Akeldama | lrh

five - smiles and weird revelations

Sure enough, when I reach a finger up to feel under my nose it comes back crimson. There's a dull ache behind the bridge of it, but I know I didn't hit it when I slammed heads with Xavier. Frowning, I ball up the end of my shirt and hold it over the bleeding, standing up.

The second I step out of the tent, the warm scent of eggs hits me. My stomach growls violently at the observation. Looking around, I see everyone gathered around several different fires, eating breakfast out of foil bags and drinking water from jugs.

I find the circle containing Jess and Ash, and sit down next to them. Surprisingly, Ivy's here, seated directly across from us.

"Here." She tosses me a closed foil bag and a full jug of water. I notice that the flame tattoo seems to flicker every time she turns her head. "You should probably eat."

"Thanks." I mutter, letting go of my shirt to rip open the packet. It just looks like little shrivels of stuff at first, but when I pour the water in (after several 'duh' looks from the group) it smokes and fizzes and suddenly I'm looking at a full blown English breakfast.

A drop of blood lands on my pants. I wipe under my nose once again with the back of my hand and rip the little plastic fork from the side of the packet, shoveling some eggs into my mouth. "God, this is amazing. How is this even possible?"

"Ever heard of astronaut food?" Ivy smiles. "It's something like that."

Zay takes a seat next to me, looking like he's been hit over the head with a two-by-four. "So." He says, staring dreamily at Ivy."What's the plan?"

Ivy shrugs. "You already know it. Find the headquarters in Arizona, after your families of course, scout out what's left, ship Luke off to Asia and be done with all of this. My guess is it'll take two weeks, tops."

I raise an eyebrow. "So you're all on board with this thing too?"

Ivy blinks. "What thing?"

"This whole 'kiss Luke's ass and ship him off to Asia' thing."

She looks confused for a moment. "Why wouldn't I be?"

My train of thought crashes. Here we go. Word vomit time.

"Because he's an asshole?"

To my surprise, Ivy laughs. She seems genuinely happy with the situation, like there's absolutely nothing wrong with any of it. "True and not true. You've just gotta get to know him."

Her eyes move to over my shoulder, and I turn around. It's Luke, in the same pants and boots he was in last night, shirtless, laughing and smiling with Michael and Calum. He looks happy, friendly even, a totally different person than I met a few hours ago.

"Doesn't seem like the getting to know type." Ashton scoffs. It's the first thing he's said all morning. "The guys ego is bigger than his weapons."

Ivy's expression darkens a little, but she remains in a relaxed persona. She seems to hesitate, before winning whatever argument going on in her head. "He's got a reason for the way he is. When you've worked as hard as him, to kind of earn the right to have an asshole personality." She shrugs. "Don't know what else to tell you."

I start to open my mouth to ask what she means by working hard, he's worked as hard as the rest of them it seems, but then Michaels voice rings out above everyone else's.