Excalibur {Complete}

31

"I guess we should start from the accident," Jace's voice filled my room.

It was Zak, Jace and myself in the large bedroom. I was seated cross-legged on my bed while Zak leaned against the wall and Jace took a spot on the couch. I hadn't seen Tristan since Ahmeil's death the day before. In honesty, I had fallen asleep after Zak had taken me to my room. My body was sick from the event and even though I had been in shock, I couldn't keep from falling asleep. I had woken up a little while ago when Jace and Zak came to my door.

"It was quite a while ago, several years. It's really easy to lose track of time, but anyway. Tristan was out on a patrol with Ahmeil and one of the other guys that used to be one of the right hands. They ran into Hades, another gang that's to the west of us. During that time, Hades had been a real pain in the ass, constantly invading our territory and trying to cause all sorts of problems.

"Anyway, they got into a fire fight, and Tristan had been injured. The other guy was killed in the fight and Ahmeil and Tristan were trapped in a building. Hades ignited one of the charges that they'd set in there before hand. It was all pretty well planned out, to be honest. I'm not sure of the details, but Ahmeil had lost her eye in the blast but she'd saved Tristan though they both fell quite a ways out of the blast.

"Before that, she'd always been pretty attached to Tristan. He treated her kindly, like a little sister. After the blast, he felt so bad about her losing the eye that he sort of... spoiled her I guess. Which she must have taken the wrong way because she started acting a little bit differently. She would constantly refer to herself as protecting him and that he needed her and that no one else would be able to take care of him like she could."

"She had a sort of 'hero' complex, going on," Zak interjected as Jace was talking.

Jace nodded, and continued, "I don't know what really happened, but Tristan told her something one day in private and she sort of grew really cold and distant. I think he addressed her actions to the group. She was always referring to herself as the only one good enough to be by Tristan, and everyone else was underneath her. It started to grate on Tristan because he saw what it was doing to everyone else.

"He still respected her and didn't tolerate anyone disrespecting her, but he couldn't just let her keep going as she was. So he talked to her. Ahmeil grew distant and started doing things on her own, closing herself off from everyone. Tensions between the members slowly disappeared, but she was never really gone from the group. I was never close to her myself, I honestly hated her, the way she treated everyone and the way she tried to force herself on Tristan. That's beside the point though. Anyway, the more distant she got, the colder she got.

"She started to become someone else entirely and her thought process never really made any sense. It just got worse and she still considered herself the one and only person for Tristan. I think she hated me and Zak because we were always much closer to Tristan than anyone else. Out of all the right hands, the two of us were at his side all the time, sort of like body guards. He considers us his best friends. But she saw us as enemies.

"Ahmeil never would have done anything to us because our relationship with Tristan never got very far," Jace was staring at the ground now, his voice a little bit clipped on that matter and I swallowed hard. I knew that he had been in love with Tristan before me and it was all starting to sound so damned complicated. Ahmeil had been in love with Tristan too, but she had gone insane. For me, I thought that she'd already had a few screws loose to begin with, even before the accident that Jace told me about.

"When you joined us, she didn't even acknowledge that you were here until Tristan and you became lovers. Only then did she see you, and that was when she came out of her isolation. Up to that point she'd only see Tristan when he was alone and with no one else, which was really hard to do because he is always so busy. However, when you joined us, his alone time was spent with you more often than not," Zak added, his heavy accent rolling some of the words.