MIK

Chapter 22

Chapter 22

Arawn and I had some kind of staring contest, his gaze was warm but I was just studying his face to try and figure out how and how much he knew. He could sense a change in me after that party. I suppose the whole teeth thing made it quite obvious something had happened. But surely he didn't know more than that.

Arawn broke the gaze and went back to gathering sticks.

I watched him, the only way he could know is if he was a myth himself. There was no way a mortal could or would guess something like that. If so Juno and her friends never knew about him. And he would have no idea how much danger he was in. Danger caused by... me. Being mortal was bad but nothing could compare to what happened at that hospital. How could I find out? I couldn't just ask.

I shook my head and almost laughed out loud at myself. I had one thing that Juno's group never really had. A good sense of smell. I had never really noticed anything strange about his scent but better to be safe. I walked over to a tree that had fallen and dried out.

"Hey, can you help me with this one?" I called out to him.

He walked over and started breaking off dried branches. I got up close doing the same, making sure he was focused on his task I took a deep breath in. I could smell sweat, which was normal considering the heat and what we were doing but nothing strange. So he wasn't a myth. Then why and how? Some kind of lucky guess that unintentionally freaked me out. I was still the same person. Maybe he could feel the aggressive energy of the beast. I sighed, that was fair enough it did make a difference to me having something inside that just wanted to destroy and eat everything around.

We walked back to the camp together in silence holding big bundles of sticks. I had never really been one for self-reflection before though this camping trip seemed like a chance for me too. I guess my personality before everything happened was calm and quiet, I was very unassuming. Maybe I had changed. Now I definitely had. Imagines of my mother dying before my eyes and the lack of sound in place of her heartbeat haunted me. I shivered and blinked trying to shake it off. Arawn gave me a weary look. He knew something for sure but he couldn't know I was a werewolf.

At sunset the bonfire was lit, the flame greedily consumed the dry wood and once it was hot enough Conley crouched over it to cook. I watched the flames curiously wondering how effective fire would be against vampires.

There was a loud popping sound behind me and I turned to see Sam opening the camping chairs.

"There's one for you mate," Sam said with a smile.

"Thanks," I sat down.

The colours of the sky, the fire and the field all came together like a beautiful work of art and it pissed me off. It was mocking me, saying look at how much you have to live for. Like I hadn't seen hundreds of sunsets or been camping before. It was nothing special. Yet somehow it was. Even though my mother had been slaughtered and I had lost control killed four friends, the sky and the world could still look beautiful and I was there to look at it. For some reason that seemed important. It cut through the sadness. Like the campfire was melting my icy heart. I chuckled at how stupid that sounded.

Stars began to peep through the purple tones.

"It's been a while hasn't it?" Sam brought my attention back down to earth.

"Yeah, it has," I said, in more way than he could know. I was off on some kind of mythical journey with a very sour ending right under his nose. It kind of felt like I had returned from a long journey, I was now back home under the stairs and by the fire with my mates.

Of course, that was a delusion I couldn't just go back to my normal life. That wasn't the way things work. It was nice to believe though.

"How are you doing dude?" Sam asked softly, glancing around to make sure the other boys weren't listening.