“Go, run! There’s too many of them, just run!”
I started running as I felt Isaac grip back onto my shoulder. It was a slow run, it was actually barely run, but it was the best both of us could do. Hadley suddenly broke through a set of doors and the faint sunlight hit my eyes. I blinked as I tried to adjust as both Isaac and I walked out into the day. Hadley was already at the van and I realised she was pulling the doors at the rear of the van open.
“Get him in here, it’ll be quicker.”
She was right; I could get him into the back of the van easier. I struggled to get him down the stairs and he tried his best to help, but we get to the van. With great difficultly I managed to get him into the van, even though he’s immediately on the floor and not completely save, but for the moment he was in. I turned back and that’s when I realised it still might not have been quick enough. I could see the demons, more than I could count running towards the door. Even with Hadley in the driver’s seat and with the engine on, by the time I could get into the van and shut the doors, I knew it won’t be fast enough, I needed to make more time.
I chucked the telum into the van next to Isaac’s feet and I held out of my hands. I focused best I could on the door and I thought of what I had to do. It was like my imagination controlled the shield and before I knew it I could see the same shimmering blue force field I had seen before completely block the front doors. I paced back slowly and got into the van, still holding my hand up towards the door. I got hold of one of the van doors shut it, knowing that when I shut the second the shield would break. I pulled the second door slowly towards me and waited for a moment before I pulled my hand back and slammed it shut.
“GO!”
Hadley immediately put her foot down and I felt the van move from under my feet. I flew back and landed on the floor from the force of the car moving. I probably already had bruises to my back, and that really didn’t help. I looked over at Isaac who was now also on the floor, he was too weak to get thrown around in this van, but now we’re moving we should be fine.
I was wrong, I was terribly wrong. Just because we were out of the hospital didn’t mean we were safe. It felt like another car or something had hit the back of the right side of the van. Hadley broke a little and I heard the tires skid and both Isaac and I slid onto one side of the car. Hadley suddenly got the car straight and kept going.
“What the hell was that?!” I yelled at her.
“They’re following us!” she answered and she again turned the wheel sharply.
I turned my head back to Isaac as both of us slid again on the floor of the van. I saw him flinch as he hit the van wall again.
“Help me, I’m going to get you into the back seat,” I told him.
“It’s not a good idea,” he shook his head.
“It’s a better idea then you sitting here and getting bashed around,” I argued. “Now just help me, help you, okay?”
Isaac understood that my tone was strict and that I was not giving him another option. It took more effort than anything else I had to do today to get Isaac and I near the back seats as Hadley was forced to break and serve again and the sound of something hit the van roof. I gripped my hand to the seat as I managed to swing Isaac into the seat. It hurt him to be pushed down onto the seat but I’m just relieved he was there.
I managed to pull myself across and sit down next to him on the car seat. I reached over him immediately, pulling the seatbelt across him and safely securing it. Something hit the left side of the van and Hadley wasn’t ready for it. She tried to serve the car back but the force was too strong. I realised too late that I was not holding onto anything and I was ready to go flying off the seat. I could see myself falling to the ground of the van, hitting my head, passing out, but it didn’t happen.
Something pulled me back, like a slingshot. It was Isaac. Isaac wrapped his arms around me as I started to slid off the chair and he managed to pull me back towards him. I breathed out heavily as I felt the tight squeeze of his arms hold me to him. I turned my head back to look at him and we immediately made eye contact and we both just held it for a minute. I felt no change in his grip and neither of us could look away from each other. It took another jolt of the car to break our gaze.
“Seatbelt,” Isaac said suddenly.
“Right.”
Isaac removed his arms and I slid myself back onto the seat next to him and pulled the seatbelt over me and clicked it into place. I was still breathing heavily as I felt the van jolt again. Hadley was doing well to keep us on the road, but I wasn’t sure this van can take much more. I started to think, think of a way to get the demons off the van. I could shield the van, or at least try. I may not completely understand how this mark works yet, but I’m sure I could do that.
Before I could even make the suggestion, it all just stops. The van was no longer constantly jolting or shaking. Hadley slowed the van down too and I think she must’ve done something, but she couldn’t have. I was able to peak through the front window and I realised we had entered a town.
“What happened?” I frowned.
“We entered a town,” Isaac answered simply. “That many demons attacking a van would be seen by even the most ignorant human. They have no choice but to leave us.”
“So they’re just gone?” I asked.
“They’re not going to follow us further,” Hadley answered, glancing in the rear view mirror, “but they know now.”
“Know what?” I said quickly.
“Lily,” Isaac said softly, making me turn to him, “they know you have the dagger.”
In all the fuss of getting out I had forgotten that I had the dagger tucked into my belt. I moved my hand to belt and I felt m my hand grip around the top of the dagger. My fingers curl around it and pulled it from my belt. I held it in front of me and I just stared at it.
I should feel something looking at the dagger. It was the dagger that started all of this. It was the reason I was attacked in the alley. The reason I had meet Isaac, the reason I had to make my best friend forget about me, the reason my whole life had turned inside out. Looking at the dagger though, I only feel one emotion and it completely took over me. I only felt fear.
Chapter Twenty Two
The next hour or so passed by me like a blur. After getting back to Isaac’s place both Hadley and I helped Isaac up the stairs to where Felix was waiting for us. At first, Felix just started questioning us, flaying questions everywhere, but I didn’t have any strength to answer them right away, so I was more than relieved when Hadley stepped in and demanded he heal Isaac first and then talk.
Hadley had become extremely over-protective of Isaac since we had left the hospital. She insisted that Isaac should lie down as Felix healed them and so it resulted in getting Isaac into his room. I waited in the longue room. I just found myself sitting on the couch, and I didn’t move, not even slightly.
I had put the dagger down on the coffee table in front of me, and I was glad to have it out of my hands. The dagger had never felt real. It had felt like a myth to me, a myth the Insignes told each other to give hope in this war. The elders had paraded it because of its power, power they believed would end the war, and power that was now sitting on Isaac’s coffee table.
It wasn’t real power though, I mean, all it was good for was creating a new advantage. Then there was me, the one who could use it, I wasn’t much of a fighter, and I proved that today. Isaac was right, I wasn’t ready for what was next, and I wasn’t ready to fight. I only got out of there today because I got lucky and my second mark appeared and it scared them. I couldn’t rely on that all the time, in fact I could never really rely on that again. It all felt like a nightmare now, like a nightmare I was never going to escape. I’m not a fighter; I don’t even feel like an Insigne anymore, because they could fight.
The sound of a door clicking made me sit up on the lounge as I saw Felix emerge from the hallway. He slowly sat down next to me and I opened my mouth to speak but Felix shook his head.
I looked down at my wrist which had now stopped bleeding, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. My back was feeling the pain of being thrown into a wall also, in fact most of my body just felt weak. My muscles weren’t allowing me as much movement as before, and all of me just felt heavy.
Felix healed my wrist with ease and I didn’t even realise how, until now, how bad it had actually been. I could barely move my wrist before and now I moved it in a circular motion, and it was hard to believe it was injured only a few seconds ago. Hadley had informed him about my back as apparently hers was bad too, so Felix fixed that too, and it made me feel ten times better, well physically anyway.
“Are you okay?” Felix asked as he let himself relax in the chair.
“I’m fine now, no more cuts or bruises,” I shrugged at him.
“That’s not what I meant,” he said bluntly sitting back up in the chair.
I realised that his gaze had refocused off me, and as I follow him, I found him looking directly at the dagger. I sighed, I didn’t know what to say, and I didn’t want to say anything.
“Hadley told me what happened,” Felix told him. “Most of it anyway.”
I shrugged again; maybe I could just pretend I wasn’t terrified out of my mind.
“You have a second mark, Lily. You have the dagger, it’s okay to be scared,” Felix said calmly, turning himself to look at me.
I sighed again before I spoke “It’s too hard to think right now, Felix. I mean a few hours ago I thought Isaac was going to die, and I killed a demon that looked like my mother…my dead mother…there is so much going on in my head right now…and this dagger… just because I’m the one who is meant to have it, doesn’t mean I want it.”
Felix didn’t speak immediately as I saw him looking back at the dagger. In a way it was ironic that I didn’t want it, and that I had it, and that I was the only one who could us it, I’m sure everyone else wanted it.
“So what do you want to do with it?” Felix asked me.
“What?” I frowned slightly.
“Well, do you want to tell the council, keep it for yourself?” Felix said looking at me. “I mean I can only imagine what Isaac will say.”
“He’s the one who went looking for it,” I reminded him. “He’s the one who snuck in on me whilst I slept and stole my drawings or whatever they are.”
“He did it to protect you,” Felix stated.
“I know, and…it was stupid of him. This thing was not worth him risking his life,” I told Felix.
“He didn’t risk his life for the dagger; he risked his life for you.”
I stared at Felix for a second as his words hit me. I let myself sink into the couch then. He risked his life for me, why would anyone do that for me?
“He shouldn’t have gone,” I muttered.
“No, I agree with that,” Felix nodded, “but that’s what he’s like, when he gets an idea you can’t stop him.”
“I know,” I nodded a little; “I think I’ve realised that now.”
“Lily, you don’t have to do anything right now about this dagger,” Felix said calmly. “You can give it to the council.”
“And then what, Felix?” I asked him. “They need me for it to work, but I don’t want them to need me. I don’t want to be here anymore. I want to be back home with my uncle, I want to see Rhys again, and I don’t want any of this. Why me? What did I do? I can’t do this, Felix. I can’t fight demons; you’ve all got the wrong girl.”
I saw Felix swallow and he broke his gaze from me. My outburst was expected at this point, but that didn’t mean it didn’t shock Felix a little. I had been pretending that I had been doing so well with all of this, but I wasn’t, how could anyone deal with any of this?
“He wants to talk to you.”
Hadley’s voice made Felix and I both jump in surprise and turned to her. She stood in the doorframe of the hallway before making her way to kitchen to put an empty cup down. I felt myself hesitate as I stood up from the lounge. My eyes strayed to the dagger on the coffee table and I wondered if I should leave it there or take it with me. Honestly I hoped if I left it here when I got back, it would get lost again and I might never find it again.
“Go, seriously.”
Hadley spurred me on to walk into Isaac’s room. I knew she was a little mad at me, even jealous. She cared so deeply for Isaac, and he would never feel the same for her, and it hurt her. The way she was today when she thought he was dead, she would’ve died herself. It was the first time I realised how much she actually loved Isaac, and how much it killed her that she wasn’t the one to save his life today.
I didn’t know whether or not to knock on the bedroom door or just go in, so after a few moments of debating it I decided to just open the door. Isaac was sitting on the bed and when his eyes meet mine he smiled. I couldn’t control the small smile that formed on my face as I saw him. His hair was a complete mess, which I knew would annoy him, and he was wearing a white tight tank top and his dark jeans which I was sure he had at least ten pairs off. He was remarkably cleaner than he had been last time I saw him, but that made the new addition on his forearm more noticeable.
I walked into the bedroom and shut the door behind me. Isaac stood up and walked over to me and for a moment we both just stood there and just looked at each other. Eventually I let my eyes trail back on his left arm. I lifted my hands to take hold of his arm and pulled his forearm into my view.
The mark was now completely healed and his bite mark didn’t even exist anymore, which was probably a combination of the mark and Felix healing him. The skin around the mark, however was still very irritated; it was very red and it took up a large portion of his arm.
“It’s still very red,” I whispered.
“Maybe it just takes longer to heal like this?” Isaac muttered as he let my fingers glide over the small bumps of the marks. He never flinched, which was a good sign.
“Still,” I sighed.
“Lily.”
I looked up into Isaac’s eyes as he said my name. Slowly he used his other hand to move my hand away from his mark and he let his hand slide into mine a little and he didn’t let it go.
“You saved my life,” he said. “You didn’t know that if it was going to work, but you did it anyway.”
“I had to,” I told him. “You went in there for me, and I wasn’t about to let you die because of me. I wasn’t doing to let you die at all actually.”
“I went in there to help you, and you end up saving me,” he smiled looking down towards my arm and I saw his eyes catch onto my shield mark. It was now his turn to move his hand out of mine and brush his fingers over my new mark, which, unlike his, didn’t have any irritated skin and healed perfectly.
“It’s remarkable,” Isaac muttered.
I shook my head. “It’s crazy.”
“Do you realise,” he said, looking to me, “that we are the only two Insigne’s in the world to have more than one mark.”
“I…I guess we are,” I nodded at him.
Isaac let go of my hand and turned his back to me as he walked back near his bed. I didn’t move and I let the space between us grow, even though I didn’t want to. For a moment today I thought I was going to lose him forever, and that thought really hurt me. I knew only knowing him for a month wasn’t long but I felt something for Isaac. I felt like we had known each other longer, like I was always meant to know him.
“When I went in there,” Isaac said softly, “all I was thinking about was you. I thought if I got that dagger it would help you. It would stop those nightmares I know you have, it would stop you going crazy and drawing in your sleep. It was controlling you, and you didn’t even have it.”
I let out a sigh as I crossed my arms over my chest and put my head down a little before I spoke. “My nightmare was the same for weeks. It always started with me in this room, and this demon. The demon had the dagger and all I knew was that I had
to get it, but I never did, but it always got me, almost killed me, but I never died because you would appear and save me, but then…you get distracted when I get hurt…and the demon kills you with the dagger. I didn’t realise til we were in the hospital that it was…telling me that I would have use the dagger on you…and I did.”
Isaac didn’t speak as he nodded a little and looked down at the mark I had given him. I could see that it was all starting to make sense in his mind now he knew my dream.
“You would mutter my name,” Isaac told me. “When I came in to get the drawings off you, you would mutter my name, and at first I thought you were awake and you saw me, but you weren’t. You just kept saying my name, and I…I knew you were scared.”
“Through all of this, Isaac, I have felt…scared and confused,” I admitted, “but there are times when I suddenly…okay, and that’s only when you’re around. These last few weeks with you missing have been terrible. I don’t feel safe when you’re not here. And god, this dagger, I don’t want to admit it, but I have a connection to it, and I know it, I can feel it, it’s how I found it, I can feel right now in this house, I can feel it’s in the other room, it has this pull on me, and I can’t run away from it. You always told me that I couldn’t run anyway from any of this, and you’re right. I want to though, right now that’s all I want to do. Which is why I need you, because…I can’t keep going without you here, because I don’t what is going to happen anymore, and I trust you and your judgement.”
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