The Hunters

Chapter Thirteen

Smiles and Kisses

Pain is a horrible thing, I decide. Whether emotional or physical... it sucks. I breath in sharp breaths as Aramis's fist punches my stomach. I fall to the ground in shock and my eyes fall on the cloudy sky. I hear a distant rumble of thunder as he throws another one across my face. I do not want to fight back, but I need to. I need my men to fear me.

So I push him off of me with all my strength I hold and he topples over to the side. I move quickly and position myself above him where I wrap my arm around his neck from behind, "Promise me you won't fight me and I'll let you go."

"You killed her! You're a murderer!" he screams at me and I realize the sound of feet I hear in the distance is everyone who heard the commotion coming to find out what happened.

"She asked me to!" I yell at him, "She didn't want to leave as one of them! Can't you understand her fear? Her diswant?"

"But she's gone, Amaia, she's dead. I'll never see her again. She smiled when she died, she smiled."

I let go off him and he falls to his knees. And I realize that the group has gathered to watch this encounter.

"Isn't this world just filled with smiles and kisses?" he says in a sarcastic tone and then bursts into a hurt laughter that sends a shiver of pain through me.

I look over to the rest of the boys who stand there with wide eyes, trying to process what the hell happened out here. So Gabriel asks aloud, "Can you fill us in on why Aramis's gone loopy and Maggie is just a limp body?"

"Kane," I say firmly, standing my ground, "he bit Maggie and let us go to deal with this. It was all a sick trap, he set us up and we fell for it."

"So what do we do now?" Sebastian questions.

I think about this, what do we do? "We head back to the village, we go home and we tell everyone what those beasts did to her, what they put all of us through and then we fight back."

The boys look around and exchange looks with each other. Then, Sullivan begins to clap and the rest of them join him. From clapping to cheering to chanting my name. Proudness fills me up like a balloon and I can't help but smile softly. Then I look over to Aramis who's staring hopelessly at Maggie. I kneel down to sit in front of him and take his arms and pull him up from the ground.

"We're going to avenge her, Aramis," I smile.

He nods, "I loved her, you know."

"I know," I whisper, "that's why I want you to help me with the attack plan. You should be one of the leaders for this project. You can do it for her, you can avenge her."

He smiles softly, "I want to be the one to kill him."

"You want to kill Kane?"

"That's the plan," and he looks ahead to where the boys start walking back to camp. Some push each other to the side, they're acting like children. Aramis is the only one being completely serious. But he was the one to lose his love. His pain floods into me, I don't know what I would do if I lost someone to the wolves. I don't want to lose anyone to those beasts.