TWENTY FOUR: A MAZE WITH FANGS

“Wouldn’t that make things harder” Someone asked.

“On the contrary, it would make things faster” Another said.

“We’ll split up in twos” Raphael said with a dull tone.

“Perfect” Jenna smiled clinging even closer to him.

“If you were smart enough, you would realise there are specifically different creatures on our team and of course that would have to do with the clues, so I refuse your suggestion, happy?” Cillian asked and this time Raphael narrowed his own eyes.

“Let’s try to decipher what this means” Cillian said turning to the rest of us.

“What if the two means second floor?” I asked and heard a snot and then full blown laughter.

“How does that even make sense” Jenna laughed.

“Go on” Cillian said ignoring her.

“I mean, the second floor is usually isolated and all” I shrugged.

“Let’s check it then” Cillian said and the house members grumbled but still moved forward.

“Look at you using your little brain sweet apple” Cillian praised patting my head and I glared at him making him laugh.

We all made it to second floor and a small shiver made it through my body as I recalled my first experience here.

“Actually there’s a door that looked like the ash drawn one here” Jenna said and began to walk to the door and we followed her, she entered the empty classroom and we saw another house present, Phoebe and her team and they were cleaning the clue written on the board.

“Hurry” Phoebe smiled and her team hurried to clean the board but suddenly their movement stopped, I turned to see one of our members, pupils white as she stopped their actions.

“Well well well, House of valour is it?” Phoebe asked in a mocking tone and specifically made her way to Cillian.

“What an unbefitting house master for such a house”

“And your actions are rather graceful are they not” Cillian mocked back with a small smile.

“You’re not going to win” She declared.

“Don’t you have more clues to look for?”

“You” She raised her hands towards him with a glare and Cillian slapped it away.

“Don’t touch me” With that he walked into the classroom.

Phoebe stood there still in shock before laughing and walking away, soon her teammates followed after her and we released the ones that were paused.

“Who can rewrite what was cleaned?” Cillian asked.

“Easy work” Jenna released Raphael’s hand and muttered something under her breath, causing the writings to come back.

“North East, North West, South East, South West, North, West, South,” She read aloud.

“It’s a sequence” A girl on glasses said as she adjusted her glasses.

“It’s following an order of East then west”

“What of the North and South that stand alone?” Jenna asked.

“It doesn’t matter, the next location is East” She declared.

“Shall we” Cillian asked.

We headed straight East

I felt eyes at the back of my head and turned to find Raphael staring at me, and he didn’t bother to look away as I had caught him.

I rolled my eyes with a scoff and looked ahead of me as we continued with our walk.

Soon we came across what seemed to be a maze.

“Looks like we have to split up after all” Cillian snickered.

“In two’s everyone” He declared and then came to pull my hand.

“I want to be paired with you, house master” The girl on glasses said, her cheeks rosy.

“I already have a partner” Cillian said with a small smile turning to me, while I stared at him confused, when did I agree to be his partner, he just imposed himself on me.

“But I…”

“No” He replied and pulled me with him without waiting for her to finish her statement.

“Cillian that was rude” I said to him once we had walked away from the girl.

He made a sound and ran his hand through his hair, eyes shut before he opened them to look at me.

“I don’t want to walk through a maze with a rando that’ll probably try to assault me” He said.

“Assault you? Aren’t you exaggerating?” I asked trying to keep a straight face. I failed.

“You’ll be surprised how many people want me” He smiled.

“Aren’t you a little too much in your head?” I scoffed at his statement.

“No I’m not. My head is perfectly fine sweet apple” He answered and I rolled my eyes and walked ahead.

We walked into the grassy maze, filled with flowers, and well trimmed.

While I wondered where to go, Cillian took a left and I just followed behind him while admiring the grasses.

“So you had to tell them to put you in my house, didn’t you?” Cillian teased when we were further in and I scoffed.

“It’s just mere coincidence” I replied and he made a humming sound

“So sweet apple what’s life like a dhampir” He asked suddenly and I paused in my tracks as I tensed up.

“No need to be tense sweet apple, you’re the first dhampir I’m seeing without fangs or anything remotely Vampire like” He smiled at me and I could hear my heart rate rising.

“I don’t particularly know how to answer that question, but it’s not cool to not be strong enough” I sighed in pretence.

“You don’t have to be crazy strong sweet apple, you have me” He smiled brightly showing his full set of teeth and fangs.

Actual fangs, I reminded myself.

They were always the ones questioning me and making me f*e tense, I wanted to return the favour and change the topic.

“How do you feed most times Cillian, there are no humans here” I asked clenching my hands at my sides. Cillian paused his walking and turned to me.

“The same way you do” He simply replied with a small smile.

“I can last long without taking human blood” I replied and he stared at me before raising his hand to his chin.

“I guess I can too, maybe cause I’m pure blooded” He smiled and walked ahead. I narrowed my eyes at the obnoxious vampire, he was good at dodging, why didn’t he want to answer, was it too diabolical?

I decided not to probe any further and just keep walking.

We made another turn and kept walking down.

“How do you know where we are going?” I questioned.

“I don’t” He replied and I glared daggers at the back of his head.

“Cillian what if we are going in circles?” I asked. Suddenly, the weather began to get cloudy and the skies darker.

“Ah, who has gone and annoyed the weather boy” Cillian snickered.

“Cillian” I called as he hadn’t answered my question.

“Relax sweet apple, trust me” He gave a small smile,

We kept walking and then I stepped on an uneven ground that seemed to pull my leg in.

“Cillian!” I cried frightened and I crashed to the floor, but in a second he was in front of me and caught me.

He groaned under his breath and with one hand, he forced my leg out and pulled me to stand.

I was panting, trying to get my breathing steady.

“Thank you” I muttered. We stared at the sinking sand which oddly enough coughed up a flower.

I stared at it hard, it was a dried rose.

Was it a clue?

Cillian walked over to where the rose was and examined it before dropping it back on the ground. He raised his hand up and his claws grew out.

I watched as Cillian scratched himself with his claws and his hand started bleeding.

“Cillian!” I called rushing over to him but he raised a hand for me to stop. He raised his bleeding hand over the flower and slowly the blood dripped on the flower. I watched in awe as the flower began to bloom slowly.

It was a beautiful rose. The rose seemed to adjust itself and point towards the side.

“It wants us to go west” Cillian said and after he did, the flower withered again