Free Tortured: Book Three of the Jason and Azazel Trilogy by V. J. Chambers Page B

sunlight. I was tangled in
my bed covers. I was still sobbing. And my head was pounding like a brass band
was playing in my head.  

It had been a dream?

But it had seemed so, so real.

Rubbing at my eyes and trying to calm my sobs, I picked up my phone from my
nightstand. I called Chance. It rang and rang and rang for a ridiculously long
time, but then he answered.

"Zaza?" he mumbled sleepily. "Why are you calling me at six in
the morning?"

I sobbed in relief. "I'm sorry," I said. "I just had a dream. I
needed to know you were okay. You're okay, aren't you?"

"I'm not going to be able to go back to sleep," he said.

"I'm sorry."

"Are you crying?"

"No. No, I'm fine," I said. "Try to go back to sleep."

I hung up. I flopped back on my bed. My head throbbed in response to the sudden
movement.  

Well. Drinking wasn't working anymore. It didn't drown out the dreams. And it
just left me with hellish hangovers. Maybe it was a sign. Maybe whatever my
subconscious was trying to tell me was too important to be ignored anymore.
Maybe I was going to have to face it.

But before I did any of that, I was going to drink a lot of water and take a
lot of ibuprofen. Ugh.
    * * *
    Professor Moretti had asked me to stay after class. I
stood at his desk, hugging my books to my chest. He was flipping through a
stack of papers to find mine. I wished he'd just say whatever he had to say and
let me go. I knew I wasn't doing very well in school. I didn't really care. I
probably had a bright future as a professional assassin, and you didn't need a
high school education for that.

"Ah, there it is," said Professor Moretti, pulling my paper out of
the stack.  

"I'll try to do better," I said.

"What?" said Professor Moretti. Then he
shook his head. "Oh, no. Amy, that's not why I
wanted to talk to you . I found your paper very
insightful."

"You did?" I was pleasantly surprised. I was still hung over from
drinking before bed last night, but it felt good to have done something well. I
didn't feel like I'd done much of anything right in weeks. I barely remembered
writing the paper. I did remember that it was about  
Things
Fall Apart
, the book we'd been reading. Well, the book we'd been
assigned to read. I'd cobbled it together from reading a few chapters, class
discussions, and a judicious use of SparkNotes.  

"You seem to have quite a large amount of empathy for Okonkwo," said
Professor Moretti.

"Well, his whole life gets destroyed, doesn't it?" I said. "It's
not his fault. It's the fault of the white missionaries. They just come in and
totally mess everything up."

Professor Moretti shrugged. "Some critics think that Okonkwo is a
classical tragic figure, like Odysseus or Hamlet. His tragic flaw could be seen
as his pride or his rashness. Some feel that Okonkwo brings his downfall upon
himself."

"I thought you said that my paper was insightful," I said. Why was he
pointing this out to me, anyway?

"I think it was. I think that most of my students have difficulty
identifying with an African character from the late 1800s. You seem to be able
to put yourself in his place quite readily. I think that qualifies as insight
into the work."

I nodded slowly. "So was it good or was it bad?"

"The paper is well-written. You shouldn't worry about that. I'm sure I'll
give it a high mark."

Then why was I talking to him? "Thanks," I said. "Is there . . .
anything else?"

"I just find it so interesting that a girl of your age and your experience
would so strongly be able to put yourself in Oknokwo's place."

"I didn't really do that," I said. "It's just obvious. I mean,
all Okonkwo can do is react. Everything just goes from bad to worse in that
book. I mean, isn't that why it's called  
Things Fall Apart
? Because
things fall apart in the book?"

" The title is an allusion to Yeats poem. We discussed that in
class."

"Yeah," I said. "I've studied 'The Second Coming.'" Three
times this year, actually. In every English class I'd been enrolled in