Fire Scarred *Un-Edited Version*

Chapter Twenty-Four

The air had been warm, but had chilly undertones gliding on the wind through the opened windows just to make me uncomfortable. The atmosphere was bone dry, and if I could crumble it in my hand, it'd sound like fallen leaves. Under my feet, the ground seemed to be going further and further away as the shelves just got closer and closer. Only a few feet away at the help desk, Remy had leaned against the mahogany counter. A brunette with hazel eyes and coco colored skin sat on a stool on the other side of the divide. She'd laughed at something charming Remy said, but didn't look over all impressed. Her eyes commonly flickered to me.

Finally, I'd heard her ask, "Who's your friend?"

He looked back at me where I stood like he forgot I was here. "That's Leo's girlfriend, Cora."

"Why are you here with her?"

He shrugged. "She needed someone to go to the library with, and Leo and Dad are busy in town."

No, he had begged to come here. All his choice. And because I couldn't have gone to talk to other spirits about Ciris, I had been stuck here with him.

"Well, you aren't with her. I think you're not following up on your duties," she quipped.

Remy looked reluctantly back at me, then again at the girl. "Oops. I guess I'll talk to you later then, Cameron."

Cameron smiled, but the look didn't all the way reach her eyes which were still settled on me.

That was when I realized how they all felt about me, those nature spirits. Deep hate ran cold through the pipes of this town. Everyone I came across glared at me. If I so much as spoke to one of them, they'd turn away. It couldn't've been more obvious how much they wanted me gone, and I honestly understood why.

An overview of my day would read boring, and most of it was. But as I thought over it in my head and analyzed every detail, the more significant everything became to me. The stares, the books, the City itself. I wanted these creatures to accept me so badly, but knew they wouldn't. Ciris's sins were worth too much.

The taste of Martin's food still hung in my mouth ever after a brushed my teeth, and the smell still lingered in my nose. It'd been the most magnificent meal of my life with all my favorites. Laying in my bed at Little Red's Inn, the memory still had me drooling.

When we'd sat at the table to eat and discuss our findings, I was still a bit shaken up. Leo and Martin reported first that they had a lead, that Ciris was still hanging around the City, right under our noses. Another lead saying he'd headed north.

Remy then reported our findings, short and to the point. "Nothing we didn't already know," he'd said. "But Missy here found out the not so top secret past of her Ciris. Gotta suck."

Leo had looked sympathetically at me. "I'm sorry."

"I-i just can't believe he did that. Ate all those people. Destroyed at least a thousand villages. All those families and lives. He tried to kill everyone… And the one person he's only ever saved was me…" I'd looked down at my hands in my lap twisting the hem of my shirt into a stretched out mess.

"I heard he can resist the urge to save," Martin added.

Leo glared at his father. "Not helping."

"Just saying, that could be why the clan wants him."

"Or the fact that he's like the most powerful nature spirit ever," Remy threw in like he was giving a fact about the weather. "But that man's gotta be crazy, with that many thoughts and beliefs and ideas and personalities flooding through his head." His voice was like music even when what he said was dark like night.