I never knew. My whole life, no one had the courage یا the right to tell me what happened. I had to find out the hard way, and that nearly cost me my life.
Last December was an important time for me. I never moved before, and it was all brand new to me. Moving boxes wasn't the challenge. The hardest part was coming into school during the middle of the سال and not having a clue what the people were like. So far, my only friend here was the next-door neighbor Joselynn, some seventy-year old lady that had her grandkids over as much as possible. My mom encouraged me to meet them and possibly play around with them, but the first thing that popped into my head was: hanging around with infants for twelve hours? I'd rather do homework for that long! I don't have a grudge against younger children, but having a baby sister Lianna and a toddler brother Justin in the household seemed enough to last me... however long I lived. At this present time, I had no clue if it was even okay to say what I just did.
Every دن was a drag; I may have been on a rush when I came to school, excited سے طرف کی the new atmosphere, but once I realized that I was an outcast, with no friends, isolated from reality, I knew that everyday was going to be the same. Same kids. Same eyes. None of them were different. All of them wanted to say the same things to me, tell me to go away. Lunch was the worst. Their eyes were hawks looming over me, and the nights grew colder with those visions dancing beneath my eyelids. Sometimes I would have nightmares of just those eyes, sometimes floating between branches in the woods that were اگلے to my house, sometimes vibrating along the forest floor that shook underneath my running feet. I was always running away from something, but a knotted feeling in my stomach caused me to not look back. I would fall, multiple times, but nothing would catch me, help me up. At times I felt like I was in defeat, just wanting to lay down and let whatever was chasing me devour my sadness, my fear. I just wanted to see that thing, hoping it was ten times easier to look at then the countless eyes that glared at me underneath curls and waves of hair during the day. When that first weekend of December came, I embraced every منٹ of it.
Outside, it was below the average temperatures. My hands were numb even with the gloves on, and shoving them inside the pockets of my over-sized جیکٹ made my body quake with shiver. My breath was iced before my frozen cheeks, and the stumps of the chopped trees threatened to trip me. I guided myself through the forest, and only when it got dark and full of fog did I start to follow the trail of the setting sun, making my way back home. I was doing fine until I flinched at the flock of birds that were nestled up in the درخت nearest to me, now flying off in a frenzy. I turned just a tad bit too late.
A motorcycle roared into view, crashing down branches and weeds in a tangle of ruined mess. The driver didn't acknowledge that I was there, and I stumbled out of the way as the bike slid across a large root of an oak درخت and made a dramatic leap before settling farther away. A moment's pause as the driver guned the engine again, racing away as if this was a professional job he had, blowing around the forest like some jaguar in ہوم territory. I brushed myself off, muttering angrily to myself, when I was tossed sharply back into the درخت behind me.
Head spinning, I turned to see my attacker, and my throat caught.
A wolf, back on its' hunches, growled at me long and hard, sniffing the ground while keeping silver eyes on me. My دل beated up against my throat, drumming a signal that warned me to move, run away. But the tail was swishing, and the teeth were being polished so much سے طرف کی that گلابی tongue that we both knew what my fate was. A goner.
A harsh cry broke everything, and someone leaped from the درخت above me, aimed an arrow from his bow, and the target struck. It didn't faze the wolf, but the eyes took a new turn and its body sprang to life as the two beings charged. I watched the flurry commence, and when I tried making my legs work to اقدام me away from all the danger, the instant my foot dragged across the moss below me both of those eyes shot to me, the battle paused. A سونا bloom of light against a silver moon river.
The بھیڑیا snapped its jaws, and the boy took the moment to tear out his sharp چھری and puncture the beast. It cried out, then hastily made a تیز رو, سوئفٹ kick at the boy in the chest before limping off into the darker parts of the woods. My eyes slid back to the kid, who was draped against the تنے, ٹرنک of the tree, eyes closed and breathing ragged. Slowly, I took a crawl to him.
When I reached his side, I looked at him. His clothes looked normal, the average t-shirt and denim jeans. His bow and sack of arrows were tied against his back, and the ends were poking into his ribs. I carefully took them out, wondering why he didn't think of using them while he was fighting fist-on-fist contact with the wolf.
When I looked up, he was staring at me, and I noticed that his eyes weren't amber now, but a pale blue. Dark lashes framed the border, and brown hair was sprawled out in chunks around his well-sculpted face. His lips were curved into a shape of distaste. "Why are آپ still here?"
His voice, so dark and mysterious, caught me off guard. My vocals came out weak. "Because you're hurt."
He made a pained laugh, his eyes flustering about. "Shouldn't آپ be calling the police سے طرف کی now, یا running ہوم to tell everyone about what happened? It would be مزید fun that way."
"And آپ would know about fun."
"Right, I would, because---" He stopped himself short, eyeing me as if he couldn't trust me with what he was going to say. He then shook his head, making his hair messier. "Because I'm older than you, if آپ seemed to have noticed."
I didn't notice, and still looking at him there seemed to be no difference. I would mistake him for being a senior just like me.
Before I could make a response, he let loose a wind of air from his mouth, and it tingled my nose with the sent of roses and mint. "Just go home, girl. آپ don't belong here. I would think آپ would be tired after what you've been through."
The moment he uttered the word my muscles collapsed, and I saw behind my eyelashes the world flow into a mass of green, only to be substituted سے طرف کی those light blue eyes, which now had a rim of yellow cresting around the pupil. His hand was warm against my back, and I was stunned سے طرف کی how much heat his skin gave off, transporting past the thick کوٹ that I wore. I shivered, and my cheeks felt warmer now that his breath was against my face.
"Go home." He whispered, his eyes burning with a ferociousness that shook me down to the core. "Go ہوم and don't come back. You'll be a threat here from now on. It's too dangerous for a frail child like you."
His words echoed in my head when he shoved me off into the night, along the path that I had traveled on before. Even then, I thought when I was alone, walking, he was there, watching, protecting me from whatever could harm me.
For once I came back to the house with a sigh of relief.