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“I can’t know for sure, but…” Rose starts, then hesitates to continue. I can see the concern in her eyes, the love, the need to protect her best friend. “They might consider you the enemy now.”
The enemy.
I guess in a way, that’s what I’ve always been. Just not a dangerous enemy. An enemy they could control, an enemy they could keep an eye on. But if I am with vampires, then I am no longer under their control. That is probably how they see this whole thing, although this can’t be further from the truth.
“You know I would never betray you like this,” I assure Rose. “You all have taken me in, and I owe my life to you. My loyalty lies with you.”
“I know that,” Rose takes me by the hand. Hers are cold and clammy. “But you know how shifters and vampires are. Also… I think Gala interfered in this somehow.”
Gala was, of course, the Elder’s daughter. That could make things ten times worse. Heck, it could make things a million times worse. This would be her chance to see me banished from the town, and not only that. I dare not think what her mind would come up as proper punishment for whatever sin she thinks I committed.
“If she’s involved, then I probably don’t stand a chance,” I sigh, frowning.
I realize that Rose is right. I don’t know if I’ll even be given the opportunity to explain myself properly. It’s best I don’t risk it. Not now, at least.
“That’s what I’m saying,” Rose nods. “Go, grab your stuff. I’ll keep a lookout.”
I feel like there is still so much more to say, but one look at her, and I know that we don’t have time for that now. She wouldn’t be here, so early in the morning, telling me all this, if it wasn’t of the utmost urgency.
I just nod with a nervous smile, then rush back upstairs. I get dressed quickly, then grab my backpack and stuff into it a t-shirt, sweatpants, some underwear and socks, my toothbrush and toothpaste. Then, I run back downstairs. I take a few snacks from the pantry. Rose notices me.
“I’ll bring you whatever you need,” she assures me.
“How?” I wonder.
“Be at our favorite place in the woods, every morning around 9 am,” she tells me. “You have your watch?”
I instinctively look at my wrist. My watch is there. The one that she got me for my last birthday. I never take it off.
“You have to go now,” she urges.
I can hear the warning in her voice. She doesn’t want to say it out loud. But we both know what shifters can be like when they think that someone is a traitor, that someone has betrayed the clan. History is full of such stories, and they even teach them in school. Loyalty is one of the things shifters value the most. If they think that I turned my back on them, that I am somehow in cahoots with the vampires, who knows what they might want to do to me. I dare not even think.
I wrap my arms tightly around Rose’s neck. She in turn, wraps hers around my waist, as we press our hearts together. I close my eyes. This feels like such a sad moment. I feel a burst of tears coming on, but I can’t cry. There is no time. There is barely enough time for this hug.
Rose is the one who pulls away first, and I let go of her reluctantly, almost as if I subconsciously know that this might be our last embrace.
“Let me go out first, to see if the coast is clear,” she advises. I nod.
She walks over to the door, and opens it, then she goes outside. A few seconds later, she peers back inside.
“I don’t see anyone,” she tells me. “Now’s your chance.”
I rush to her, and the overpowering emotions are too strong. I don’t want to leave her behind. I don’t want to leave any of this behind. But I guess it was a choice I subconsciously made when I decided to go and seek out Edmund. I didn’t know who he was at first, but I sensed there was something about him, something that the shifters wouldn’t like. Why else would he be lurking around the town and not just make his presence known?
I exit into the street, and it’s just like Rose said. There’s no one out yet. It is still too early. That doesn’t mean that they won’t be coming after me any moment. I can’t waste another second. I know it. Rose knows it. Yet, we can’t seem to let each other go.
“Everything will be fine,” she whispers to me, taking my hand into hers again. I squeeze it.
I wish she could come with me, but that would be selfish of me to ask. Besides, I need her to stay in town. I need her to keep me updated on what’s happening.
I’m not sure if what she just told me is true. I don’t know if everything will be alright. I have just been forced to run away from the only place I’ve ever called home, from the only people who have ever been anything even remotely close to a family for me. How life changes in one second…
I lift my hand to wave at her, one last time, then I start running across the street towards the fields behind the houses on the outskirts of the shifter town. The buildings behind me are starting to fade away, becoming smaller and smaller. As I remove myself physically from them more and more, that same fear lessens.
I enter the woods, and immediately, that familiar scent enshrouds me, filling me with a sense of serenity that I always felt here. The trees never questioned me. The birds never looked at me as if I didn’t belong here. The grass has always absorbed the weight of my feet just like it absorbed the weight of anyone else walking through these woods. It never judged me. I realize now that even when I did feel like the shifter town opened its arms to welcome me, this is the place where I ran to when I felt constricted, when I felt that I needed a safe haven. This has always been that place for me.
I’m not running any longer. I don’t feel the need to. The woods will be my protector, at least for a little while. Then I will have to protect myself. I don’t know how I will manage to do this, but perhaps the answer will come to me.
