2.0

"Do not talk to him."

I stifled the sarcastic scoff that threatened to surface and shook my head.  "You do not have any control over my life or what I do."

Tristan did scoff and gave me the look that says, oh yes he does.  Very much so.  "Oh, I think I do-"

"Not anymore."  I scooped up a piece of broccoli with my chopsticks and kept the tone natural, acting like this was a discussion over something completely blase and not what it really was.  "You gave up that right and privilege."

His eyes narrowed but then softened into something that was supposed to be persuasive.  "He's a bad guy."

As bad as deflowering your trainer's daughter with promises of wonderful things only to leave her without second thought? I bit back the temptation to point out the many, many levels of "bad" there are and which one Tristan currently resided upon.  "Says who?"

"His track record!"

"Past record or current?"

To that, Tristan did not have much to say.  I don't think he actually knew Elijah's body-double's current record of behavior outside of the public eye.  Jake had warned me, years ago, that Elijah 2.0 was really a womanizer, cheater, liar, and not someone to get involved with on any level.  But that was then, back when public Elijah was still fairly quiet.  But then something happened....maybe he got comfortable in his role, maybe being someone better than himself by force encouraged him to change.  The same had happened with my own double, a young woman with so little self-esteem that she was the "playground" for any horny guy, smoked, drank, and in general had ill repute.  At the time I was a chaste non-drinker and non-smoker, a pure woman of God with no other thought than that of goodness, so Kate had to also adopt the same persona so she could pass as me in public.  Jake told me not long before he left that something inside Kate changed, and she made her life better.  She was inspired to see herself as better than she'd made out to be, and the changes were noticed by everyone.  Last I heard, she became a beautiful, proud mother of a sweet little baby.

Elijah 2.0 could have gone through the same change.  "I find it very difficult to believe that anyone, anyone, could so passionately proclaim the name of Christ without meaning it," I said to Tristan.  "Maybe he was a bad guy then, but I highly doubt that's the case today."

Tristan kept a dead-pan face.  "Just don't do it."

"Why?"

"Some things should just be left alone."

There was a time in which I would have respected his requests.  That time is come and past.  Friends worry that I am putting on a front to preserve what sanity I have left inside me, shoving all the anger and pain under a rug so I can act like nothing important happened.  Au contraire, my friends.  I know what it is like to live a life of anger, hatred, to hunger for vengeance, and it was a horrible existence that I escaped by clawing my way out of the darkness.  It's not that I refuse to accept what happened; I refuse to let it rule my life.  Yes, I lost my purity.  But I became so much more.

Yes, there were rumors of what would happen when a seer in my bloodline lost her virginity, that the man to take it would gain her abilities and enhance his own.  Did no one remember the other half to that rumor?

I replace the pain with calculation.  This is no time to idle over fickle disputes when the world teeters on the edge of chaos and ruin.  Tristan is not the only royal, and I am not going to wallow over a pint of ice cream and chick flicks when I could be training.  Elijah 2.0, good or bad, is someone I have to at least try to make friends with.

Besides....I remember the stories.  Jake was not alone when he ran at the assassin shooting into the crowd of innocent people.  He wasn't alone when guns were blaring and knives slashing.  Elijah 2.0 was right there with him, fighting beside him.  If/when Jake was protecting me, half the time Elijah 2.0 was there protecting him.  They would play "where's Waldo" with me, making me feel like a blind idiot when I'd stand right next to Elijah 2.0 and never notice.  Only when I was invited to his graduation open house did Jake tell me to stay away from the man.

I am not going to throw myself at the guy.  I just need to find a way to make eye contact, to see for myself where he really stands.  And if my theories are correct....