Disclaimer cont.

This chapter has a slight gruesome part it starts at the paragraph that starts with 'Something passes by us...' and ends with '"Columba."'

Please if you're sensitive to any mention of violence you can skip ahead, but I keep it as P-13 as possible. 

With that said, please enjoy the ending of the first battle, and please leave and a comment if you're enjoying this so far!

Playlist of the day:

Living Legend by Club Danger 

In The End by Linkin Park

Signs of the Times by Harry Styles 

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The big guy turns his head towards the woods as if someone is calling to him and moves away from us. When he's a distance away, I get up, trying to walk around the glass, but feel a sharp pain on the bottom of my foot as I go out to his limp body. I get on my knees next to him as, to my relief, he sits up.

"Are you okay? Are you alive?"

He turns his head up to me, his hand covering the bloody hole in his chest. "Yeah, that hurt." He twisted his head at some unheard command.

"Good, I mean good you're okay, not that it-"

Still weak, he struggles to get on his feet, pulling me up by the arm, stopping my words. "They're sending him back."

"What?"

But it's too late, the man is too fast, too stealthy as his body collides right with Milo's as he turns to pull me back into the house. With a tremendous yank, I get pulled up by my hair, then arms wrap around me, pinning me to the man's chest. I'm too scared to scream, but I use the stake I still gripped with sweaty hands and try to stab back at him. His body is too hard, my hands are too moist to even puncture his body. The stake lands in the grass with a dull thud as we move towards the woods, and fast eyes glint bright blue from the shadows of the trees, then they are gone before I could even make out the figure. I did the one thing I wasn't supposed to; I got caught.

Something passes us by the tree line and stops in front of the man. Once in my room, I crave my bed, reminiscing about a time before what I experienced. He positions me in front of his heart, pinning my arms down at my sides. Milo smiles and shakes his head at this man. "I have more than one way to end you."

He's gone, catching me and the man off guard. We're pulled backwards, and the man crashes with a resounding thud on his back. I roll off him. When I gain my ground, Milo tells me to look away as he grabs ahold of the man's head, and seconds later I heard a loud wet rip.

Fingers locate my shoulder, but I instinctively turn aside. Though I recognize Milo, my head spins and a lump of nausea forms in my throat. I couldn't allow him to witness my condition, particularly after almost getting him killed. His bomber jacket slips onto my shoulders, and I dare to turn my gaze behind me, but my eyes are drawn to the lifeless body of the man, crimson liquid streaming from his neck, his head flung by the roots of a nearby tree. A stake, the one I dropped, I imagined, stuck out of his heart.

"Columba." I turn my head towards Milo, but my eyes seem stuck on the dead man in front of me, and Milo cuts my sight off from it. "Don't look at that."

"I...I saw someone in the woods, eyes for a second." My voice sounds disconnected now, different, as I glance back out to the woods.

"Go back inside. I'll get them."

"No." I turn to him, catching his hand as he turns from me. He glances towards me, the first time I ever witness his face soft, covered in blood. "No."

He gives my hand a gentle squeeze before dropping it. "Do you want me to carry you home?"

"No, please, I would like to walk."

"We should be safe enough to get you back to the house, but come on, let's move fast." He looks back at the woods as to listen, then pushes on my back to the pace he is comfortable with, and we half jog back to the house. My foot sears with pain, but I ignore it, I even let him clear a path for me to get in the house.

Once I clear the threshold, I tumble down to the ground, no longer being able to bear weight on my foot. "Give me a second."

He squats down next to me, looking me over. "Are you hurt?"

"I'm okay." I sigh, then I turn my head to him, my eyes going to the hole in his shirt. In the dim moonlight, all that is visible is his unmarked, dark skin. I should have anticipated, but it still surprises me to witness. "You're not hurt."

Absent mindedly he rubs at his chest. "You asked me if we heal." He sighs. "Go up to your room, sleep if you can, I'm going to make sure everyone is safe."

I push myself to a sitting position, intending to get on my feet, and he stands holding out his hand to me. "Can you stay?" I ask pathetically, like a needy child, but I don't want to be alone. "Just a little?"

"I'm covered in blood." He looks down at himself, then to me, his face softens at my desperate expression. He nods. "Yeah, let's get you upstairs."

I take his hand and let him pull me up to my feet, then I ascend the stairs, Milo following a few steps behind me. Inside, I crave my bed, longing for a time before what I witnessed. I turn to say something and spot him standing right at the threshold of my room. "Do you need to be invited in?" I joke.

"I don't think a man should be in a teenager's room."

"How old are you? I mean, before you died?"

He looks down at the bloody footprints I left on the hardwood. "You are hurt, you should have told me."

"19? 18?"

"Did you bleed outside?"

"You look pretty young, you can come in, and you're not the first boy I've been alone with."

His eyes snap towards me with an obvious expression of disgust. "You let boys in your room?"

I sit on my bed, pulling up my foot, the surrounding skin is shredded white, blackish blood oozed out steadily. I suck in air through my teeth as I pull out glass shards, tears threaten my eyes, but I'm too mentally exhausted to cry.

His boots are loud on the floor. "Can I help?"

"How?" I let out in a half laugh, half sob.

"Can you trust me, Columba?"

I direct my attention to the square on his face, staring straight into his luminous green eyes. "Yes."

"Lay down, keep your foot off the bed, I'll be right back." He turns, heading out the door. I can hear him moving around the kitchen, opening and shutting cupboards, the click of the stove, and his voice, his deep sweet voice in a strange language. The night is so dark, the sky looked so empty of the moon or stars as clouds had finally rolled in. I strained my ears to listen intently for any sound, any indication that everyone is alright. Unable to stand the silence, I'm looking out the window when he comes in. When I glance behind me, he appears innocent while holding a steaming mug, his gaze fixed beyond me through the dark window.

"I don't see anything."

"Have a sip of this, and then sleep, I'll stay around until then." He sets a cup on my nightstand, a long side some pills to help me sleep.

I lean back, savoring a long sip of warm tea, and experience near instant relief, then I take the pills. As if waiting for a call, I peer out the window. "Will they be okay?"

"I want to believe so." His voice is warm, the accent laced in it made his English almost sound foreign.

"I don't want people to die because of me." I turn back at him, but his eyes are out my window. "I don't want to go to war over this."

"It happens like that sometimes. Our kind always seem to be on the brink of war, it doesn't take a lot to be the final straw."

Together we look out the window. "Milo?"

"Yes?"

"I'm sorry."

An artificial drowsiness fills my head as the pills take effect, but I fight it, trying to listen. We stay like that for around an hour before I eventually succumb to the pills, allowing the darkness to carry me to sleep. Horrifying images of men impaled with stakes lined the path for those who passed by. A woman, one that looks as if she could be me, but younger, cries out for her father, one man on the stakes. The sobs resonated within my chest, longing for him, yet not as sobs. Laughter? Am I laughing? Flames wash over the bodies, flames that rise in high waves, come crashing down on me. Then next thing I know, my mom is shaking me.

"Thea," her voice is a loud whisper. "Thea, wake up."

My memory floods my mind, I shoot up, a cold sweat covered my body, and I begins to shake. "The door, Mom the door."

"What door, what's wrong hun?"

"The back door, it's shattered. I don't know, I can't." I direct my gaze towards the bottom of my foot, and my thoughts become more lucid. No trace of blood, not even a scratch.

"What about the backdoor? Are you feeling okay? We couldn't wake you, and you're soaking."

I can't get the shakes to stop, I lift my hand to my face, and try to wipe away the sweat, but my hand slipped off too easily. Was it a dream? A disturbing, realistic dream? Turning my attention to my nightstand, I spot the mug, the cool, dark liquid of tea still sat almost full. "I don't feel good."

"Yeah," My mom got off the bed. "I'm going to call the school, and I can call out from work."

I shake my head. "No, I want to sleep all day if that's okay."

My mom looks torn, but in the end, she gives in. She takes my brothers down to the bus stop, and my dad makes me a bland breakfast, but I'm not hungry. I get a glance of the back sliding door, and there it sat unshattered, the backyard showed no evidence of a fight. My mind tries to convince me that last night wasn't real, and perhaps I am genuinely ill, but when I go back to bed, I direct my gaze up the hill to the house at the very top. I know where I'll get answers from.