by E. L. Davis
“We are not children. You can’t just send us to our room.” Cheri was offended by the tone Roman was using.
“Go.” When none of them moved Roman yelled, “Now!” and glared at them with angry, dark eyes.
“Roman, don’t yell at them.” Demetri finished strapping the man down and walked towards the girls. “Please, just go upstairs. We need to get some answers from this guy and you don’t want to be here for that.”
“Yes, I do,” Alexia replied. “I want answers just as bad as you do. This man was coming after me, and I have a right know why.” Alexia was trying not to get angry, but she could feel it growing inside of her.
“Alexia, just go upstairs, okay?” Roman pleaded.
She stomped her foot on the ground but did as she was told. Her friends followed her out and Demetri closed the kitchen door behind them. “I hate how they keep treating us like we’re twelve.”
“I do too, Alexia, but they are just trying to protect us,” Ellie reasoned with her. They were climbing the stairs to their room, feeling frustrated. “They mean well.”
“I’m just sad our snowball fight came to an early end.” Cheri flopped down on the big bed and sighed. “I enjoyed the fresh air.”
“Well, now we can actually have time to talk about what has happened this past day and a half,” Ellie said, trying to put a positive spin on it. “Why do you think Cheri and I are getting angry like that? I mean, we’re not Immortal, so how can we be acting like that? It just doesn’t make sense.”
“I don’t know. It’s hard to believe everything that’s happened in the past day and a half. Usually I would think of something logical to explain it, but there is nothing logical about this situation.” Alexia climbed into the big bed and got under the covers. She stared at the roof for a moment and then blurted out, “I saw Demetri in his underwear.”
“WHAT?” Ellie and Cheri were in her face almost instantly, both of them pelting so many questions at her that she couldn’t make out a single word.
“Stop!” Alexia laughingly pleaded. “I can’t even understand what you guys are saying. One question at a time, please!”
“Okay, me first.” Ellie tried to remain calm. “How did you get into that situation?”
“Well, I knocked on his bedroom door because I wanted some answers and when he didn’t answer I just walked right in. And there he was, standing in his underwear.”
“Boxers or briefs?” Cheri asked.
“Briefs.”
“I knew he was totally a briefs kind of guy. What did you say?”
“Nothing.”
“You just turned around and closed the door?” Ellie pressed her.
“No.”
“You just stood there?” Cheri took a turn questioning her now.
“Yeah.”
“Well, what did he say?” Ellie asked again.
“He put on pants and said, ‘Does that help?’ and it didn’t.”
“What did you do?”
Alexia went a deep red. “I stood there, frozen, and he came to me and, well, kissed me.” She didn’t want to tell them every detail; she wanted to keep the intense parts to herself.
“That’s it?” Ellie asked, slightly disappointed.
“That is, it.”
“So how was it?”
“It was really nice.”
“Just nice? You’re telling me that sexy Demetri made out with you, topless, and it was just nice?”
“Well, yeah, that’s all it was.”
“So, you’re not into Roman?" Cheri chimed in.
“No, I am into Roman; he is really nice and makes me laugh. Then Demetri, he well…” she tried to choose the right words, but Cheri chose them for her.
“Is super hot and makes you nervous in a good way?”
“Exactly. Roman makes me feel safe and myself and he is hot too. But then Demetri makes me… come out of my shell and when he kisses me it feels like every nerve in my body is going insane!”
“So, what you’re saying is you like Roman emotionally and like Demetri physically?” Cheri clarified.
It sounded horrible, but Alexia knew it was true. She pulled the covers over her head and tried not to scream. Peering back over the covers, she said, “This is so annoying. I just want to get out of this house and away from them, so I can think!”
“We can’t,” Ellie said sadly.
“We could if we really wanted to,” Cheri suggested.
“It’s not safe, Cheri. Don’t even let her think it’s okay to leave.”
“Think about it,” Cheri responded. “Alexia has her three basic defenses now and we both can get super angry. If anything happened to us, we could kick anyone’s ass.”
“You’re right.” Alexia dove out of the bed and pulled on two sweaters. “We are going out that window.” She pointed to the window above the bed.
“You have to be kidding me,” Ellie said. Cheri was also pulling another sweater from her bag. “It’s not safe. You know somebody just tried to attack us, right?
“Then stay behind, but I still need some air.” Alexia went to the window and pulled it open.
Ellie sighed and dug a warm sweater from her suitcase and pulled it over her head.
∞
Demetri peeked out of the kitchen to make sure the girls had gone upstairs. He knew what they were about to do would traumatize the girls. The man that had tried to attack Alexia was starting to waken and when he did he was going to wish he was dead. Roman was by the stove and something was boiling in a small pot in front of him. Demetri was pacing back and forth impatiently. He wanted to know who had sent this man to their house. He had an idea but had to be sure.
The man was not familiar to Demetri or Roman. His face was ugly and fat. His dirty hair was brown and had a few twigs stuck in it. They could tell he had been in the woods for a while, since his clothes were caked with dirt and his shoes had a thick layer of mud on the bottoms.
“The Wither is ready.” Roman took some of the boiling liquid from the pot and poured it on the man’s face. He woke in an instant, screaming at the top of his lungs, but Demetri was prepared and slammed his hand over his mouth.
“Stop screaming or I’ll do it again.” Roman held another spoonful of Wither over the man’s face and he went silent. “If you don’t answer our questions, this whole pot will be dumped on your face, do you understand?” The man nodded and Demetri removed his hand and pulled up a stool.
“Who are you?” Demetri asked.
“My name is of no importance to you, I have a message from Amarantos.” Roman looked at Demetri as if to ask permission to drop more of the liquid on the man’s face, and Demetri nodded. Roman poured only a few drops on the man’s nose, and he screamed and withered in pain. “Okay, my name is Silos, it’s Silos!”
“Alright, Silos, what is this message?”
“It is not for you, it’s for the girl.”
“I’m afraid you don’t have the option to give it to her.”
“Then nobody will hear it at all.” The tone in his voice was final, and the boys knew they would have no choice but to grab Alexia, so they could know what the message was.
“Okay, we will get her, so you can give her the message, but first answer a few questions for me. How did you know where we were?”
“What a stupid question. Amaranto’s clearly knows where you are. He may have abandoned The Union but before he did he made sure he knew where the girl was located.”
“Why is he coming after Alexia?” Roman asked with concern.
“He doesn’t want the game to end. He knows you don’t deserve her, and he wants you to be punished until the end of time.”
“It’s too late. She’s Immortal now, and you can give Amar that message.” Demetri got up and started pacing again. “Does he really think that he can take on The Union on his own?”
“Who said he was on his own? You think I am the only messenger he has? If you do, then you are even stupider then I thought. Do you think he was the
only one who didn’t want the games to end?” The man laughed a cruel and evil laugh. “This is going to be too easy.”
Roman took a ladle from beside the stove and filled it with Wither and poured it over the man’s heart. He screamed and pulled on his bindings. Blisters appeared where the liquid had touched, and Silos’s eyes began to roll into the back of his head. Roman reached for another spoonful but Demetri stopped him. “No don’t, we have to hear the message!”
“Then go get her so we can hear it!” Roman said angrily. “I won’t be taunted, Demetri, I took enough of that from you.”
“Don’t turn this on me, Roman. We have to work together right now.”
“Why? I can protect her on my own. I don’t need to work with you!” Roman’s eyes were getting so dark that they were almost completely black.
“You know you need my help!” Demetri reminded him. “Now stay calm!”
Roman slammed a fist into the counter leaving behind a huge dent. He took a couple deep breaths and tried to calm down.
“You can’t even work together,” the man prodded, “so how do you think you can protect her?”
Roman slammed his fist as hard as he could into the man’s face. He yelped slightly but it wasn’t even close to the amount of pain that the Wither gave him.
“I’m going to get Alexia, and then once you give her your message…” Demetri interrupted. “Roman, just go get her.”
Roman gave one last look of disgust to the man and then left the kitchen.
“You realize you won’t win, Demetri,” the man said, egging Demetri on. “I know the game has ended, yet you and your brother continue to fight for her love. She won’t choose you. It was always him.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, and unless you want that whole pot poured over your heart, you better shut your mouth.”
Roman came running back into the kitchen in a panic. Before he spoke, Demetri knew what he would say.
“They’re gone.”
∞ CHAPTER TEN ∞
Neither of the girls really enjoyed being in the woods, but the house was surrounded by them, so they had no choice. They walked with their arms linked together, talking about the most normal topics they could think of. Being inside the house was suffocating for Alexia, as she couldn’t think of anything besides Demetri or Roman, or about being Immortal. She may not be a normal girl, but she needed to be reminded that until last night, she had been.
Her chest felt heavy, as if all the information she had acquired was sitting on top of her, weighing her down. It wasn’t fair that this was happening to her. Why did she have to become Immortal? Sure, if what the boys had told her was true she would have died before she turned twenty-one, but at the moment, she would take death over the kind of pressure she felt now.
“You know when we go back to school we are going to have so much gossip to catch up on. I wonder if people will notice we are all not there.”
“I’m sure they will,” Ellie assured her. “Who wouldn’t notice that the most popular girl and her two sidekicks were away for a week? Who wouldn’t notice that the two new absolutely gorgeous guys are also gone for a week?”
Cheri looked at Ellie like she was an idiot for bringing up Demetri and Roman.
“First of all,” Alexia responded, “people do not see you guys as my sidekicks, and second, no Demetri and Roman talk please.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to bring them up.”
They walked in silence for a few minutes, looking at the trees and listening to the sounds around them. Up ahead, a fallen tree lay across another tree, creating a perfect bench. They brushed the snow from it and took a seat.
“Not only are we going to have a bunch of gossip to catch up on,” Cheri chimed in, “but also a lot of homework.”
Homework. That was something that seemed so human and normal. Alexia had an idea. “Let’s go pick some up then.”
“I don’t know if you remember this,” Cheri reminded her, “but all of our families think we are in California with your dad. Don’t you think it would be a little weird if we just showed up to get homework?”
Alexia knew she was right. It was a bad idea, but she enjoyed the idea of doing something as normal as homework. “Whatever, I guess you’re right.”
She hung her head for a moment and then she heard it. Her head snapped up and her whole body got tense. She could tell her friends had heard it too because they were just as stiff. Somebody was moving behind them, trying to sneak up on them. Alexia tried to focus on everything she was mad about. She knew they were about to be attacked and her only chance was to get extremely angry.
With her eyes shut tight, she started to think about the past day and night. She thought of how she couldn’t make up her mind about Demetri and Roman, how they were confined in a huge house with no answers, how she was in danger from… what was she in danger from? That was it; that was what she focused on to make herself get angry. They kept telling her, “You’re in danger” and “It’s not safe”, but not once did they tell her from what.
If she turned around, she was sure she would be looking danger in the eyes, and she was certain that she was mad enough to take it on. Her eyes flashed open and she whipped around to see two men a few feet away from them. She couldn’t see clearly, but she knew that rage was about to take over. She looked at her friends who were still sitting down and when they looked at her, their eyes were as black as hers. They knew they would walk away from this unharmed; the two men, however, would not.
∞
“I knew we shouldn’t have left them alone,” Roman said. “This is not like Alexia at all.” He and Demetri had locked Silos in the kitchen before leaving the house to search for the three girls. They were searching the woods, trying hard to listen for the sound of voices.
“In case you haven’t noticed, she hasn’t been acting like herself since she became Immortal.” Demetri was right, she hadn’t been acting like the girl they had loved for all these years. “She’s acting much more bratty than usual.”
“Alexia is not a brat,” Roman protested.
“I didn’t say she was a brat. I said she was acting bratty.”
Roman didn’t respond. He didn’t care what his brother had to say, he just wanted to find her alive. They walked deeper into the woods, not speaking, just listening. But there was nothing to hear. After ten minutes of searching, they split up to cover more ground.
Roman wanted to yell for her, but if he did, anyone who was around would know that she was not with them, not protected. A million things were running through his mind. What if she was already dead? Would it be that easy to kill her? She was a new Immortal and they were supposed to be the easiest to eliminate. It was hard to avoid these thoughts, especially since it was getting dark and the woods would soon be pitch black.
Demetri tried to use his third defense to find her. He tried to find that pull that would always lead him to her, but it was not there. This gave him hope, since it meant that she was not far away. He was thinking about what he would do when he found her, and how he would hug her for a long time. Then he would get mad at her for taking off on them, but his anger wouldn’t last, since his relief would smolder it. From his left side he heard twigs cracking, and he knew Roman had been on his left. He could still see his silhouette, so Demetri whistled to get his brother’s attention. Roman turned and started running towards him.
“I hear something coming from over there,” Demetri told him. The two started toward the noise, trying to be quiet in case it wasn’t the girls. The closer they got, the more distinguished the voices became. Then they heard her voice. They both started running towards it, almost racing each other to reach her first. Roman was fast, but as always, Demetri was faster, and he broke through the trees into the clearing first and was shocked at what he saw.
Alexia was blood-soaked and beating a man twice her size to the ground. Cheri and Ellie were also covered in blood. Ellie was holding a second man to the ground as Cheri kicke
d his body over and over. Even in the shadows of the woods, the boys could see their pitch-black eyes. They seemed to almost glow brighter and brighter with every kick or punch they delivered to the men. When it was clear that the man Ellie and Cheri had been fighting was knocked out cold, they ran to help their friend. Ellie grabbed the man’s arm and ripped it clean off. She had meant to pull him to the ground, but there was too much rage flooding her veins. The man screamed and fell to the ground, gripping the spot where his left arm had just been. As soon as she had an opening, Cheri stomped on the man’s face as hard as she could. If he were human, he would have died instantly.
They stood there for a moment, breathing heavily. Slowly their mind became clear and their eyes returned to their natural colors. The adrenaline leaked from their bodies, and suddenly they were all very exhausted. Demetri and Roman had watched the beating from the sidelines in absolute awe. Demetri made the mistake of taking a step toward them and in an instant Cheri was at his throat, eyes gleaming black. When she realized who she was choking, she immediately let go and her eyes went back to normal.
“Oh no, I’m so sorry.” She took a step back and looked over at her friends who were walking over to join them.
“Let’s get back to the house before it gets too dark.” Roman’s tone told them there was no arguing what he had said. He led the way with the girls following him and Demetri taking up the rear.
Once the trees started to thin, Alexia spoke in a calm voice. “How long until those men wake up?” Nobody answered her.
Roman held the front door open for them and murmured something about following him to the kitchen. Silos was still locked in there and it was time to hear the message he had for Alexia. “This man has a message for you, Alexia. He won’t tell us what it is, only you.”
She nodded and walked toward the man who appeared to be asleep. As soon as Alexia was beside him, he jerked awake. “Finally found you, did they? You look like you have hurt somebody”
