Flicker

This is How the World Ends

I have to admit, I felt sort of badass. I mean, who wouldn't when surronded by about a dozen cross-bow wielding hunters and two werewolves at your side? A new determinated flickered inside of me. I was not about to let history repeat itself. Aiden and the rest of our packs were waiting for us when we reached my street. I let out a sigh of relief, seeing that he was okay-but I knew that this wasn't over. Things had just gotten started. "I'm going to talk the guys from the pack and get up to speed on our situation." Tamryn said, sounding like a true leader. I admired  her, how she could seem so calm  after finding out how one of her closest friends was a homicidal maniac. 

"Are you sure about this?" Jackson wrapped his hand around mine and tugged me towards him.

"I'm positive." I replied, looking straight into his worry-stricken eyes. His bottom lip quivered nervously and he fidgeted with his hands. "Are you?" I asked, holding his hands still by placing them in mine. 

"If your asking if I'm okay with my girlfriend going after the guy who torched her entire pack-the answer is no. I'm not okay with it. Not one bit." He shook his head.

"I have to do this, Jackson." I kept my voice low. Declan was standing just a couple feet away from us, but I could tell that he was listening in on our conversation. 

"Not alone." He argued, and waited for the rest of the group to keep walking so that we could have some privacy. 

"This is my fight. I have to be the one to end it." 

He pulled me against him, and gently pressed his lips against my forehead. "I just got you back, Tess. I can't lose you again." 

"And I can't risk losing you." I told him, as we stepped apart. "I wanted to tell you my secret for so long." I explained. "Everytime I was about to, something always came up. I kept telling myself, next time, next time I'll tell him the truth. This whole time I've been lying to not only you, but myself. Bad circumstances wasn't the reason I never told you the truth, it was that I knew you would try to be the hero."

"What's wrong with being the hero?" He whispered, caressing my cheek softly.

I lightly pushed his gentle touch away. "Because I don't need saving." 

It was by then that we reached my street. Aiden and the others were littered over my front lawn, and didn't exactly seem happy to see us when we walked up. Jackson tugged on my arm to tell me something when Aiden ran towards me. His eyes had dark circles around them and his movements were sluggish as if he'd been up for hours. Aiden swooped me up into his arms, squeezing-literally squeezing, against his chest. "I thought I lost you." He whispered in my ear, tightening his grip around me. "Don't do that to me ever again, you hear me?" He shook my roughly, his eyes starting to water. I realized that this was the first time I had ever seen my brother cry. "We heard a crash," As he talked, his eyes seemed to cloud over as if he was reliving a nightmare. "I ran to your room, and you were gone." He gulped uneasily, his bottom lip wavering. "I thought you were gone, Tess. I really did. I have never felt so alone in my entire life. If you were gone, then I was truly the last survivor of our pack. And I wasn't ready for that." He cried. "I couldn't imagine my life without you. You and me, we've always completed eachother. In that moment I felt...broken. I've never been so helpless in my entire life."

"It's okay." I teared up, but unable to hold them back I let them roll down my cheeks. "I'm okay." I squeezed his cheeks roughly, trying to knock some sense back into him. "I'm okay." I kept repeating over and over, hoping that my words would sink in. Who was I trying to convince? Aiden? Or myself? "I'm not going anywhere."  For the first time I was the one consoling my brother, for the first time.... I realized that I didn't just need him-he needed me too.