Crow - The Awakening (21 page)

As he arrived home, he saw his godparents through window and they didn't look happy. Did Dmitri rat him out? Steven was incredulous at the possibility. He couldn't believe that his best hope and partner in his search had so completely abandoned him, and he fought the urge to run back out into the forest to hide. He hesitated for a moment, then walked inside. The stress filled the air and almost choked him as he walked in. He was sick with grief over the certain betrayal as Jonah pointed sternly to the bench at their dinner table. Sitting down and putting his laptop and backpack on the table, Steven watched his godparents nervously while they took the bench on the opposite side. Sally had been crying and Steven's heart ached for her. He hated seeing her cry and it made him want to cry. He gulped the urge back and looked at Jonah.

"Steven, have you completely ignored us regarding the dangers of computers?" Jonah was restraining himself, but barely. Sally wiped her eyes but sat quietly, fuming and obviously very angry and scared.

Steven didn't answer, and looked down at the grain of the wooden tabletop in silence. What could he say? He had been disobeying them for so many years. But he felt it was his imperative to do so for the sake of finding his parents and that his recent discoveries had justified that disobedience. He had found recent footage of his parents. That has to count for something.

"Your mother and father asked us to keep you safe." Jonah clasped his hands on the table. "Everything we have done has been to fulfill their wishes for you, Steven."

"But now they're missing and no one is doing anything to help them," Steven pleaded.

"You come first, Steven. Your safety. They would never have wanted you to endanger yourself to find them. Ever!" Jonah's voice rose. "Sally and I, we know the danger firsthand. We've experienced it and it's why we left our lives in the tech industry and came out here to live off the land and off the grid. We have done everything we could to keep you safe." He enunciated every word with restrained fury. Jonah took a deep breath and continued. "You're seventeen years old. Half way to eighteen and you're doing everything you can to not even make it to eighteen!" His voice rose significantly. He stopped and sat there for a moment, collecting himself.

Steven was a little shocked. His godparents very rarely got angry at anything. They were the most laid back people Steven had ever known and he was shocked at how mad Jonah was. They were reacting similar to Dmitri, which belittled everything Steven had worked so hard for for so many years. They were all claiming to worry about his safety but his parents were the ones in trouble, not him. Why were they not even mentioning them?

"Until we can verify any damage that could have been done, you are done with your laptop," Jonah said quietly. He really didn't know if that was going to be enough. If Steven had stumbled onto the hornet's nest they had to run from so many years ago, they may all be in serious trouble already.

Steven stared at him in shock. "But I have finals!" He had a lot more than finals, but habitually restrained himself from divulging more than that.

"You may do your finals on Dmitri's PC and we will be there when you take the tests," Jonah said. "Steven, I can't express to you how disappointed we are."

"Disappointed?" Steven was getting angry now. "You are telling me about disappointment?" Jonah looked at him, a curious expression on his face. Steven had trouble remaining in his seat. "I have been looking for my parents for a decade. No one, not one person has been looking for them. I've been doing it all by myself and you're telling me how disappointed you are in me?" He finally stood up and paced back and forth along the table. He had felt this frustration for years but never expressed it to anyone but Asherah and she was just a figment of his imagination.

"Steven, you don't understand," Jonah started, then stopped.

"Understand what? It's like you don't want me to find my parents! Why isn't anyone making any attempt? No police, no FBI, no nothing. It's like they never existed! It took me years to just find any evidence of them!" Steven was crying angrily now. "The only reason you have given me to stay off computers was because of how dangerous they are and how we are hiding from bad people. But every time you tell me about those bad people, the only thing I hear is that they have my parents and no one is bothering to do anything." He jabbed his finger toward Jonah and Sally for emphasis.

"Steven!" Jonah yelled, half standing up. "No one is looking for your parents because they're dead!"

Steven stopped, staring at Jonah in shock. "How do you know that?" he challenged.

"These people leave a trail of bodies where ever they go!" Jonah exclaimed. "They don't take prisoners, and certainly not for seventeen years!" He sat back down. "And we have faced that reality every day since then." Jonah looked at Sally. "It could have been us, Steven. It could still be us."

Steven growled and yanked his laptop out of the bag. It was in sleep mode and came up fast enough when he opened the lid to have the video of his parents displaying on the screen almost instantly. Turning it around, he glared at Sally and Jonah. "Tell me that's dead!" Steven pointed at the video. "I was able to get the date stamp of that video stream. It's current!"

Jonah and Sally's jaws dropped and Jonah sat down in shock. That was all the confirmation Steven needed. He had really seen his parents with his own eyes. Not in a dream, not in drawings but there they were on video and he felt a strange surge of relief because of his godparents' reaction to the video. The last shred of doubt had been absolutely obliterated. "They have my parents. All these years and they've been locked up somewhere." Steven jabbed a finger at the laptop. "That's not dead. That's alive!"

Sally covered her mouth as she gasped. She had no idea just how deep Steven had dug to find these videos and he could see her heart breaking with absolute terror. He simply could not comprehend why she was so afraid when it wasn't her that was locked up, but them. Steven looked at Jonah who was sitting there gripping the table with both of his hands.

"Steven, you have absolutely no idea what you have done." He wasn't angry now. For the first time Steven saw fear in his godfather. Quite suddenly Steven's fury deflated and he was left confused.

"I know exactly what I have done. I have found my parents and I'm going to rescue them," Steven said calmly. His determination was growing by leaps and bounds and for the first time he felt empowered. Nothing was going to stop him or get in his way.

"You can't fight these people, Steven," Jonah said quietly. "All the military might on Earth couldn't remotely fight them."

Steven was at a loss of words. What Jonah was saying wasn't making sense and Steven could only chalk it up to exaggeration. "I've got to try, Jonah. If I don't, I will never know who I am. Who they are." Steven pointed at the video and started crying in frustration. He had worked so hard for all these years and simply refused to throw that away when his parents were so tantalizingly close. "They need to know that they haven't been forgotten. I have thought of them for practically every day of my life and I'm not going to give up until they are free."

"Steven! You are going to get all of us killed!" Jonah said angrily. "It may already be too late!" Sally was crying, looking at the two of them. Everything they had done was unraveling at the seams and she felt powerless to do anything about it.

"Not if I'm not here!" Steven yelled back, his anger suddenly boiling over. Then it dawned on him. If it were just him, they would be safe, after all. Suddenly solutions presented themselves to him that he had never considered before, solutions that didn't require him sneaking around.

Jonah froze and Sally looked up, alarmed. "No, Steven," Sally begged, crying freely now. "Don't you even think that." But the seed had been planted.

"I need to find them, Sally," Steven said, emphasizing each word. Sally crying made him cry too, but didn't change his determination. He put both hands on the table and leaned forward toward Sally and Jonah angrily. "You are not my parents! You're Sally and Jonah! These are my parents! And you're doing everything you can to keep me from finding them! If you're so worried about the danger then I don't need to be here." Steven's anger was overflowing. He could swear he smelled smoke coming from the table where his hands were, but disregarded that as he glared angrily at them, wiping tears from his cheeks. He hated seeing Sally cry, but his path was clear to him now. If no one was going to help him, then he had to get out of the way of those who were trying to stop him.

Sally sobbed loudly and stood up. "Steven! Don't you dare!"

Leaving his laptop and backpack on the table, Steven ran to his room and slammed the door hard enough to make dust fall from the ceiling of their home. Jonah sat there, stunned by Steven's reaction. He had no idea the depths of his obsession with his parents. Sally turned to Jonah. "Do something!" She was frantic. Jonah got up and knocked on the door and tried the knob. It was locked and he looked at Sally who covered her mouth with her hands as she sank to the floor. Her worst fears were coming to pass and she was losing her family. Jonah went to her and sat with her, holding her as she rocked, sobbing.

His heart pounding, Steven made a decision. It was time to leave. For a moment he was only half serious, intending more to shock his godparents to express how serious he was. But with every second that passed the reality of it dawned on him. He would never be able to have the unfettered access that he needed to conduct his search here and he most definitely no longer had any support now that Dmitri had betrayed him. He was going to have to conduct his search somewhere else now.

Crying at the turn of events, he grabbed another backpack from his wardrobe and stuffed it with some clothing. He opened one of the tins he kept some money in. They were some of the proceeds of his honey sales that he had been saving up for his search. Now it was going to help him survive on his own. He grabbed a handful of cash and put the tin back on the shelf. For years Steven had been thrifty, saving up for his projects. Most of the saved money was out at the tree house, but he hated to leave his stash in his bedroom behind. He put the cash in another bag and stuffed it inside his backpack. Looking around, he realized that there really wasn't anything there that he really valued. Excepting his art and computers, he had lived a very spartan life. All of his recreation had happened out in the forest anyway. If nothing else, it made things very easy at Christmas. He grabbed his sketchbook and pencils and put them in his backpack and zipped it up. The rest of the items he needed were out at the tree house.

The enormity of the calamity he had been experiencing that day caught up with him as he was zipping his backpack up and he suddenly had to sit down as he was overwhelmed with grief. Everyone had turned against him and the loneliness clawed at him all the more, trying fervently to drag him down into the depths of hopeless despair. He couldn't imagine continuing on so totally alone. But he had run out of options and he cried as he fought off hopelessness and frustration. Steven had enough of the frustration and futility for so many years and now that he had actually made some progress he was fighting to hold onto it tooth and nail. But because of that he was losing all the people who ever cared about him and he simply couldn't understand why. Everywhere he turned, people were betraying him.

"Steven." He heard a whisper that jolted him to his senses. He couldn't tell where it came from because it seemed to be all around him and even within. "You're not alone."

"Asherah?" He looked around, feeling a tingle go up his spine and he shivered. But there was no one with him in the room. He put his head in his hands and tried to take deep breaths. His prescription was in his other bag out on the dining table and he didn't want to go back out there. Jonah had stopped knocking on the door and Steven refused to face him or Sally again. Not now. He would just have to manage as best as he could until he could find the ingredients and make his own tea. His heart ached for Asherah and he closed his eyes and tried to still the progression of that distraction. But he was so desperate for someone to be on his side, for anyone to actually care about him, that he found it nearly impossible to resist giving in.

He sat on the bed for a moment, gathering his wits. His godparents had left him alone and remained out in the dining room. He could hear Sally crying and his heart broke at the thought of causing her pain. He loved them both so dearly but he couldn't act on that now. He could only guess at what they were thinking, but he knew he had caused them a lot of grief today. But what was he to do? Not search for his parents? Just let them rot in some cell somewhere while he lived a fat and happy life? The mere thought of that appalled him.

Sighing, Steven shouldered the backpack and climbed out his window and ran off to the edge of the homestead before looking back at the modest cob home. It was such a beautiful homestead and he had such great memories that part of him screamed against his leaving. He tuned it out, determined to leave now that the cat was out of the bag and his godparents knew of his disobedience. Nothing would be the same here anyway. His godparents were sitting at the table now and he could see them through the window. Sally was being held by Jonah as she cried. Steven cried inside at her pain. He so sorely wished there was another alternative and was furious at the choice he was having to make. He was too close to finding his parents or answers to stop now.

A massive wolf came up from behind and stood next to him, and Steven absentmindedly scratched it behind the ears as he stood there taking a final look at the place and his godparents. He had no idea where his path would take him now or if he would ever see them again. He insulted them by claiming they weren't his parents and he sorely regretted that. They had been the only parents he had ever known. Shaking his head, he turned around and disappeared into the forest, not looking back, and the wolf followed shortly after him. Steven felt some comfort that at least his forest friends had not abandoned him.