Telestic (The Transcendent File_002)

18. Broken Battlefields

"Rule number fourteen: accept help wherever and whenever you can. Dave Pelzer once said 'To help yourself, you must be yourself. Be the best that you can be. When you make a mistake, learn from it, pick yourself up and move on.' The prophecy is real. Emma will be your all-powerful-future-seeing-supernatural-badass-Transcendent-leader. Accept enemies at your doorstep and on the field – you never know whose side they'll be on."

- Transcendent Book of Life

Trying to advert her curious eyes away from our Telestic Treasures, I snap at her with a firm, "Poppy." Quickly she returns her gaze to me with a quizzical look attached to her sharp features. Her eyes still held wonder as she kept moving them between my eyes and Mikey's feet. "Yeah?"

"Why do you want to help?" I ask as I snap my fingers at her attempting to curve her attention towards me.

"I'm sorry, but I wasn't expecting an interrogation. Call it my true nature."

"We find that hard to believe." Insists Mikey as he kicks one of the books further under the blanket while biting his bottom lip as his eyes glued on Poppy.

"I'm technically a Cur. Just like Isaac I was born to a Transcendent and a Delphic. That is why the soulmate rule was being enforced. They don't want half-breeds anymore...and want to eradicate Curs for good. I cannot stand by and allow it. My mom has been driving hate against Transcendents for years...because my father left her for another Transcendent – his true soulmate before he died of cancer. Karma is a bitch I hear. Even though I hate you with a burning passion, I hate the source of all evil himself more." Smiles Poppy as she bends down and picks up one of the volumes found in the backpack; that we forgot to store away with the rest of the volumes. Great. Just great. What are we supposed to do now? Appreciate her and all her cherry-lipstick-wearing-ways? "So, we're supposed to trust the she-devil? I find this hard to believe." I cunningly thunder back as snatch the book out of her hands.

"And I am supposed to trust saint-Emma who continues to be secretive?"

"This is not the same. We are not the same. Do not compare us as if we were. I'm not ordering my friends to kill me."

"Really? Eddie and Nikki made a point to tell me that you insisted on having my head handed to you on a silver platter." Smugly retorts Poppy as she waves her evil, conniving little finger in my face. Swatting her hand away, I answer sharply with "I have good reasons for wanting you dead. Give me one reason why I shouldn't want to kill you." She pushes her Titian-colored hair behind her ears and puckers her Flamenco red lips with a smile.

"I know how to beat him. The one you call the source of all evil. Yeah, I know his weaknesses. Unless you don't want to take down your only enemy by playing it dirty? You have to even the playing fields. I'm your girl." Poppy wore a cute little red crop top with a pair of black high-waisted shorts. If I didn't like her, I'd say she actually has a good sense of style. Glancing down at her hand, I see a garnet-incrusted devil ring and a smirk explodes on my face; and she rotates the ring before catching my glaring eyes staring at it. "It's a ring. They go on our fingers."

"Really? I had no idea." I wittingly respond back with my eyes still heavily-glued on that ring. Am I actually covetous of such a thing? A ring? No – that's mentally ludicrous. Yes, I am – it's absolutely charming and I want it. "Do you want the ring?"

"No." I quickly say in a fake sounding voice as if she were crazy. Well she is – don't let those eyes deceive you. "Well, obviously you do. Emma, you won't stop staring. The ring doesn't bite and neither do I – unless provoked." Ignoring her friendly sarcasm, I rub my temples and face her head on. "No, I do not want your silly she-devil ring. What are his weaknesses?"