rainy days [a short story]

Fight For Your Right (Chap. 11)

Chapter 11

~~~Lily's P.O.V. ~~~

I groaned and sat up, coughing up my own blood.

"Wow there. You alright, baby?" a rough voice asked from beside me. I felt a large callused hand on my back. "It's okay, baby. Just let it all out. There you go." He rubbed soothing circles as I coughed up more of the crimson liquid.

I took deep breaths, the coughing added to the burning in my throat and the aching in my ribs. "I am fine," I gasped.

He pushed my black hair behind my ear, the only thing that made me look like him. His brown eyes were worried, they tightened against some emotion. "No, you're not." Before I could protest, he reached behind him and then thrust a glass of water into my hand. "Drink," he ordered.

I took the clear liquid and downed it in seconds. I sputtered and the coppery taste of blood filled my mouth again. A tissue suddenly appeared in front of my face. "Thanks," I murmured my voice raw.

This was the first time that I have ever seen him act this way when we were alone, as if I wasn't just something he could take his stress out on.

His tired face dropped into his hands and I had to strain my ears to hear what he said. "First I lose Ann, and then I come home to find you unconscious in the basement with your hands bleeding and your breaths shallow. I thought you were dead and it nearly killed me. Lily Ann May, what the hell were you thinking?"

This got me angry, very angry. "Well Father," I spat the word, "sorry that I worried you. It never occurred to me that you cared considering I wouldn't be in this bad of shape if it wasn't for your damned training sessions! If you hadn't worked me so hard and hit me so hard, then I wouldn't be constantly in pain!" I raged. I ignoring the unbearable pain that I was in, that I was still dressed in my sweaty, bloodied work out clothes, I jerked out of bed and hobbled down the stairs.

"Where do you think that you are going?" my father yelled behind me.

I didn't answer. I heard a few more yelled swear words before I slammed the front door behind me. It was cooler, the sun was just setting, but I wouldn't go back inside. This was the first time that he had ever shown me that he cared. It felt fake. That fake hurt, fake worry was worse than how he normally treated me.

I needed to cool down, but I didn't have the strength to walk over to Derek's house. I was barely able to drag my feet to the park that was halfway in between our houses. I sat against a tree and did something that I hadn't done in a long time. I cried.

~~~Derek's P.O.V. ~~~

"So it's agreed?" Wei asked Alexis, Michael, and I. "We are going to support Lukas's decision on entering the war between the Weres and the Vamps before we lose more of our own?"

The leader of the aquatic shifters looked at her second-in-command. Michael nodded and she ran a hand down her face. Alexis normally looked about forty-five years old, but right now, you could really see some of her three hundred and thirty years that she had lived through there. "Sure," she sighed.

They turned to look at me. "I don't like it, but yeah, we have no other choice."

The hundred year old, Michael, was the one to break the uncomfortable silence that followed that. "What should our first move be? We had discussed so many that I forgot what we decided."

Wei opened his weary eyes to look at him. "We will wait either until we think that they are planning to attack us or until the land shifters make their moves and we will be there back up. We will have the willing fighters go first, like we have planned, and then if we need more, we will have to send the unwilling and endeared shifters in. It is the only way."