The Dark Side #1

Chapter ~ 3 ~ (EDITED)

CHAPTER 3

The city is huge.

The tall buildings and lights surprise me but what astounds me are the people. There are people everywhere and much noise. I could've stayed up here, on this hill, and just watched it forever, but Kai and I are on a deadline. After pulling my hood over my head and doing the same for Kai, I rush down the hill with Kai close at my heels. Not knowing where I'm taking my little brother, I trudge down to the opening of the city, where the bright lights are, and can't hide the anxiousness coursing through my veins.

And fear.

I don't know what it's going to be like down there, and I certainly don't know how people react to my kind down there. I've never been to the city before so I don't know how they treat our kind. Will they recognise us as just another one of those Warlocks, or will they turn us in to the first tracker guard they find?

"Cecily, slow down!" Kai complains from behind me. "You're going too fast! I've got little legs!"

I slow down and wait for my little brother to catch up before we continue.

"Sorry," I apologise, but Kai shrugs it off.

"It's okay," he replies cheerily, fiddling absent-mindedly with his ring. I shiver at its sight.

We keep moving until we reach the streets, where there were people everywhere.

"Kai?" I murmur as we begin down one of the emptiest streets we could find. "Your eyes, Kai. They will know what we are by our hair and eyes; look."

As Kai looks around, I do too, spotting girls with blonde hair and brown eyes, and then finding guys with brown hair and blue eyes. And I know now that they aren't the ones that don't fit in.

We are.

I fix my hood to make sure it covers my hair completely before doing the same for Kai. Keeping our eyes downcast, we make our way through the wet streets as rain begins to beat down on our heads, drenching our hoods maliciously.

As we move further into the city, the more I realise, we have nowhere to go. If we find ourselves in trouble of some sort, we have nowhere to turn and hide and we're too far from the edge of the city now to escape to the woods. I'll be the end of us, so we'd better not get caught.

I glance down at my little brother as we walk quickly, trying to avoid the puddles. His marks have now come to a complete stop. They've travelled all the way up his arms, I'm assuming his chest, up his neck and have stopped just under his chin. I have a feeling in the pit of my stomach that they won't be moving any further from now on, which signifies nothing of use to me. Something bad is about to happen. I can just feel it in my bones. Why do these things have to happen to us? We're just two kids. Sure we may have the powers of Warlocks but we're still kids. We just want a place to rightfully call ours.

For a while I've been looking for answers about our parents. I haven't told Kai though. He's already got so much on his mind, he doesn't need his own unanswered questions about something so sensitive as our mother and father. I, however, want to know what happened to them, where they died – if they died at all – and I want to encounter someone on this journey in the hopes that they can tell us what we need to know. Maybe even someone to tell us about Kai's marks.

The sounds of voices coming from the alleyway snap me out of my thoughts. I sharpen my hearing and almost freeze when I hear heavy footsteps and the grunting tones of people who seem suspicious of something.

Trackers, I think to myself. Panic crawls up my legs and curls into my stomach. Grabbing Kai's hand, I quicken my footsteps – much to Kai's protest – but before I can tell him to lower his voice, they've found us. The Trackers jump out of the alleyway, shout to each other in Arabian and make a wild dash for us. But we're not fat and clumsy like most of them; we're small, thin and know how to run.