Chapter 23- Rika – Trying to Hide (VOLUME 1)

*~*Rika's POV*~*

There was a pounding on my door when I woke up. The spell had just been about to burn me away when the pounding invaded my dream and had me screaming the words to the ceiling.

"I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!" That had been the last thing that I said in the nightmare, and it was the first thing that I said once I was brought to consciousness.

"What the hell?" I asked myself as I looked around the room. The pounding was persisting as I gathered my bearings.

"RIKA!" I heard Reagan's voice coming from the door. "COME ON! OPEN THIS DOOR!"

"I'm coming." I called out as I rolled from the bed. I was still groggy and disoriented as I walked away from the bed. What the hell had happened? And why had I had a dream like that?

"RIKA!" Reagan yelled again as the door thudded over and over again. He was pounding hard on it, desperate to get inside.

"What?!" I said as I pulled the door open to look at him. I had clearly just woken up, but he was put together and dressed for the day.

"What the hell!?" He said as he stormed into the apartment, barreling right past me and pulling me along with him. The door shut on its own, that was good at least.

"Reagan, what are you doing?" I asked as he shoved me toward the couch, pushing me to sit down and allowing him to look me over. He was trying to intimidate me, but I wasn't that easily scared. So, instead of cowering, like he obviously wanted me to, I just crossed my arms and looked up at him. "What the hell is going on, Dozer?" I called him a petty name in my annoyance.

"What is the matter with you?" He demanded. "You don't show up for classes. You don't answer your phone. And then I get this feeling like you were dying. What is going on with you, Rika? What is happening?" He looked angry, but underneath it all, he just looked scared and worried.

"What are you talking about?" I asked him as I looked at the time. "My alarm hasn't even gone off for the day. It's only-." I paused as I took in the time that was on the digital readout. "Is it really four in the afternoon?"

"Yes, it is!" He snapped at me. "Have you been asleep this whole time?"

"Yeah, I have." I nodded. "I fell asleep a little after one in the morning, I didn't think that I would sleep this late. I had my alarm on and everything, so I don't know why it didn't wake me up." I explained this to him as I tried to piece together the night in my head. I didn't know what had happened, or why I had slept all day long, but this just didn't seem right.

"What is going on with you, Rika? I am worried about you. I would have overlooked everything, putting this all up to what is going on with you and all that, but I can't leave it alone anymore. I felt like you were giving up on life. I felt like you were dying. You had no will left to live. I was going to make the doorman let me in or something. I swear, Rika, something is happening to you, and I don't know what it is."

"I swear that I don't know what you mean, Reagan. I was asleep. Honestly, I was. I mean, I was having a nightmare, but that was all."

"It must have been a doozie of a fucking nightmare."

Reagan sighed and flopped onto the couch next to me. "Come on, Rika, you need to tell me what is going on. This is getting out of hand." He looked like he was about to start crying, and I hated that. Then, as I was looking at him, I got a flash of the anger that was on his face in the dream. I had to avert my eyes.

"Rika?" He sounded hurt when I had looked away from him. "Why won't you even look at me? I am your brother. All I want to do is help you."

"I am sorry." I started to cry as he put his arm around me. "I didn't mean to look away, i..it's just that I had a flash of the nightmare from last night."

"What happened in it? How could a nightmare make you feel those things?"

"I..I..I dreamt that Mom and Dad knew what was happening to me. That they knew and they thought that I wasn't me anymore. They called me an imposter. And Mom tried to.." I paused and looked away from him for a moment, settling my nerves. "Mom tried to kill me."

"Rika?! Mom would never try to kill you, you know that."

"Yeah, I know. But everyone was calling me a fake. They said because I didn't have my wolf, I was a changeling, a fake Rika."

"You have your wolf though, you just can't sense her. Right? Right, Rika?" He looked and sounded like he was so unsure of things. "Right, Rika?" he asked me again and all I could do was shake my head.

"No. I don't." I finally spoke the words out loud. "I tried to shift over the weekend, Reagan, and I wasn't able to. My wolf is gone, Reagan. She is completely gone now."

"Rika!?" The shock and awe in his eyes were so intense. He had not been expecting that. He had thought that all was well with me, as long as I was able to shift. "You need to tell Mom and Dad about this. If you won't tell them, then I will."

"I'll tell them." I told him. "I swear that I will tell them, but please, let me do it on my own time. Give me a week or two. I know that they are going to make me move back home when I tell them. Let me be here for a month."

"I am not giving you another month." He glared at me.

"No, that isn't what I meant. Let me wait another couple weeks, so that I was here for a full month before I had to leave. Can you do that for me? It's only a couple of weeks. Nothing will change in that time."

He looked like he was thinking about it intently. He didn't want to agree with me, but he didn't want me to run away either. And I had a feeling that he thought I would run if he was too harsh with me right now. Who knows, he might be right. I might run if he were to force me to go back too soon. I liked my freedom, I just didn't like the pain of not having my wolf anymore.

"Alright, fine." He nodded at me. "I will give you another two and a half weeks, but you will tell them by September the nineteenth, do you understand me? If you don't tell them by then, I will tell them for you. I swear to you, Rika, I will tell them."

"I know that you will, Reagan. I know." I nodded and accepted what he was saying. "And in that time, I will do all that I can to get my wolf back. She might just be hiding from me. She hasn't been happy with me for a while, although I have been trying to improve myself, to make her proud of me."

"You don't need to change yourself, Rika. You just need to listen and understand her. I am sure that she is trying to talk to you, but you are trying too hard to do what you think she wants you to. You just need to stop and listen to her."

"Maybe you're right." I forced a smile at his words. He wasn't trying to sound condescending or preachy, I knew that, but I still couldn't help but feel like he was acting that way. He had his wolf, and he had never gone through something like this. There was no way that he could know what it was that I was feeling.

"Come on, Rika. You need to stop trying to hide all of this. You need to be more open and let me and the others know what is going on."

"Not the others. I don't want them knowing what is happening to me. I will tell Mom and Dad, but not them." I swore that I would continue to hide all of this, no matter what he had to say about it.

"Why are you so afraid to talk about this?" There was exasperation in Reagan's voice now. His head fell back against the couch as he sighed. "You need help, Rika, but you won't accept it. I am right here. I am offering you help. And you won't take it. And you won't tell Mom and Dad either, why?"

"I am not a child anymore, Reagan. I can do things on my own. Just let me be, OK?" I snapped at him a little. "I am sorry, I am not trying to be mean, I just don't feel so well. I think that I slept too long."

"Yeah, I can see that." He laughed as he stretched out next to me. "You slept all damned day."

"Yeah." I laughed. "Come on, let's get some lunch in the lounge. I'll get dressed."

I left him there, getting dressed and knowing that I was just masking this problem. There wasn't much that I could do about it though. It was my life for the time being.