tried to pull her wrist free, but
Jade, whose lean muscles had always made her strong, had a
vice-like grip on her.

“You’re going inside this trailer,” Jade told Avery,
once they had reached the trailer door, “and you’re staying there
till I get rid of this guy.”

Being man-handled by Jade was the final straw for
Avery. She had gone through enough today already, but she
absolutely refused to be thrown into a trailer by her best friend.
Avery did the only thing she could think of. She grabbed Jade’s
thumb and wrenched it back as far as it could go.

“Owww!” Jade hollered in pain, releasing Avery’s
wrist.

Avery took a few steps back from Jade, so that she
wouldn’t be able to grab hold of her again.

Shaking her head, Avery felt crazy for thinking that
Jade was going to believe her. After all, it had taken Gumptin
actually bringing Avery to a whole other planet, through a magical
gateway, to make her believe. That was when Avery decided the only
way to get Jade to believe was for her to see it with her own two
eyes, just like Avery had.

After all of Jade’s protests, Avery knew of only one
way to get Jade to come back with her and Gumptin, and she knew
Jade would agree to come, even if every fiber of her being was
screaming at her not to go.

Avery thought back to all the times Jade had refused
to let her walk home by herself. She thought back to Alex Marquez
and his poor beaten-up nose. She remembered, how for Christmas,
Jade had given her a Swiss Army knife and portable pepper
spray.

She thought back to all of these things, and then
told Jade, “Fine, you don’t have to believe us. You can stay here,
but I’m going back with Gumptin…alone.”

Avery turned around and started walking towards her
car where Gumptin was still standing. She began counting down in
her head, “…5, 4, 3, 2…”

“Wait!” Jade called from behind Avery, right on
cue.

Avery stopped in her tracks and tried to stifle the
huge smile that was forming across her face as she turned around to
face Jade.

“You know I think this is certifiable,” Jade said,
walking up to Avery, “and I’m gonna have to beat some serious sense
into you later, but there’s no way in hell I’m letting you drive
off alone with him.” Jade motioned towards Gumptin with
disgust.

Gumptin, who had moved into the passenger seat and
was now sitting, shouted from the car, “Jade Kai, shut your mouth
and get in this car.” He lifted his little head out the passenger
seat window, “We all know you are going to end up coming with us,
anyway. So stop wasting our time!”

Before Jade could shout something back at him, Avery
slapped her on the back, “All good then, let’s get going.”

Avery slipped into the driver’s seat and waited for
the other two to get situated.

Jade opened the passenger door, reached in, and
grabbed hold of Gumptin by one of his oversized sleeves, yanking
him out of the car.

“You’re in the back Gump.” Jade told Gumptin, pulling
the passenger side seat forward and motioning for him to get
in.

“The name is Gumptin!” He barked, tugging his sleeve
free from Jade’s fist.

Gumptin straightened his tunic out, all the while
glowering at Jade. He turned his nose up at her, signifying his
disapproval.

“You,” he sniffed, “have not changed one bit.”

Jade shrugged and shoved him into the car, “I’m
taking that as a huge compliment.” She told him, a sly smile
playing at her lips.

Gumptin positioned himself in the back seat behind
Avery, as far away from Jade as he could get, “Trust me,” he
grumbled, “that was anything but a compliment.”

Once Jade sat down and slammed the door shut, Avery
started the car. She thanked her lucky stars that they were finally
on their way. The frustration of trying to convince Jade to believe
her, mixed with having to listen to Gumptin and Jade bicker like
two old ladies had taken a toll on her already frazzled nerves.

Avery gripped the steering wheel tight as she turned
back out onto the highway, grateful that both Jade and Gumptin
seemed content to keep their mouths shut.

“And I shall tell you another thing, young lady,”
Gumptin said from behind Avery, “once we get back to Orcatia, you
shall see that that repellent mouth of yours will not do you an
ounce of good.”

Avery felt her eye begin to twitch as Jade shouted
back, “Stow it, short stack!”

In her rearview mirror, Avery saw Gumptin open his
mouth to say something back to Jade.

“That’s enough!” Avery yelled, before Gumptin got the
chance to continue the argument, “I don’t want to hear another word
out of either of you until we reach the park!”

“He started it!” Jade exclaimed at the exact same
moment Gumptin hollered, “She started it!”

“Not another word!” Avery shouted, taking her right
hand off of the steering wheel and pointing her finger at both of
them.

Both Gumptin and Jade stared out of their respective
windows, looking at the landscape fly by, seeming, for the moment,
to take Avery’s scolding to heart.

Avery clicked on the radio and turned it to a classic
rock station that she knew Jade would like. Knowing that the steady
guitar riffs pounding out of the car’s speakers would calm Jade’s
inner beast.

Avery hazarded to look into her rearview mirror again
and saw Gumptin staring at the radio like it was an attacking beast
that needed to be shot. Anticipating that Gumptin might have
something to say against the rock that was vibrating throughout the
car, Avery turned up the radio to drown out any protests he might
have.

Three long rock songs later, Avery was pulling up to
the curb of the park. Jade had her eyes closed and was silently
air-guitaring along to Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Purple Haze’, when Avery
shut off the car.

Broken out of her musical trance, Jade slinked out of
the car and glanced around the empty park.

“Yeah,” she said to Gumptin, as he tumbled out from
the back seat, “it looks like something really supernatural
happened here.”

Completely ignoring Jade, Gumptin made his way over
to the two Beech trees bookshleving the gateway.

“Well, we’re here,” Jade told Avery as she walked up
to stand next to her on the sidewalk, “now what?”

Avery nodded towards Gumptin, “Now, we follow
him.”

Jade rolled her eyes and followed Avery over to where
Gumptin was standing between the large trees. They stopped behind
Gumptin and waited as he glanced around the park to make sure they
couldn’t be seen. Avery heard Jade sighing next to her and couldn’t
help but suspect that Gumptin was taking an especially long time in
order just to annoy Jade.

Finally, after what Avery was sure was more than
enough time to visually canvas the entire park, Gumptin cleared his
throat and spoke the words, “Ora Gateway.”

It happened just as Avery had remembered it the first
time, the air between the trees beginning to swirl and come alive,
whirling into a liquid that became the circular pool which was the
gateway.

From next to her, Avery could feel Jade stiffen. When
she turned her head to look at Jade, Avery saw that she was shaking
her head slightly, her jaw clenched tight, and a look of complete
shock in her eyes.

Jade began slowly backing away from the spinning
gateway.

“Are you alright?” Avery asked.

She could see in Jade’s eyes that the truth was
slamming down on her. The truth that everything Avery had told her
had been true. Avery could also see Jade’s mind struggling to
accept what she was now seeing as the truth.

Jade shook her head in response to Avery’s question.
She stumbled backwards over her own feet. Avery made a move to
catch her, but Jade held up her hand, righting herself before she
landed on the ground and letting Avery know she needed a second to
herself.

On wobbly legs, Jade staggered over to a wooden
picnic bench sheltered next to the trunk of another shady Beech
tree, about a hundred feet away from the gateway. Once there, she
plopped herself down on the bench and placed her forehead in her
hands.

Avery stood back, watching Jade for a few minutes,
letting her absorb everything. Then, she walked over and joined
Jade at the picnic table, taking a seat across from her. Jade
looked up, made eye contact with Avery, and then placed her head
back into her hands again. Avery just sat across from her, silent.
She was more than content to give Jade as much time as she needed,
especially considering she knew exactly what Jade was feeling, how
confused she was, how scared, and intrigued, and probably just a
little bit nauseous.

After a minute, Jade ran her fingers through her long
black hair, and said to Avery, “I know what I saw. I just don’t
know exactly what it was that I saw.”

Without nerves or emotion to distract her into
rambling again, Avery calmly told Jade everything. She started with
Gumptin surprising her by jumping out from behind a tree after
school let out. She described seeing the Ora Gateway for the first
time and how her reaction wasn’t much different than Jade’s, except
she tried to run away. Avery told Jade the reason she had decided
to follow Gumptin into the Gateway, how he had explained the
possible dangerous repercussions of her deciding not to. She told
her about Orcatia and their village and how weird it was to have
everyone know her when she hadn’t known anyone. She explained to
Jade everything Gumptin had told her about the Emperor and dying
and being reborn on Earth into the past, about being a Protector
and all the powers and responsibilities that went along with
it.

To Avery’s surprise and relief, Jade listened without
any interruptions, something that was rare for her. In fact, even
her facial expression had been pretty stone faced, just one small
smile when Avery had explained their fighting abilities and powers,
and a slight crease in her brow when Avery had talked about them
dying.

“So,” Avery asked when she had finished explaining
everything, “what are you thinking?”

Jade opened her mouth to speak, but then closed it
again when nothing came out.

After a moment, she shook her head, “There’s so many
different thoughts going through my head right now, I wouldn’t even
know how to begin to explain any of them.”

Avery nodded her head in understanding, not wanting
to push Jade.

“How did we die?” Jade asked Avery, the confusion in
her eyes disappearing for the moment as she focused intently on her
question.

“I told you,” Avery answered, “Gumptin said that evil
douche Emperor killed us.”

This answer hadn’t satisfied Jade, “But how did he
kill us?”

“What do you mean?” Avery asked, confused by where
Jade was taking this conversation.

“I mean,” Jade said, firmly gripping the table in
front of her, “we’re supposed to be these five super horse-power
fighting machines, right? So, how did he manage to kill all five of
us at once? These are things we need to know, to avoid it happening
again in the future.”

Avery gave Jade a blank stare. She hadn’t even
thought about that till Jade brought it up, “I don’t know. I don’t
think Gumptin knows.”

Jade scrunched up her face in a particularly
disgusted look, “You didn’t ask?”

Avery blinked, she knew Jade was going to make a
thing out of this, but she didn’t know how to avoid it, “No.” She
answered

Jade laughed exasperatedly, “You see, that’s just
another reason why you don’t run off to strange places without
me…not ever.”

Before Jade had the chance to mention the words
innocent or naive, Avery spoke up, and loudly, “Look, a magical
gnome had just put a bender on my whole reality! I was in more of
an absorb than question mode, alright?!”

Jade couldn’t stop herself from laughing at Avery’s
frustration. She knew Avery hated it when she got over protective,
but she couldn’t help it. Ever since they were kids, she just felt
it was her role to protect Avery, and as Avery was the person she
cared about most in the world, sometimes she took her job a little
too seriously.