Everyone looks up at me as I walk in, mother's glare so intense I nearly turn around and walk back out.
Mindlessly flicking snow off the branch in front of me, I look across at Lei, who sits on another branch with her legs hanging down below her.
Mother stands before me, tears glistening in her eyes.
Eryk rests his bow against the trunk of a nearby tree."Are you hurt?" he breathes, kneeling down in front of me, looking at a spot on my forehead. Reaching up to touch it, I wince, pulling back to see my fingertips covered in my blood. At this point, I can't tell if it's my blood or the girls.Looking over at the body, I see the arrow coming out of her dead body, and suddenly the world is spinning, the reality that I just watched someone die hitting me square in the stomach.
~AvenI still don’t trust Eryk, but right now, Lei and I don’t stand a chance out in this weather with Lei’s car half submerged in the ditch, so I agree to let him drive us to the nearest hotel.There is a tense silence between us as Eryk drives. He;s decided to not share any more information with me until we are in a safer position. My fingers keep glancing back at his hand, where he purposefully cut himself to show me the colour of his blood. Even though he’s since healed himself with whatever inexplicable power he has, I can still see a smear of drying blood across the back of his hand.Shivering, I turn back to look ou
The moment the door closes behind him, my gaze drifts to the keys lying on the floor which must have fallen from Eryk’s pocket. Leaning down, I grab them, tucking them into my own pocket."What are you doing?" Lei hisses."Quiet," I respond, my voice barely above a whisper. Lei’s gaze tracks me all the way to the window, which I slide open, a light spray of rain blowing in with the wind. "He's insane if he thinks I'm staying here. That man has something seriously wrong with him."Lei and
The moment the group is gone, I fall to the floor in front of my mother, tugging at her binds."You're okay," I breathe, pulling the rope away from her wrists, wincing at the red marks that tarnish her skin. She’s shaking, although there is a steadiness in her gaze. "You're safe now."I’m not sure who those people were, and why they thought to tie my mother up like that, but if they thought I would come willingly with them, they are insane. At first I could have convinced myself that they are people breaking in for mother’s money, but their strange ramblings matched up with Eryk’s too perfectly, and now he is here, saving me once again.
An overwhelming feeling encompasses me.A feeling of falling has my eyes squeezing shut tighter, my heart nearly stopping as a sense of tension wraps around me, pushing my limbs closer to my body as I fall through a tunnel of darkness. Not once do I feel Eryk’s grasp leave my body, his finger’s only tightening on me as terrifying silence builds in my ears.And then, the tension releases, and my feet are touching the hard ground. I stumble forward a step, but Eryk pulls me back up against him, stopping me from hurtling face first into the ground.Rubbing my eyes, I push off him, looking around.
¬AvenThe air in the room goes ice cold."He's here already?" mother whispers. For someone she is telling me to trust, her face loses all it’s colour awfully quickly at the mention of this man’s name. My heart flutters in my chest as I grip Lei’s hand, glancing at her. She doesn’t look as petrified as me, but I suppose this man isn’t here to see her, but me.Eryk’s hand slips off the door knob as he faces my mother, looking grim. "Yes, and he is going to want to see Aven right away."