Fight, Flight, or Freeze: The Healer's Story
Chapter 208: I Rest My Case

Chapter 208: I Rest My Case

"You know that I don’t tend to agree with our fearless leader on principle alone, but even I have to agree that this is a bad idea," said Si Dong as he got up off the couch and crouched in front of where I was sitting on Rip. "As bad as it is to say, we would stand a much better chance of getting out of the ambush alive if we didn’t need to worry about you, too."

"See, that’s the thing," I murmured. I couldn’t figure out how to tell him that they all died a horrible, horrible death. "Sitting here, knowing what is going to happen to you, is going to be so much worse than just dying beside you."

Once again, the guys started yelling and screaming over top of each other, each one trying to get their point across, hoping that I would listen to them.

It wasn’t working.

"Do you know how long I have wanted to die?" I asked suddenly. I didn’t think that I spoke all that loudly, but it was enough to cause the entire room to fall silent. Even Chang Guo Zi and Duan Zhao Hui seemed to stop breathing, their focus completely on me.

"The funny part is that I don’t even know. Apparently, I checked out for months, but I am sure that even if I was on autopilot, I wanted to die," I continued, not bothering to look at anyone. "I was alone in the world. I thought that all of you guys had died and there was nothing else keeping me here. Rip was the only one who managed to continuously pull me back from that cliff, but the thoughts were always there."

"But we didn’t die," murmured Si Dong, taking both of my hands in his.

"No. And for that, I am happy that I lived. But if you go out there, you will die. I don’t know if what I saw was real or not, but I know you will die. So, now I have a choice. I can go with you, and we all die together. Or I sit here... waiting for you to come back to me. To prove me wrong. And eventually, I will give up hope for a second time, and I don’t know if Rip or Bin An Sha will be enough to bring me back."

"She comes with us," grunted Chang Guo Zi as he cleared his throat.

"You might be the Leader of Phoenix, but that means jack shit in this room. Here we are all equals... and friends," said Bai Long Qiang, his eyes never leaving mine. I could tell how much my words affected him, but I refused to offer him comfort.

He only got a sliver of a glimpse into my life for the past few years. I’ve had to live it.

"I understand that, and I appreciate being included in your tight group, but you aren’t listening to what she is actually saying. She wants to go... and we need her to," pressed Chang Guo Zu.

"Explain," grunted Bin An Sha, clearly not impressed with the idea of me going any more than the others were.

"Do you really not understand her power?" asked Duan Zhao Hui. His eyes widened at the look of fury passing over all of men’s faces.

"She doesn’t have a power," growled Rip. He picked me up and put me in Si Dong’s arms as he stood as a wall between me and the two other men... the other potential threats.

"Yes, she does," Duan Zhao Hui insisted, looking around the room. "She is a spirit user."

For a second, the room froze at his words before everyone seemed to relax. "She isn’t a spirit user," said Cheng Bo Jing, brushing off the other man’s comment.

"I am really not. I can’t read minds or do anything that Si Dong can," I denied with a shake of my head.

"But having a spirit power is more than just reading minds. Spirit power is an umbrella term for a wide variety of power, but they all use the mind. Your power is prophesy."

I blinked rapidly, trying to wrap my head around that idea. Prophesy? Like seeing into the future?

I had never heard of that happening before.

But maybe there was a reason for that.

"It won’t leave this room," said Chang Guo Zi as he shared a look with Duan Zhao Hui. "Your power has saved our lives too. Now that we know what is going to happen, we can take steps to make sure that it doesn’t. If you come with us, we can all come back together."

"And if I can’t save us?" I asked. If I thought the pressure of being the Healer was a lot, it was nothing compared to the look on Chang Guo Zi and Duan Zhao Hui’s faces. "What if I come and I don’t see anything else?"

"Even if you don’t see anything more about the ambush, you can at least show us where it happens," replied Duan Zhao Hui, a soft smile on his face.

"You also can’t protect her here when you aren’t beside her," smirked Chang Guo Zi. "Or haven’t you realized why we got such a crap assignment?"

"Excuse me?" asked Bai Long Qiang, finally taking his attention away from me.

"You are saying that Wu Bai Hee is jealous," interjected Bin An Sha, nodding his head like it all made sense.

"Pretty much. There are more rumors about the Angel than there are about the Princess right now, and that woman is not going to be happy that she is no longer everyone’s center of attention," smirked Chang Guo Zi.

I shook my head. That seemed so childish to me.

"You are making it seem like she is the Evil Queen," I snorted. Fairy tales might have been fun to read as a kid, but they didn’t have much basis in reality.

"If the shoe fits," smirked Duan Zhao Hui. I rolled my eyes.

"Wrong story," I replied, sticking out my tongue. "That’s Cinderella. Snow White had the Evil Queen."

"And the seven dwarfs..." he shot back, raising an eyebrow in challenge. "So, tell me, which one is sneezy? I got Doc, Grumpy, Happy, and Bashful, but I am not sure about the other three. Or do you have more than one Grumpy?"

"Go fuck yourself," snapped Cheng Bo Jing and Bai Long Qiang at the same time.

"I rest my case."