Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.     I Wish: Book 4 Chapter 9 River of Emotions By Amethyst

Sleep did not come easily that night for me. My mind just didn’t want to slow down enough for sleep and it had become a hurricane of darker thoughts, what-ifs, and turbulent emotions. Fear, shame, guilt, anger, and self-loathing just kept battling for dominance over my heart and mind and it seemed that every time that I closed my eyes I could feel Kari’s hands on my body and her tongue in my mouth again. I felt like throwing up or better yet curling up in a ball under my blankets and never facing the world again.

I could sense Ziralin having similar emotional turmoil through our link and across the room Ellie tossed and turned for a while before I started to hear her softly crying under her blankets. I wanted so badly to comfort my Fae cousin, but I was such a mess myself and I was afraid of how she might react and how I might react. I knew that I didn’t really want anyone touching me after what happened, so trying to hold and comfort her right now could be a bad idea.

Poor Elsaishe probably felt the worst of us all. She had been still trying to figure out her sexuality and to have to discover it like that was bad enough, but that Lily had been going at her hot and heavy and trying to tear her clothes off when Ziralin and I rushed in to stop her. It was far from ideal as first sexual experiences went. And at least Ziralin and I had done some serious heavy petting with one another before. Ellie also hadn’t been able to snap out of it on her own. I had been fighting it and I probably wouldn’t have snapped out of it if I hadn’t kept having Ziralin pop into my head and had that strange powerful urge to touch Kari’s face, while Ziralin had me pushing at our mental link to help her shake the whammy.

“Cuz?” I called out to her side of our darkened room.

Her sniffling intensified for a moment before she got herself under control enough to respond, “Yeah?”

“I’m so sorry, this is all my fault,” I said morosely. “We should have called in backup as soon as we sensed that there was a Succubus involved. It was stupid and overconfident to rush in and think we could handle it when we knew damn well that Ziralin and I could be affected by them, especially since we weren’t certain if you would be too.”

“It’s not your fault, Shannon. *sniffle* We all decided to go into that sorority house when we knew what was waiting in there. I guess Mother Josephine was right, sometimes we need to think things through a little better before jumping into things. Please don’t blame yourself,” she pleaded before sniffling once more and then speaking again. “Yeah, what happened sucked, but Annie’s right too, it could have gone a lot worse and we were there for one another.”

I hesitated, my heart aching for her. “I… just don’t want you thinking it’s always going to be like what you experienced with Lily. First, she was a Demon so there was bound to be some trauma with that. And second, even with everyday people, there might be people like Lily but not all of them are like that. You’re one of the sweetest and most wonderful people I know, so I’m pretty sure that someday you’ll find someone worth taking a chance on like I did with Beth. Sure she might have been turned into a Fae and we’ve gone through things most people can’t even imagine, but we’re still together because we love each other, and love helped us through this tonight. Don’t be afraid to pursue it if you find someone that you feel like that about.”

“But what if they’re jerks or they try to…”

I didn’t let her finish that sentence, I didn’t want either of our minds going back there. “You’re learning to defend yourself so between that and your Faery physical abilities you’ll be able to handle any normal humans who go too far, and you’ve got family and friends in your corner now, Ellie. You’re not alone in this and anyone who mistreats my cousin, I’m going to have words with them because you’re special and you don’t deserve that.”

I could hear her sniffling in the dark again and it was a moment before she finally said, “You’re special too, Cuz.” Hesitation filled her trembling voice as she spoke again. “I… I don’t think that I can sleep alone.”

I figured that she was as uncertain as I was about having someone else so close and intimate with her so soon after what had happened. But Ellie was Faery and as I had learned while in Tír na nÓg, Faery are big on physical comfort. I had to remind myself that it was Ellie. We had slept in the same bed before and she was like a little sister to me. Right now that sister needed me to feel comforted and safe and her needs would trump any physical or mental discomfort on my part every time, because family are there for one another, even when it’s hard. “Climb on in, Cuz. There’s room for both of us.”

Elsaishe climbed into bed beside me and I quickly squashed the sense of panic that stabbed through me at having another person so close to me. Once she was comfortable I pulled the covers over us, put my arms around her, and held her until the crying and shaking stopped and she fell asleep in my arms. It wasn’t the best sleep, she was having nightmares and called out in panic a few times but each time she awoke I just reminded her that I was there with a whispered word and gently stroking her hair until she fell back to sleep. I was still awake when the alarm went off, but Ellie had gotten a few hours of sleep and that made it worth it. She needed it more than I did since she had work after school and I still couldn’t close my eyes without feeling Kari’s hands on me anyway.

I gently woke my Fae bedmate and after turning off the alarm I went to prepare for the day. A nice cold shower woke me up some but did little to alleviate that dirty feeling that had stuck to me since the encounter with Kari. I went through my whole morning pampering routine, trying to give myself a sense of comfort and normalcy but, while it was soothing on the outside, on the inside I didn’t think I would ever feel like myself again. I surrendered our bathroom to Ellie, who still looked as shaken as I was, and then got dressed in my school uniform and went downstairs for breakfast.

I didn’t feel much like eating but Sarah and Talisha made sure that I had some yogurt, a bagel, and a strong cup of coffee, even if I did have to put a bunch of sugar in the latter to make it close to palatable. Sarah must have told Talisha what had happened since all through breakfast the elder faery was watching both her daughter and me in concern. They both looked like they wanted to say or do something, but when Talisha began to speak Annie just placed a hand on the Faery’s shoulder and shook her head. For not saying a word Annie’s message was pretty clear, “They’ll talk about it when they’re ready.”

Neither Ellie nor I wanted to talk about what happened at the sorority house, but I couldn’t bear the uncomfortable silence either. Finally, just to have someone say something I inquired, “How’d things go with Lisa?”

My sister sighed, but answered the question. “I managed to remove all of the memories since she ran from Sgt. Williams and into the parking lot and left her at the hospital to be found. There was a pretty big chemical imbalance in her brain though, enough that it was probably affecting her thinking, but I don’t have much experience dealing with Skarik victims and I’m not a neurologist so I can’t be sure if it was from the feeding on her emotions or something inherent to Lisa herself. I fixed it regardless, that kind of imbalance can’t be healthy for a person.”

“Derek called before you got up to let us know that Lisa had been located and is currently in the hospital. There’s nothing physically wrong but they’re concerned about her memory loss. He said that while they can’t really charge her with anything there was enough evidence between the video footage and what was found in her car that you can still push for a restraining order if you want to,” Annie added.

As grateful as I was to both Detective Hanson and Sgt. Williams for their help with Lisa I wasn’t sure that I was really in a state of mind where I could make a decision like that right then, especially since I wasn’t sure exactly what doing that would entail. Also, as much as I hated to admit it, Lisa was probably as much a victim as I was, even if she couldn’t remember it. The thought of pushing a restraining order at someone who was in the hospital with no idea of how she had gotten there or what had happened to her for over a day just didn’t sit well with me, even if she had been a bitch to me. “Can I think about it for a few days?”

Annie nodded. “Of course, Shannon. I can understand not wanting to make any snap decisions at the moment. I can go over your options with you after tonight’s self-defense lesson if you want and you can take a day or two to think it over.”

Soon Ziralin, or rather Beth, came to pick Ellie and me up in my car. The drive to school was as uncomfortably quiet as breakfast had been and it looked like my girlfriend hadn’t gotten much more sleep than Ellie had. When we got to school we all headed straight for our lockers and I found Jen waiting beside mine. I guess that made sense since it was right next to hers. “Good morning, Shannon,” she offered with a smile.

I managed to get a “Hey, Jen,” in as I opened my locker.

My best friend noticed my lack of enthusiasm, but I guess she wouldn’t be my best friend if she didn’t notice things like that. “Is everything okay? You’re not really acting like…” she put her hand companionably on my shoulder and since I was too busy dealing with getting my stuff for my first class of the day I didn’t see it coming.

I instinctively recoiled, pulling away as I felt panic surge through my chest. She was so stunned that she stopped speaking mid-sentence and I immediately felt horrible for my reaction. I couldn’t say anything at first, clutching at my chest as if it would slow the hammering of my pulse and ease my breathing. I leaned over placing my head on the locker next to mine as I tried to rid myself of the surge of panic and the assault of emotions that had accompanied it.

“What’s wrong Shannon?” she asked again in concern.

“I… I’m fine,” I lied. I didn’t want her worrying about me and I was just too ashamed to talk about what had happened the night before. I knew that I had to tell her something though so once I had managed to control my breathing enough for more than a few words I told her, “We just had a rough night last night and I didn’t sleep well... at all.”

“Oh… okay,” she knew I was holding things back, but that I wasn’t ready to talk about it yet. Not that we could have talked about our evening activities anyway with all the students milling around in the hallway. She watched me in concern as she tried to distract me by telling me as much as she could publicly. “Sorry I couldn’t call you last night. My phone got fried by a power surge or something while I was charging it, it looks like it was hit with lightning or something. I’ll have to get a new one after school.”

“It’s fine,” I replied quietly. “I can’t blame you for something that’s not your fault.” I didn’t really know what else to say to her. My mind really wasn’t in any shape for dancing around topics that I’d rather avoid. “We should get to class.”

I was actually pretty glad when class started. It let me put all my focus into something else though Jennifer had to nudge me awake a few times. It was a good thing that we shared all our classes, especially Chemistry. We were doing a lab experiment and Jennifer was better than me with that kind of stuff normally. As I was now, I was glad to have her as my lab partner because without her doing most of the work, me and possibly dangerous chemicals would have been a bad combination.

As usual, Beth, Ellie, and I ate lunch with Jennifer and some of our teammates from the volleyball team. All three of us were quiet, withdrawn, and barely touched our lunches and it seemed that it did not go unnoticed. “C’mon girls what’s wrong? I’d think that Mother Josephine gave you detention for life or something, but you said yesterday that it didn’t go that bad when she called you into the office.” Kelly said.

“Yeah, you three are not acting like yourselves. Sure Shannon might space out once in a while, but she’s never completely out of it and she’s usually smiling and friendly. Did you get any sleep last night Shannon?” Dorothy added with a concerned look on her face.

“Yeah, Beth’s not really acting like herself either, did you two have a lover’s quarrel or something?” Penny asked.

“No, that can’t be it, because why would Ellie look so upset too? She’s usually smiling and chattering a mile a minute when we eat lunch. Come on girls, we’re your friends and we want to be there for you, but we can’t help if we don’t know what’s going through your heads. Ellie this isn’t like you, you’re usually a ray of sunshine. Please, talk to us.” Lily said, reaching out to put her hand on my cousin’s tenderly.

“Lily, I know you’re concerned, that all of you are, but if it were something they felt like talking about then they probably would have told us already,” Hope advised.

The sound of the name ‘Lily’ and the owner of said name reaching out to touch Elsaishe, even though it was meant to be comforting, had an immediate effect. My cousin practically jumped out of her chair, yanking her hand away. “I… I gotta go…” she said with a panicked look on her face and took off as fast as she could, leaving behind her lunch and a chorus of concerned looks on the friends of our faces.

“I... should go check on her, excuse me,” I said. It wasn’t that I wanted to avoid the topic, well I did, but I was concerned for Ellie as well. It wasn’t hard to find her since there were only two sources of Fae magick in the school and I was leaving one of them behind. I felt guilty about that for a moment as I looked back at my girlfriend, but she just nodded. She knew as well as I did that Ellie needed me.

I found Elsaishe in one of the otherwise empty bathrooms violently throwing up what little she had eaten of her lunch in one of the stalls. “Cuz, it’s just me, Shannon,” I warned as I approached. I knelt down beside her and held her hair for her with one hand as I held her in my other arm. “I’m here for you, Cuz.”

“I… I’m sorry. I just… heard the name Lily… and she touched me… and it all came rushing back. I probably made her feel terrible too, reacting like I did,” she managed to get out between sobbing.

“Shh, don’t worry about that,” I told her gently. “Beth will tell her that it wasn’t something she did. But that just proves that you have friends that care about you, about all of us. I… I couldn’t sleep at all last night. Every time I close my eyes I can feel Kari’s hands on me, taste her tongue in my mouth. I know that Beth is feeling the same way, she just hides her feelings better than either of us, but we’re all going to get through this, together.”