Walking through the deadly forest was not something I ever thought I would do, but we don't always get what we want, do we?

"Jax, have you found your location yet?" Cleo whined.

"No, oh wait, right there," Jax replied, pointing a few metres to the right.

"Yeah, it's perfect!" He exclaimed and sent a look my way.

No reactions, Lory.

Jax pulled out his phone and opened his camera.

"Come on, you two," He said, gesturing for Argenta and Adam to start.

"Alright," Argenta said.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" I blurted out without thinking.

"We have to; it's a dare," Adam spoke up.

I wasn't asking you, you dumbass.

I just nodded and braced myself.

"Okay, action!" Jax yelled.

"Flora, listen to me!" Adam initiated the scene.

"I don't want to listen to you!" Argenta said.

"Princess, please, I had a reason," Adam said as he turned her around by her arm and pulled her towards him, so their foreheads were touching.

Bleugh, I wanna puke!

He placed a thumb on her lower lip and started stroking it.

Fuck! Why does this physically hurt?!

"You've been ignoring me all week, and now I find you holding hands with Thea. How can you possibly explain that?!" Argenta continued.

"I wasn't ignoring you. I was preparing something for you. It took me a week, but it's finally ready. Okay, here goes, Thea was teaching me... to dance,"

"But you don't like dance one bit,"

"I still don't, but you do, and that was a good enough reason. I wanted to take you to the winter formal. And you would've wanted to dance but wouldn't have been able to because you knew I don't like it and because maybe, just maybe, I sucked and would've managed to step on both of your feet at the same time," He chuckled.

"I love you,"

"Who doesn't?" He smirk-grinned and Argenta chuckled and shook her head.

And then they started to lean in.

This is it; just close your eyes, Lory.

It's okay; it's just a dare.

It doesn't mean anything.

Think of something else.

Um- uhhh

Why the fuck can't I distract myself?!

"Hold up," Argenta said before abruptly moving away from Adam.

I swear I had never felt my heart do a celebratory tribal dance, but there's a first for everything.

"I think I heard something," Argenta continued, fast walking towards the origin of the sound but stopped midway.

"Okay, you caught me," a man walked out of the bushes in front of her. He looked in his twenties, with dark brown hair, blue eyes and an unignorable scar on his left cheek.

"And may I just say, you both are so cute," He said, pointing at Adam and her.

"I know, right!" Yara shrieked, "I shi-"

She stopped in the middle of her sentence when she got glares from Nick, me and Reyna.

I understood why Nick and I glared at her, but Reyna, that confused me.

"So, Flora and crew, what are you doing here so late?"

"We could ask you the same," Brittney said.

"Yeah, sorry, my bad, my name is Jared. I'm a traveller from Inferna. I took a detour and lost my way," He nervously chuckled, just before he glitched.

Hold up

He just glitched!

DID ANYONE SEE THAT?! OR WAS I IMAGINING IT?!

I looked around frantically, searching for any signs that my teammates had seen what I had but, everyone seemed to be oblivious, well, everyone except Argenta.

She looked at me with wide eyes raising her eyebrows questioningly. I nodded to confirm her suspicions.

"It was nice meeting you, Jared, but we have to leave," She said hastily and started pushing Cleo and Willia to walk. I did the same to Reyna and Nick.

"I'm sure you can stay for a little longer," He said, grabbing Argenta's wrist.

Shit! She'll kill him!

I marched up to him, snatched away Argenta's hand and placed myself between them.

"Aw, did your boyfriend come to save you?" He fake cooed.

"Oh, don't flatter yourself; he's here to save you," Argenta spat from behind me, and I nodded.

Now I know, that was really not the time, but I couldn't get my mind around how she didn't deny that I was her boyfriend.

Could she?

No, that's crazy.

She doesn't like me.

I must have zoned out for a few minutes because the next thing I knew, the man had disappeared, and a gross skeleton-like figure covered in black tar with bared fangs stood in front of me. I'm guessing this was the creature that glitched.

Jared, the tar monster.

Jax and Adam seemed to recognise this new look on Jared because Adam went ghastly pale and yelled, "I warned you!"; and Jax pulled out a weird crystal thing and charged at the tar thing, whatever it was.

The crystal thing seemed to work, and Jared started to growl and step back, but only slightly.

"Adam! I need you!" Jax yelled.

It was then that I noticed that Adam had one of those crystals too. But his hands were shaking, and I knew he wouldn't have been able to scare away the monster.

So I decided to yell at him to throw me the crystal.

"Adam! Throw me the crystal!" Argenta beat me to it, "Lory, take them all to safety,"

Can she read minds or something?

Adam threw her the yellow stone, and I led him towards our squadmates, who had already started running.

I ran behind them to make sure no one was left behind and stopped once they crossed the fence safely. Then I looked back to see that Jax and Argenta were slowly backing up, still keeping the monster away with the crystals.

"Willia, Cleo, stay prepared to close the fence as soon as they get in,"

"Okay," They said simultaneously and got started with their work.

"Jax, walk inside the fence," Argenta shouted.

Jax stepped in, and Argenta stopped moving, keeping the monster away.

"Lory?" She said.

"We're ready; it'll close as soon as you get in,"

"Okay," she said and ran as fast as she could.

The moment she stepped in, Cleo shut the fence and switched it on.

Then Willia made it opaque with the trensol.

This was followed by a few seconds of silence, heavy panting and shocked gazes.

"WHAT JUST HAPPENED?!"

"WHO WAS THAT?!"

"WHAT THE HELL?!"

"I WARNED YOU!"

"WHAT THE FUCK?!"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH"

"THAT WAS INSANE!"

"THAT WAS HORRIBLE!"

"THE FUCK?!" we all yelled, at the same time, at Jackson, who seemed to be the only one of us who knew what that was.

"Calm down, guys," He said, "That was a monster,"

"Oh, you don't say!" I shot back.

"Let's go to your dorm first. It's not safe to talk here,"

Author's note that nobody asked for:

Now, I know, I'm very late. But to make up for it, I'm going to post a lot of chapters this week.

I had a lot of fun writing this one, gotta love jealous Lory (muahahaha).

Anyway, thank you for reading and don't forget to vote and comment!

Also, I'm going to dedicate the next few chapters to the only few people reading this book and leaving comments. You guys make me really happy and this is my way of doing something for you in return <3