That night in bed, it's almost impossible to fall asleep. I'm up all night, Athan always on my mind. We're officially dating. The guy I couldn't stand for a number of reasons is my boyfriend. The thought shocks me for a matter of moments. My best friend is in another state and I'm dating my former foe.

When I'm not pondering over the fact of Athan being my boyfriend, I'm reflecting upon our kiss. It was touched with every tint of perfection. Every time I replay the kiss in my head, it keeps on getting better. Although, halfway through the night, my train of thought changes courses. 

Promise me that as long as I live that you shall never draw your weapon, Keanna's voice whispers in my brain over and over again until I almost tear up. Instead, you shall use your words in battle. If they command you to fight, you drop your sword.

It casts a cloud of great wonder over me. Why is it so vital that I abstain from violence? It also occurs to me that maybe the "they" she could be referring to in her last words to me might be the same "they" she could be referring to when she told me about the device tagged to her. If I could just hear her voice, even in writing, once again, that would be enough. 

I pull out my phone and bring up Keanna's number. I compose a text as I lay upright in my bed. The words appear before me in the bright screen in front of me. 

Are you awake?

With moments, a grey bubble appears below my green bubble. 

Yeah. Can't sleep. You? 

I type up a quick response and it appears below the grey bubble. I yawn as I hit send. 

Yup. Why can't you sleep?

I watch the bottom of my screen as the grey dots go on for a minute. Then the next bubble finally appears, longer than the first three bubbles. 

The thoughts of working tomorrow is giving me an ache in my stomach. You? 

I close my eyes for a second as I think of my response first. After two minutes of almost completely zoning out, I type up my response and it appears on the screen. 

Just a night of reflection, I guess. 

Keanna doesn't take much time with her response. 

Try to get some sleep, B. I'll text you in the morning. 

She doesn't have to tell me twice. Next thing I know, I'm passed out on my pillow and drooling like a dog. My brother has the same problem, Sabia and I just prefer to keep it from him. It just makes it funner because we can sneak in drool jokes without him becoming suspicious. 

~

The night goes by fine. I'm in a mystic dreamworld until the morning when I hear my favorite words. "Coffee and donuts?" Within seconds, I'm sitting upright in my bed, staring at my boyfriend with wide, excited eyes. 

Athan looks nice in his armor, a leather chestplate concealing his muscle tank. Cargo shorts display his thick calves embedded with tiny little dark hairs. 

Every lingering moment I realize how much I'm falling for him, the fact he's said my favorite food, everything. In everything we've been through, it's come to the moment I never thought would happen. The big bang. I throw everything I thought I once knew for this spark of chance.

It's when lightening strikes. He's caused me to question all my morals. An unquestionable crime that is payed off by all his innocence. That's what I love the most about him. He makes everything he does seem innocent.

"You really love your donuts," Athan says with a smirk on his face. "Don't you?" 

"They're manna from heaven," I say. Pressing two fingers to my lips, I throw them up into the air. "It's the best thing that ever came out of America." I'm given a finger flick to the temple, so I flick Athan back in the temple. "Besides America itself." Revenge is best served when deserved. 

"Let's just go grab some breakfast and meet up with the pack," Athan says. I follow him out to cafeteria where we meet up with the rest of the gang. Kyran and Eileene are next to each other, Eileene none other than latched to my brother's shoulder. Aurelia is reading a novel. Meanwhile Caleb and Calamity are tittering amongst one another as they overlook Maxwell, passed out on the table. 

I look at Athan with a big, beaming smile. He rolls his eyes, returning the smile. "Athan, be a lamb and grab me a donut and cappuccino." A hand plastered to his face, he's already walking to the concession table before he can have a moment to sit down. 

I face Kyran, a chill spilling down my spine. I narrow my brow as if to say, I know you're hiding something. Spill the beans, Ky. He finally gives in. "He's here." I squint my eyes. I know his motives when he goes so vague I don't know to whom my brother is referring to. He's covering for whoever is around, which means, whoever's here must've really ticked me off. Thus, still pretty vague, because all of my male peers in Howl Falls have ticked me off pretty bad at some point. Spill, idi - "And by 'he,' I mean Rylan is here."

"What?!" At this point I'm spitting out air. "How is he here?" I stammer for a moment realizing that this isn't Keanna I'm spilling the big secret to. Kyran can easily blab it to anyone. "I mean, wow - Rylan, a nobody to me, is here. What a surprise." 

"Cut the act," Kyran says in a soft voice. Eileene unlatches from her place on my brothers shoulder to finish her mocha and pancakes. I look over the table to see Maxwell awakening and Calamity and Caleb are bursting out into laughter. "I know you two were secretly dating for two years. I'm brother and I do know you better than anyone in the world. Trust me, I know when you're dating someone." 

"Attention." I whirl around on the bench to see Rylan standing up on the table, all dolled up in armor and holding out a sword. His voice is loud and clear. "Direct me towards the girlfriend stealer, Athan Wellings." 

I watch everyone point at Athan, sipping at a cappuccino like it's nobody's business. He spits out his coffee, which unfortunately is unable to reach Rylan's face. Rylan steps down from the table and marches all the way over to Athan and holds his sword to his throat. With, he places his cappuccino on the table behind him. 

"Draw your sword," Rylan says loud and clear for the whole mess hall to hear, "and join me in a friendly round of fencing to the death if you truly call yourself a man."

Athan meets my gaze, wide with fear and accusation as he reaches for his sword. I roll my eyes softly in response.

You want to have threat-free relationship, A? Well get in line.

As Rylan backs away a little, his sword flies to his side and Athan calls out, "En garde!" The two swords meet in the middle with a clang. My eyes watch the scene, wide with horror. I then recall that Lowell is against fighting at mealtimes. We have to take our petty squabbles to the training room after a meal. 

If Rylan's anything similar to his father, I know that he'll stop at nothing to get the closure he feels he deserves. He also has an undying thirst for bloodshed. If Athan battles Rylan, he's sure to die. I'm up on my feet in seconds as the thought of Athan's undead blood everywhere, satisfaction on Rylan's face. I cannot let my boyfriend die. Not today. 

I push through the crowd to see the two in a strain, seeming to have not moved since the beginning of the fencing game. Athan's bloodless face is turning red as a strawberry - the same way he looked when he was about to turn Kyran into a hybrid. I may abhor Rylan more than hell itself, but he does not deserve to face his father's wrath for being turned into a hybrid. 

"Break it up." I push my way in between the two. Rylan's sword accidentally tears through my skin on my shoulder. As a vampire, my wound instantly heals, but as a werewolf, the pain proceeds to ache heavily. I bear my teeth at him, a level of steam escaping me. "I SAID FREAKIN' BREAK IT UP!" 

"I don't wanna fight you," Rylan tells Athan. The two shake hands. 

"There you go," I say. A joyous smile appears on my face when I feel the satisfaction of dealing with disputes in a friendly manner. "There's a start to a healthy friendship." 

Rylan lays eyes of iron daggers upon me and finishes his sentence. "I wanna fight her." 

My jaw drops to the floor. I've known Rylan for a long time and he has never had that much of a thirst for vengeance regarding me. Why would he even want to fight someone he technically wants alive. I'm not drawing any assumptions, I swear. "You wanna fight me - say what?" 

"I wanna fight you Betrys," Rylan says, dropping his sword like he's dropping a microphone. He's a hip-hop genius dropping knowledge. "Join me after breakfast and we can finish this once and for all." With that, he grabs a donut and coffee and retreats to a table.

I whirl around to face Athan who grabs my coffee and donut and holds it out to me. I take my breakfast and march back to the table where he joins me. His arm forms a protective shield over my back. For a moment there, I feel safe.  

"Have you texted Keanna," Kyran asks me before I can even take a bite out of my donut. My brow lowers into tight slits. My free hand balls. In a moment, I have decided to avoid answering that question. "I texted her this morning and I received no reply. So I just wanted to make sure she hasn't texted you back instead of me." 

I can't handle listening to him anymore. I rise from my seat and smother my brother's face with donut jelly and powder.  All I can say is that he deserved it. I then chirp like an innocent little bird, "Look what you did, bro. You made me lose my donut." 

"That was all you, B," Kyran reminds me with an eye roll. I respond with an innocent laugh. He wipes his face off with his napkin then forces a smile onto his face. "That was all you." 

I go on to drinking my coffee.  The hotness soaks into my tongue. It then hits me harder than a rock. "I don't think that Rylan is here because of Athan." 

"How so?" Aurelia asks. I look over my shoulder at her to see her hands busy scraping the frosting off a donut and sliding it over to Maxwell, who seems pretty ticked at the moment. 

"He's an Elderton," I explain and put down my coffee. In my mind coffee is best drank when cool. "Important business is concealed from any form of explanation. Also, Eldertons' aren't the number one fans of vampires, so Rylan wouldn't be putting himself in such an uncomfortable situation for petty feelings. Although he probably does hate Athan, vast reasons intact, he picked that sword fight to get attention not personal satisfaction."

"Okay, then why is he gonna fight you instead?" Aurelia presses her next question of confusion.

"That's the brick wall for me," I admit. I then gasp. "Llwyd wants me dead." Instant regret fills me as I utter the words aloud. 

"But you're an absolute angel," Eileene remarks. I slowly look over at her, a weird look on my face. If somewhere in that enigmatic mind of her, she actually believes I'm an angel, she must be sleep deprived. "Why would Llwyd want you to be bereft of life?" 

I inhale sharply. I should've known this day was coming. The day when I'd have to reveal the mission Llwyd gave me. The one I abandoned well over two weeks ago. With that, I spill everything. "After the Matching Ceremony, Llwyd came over to talk to me. In that conversation, he gave me the task to take the Resistance down and kill the Wellings. I kept in contact with him until New Year's Eve when I was turned into a hybrid." 

In unison, their eyes all turn to daggers and I'm on feet retreating over to the empty table where Grace sits. I slide into the bench next to her. "So, this is the outcast table, I can see." 

"Yup,"  Grace answers, biting angrily into her donut. She spits it out after taking too big of a bite. "Welcome to the table where humans and hated hybrids sit." 

"How do you know that all my friends loathe me right now?" I ask, shocked, and move a little closer to the edge of the bench. Honestly that girl can scare the living daylights out of me sometimes. 

"I saw their disdainful expressions on their faces," she tells me. "That was all my friends on graduation day when I said I wasn't gonna be joining them to go to college. They didn't talk me until this year when I was invited to their New Year's Eve's Eve Party." 

"Well my friends are never gonna talk to me ever again," I say dejectedly. "I just told them about the mission where I take the Resistance down and kill the vampires." 

"Yeah, you've lost them for good." She pats me on the back, a warm smile dominating her face. I look down at my combat boots, abashed. "But if helps, you might get a little bit of sympathy when you get your butt kicked by that dude who challenged you to a duel. Oh my gosh, this is just like Hamilton." 

I wrinkle my nose as I look at her weirdly. I guess she may be referring to something that transpires in the second or in the second half of the first act. Other than that, I'm completely in the dark about what she means. 

She sighs and fills me in, a smile retaining its glory the entire time. "At the end of the second act and the play itself, Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton get into a duel. Hamilton dies, but hopefully you won't." 

Her and I don't speak for the rest of the hour. When the gong sounds I follow the others up to the second level and into the training room made up of fold-up mats covering the walls and floor. In the bucket by the door stand a collection of antique swords. I pull one out and look out into the center where Rylan is. 

I meet him and draw my sword, and he does the same. A teeny voice in the back of my head tells me to drop my sword, but another part of me tells me that Keanna wasn't being serious when she asked me of that favor. 

"I didn't think you'd show up, Betrys," Rylan says as he makes sure there's ample space between the two of us. "Has Keanna not been doing her job? Isn't she the one who tries to talk you out of indulging yourself in such recklessness?" 

"Keanna's in New York," I inform him. 

In the background, I can hear our audience shouting and chanting, "Fight! Fight! Fight!" My mind races, pulling me in a million different directions. Should I fight him? Should I not?  I'm out of breath just thinking about it. "Fight! Fight! Fight!" 

My sword drops. If I fight Rylan, how am I a faithful friend to Keanna? I promised Keanna no violence and that is what she shall get. "I'm not fighting you, Rylan." Unfortunately, he doesn't hear me and his sword hits my leg, tearing through with a rip. 

Next thing I know, I'm on the floor and unconscious. 

~

Hey everyone. 

Yup, Rylan's back. I'm forewarning you, the beginning of the next chapter is a total shocker. Prepare yourself. Dun dun duh! 

Here's a gif for the enlightenment of the mood: 

If you liked this chapter, don't forget to vote and comment. I'd really appreciate it. Thanks. 

X Shay X