It was like it was a fairy tale, or part of horror movies. I didn’t believe that anything like demons existed until today, but I saw three with my own eyes and I killed one. It was funny how I felt no guilt for killing it, it was a living creature after all, but it did try to kill me and Rhys. I wasn’t going to wake up tomorrow and this wasn’t going to be a dream. It was real and everything I had been obsession over was something and it was real.
I could literally feel thoughts clicking in my head. If I had this mark, I was Insigne, and conclusion I had come to a while ago but was afraid to even think, but if that was the case then that meant I would’ve possibly always been able to see demons, even when I was a child. I had been hearing voices and seeing shadows, and told it was because of my parent’s death, but that wasn’t the case…I had been seeing demons, real demons, and my whole life.
I sat out there for a while as I went through everything in my head, over and over again. Everything they had said, everything I had realised, and everything I had seen. The more I played it over, the realer it felt. It must’ve been sitting there for hours when I voice spoke and made me jump slightly.
“You’ve been out here for a while,” he said, standing at the window.
“It’s a lot to take in,” I said, taking a deep breath in. “I mean…my whole life feels like a lie.”
“Because suddenly everything you thought wasn’t real…might be?” he frowned.
“Yes,” I nodded at me. “Exactly.”
“I felt that way too,” Isaac shrugged.
I turned my head to him and frowned. “What?”
“Yeah, I grew up knowing this, but they don’t tell you until you’re about five because it’s not any easy thing to understand. It wasn’t that I was told demons weren’t real, I just…could never believe straight away what I was told,” Isaac told me. “Trust issues and all.”
“I just…I just… I don’t know,” I shook my head. “I just don’t know how this happened.”
“Well, you better start believing it,” Isaac said. “I can only imagine what else will happen.”
Isaac started to walk away and I realised that I had to tell him about the mark on my arm. He needed to know that something else had happened and something serious was going on, and I had only realised that now.
“Isaac,” I said his name, stopping him and making him turn slowly and I climbed through the window and back into the bedroom. “Something has happened.”
“Wha-?”
Before he could finish speaking I had lifted up my sleeve to reveal my mark. He didn’t speak immediately and I wasn’t sure if he was shocked or angry at me. Either way he didn’t seemed pleased that I had kept this from him.
“You have a mark,” he whispered, stepping closer to me to look at it. “Have you had it all along?”
“No, no,” I said quickly, dropping my sleeve slightly. “I got it, at Rhys’. When the demon was close to me I just…I don’t know how, I just shot fire at the demon and the mark…it just appeared.”
“You are one of us, you are Insigne,” Isaac whispered.
“I know,” I said, looking down.
I may not know Isaac well or known him for long but I could tell he was angry and I didn’t really want to see him angry, but I definitely was about to.
“We sat in that room…we told you everything,” Isaac said under his breath, “and you thought it was a good idea to not say anything?!”
“You think this is easy for me?!” I snapped at him. “I have had a hard life and I know that. I don’t want any of this crap but I almost died twice today. The only reason I can stand here right now is this stupid mark and my friend! I don’t want to believe any of this and I have no choice, but I’m scared. I’m so scared, okay? I don’t know what to do. I just want it to go away, I just want-.”
I had started crying by now, something I was surprised took so long to happen. Everything was so overwhelming it was taking over me, but that wasn’t what stopped me from finishing my rant directed at Isaac. I stopped because I realised Rhys was standing in the doorway and he looked scared too, but he looked like he was more concerned for me.
“You’re okay,” I whispered, making Isaac turn to see Rhys.
Rhys tried to smile a little. “Yeah, I am.”
I let out a sigh of relief and stepped forward towards Rhys. Rhys followed my action and we both threw ourselves into each other’s arms. My head rested against his shoulder I squeezed him tightly and he squeezed me back. We hugged each other for a long time and I found myself thinking about what I was going to tell him, or if I could tell him anything. I couldn’t understand it myself, how was I meant to explain this to Rhys?
Rhys and I slowly moved ourselves away from each other, kind of just glancing at each other. There was a part of me that knew I couldn’t say anything to him, and I didn’t want to. I wanted to protect him from this, and that meant keeping him away from it.
“I need to talk to Felix,” Isaac said suddenly, breaking the tension between us.
“Isaac-.”
He was angry at me and I surprised that something as simple as my mark could make him so aggravated.
“There’s still a lot to sort out, alright, Lily?”
Isaac never gave me a chance to respond as he left the room, shutting the door behind him. I glanced over to Rhys who had a confused look on his face and I couldn’t blame him. I sighed and I let myself fall so I could sit on the bed.
“Who he is?” Rhys asked, still kind of looking at the door.
I glanced up at Rhys but just shook my head a little. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Lily,” Rhys groaned a little, walking over so he now sat next to me. “He saved our lives…so did you. Who is he, and what is all this crap about?”
When I looked into Rhys’ eyes I saw this sense of confusion, but mostly I saw that he wanted to protect me. He wanted to make sure I was okay but I only wanted to do the same for him as well. I needed him here though, I couldn’t do it without him but I was opening him up to this danger that I didn’t want him to be a part of.
“His name is Isaac,” I said softly, now not looking at Rhys. “He… was at the party and he saved my life this morning as well. Rhys, he knows about the symbols…about these marks that I found, that I was obsessing over.”
“This is about those symbols?” Rhys asked surprised.
I just slowly nodded at him. “Turns out they’re really dangerous, who would’ve guessed?”
“This can’t be about those stupid symbols,” Rhys muttered suddenly.
“Rhys,” I frowned at him.
“I saw the way you were acting yesterday, Lily. You were just tearing through your parents things,” he said to me. “I’ve never seen you like that... never.”
I curled my lips together and I felt myself gulp. “You saw what happened today, Rhys. This isn’t anything we’re used to.”
“It’s not real,” he whispered, shaking his head.
“What?”
“It’s not real, Lily. None of it is, it can’t be,” he told me, looking up to meet my face.
“Rhys, I know that this is crazy…,” I spoke slowly trying to keep him calm.
“Crazy? It’s not real,” he repeated.
“Rhys, just stop, please,” I told him.
“We should go,” he said in a panicked tone. “We need to get away from these people.”
“I can’t go, Rhys.”
I whispered it so softly I didn’t think Rhys heard me, but I didn’t really say it for his benefit. I couldn’t go; I couldn’t leave here, not now. All of what happening is crazy and I know that but I also knew that something real was happening. That mark was on my arm and it wasn’t going anywhere and neither can I.
“I mean, we just walked into this place-,” Rhys was continuing on.
“I can’t go,” I repeated louder so I was sure he would hear me this time.
He spun on the spot to face me and he had this frown on his face. “What?”
/>
“I can’t leave here, Rhys, I can’t,” I told him. “You don’t understand.”
“Don’t understand what, Lily?” he frowned again. “What else is there to understand but that if we leave now, this can be over.”
“Not for me.”
“Not for you? Lily, what the hell are you going on about? Is this about your parents? Did they say something to you? Did they-?”
“It’s not about my parents,” I snapped at him slightly and I stood up. I found myself now furiously rolling up my sleeve. “It’s about this. It’s about the fact that I have one of those stupid symbols on my arm.”
Rhys’ reaction was slow, and I don’t think he could take it in straight away anyway, not that I really could when I first saw it either.
“You…it’s there…on…your arm,” he breathed out between every word.
“Something is happening, Rhys, okay, you saw it?” I said to him slowly. Something said telling Rhys this was not what was going to help.
“Something…yeah…”
“Rhys!”
Like before, I watched Rhys’ eyes roll back into his head and his whole body go limp. I found myself jumping into action trying desperately to catch him, but I also found myself falling to the floor with him. I heard footsteps near my head and slowly I turned to look at Isaac standing above me. He didn’t say anything to me and he didn’t need to. He knew it, and I knew it. I couldn’t leave.
Chapter Seven
“Mortals are meant to know about demons, it can be very overwhelming for them. It’s most likely a combination of shock, and lose of blood and everything he’s been through today, as to why he has passed out.”
“But he’ll be okay?”
“Like I said, he’s been through a lot and all today, I can understand why it would get to him.”
“Felix,” I injected, making Felix turn his head away from Rhys whom now rested gently on the bed. “Will he be okay?”
“More than likely,” Felix admitted with a nod. “I wouldn’t worry, Lily.”
“It’s my fault he passed out again,” I muttered.
“You couldn’t have known showing your mark would cause this,” Felix told me, turning back to Rhys and pulling the bed sheets over him so he was mostly covered by them. “I’m surprised you aren’t in the same state.”
I felt myself a laugh a little as I combined my fingers through my hair to get it away from my face. “Honestly, so am I.”
It was dark now as I glanced outside, and I realised how much time had actually passed. It had been more than twelve hours since the first attack and thoughts were still flooding in my mind. My uncle wouldn’t be home from work yet, it’d be safe for a while but I had no idea what to do with that, not to mention the state of Rhys’ house. Everything was a disaster.
“Isaac’s mad at me, isn’t he?” I guessed.
Felix sighed as he turned to face me. “He has a short temper, that’s all, don’t take it to heart. He’s…frustrated by the situation. This morning you weren’t in Insigne and now you are.”
“But…wouldn’t I always have been one? Before…you were saying it’s like a blood thing,” I shrugged at him.
“And it is,” Felix nodded. “It has to be in your blood. You just haven’t known about it until now. Until now, that part was locked away inside of you, and all it took was a demon attack.”
“But there’s more than that, isn’t there?” I guessed. “I mean…the way Isaac reacted to my mark… the way you all reacted when I mentioned the dagger…there’s more?” I guessed.
“Lily, you are exhausted and you need sleep,” Felix suddenly shut me down, walking past me and out of the room.
Felix, not once today had been blunt with me like he was now, so the moment he spoke to me like that I didn’t know how to feel. He was probably right though, I was exhausted. I could feel it but I had been ignoring it mostly until now. At the same time though, there was too much going on in my head to allow myself to sleep
“Felix,” I said, his name, following him out of the room and shutting the bedroom door behind me.
“You can sleep in my room tonight,” Felix told me as we walked into the longue room.
I stopped once I reached the lounge room and Felix paused near the kitchen entrance. Hadley was in the kitchen and I don’t know if she was making food or something but she was making a lot of noise for whatever she was doing. I turned away from her and looked around the lounge room and that’s when something struck me.
“Where’s Isaac?” I asked Felix.
Felix barely looked at me as he answered. “He’s gone to get someone. We have a lot to deal with.”
“What do you mean?” I frowned at him.
“He means,” Hadley said walking out of the kitchen holding two steaming hot mugs in her hand. “He’s gone to clean up your mess and make sure no one knows you’re missing. Take this. It’s just tea, so don’t like at me like that, it’ll help you sleep.”
I was still cautious to take the tea out of Hadley’s hand. “You didn’t put anything in it, did you?”
Hadley gave me a look as she handed the other mug to Felix. “Other than some soothing natural tea herbs. It’s Felix who loves this crap, not me.”
“It is calming and it is good for you,” Felix stated. “Drink it, it will help.”
I sat down on the longue that was behind me and gripped to the mug, cautiously taking a sip. I could feel the hot water flow down my throat, and Felix was right, there was something that was calming about it, even soothing in a way. Felix left the room without a word, but I felt no need to follow him this time. If he wanted me to come with him, he would’ve said so. I kind of just wanted to sit, and try and think about anything but the situation I was in.
“You can shower in the morning,” Hadley told me as she walked past me and to the arm chair on the side, picking up the TV remote. “The hot water works better in the morning anyway…from what I know at least, I haven’t been living here long, it’s not my home.”
“Whose is it then?” I frowned slightly at her.
“Isaac’s,” she stated. “Felix is currently just crashing here. Those two have a long history, Isaac always lets him stay.”
“And you?”
“He trusts me,” Hadley shrugged, “and I’m in between places. Not easy being and Insigne in a world full of mortals. Easier to be with our own kind anyway, we need to stick together.”
Eventually Felix emerged from the hallway and led me back into a room across from the main bedroom. The room didn’t look like it was supposed to be a second bedroom, in fact it was a tiny room and it managed to cram in a bookcase a desk and a bed.
“Okay, so it’s not a bedroom exactly,” Felix pointed out, “but as I’m sure you’ve noticed this house isn’t exactly bursting with extra rooms.”
“I don’t have to sleep here, really,” I said to Felix.
He just shook his head. “You need the sleep more than I do, and if Rhys hadn’t of passed out in Isaac’s bed, you’d be there. You just happened to come along the same time everyone else seemed to be here.”
“Hadley…mentioned before that you and Isaac had some sort of…history?” I said slowly. “What did she mean?”
Felix had picked up some sheets that he had put on the desk and I realised he was making the bed for me. He gave me a little look before he spoke.
“I’m not really from here,” Felix admitted.
“Is it something to do with the accent then? Where you are from I mean?” I added.
“You noticed my accent?” he asked surprised, straightening up as he tucked a corner of the sheet in.
“Yeah, it’s faint, but it’s there,” I nodded. “British, right?”
He nodded at me. “Sussex to be more exact. I only lived there until I was about four though, before I had to move here, and when I moved here, I lived with Isaac.”
“So you and Isaac have known each other since you were little?” I asked.
“Our mothers
knew each other when they were younger too, and my mother moved to England, but when I had nowhere else to go, she only trusted me to go with Isaac’s family, a family she knew well and trusted,” Felix shrugged.
“So, you two are really close?” I stated.
“Yeah, guess you could say that,” Felix muttered.
I leant against the desk near the bed as Felix finished making the bed, just watching him before I decided to speak.
“Thank you,” I muttered.
“I don’t mind cleaning and making beds,” Felix shrugged, with a smile.
“Not for that,” I shook my head a little. “You…you’ve been nothing but nice to me all day while I completely just wig out all day.”
“No one can blame you for the way you’re reacting to this,” Felix said to me lightly.
“It’ll sink in though?” I didn’t say to ask a question, but I found myself saying it as a question.
Felix kind of pursed his lips as he crossed his arms over his chest. “No one can expect you to take any of this in today. There’s a lot… more to know, a lot, and you have to try and be ready for it.”
“And if I’m not ready for it?” I questioned him.
“Well…we’ll be here to help you through it, we have to be.”
It was safe to say that my sleep that night was not one of the best sleeps that I had ever endured. I barely slept and if I ever did drift off I found myself waking back up again after half an hour or so. I think in the end what really caused me to sleep was how over tired I ended up being from constantly waking up. I was the surprised and relieved when there was definite day light, when I heard the bedroom door creak open. I had made it through a very long night.
I was pretty much wide awake by now; I just hadn’t left the bed yet. I didn’t think I could get out of bed to be honest. Through my sleepless night I found myself thinking more than I thought.
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