Bitter Blood (BBi)

Chapter 19: The Red Star

Chapter Nineteen
The Red Star

“This is severely messed up.”

Jennifer stares distastefully down at Jeremy, who's knee high in a dug out hole in the middle of the Westershade forest. Dirt has smeared up his wrists during the time he's spent digging. I guess his Werewolf strength and stamina are definitely going to come in handy.

Micah had decided to take Maylin home to heal when Jeremy had volunteered the idea of coming out here to dig up the mystery man back at Avery's house. We had all been very willing to let them go, me especially considering Maylin had been injured whilst protecting me. We could dig up a corpse without them.

“Well, you aren't the one digging up the grave.” Jeremy retorts and kicks the shovel into the dirt again. He tosses the next heap up beside her feet.

“Are you sure this is the right place?” Jennifer asks me, shaking off dirt from her shoe as she looks around at the surrounding trees and dark sky.

“Positive.” I say, though I'm not that sure. It looks like the same place.

“How far down do you think you buried him?” Jeremy asks, pausing to lean against the shovel head.

“About six feet.”

He whistles. “No shallow grave for this guy then.”

“You better get back to work then,” Jennifer says and shoves her hands into her coat pockets. “We don't want to be out here all night.”

“Would you like to lend a hand?” He asks sarcastically and offers her the shovel. She shakes her head and twitches her nose.

“I'm good here.”

“Yeah, that's what I thought.” He says and starts digging again.

“So what are we looking for?” I ask. “I'm not really sure any of you will be able to smell what species he is since he's been buried out here for nearly three weeks.”

“Oh yuk, he's going to be decomposing and everything.” Jennifer cringes.

“Once again,” Jeremy says. “You aren't the one digging him up.”

“It was your idea.” She says then looks over at me. “It's worth a try, right? Especially since he could be the first step to figuring out why exactly these people are after you.”

I bite the inside of my cheek. “I hope so.”

I won't let myself show just how truly terrified I am right now. Just in the last two hours I've had four Witches and a gang of eight or so Werewolves try to kill me. And that's not including the other four spread over the last three weeks. If this wasn't all so morbidly terrifying, I'd say that's almost some kind of record.

Avery pulls me aside from the others as Jennifer informs Jeremy that he isn't digging properly, which makes him jump into another list of reasons why she shouldn't be complaining. I could almost laugh at their bickering.

I tuck my chilly hands into my warm coat pockets as we look back at each other from the gathering around the grave.

“How are you doing?” She asks.

“I think my answer to that is a lot more complicated that it should be.” I tell her with a weak smile.

She nods. “That's understandable considering.”

We both look over at the people around the grave. Rhys stands off the the left of it with Tori beside him, watching Jennifer and Jeremy with a little smirk on his face. He looks up at us and his brow furrows in curiosity, but with a small half-smile from me his stormy grey eyes drop back down to stare at the dirt.