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Joyce wasn’t sure how long they’d be in the museum. It felt like hours. She was going stir crazy.
“I can’t take it anymore. Do you two have a plan or are we going to just sit on our damn thumbs, because this shit is for the birds.”
Joyce turned her attention to her daughter. Jodie was sitting in the chair Skull had gotten for her. Her eyes were closed, and her hands were folded in her lap. Joyce smiled at Jodie for a moment; she looked so peaceful. Joyce looked at Jodie’s hands again. Her wrists were bare.
“Jodie where’s your bracelet?”
“What do you mean?”
Jodie opened her eyes and looked down at her left wrist. It was bare.
“Oh no!”
She bolted up from her chair and started looking around where she’d been sitting. Skull and Jax watched her start to panic.
“What’s wrong?” Jax looked down on the floor trying to figure out what the problem was. Humans were so unpredictable. Jodie patted herself down and felt nothing.
“It’s okay sweetie,” soothed Joyce as she watched Jodie started to panic.
“No, it’s not okay. Daddy gave me that bracelet. I’ve had it since I was little.”
The bracelet Mitch had given Jodie was her prized possession. As she had gotten older she had taken it jewelers to get the band lengthened.
“It was the last birthday gift Daddy gave me.”
The bracelet was silver with a white crystal in it. That was the last straw for Jodie she started to cry.
“Oh, please don’t cry we’ll find it.” Joyce tried to comfort her. “We can get you another one.”
Jodie’s eyes flared with anger.
“It won’t be the same.”
Jodie didn’t have any idea how true that statement was. The crystal bracelet was special. There was nothing like it on earth. The crystal in the bracelet was Selenite, a powerful crystal said to have the unique ability to awaken a person’s power and it warded off bad energy. Mitch had gone with his mother to a small, out of the way shop in the city when Jodie was nine. His mother had told him it would be perfect for Jodie. When Mitch asked the very odd woman in the store about it, she eyed him for a moment before answering him.
“Why would you want something like this? Your power is already at its peak.”
Mitch and Allison turned to look at each other.
“It’s for my daughter.”
The woman looked him over, then snatched his hands up in hers. She pressed them to her forehead and started to chant some words Mitch couldn’t understand.
“Jodie will need this bracelet. Please take it, but first let me bless it.”
The woman let go of Mitch’s hands. He backed up a little, scared that she knew Jodie’s name.
“Bless it? Why?”
“I saw your family’s future and she will need it to save her life, and the lives of others.”
Mitch looked at his mother, who shrugged her shoulders. The woman took the bracelet from its case and wrapped it up for him. Before handing it over to him the woman whispered some words and then lifted the case with the bracelet in it to the ceiling. Allison’s eyes grew bigger. And people think I’m looney, She thought to herself. The woman kissed the case and then handed it over to Mitch.
“In a few years you’ll need to make sure this bracelet is charged, either by sunlight or the light from Jodie’s soul.”
Mitch made a face. “Excuse me?”
“Sunlight and her soul will work to active the magic.”
Before Mitch could ask her what drugs she was on, Allison picked up the case and took hold of her son’s hand. She pulled him out of the shop.
“Well, she’s a sandwich short of picnic.”
“Mom, I can’t give Jodie that bracelet. What if she put something bad on it?”
Allison made a face. “From one crazy lady to another, my Jam Ham will be just fine.”
Mitch hoped so. It was almost as bad as making a back-alley deal for drugs, the way he felt at that very moment. When he showed it to Joyce, he told her the story, and she laughed. And now the bracelet was missing, and the world was coming to an end, or some demon’s world was coming to any end that her daughter had created.
So, who was really the looney tune in all of this? Joyce mentally raised her hand. She’d let Mitch and Allison talk her into giving her daughter the bracelet.
“I have to look for it,” Jodie said through her sobs. She retraced her steps and when she went to go out the back door, Jax stopped her.
“You can’t go out there.”
“Watch me pal!” She went to open the door and he blocked her. “Excuse me!”
“For what?”
“Get the hell out of my way or I’ll use the gun!” Her tone meant business, but Jax didn’t move.
“You don’t seem to understand how important you are.”
Jodie shoved him. Rather, she tried to. He was a wall. For the first time, she got a good look at him. Stepping back, she took him all in. He wore some kind of cloth around his waist. She went to touch it and he moved away from her.
“Don’t!” He held his hands up between them as a warning to her.
“Don’t what?”
She tried again.
“I don’t know what this thing is. It appeared on me when I came through the portal, but it is hiding my...” Jax had to think of the right words to explain what he meant.
“My junk!”
Jodie’s eyebrows arched, and looking past him, she saw her chance. She bolted past him, and headed outside. He cursed as she started looking on the ground.
“This bracelet,” he said the word oddly. “It is not that important.”
“No one asked you for your opinion.”
“I have no idea what that even means, but you are going back inside.”
Jax grabbed her and Jodie managed to elbow him where the cloth covered. Making a sound of pain, Jax went down.
“I warned you!”
She went to the Nova and started looking in it for the bracelet. Jax groaned and cupped himself. He rolled on his side and looked up at her as she went to the Nova. Pain rocketed through him. In this realm that hurt more than it should, or maybe it was the fact the Creator had hit him. Even for her small size she packed a punch. If he wasn’t in so much pain he’d laugh. Once he could stand it, he got up from the ground and went to help her.
“Did you take it off?”
“No, I never take it off. With the circus that has been my life today, it probably fell off.”
Jodie had been having problems with the clasp on it now for a few weeks. She’d meant to take it in to get it fixed, too. She cursed at herself for not doing it, got out of the Nova, and slammed the door.