HUNT, OR BE HUNTED

CHAPTER 11: THE HEALING

"Son of a b-," I cursed under my breath. "He stabbed you. Your own brother stabbed you."

Raphael chewed on his bottom lip. "I'm sorry, man. I should have just listened to you. You were right about everything. We are the ones they are after."

"More bad news for you," I said, sighing deeply. "Remember the girl I told you about?"

"You mean the missing girl? You found her?"

"I not only found her, I found out more about her. And guess what," I stopped, kicked a stone away. "She's one of them."

"A hunter? Oh, God, no."

"She was playing me the whole time," I shook my head, distressed.

"You said she tried to cure you. You said she had hope for you. She was lying about that?" Raphael turned to look at me. I nodded dolefully. "Damn, man. I feel you."

"She totally gave up all hope for me. She said I deserved to die."

"Well, you've got to be fair to her. I mean, she saved your life, didn't she?"

"She did save me, only because she thought I could be cured. Because she thought I could be rid of once she cured me. But I couldn't be cured, ever, so she said that I would have to be killed instead."

"Right, we're harmless if we're normal human beings, if we're cured."

"But we aren't normal, and I don't think we're harmless. If we're harmless, they wouldn't want to kill us off that badly."

"Seth said we are the strongest among all, that we are the ones who strive when the others lay dying. It seems that we can make anything bow down to us. Human or animal, it makes no difference whatsoever."

"He told you all that?" I bent down, picked up a rock the size of my fist from the ground. "And you believe him?"

"Tell me, Jared," Raphael stopped in his tracks. "Would you lie to someone you're going to kill within minutes? I wouldn't, so there."

"I wouldn't even kill anybody, so there."

Raphael rolled his eyes at me. "There could be a possibility he's telling me the truth."

"Yeah, after all this time he had been lying to you, and now you choose to believe him. Should I slap some sense into you right now?"

"I said there could be a possibility," he shielded himself from my open palm. "And how the hell did you know I was in that death box?"

I shrugged, tossed the rock up into the sky, hard. It didn't come back to where my hand was. "Instinct, maybe?"

"Damn! What the hell!" Raphael shouted abruptly, startling me. He had a hand pressed to his scalp.

"You're bleeding," I said, noticing the red streaks of blood flowing down his forehead. "What happened?"

"You happened," he growled at me, wincing at the pain.

"Oh, my God, I'm sorry," I realized it was the rock that I had thrown not long ago. It had hit him hard in the head, making him bleed at the impact. "I'm sorry, Raph. Are you okay?" I began to step towards him. "Let me see that."

"I'm alright," he removed his bloodstained hand from the wound. "The pain, it's gone," he raised his eyes to look at me.

I wasn't listening to him. I was busy focusing on something else, something that just made me think if I was hallucinating again.

Because right before my very eyes, the gash began to close up.

###