WOW, OKAY IT'S BEEN A REALLY LONG TIME AND I'M SO SO SORRY BUT PLEASE HEAR ME OUT WHEN I SAY I HAVE SCHOOL WORK, A GRANDMA IN THE HOSPITAL SO I HAVE TO BABYSIT ALL THE BRATS SHE USUALLY DOES, I'VE BEEN SICK, AND I'VE JUST BEEN EXHAUSTED. I'M SORRY THIS CHAPTER IS SHITTY, BUT PLEASE FORGIVE ME AND I'LL DO MY BEST TO UPDATE ASAP. LOVE YOU ALL xx

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♡ chapter 29 ♡

Daniel’s P.O.V.

(because you guys asked for it xx)

            What do you do when you’re stuck in the middle of a gruesome battle against highly armed guards with little manpower to fight against it? Well, normal people fight back in the same gruesome manner. Those people understand and grasp the rules of fighting. And the main thing?

            They aren’t me.

            Instead of being some sort of brave hero, as soon as I heard a dying person scream, I went in armadillo position behind the bolder Harry had ducked behind when he rescued Rose. Actually, I helped rescued Rose, didn’t I? Harry told me I had done a good job. It’s weird to hear those kinds of words directed towards me. I’ve been told I’m kind of a natural born screw up.

            While I was trying to pull myself together and muster up the guts to jump out and slay some guards, Louis’ body had been thrown back beside me. He landed with a thump, groaning before getting in a crouching positon.

            “Are you okay?” I asked as he crawled over behind the rock.

            Louis spit blood from his mouth. “I don’t know. Am I dead?”

            “No…”

            “Then I’m fine.”

            Pursing my lips, I jumped once more when hearing the sickening crunch of a body slapping against the trunk of a tree. They’ve been hitting right next to me, not helping to settle my nerves at all.

            “What the hell are you doing?” Louis asked in a low voice, sounding close to a grumble.

            “Me?”

            “No, the fucking rock behind you.”

            I frowned. “Sorry…”

            Louis rolled his eyes. “Are you scared or something? First time fighting? That kind of thing?”

            “Somewhat.”

            Louis sighed, ruffling his hair a bit. “Well hiding behind an oversized rock like a coward isn’t going to solve anything. If you want to be helpful, do something.”

            “But I can’t do anything.”

            “You can walk, can’t you?”

            “Well, yeah.”

            “You can talk, run, eat, laugh, cry, smile, frown, sleep, right?”

            “What’s your point? Those are all normal things.”

            Louis shot me a crooked smirk. “Sometimes the normal things are the extraordinary ones.”

            Nearly pissing myself at the sound of another deafening scream, I was somewhat grateful for Louis’ odd advice taking place of Harry’s. I was trying to find the strength in me to actually stand up and face the battle not even ten feet away from me. I mean, I’m a supernatural just the same. Maybe not with fire shooting from my hands or laser vision, but I’m a shape shifter.

            A shape shifter.

            A smile gradually stretched across my lips. “Thanks for the pep talk, Louis,” I said as I clapped him on the shoulder.

            He sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth. “Easy, dude. I got shot with an arrow right there.”

            “Oops. Sorry.”

            As Louis forced himself to stand, he wished me good luck before diving back into the blood battle. I may be innocuous looking on the outside, but like Louis had said, “normal things are the extraordinary ones.” I must believe I am stronger than this.

            Sadly, morphing into a dinosaur is way out of my league. However, there are other creatures that are eligible of attacking. I’m not usually a violent person, but at least I am fighting for something worth fighting for. These people had tried and killed so many innocent people it is sickening. I needed to buck up and take one for the team.

            Goal one on the bucket list: don’t die.

            The stretching and morphing bit was painful, but only because I have yet to transform into an animal. A tree was exotic enough as it was, but this is just plain awkward now. My teeth aren’t human teeth, I have fur where it shouldn’t be, and my vision is a mixture of dizzying and awesome.

            I had successfully shifted into a lion.

            Now let’s hope my screw-up reputation doesn’t take effect.

Harry’s P.O.V.

            I’m not sure how long I ran after I (timidly) left Daniel alone to fight with the others, but I had come across the same little creek Rose and I had first stayed the night in the woods. When she informed me she has a phobia of the dark, when I was still a jerk to her, when she stomped across the water but forgot her bag so had to redo the dramatic scene—it all seemed so long ago.

            Nearly three months, to be exact. Where did the time go?

            Carefully laying Rose down, her faint breathing sent panic through my body. Her left shoulder seemed more out of place than her right, which hardly made sense, but I was relieved that it didn’t appear to be as drastic as I had once assumed. Popping it into place will be painful, but hopefully that’s the most that’ll need to be done.

            “I’m so sorry,” I whispered as I pressed my lips to her sweating forehead, my heart clenching as I grabbed her arm.

            Believe it or not, I’ve had experience with dislocated elbows. Something odd to say, but Zayn had gotten one while training once and he slipped while trying to climb a tree (something about looking for high ground, who knows?) and attempted to use his hand to break his fall. Snap. His shoulder dislocated.

            Most people get doctor help, but when you’re wanted by half the country, it’s not the brightest idea to show up at a doctor’s office where they’d love for you to die. Not much help, so I had popped his shoulder back in place myself. Disgusting yet helpful.

            Rose was conscious enough to scream when I snapped her shoulder, my face twisting all the same. I quickly did the same to her other arm, tears running down her cheeks but her eyes were still pinched shut. She would be in pain for a while and it killed me that I wasn’t able to take the pain for her.

            I wiped her tears with the pad of my thumb, brushing her hair off her forehead before yanking some of the already torn fabric from my shirt, dipping it in the stream and then placing it across her forehead.

            My conscious was screaming at me to go back and help the others, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave Rose alone after all she had just gone through. I wouldn’t be surprised if half of the guards saw and followed us. In fact, I was already on guard in case something were to jump out at us.

            I wouldn’t let them keep hurting us—hurting Rose.

            For some dreaded reason, my father had popped back into my mind. Had he escaped while the pandemonium with us went down? Or was he still locked up in maximum security, his thoughts eating him alive like they had once done me? Was his sanity near gone like mine had been?

            Oddly enough, I believed my father had more strength than me—he was surviving to say the least.

            I clenched my fists, furious with myself for even thinking of him. I hadn’t even gotten the necklace back like my original plan was. He had taken Rose and in the midst of the moment, she was—is more important.

            What had he done with the necklace?

            That same question may just eat me alive if nothing else kills me first.

***

            I lost track of time hours ago—or was it minutes? All I knew was that I had been sitting beside the stream distracted by my haunting thoughts while Rose rested close beside me. I continued to soak the cloth across her forehead on and off to make sure it was still cool enough for her to be comfortable. Other than that, my thoughts had devoured every aspect of my brain and I hadn’t done much of anything else.

            Rose groaned from beside me, my head snapping up at the thought of her finally waking up. Her features distorted as her eyes flitted open, pain etching across her face. I rushed over to her side, taking my torn shirt from her forehead.

            “Oh thank God,” I mostly mumbled to myself. “You were scaring the shit out of me, Rose.”

            Rose coughed some, moaning straight afterwards. “I feel like garbage,” she murmured, her voice hardly audible and very hoarse.

            I smiled, cupping her cheek with my hand. “You’ll feel better soon, hopefully. Your shoulders weren’t as bad as I thought.”

            “They still hurt.”

            “Yeah, well…”

            Rose struggled to smile. “Thank you.”

            “You don’t have to thank me, Rose.”

            I almost wanted to laugh at how she had thanked me, but I kept the chuckle to myself. She was just being Rose—appreciative of most (except mosquitos, of course) and hardly taking anything for granted. That was one quality I would never obtain.

            “But I do because I owe you so much more, Harry.” She coughed again, taking in a shaky breath. “You’ve saved me more times than I could ever save you.”

            “That’s not true.” I frowned, taking her hand in mine. “You’re saving me from becoming a bigger asshole, right?”

            I tried to make light of the situation, but Rose was in such horrid shape that she groaned instead of laughed.

            And then, very faintly, she grinned. “Come here,” she said in her hoarse voice.

            I obliged.

            She kissed my cheek before whispering, “I love you, Harry Styles.”

            My throat tightened, eyes bulging. She has said it to me only once before, and yet this moment is so much better than the first. The first time she had told me she loved me, we were suspected to be siblings. But now we can truly be lovers without the fear of any other obstacles (hopefully).

            I smiled so wide my cheeks hurt.

            “I love you too, Rose Parker.”

Daniel’s P.O.V.

(wow I can never do just one of these what is this)

            “Daniel, you do know the battle ended two hours ago, right?” Ryan asked as we all walked through the woods.

            “Duh, what do you take me for? An idiot?”

            “Certainly not a genius,” he muttered.

            Okay, let me just admit that this whole lion thing worked out pretty well. In fact, I thought I was so fabulous that I haven’t even shifted back yet. And why should I? Lions are swag-tastical.

            “Can I at least get a ride? My feet are killing me,” Niall grumbled.

            “What do I look like? A merry-go-round? Keep walking, blondie.”

            Niall groaned in response.

            “You know, maybe I should morph into a real life Augustus Waters.”

            Everyone groaned in unison, grumbles like “oh God, please don’t start this again” and “someone duct tape him to a tree” being sputtered around me.

            And honestly, I just laughed.

            Because guess who’s the carnivore in this group? Not any of them.

            King Daniel slays again.