Lily shivered as she adjusted Haidan's jacket over her body, the cuffs reaching her knuckles. She couldn't move her paralysed arm into the jacket without removing the sling and getting Haidan to help, but from the way he was acting she doubted he wanted to go near her.
He stared as Lily tried to stroke some of the water from her trousers, frowning, before walking back into the forest to pick up a large material bag she'd once spotted in a building warehouse.
"What are you doing in the f-forest?" Lily stuttered, drawing Haidan's warm jacket tighter around her.
Haidan merely lifted the bag. "Getting firewood."
"Cool." Lily said as she squeezed some of the water out off her hair, now soaked against her back. Haidan didn't say anything, still staring for a second longer before he began walking away.
Lily scurried to follow, quickly stepping over tree roots and looking at the older boy. "So, what are you?"
Haidan didn't respond. She couldn't see his face, only that his broad shoulders were tense and he kept looking forward. Lily wet her lips, blowing some air onto her wrinkly fingers. "You said you thought you were alone, your family aren't supernaturals?" She tried asking but Haidan didn't respond to that either.
Lily swallowed as his silence became the only thing she could hear. "Nice weather we're having this afternoon." She muttered, thinking about how it could be warmer so she could dry quicker.
"Perfect for a swim, you might say." Haidan turned and looked at her. "Or a jump off a waterfall."
"I-I was running away from werewolves." Lily explained and Haidan stopped in his tracks, turning to her completely with a skeptical look.
"Werewolves." He deadpanned. "Like the Twilight kind?"
"Not really." Lily shivered. "They're not as..."
"Shirtless?" Haidan raised an eyebrow.
"I was going to say theatrical."
Haidan scoffed. "Right. Any other things I should be aware of in this forest?"
"Well there are vampires too, fairies and witches," Lily narrated, her stomach beginning to churn. "Not to mention shades and whatever we both are."
"You don't know what you are?" Haidan asked with a raised eyebrow as he picked up a fallen branch from the ground and shoved it into his big bag.
Lily paused as she watched him. "No - and you don't know what you are either, do you?"
Haidan sighed. He shoved another branch in his bag carelessly, not looking at Lily's face when he finally answered. "No. I don't."
The two of them walked on in silence for a while before Lily spoke again. "How long have you known you were supernatural?" She asked, ducking under a low hanging vine. Her nerves were firing around her stomach as she tried talking, pondering why it was so difficult and awkward to talk to strangers.
"About a year." Haidan said, throwing in some thin twigs for the kindling in his fireplace. "You?"
"All my life." Lily flicked her drying hair off her sore shoulder. "My family were supernatural."
Haidan frowned. "And you don't know what you are, even with a supernatural family?"
"They died before I found out." Lily explained, narrowing her eyes slightly at Haidan's doubtful expression.
"How do you know your family's supernatural then?" Haidan frowned, brushing his black hair off his face as bent to pick up another branch.
Lily didn't have the energy to deal with those kinds of questions. "Are you the only one in your family?"
The older boy sighed, looking at Lily's curious expression before giving in and nodding. He had so many questions on the edge of his tongue but apparently so did she. "Why are you in the forest anyway?" Haidan asked and motioned to her bandaged and dirtied sling. "Shouldn't you be in a hospital?"
"My friend and I were separated by those rogues." Lily gestured to northward, deciding not to explain further than that. "Where are we going Haidan?"
"My house," Haidan began. "My mum's not home so you can use the phone to call your friend, but you have to leave before she gets back."
"Does your mum know you're supernatural?" Lily asked and Haidan clenched his jaw, a shadow passing over his eyes. "She does, doesn't she?"
Haidan's lack of answer was enough confirmation. "How did she take it?" Lily said, catching up to him as they approached a part of the forest that had been blackened with ash.
"Not well." Haidan's voice was quiet as they stepped to the line dividing the charred forest floor and the rest that was still alive. Lily bent down to brush her fingers over the ground, soot sliding underneath her nails.
"What happened here?" Lily whispered. Haidan watched her carefully, shifting on his feet.
"There was a forest fire here last weekend." He said, clearing his throat. "During the storm."
Lily stilled. She stood slowly and turned to Haidan, watching him carefully. He tried to keep a straight face but Lily was too observant for her own good. "You created the forest fire, didn't you?"
"I don't know what you're talking about." Haidan quickly said but Lily wasn't believing that for a second. Her nerves evaporated as she started to think aloud.
"The previous supernova told me that the storm was stopped by a forest fire." Lily breathed out, her dark eyes wide as she realised just who was in front of her, who had saved her from the river. "Someone stopped it before it reached Widderin."
"The what now?" Haidan dropped his bag of firewood, eyes narrowed. "What is a supernova?"
"The most powerful supernatural creature in the world." Lily took a step forward, almost toe-to-toe with Haidan. "Jacob was a shade, someone capable of hiding himself and people's memories - he was talking about you with that forest fire, you saved the town of Widderin from the storm!"
"You have no proof."
"I don't need it - your expression confirms everything." Lily pointed to the line that divided the living half of the forest with the dead. "And forest fires' don't leave a break that clean."
Haidan clenched his jaw and turned away. "I don't know what I did, okay?" He growled at her. "My house is right by the forest and the storm would have hurt my family, I just reacted."
"You stopped the storm." Lily couldn't believe her luck. "You need to listen to me Haidan."
"No I don't." Haidan snapped, grabbing his bag of firewood and marching off, but Lily jogged after him.
"My friend and I were on our way to Widderin to find you when we were ambushed-" Lily started to say but Haidan interrupted her as they reached a natural clearing. One side of the treeline was scorched from fire, the rest flourishing with life and greenery.
"Why were you after me?" He scowled. "Are you some supernatural police or something?!"
"No! Well not exactly, but that's not the point. I need your help-"
"No." Haidan hissed. "I saved you from the river because you needed my help. You're not asking for my help now, you're asking for my...my, whatever I am."
"Haidan the rogues will be after us both." Lily tried explaining. "They've come after me multiple times already and when they find you they'll go after you too - and your family."
"You're really making me rethink helping you." Haidan narrowed his dark eyes. "Now you're threatening my family?"
"No!" Lily held a hand out in front of her to try and calm him but Haidan was skeptical of every move she made. He took a step away. "The rogues are convinced they need to kill everything that's more powerful than them - that's you, me, my friend and someone else. If they find you, they'll use any means they can to get you into their clutches."
"I've done pretty well keeping myself hidden so far, Lily." He dropped the firewood bag and crossed his arms in front of her, glaring at her with an unforgiving look. "The only one who's trying to get me in their clutches is you."
"I'm not here to hurt you Haidan," Lily repeated, squinting as the sun shone brightly in her eyes from a cloud break. "I'm trying to help you - these rogues will kill you."
Haidan didn't move. "Why should I believe you? You're just a girl that was stuck in a river."
Lily clenched her jaw and motioned to her paralysed arm in its dirty sling. "They tried to kill me once already." Her voice wavered as memories from her capture surfaced. "Last week, during the storm - I'm trying to warn you here."
"It just looks like you're leading them right to me." Haidan picked up his firewood bag and walked away, pointing into the blackened forest. "Widderin's that way. Help yourself instead. I'm done."
"And when the rogues pick up your scent and follow you to your home?" Lily stumbled after him, scratching her itching arm. She had a knot in her scarred shoulder that was beginning to aggravate her but she put it out of mind. Lily had to convince Haidan to come with her. "We're safer together!"
"Where would they get my scent from Lily?" Haidan spun around, waving a hand. "The forest smells of ash and water!"
Lily took off Haidan's jacket and threw it at the ground in front of him. "Let's hope a wolf's nose, which is a hundred times better than a human's by the way, can't pick up your scent on that jacket."
Haidan stilled, realising his error. He should have noticed it sooner but he was too distracted by another supernatural in his forest. If these rogues Lily spoke of were real and truly tracking her and her friend, they already knew their scents.
And he'd just lent her his jacket - one he'd worn for months - and it had his scent all over it. A wolf would find him and track him. They'd come to his house when he was at home watching more Disney films with his little sister Mila. They'd kill his sister and mother and make him watch. Every awful scenario ran through his head and Haidan dropped the firewood again. The more he thought about it the more absurd it sounded - Lily was lying.
"Are you trying to blackmail me?" Haidan's voice was low and quiet but with every hint of crackling malice. His fists clenched at his side - he'd never fought someone before, and didn't want to injure Lily more than she already was, but he would defend his family until every ember of fire drowned in his bones.
Lily slowly shook her head. "I'm warning you what the rogues are capable of. They used someone against me - it's how I ended up in a sling."
"And you think I'm, what, too weak to stand up for my family? That I can't protect them?"
Lily licked her drying lips as the sun's heat bore down on her, warming the whole clearing. "There's a town on the other side of the forest, Trawalla. It's where my aunt and my friends are. Your mum and your sister can go there until we stop the rogues from hunting us."
"You didn't answer my question." Haidan's eyes shifted. From his originally deep brown eyes, darker than Lily's, came the colour of flame. A crackling orange glaze simmering as he stared her down. "You don't think I can handle a few wolves?"
Lily's own eyes answered in turn to the challenge and soon the half-scorched clearing was filled with the glow of fire and storm. "You're not stronger than me and the rogues temporarily paralysed my arm." She sternly said, her heart racing. She hadn't seen a supernatural with orange eyes before, and she didn't know what Haidan could do but the colour left no doubt in who he was - the phoenix whose flames birth the sun.
"How would you know Lily?" Haidan's eyes simmered briefly before fading back to brown, the bright grey from Lily's gaze drowning the fire in his own. "You don't know me."
"You don't know me either." Lily reasoned, her eyes still not shifting back. "So you don't know how strong I am."
"I'm beginning to regret saving you from that river." Haidan stepped back so he stood on the scorched forest edge. He tried clenching his fists to summon the flames from his bones but the sun was clouded over, the heat missing from his skin.
They both flinched when a howl resonated through the forest. Haidan didn't miss Lily shiver, her hand grip her paralysed shoulder tightly. Her eyes snapped to brown after blinking - Haidan knew enough about people from working in retail to see she wasn't faking the fear in her eyes, but Lily could still be lying about the rogues. She was probably suffering a concussion from the waterfall jump and had a phobia of dogs.
"You need to go." Haidan snapped. "If they are real and find you with me then they'll find my family, and I'm not risking them by listening to you talk about joining some anti-rogue squad of freaks."
Lily flinched at the term. She'd been called a freak all her life, and just when she thought she was free it slapped her in the face yet again. "I'm not a freak, Haidan, and I'm not a liar."
"We're all freaks." Haidan snapped and pointed at Lily as the clouds darkened above them. "You just jumped off a waterfall to get away from what was probably a pack of wild wolves. You're just paranoid! This isn't a Disney film, Ariel. There's no villain, no squad, no rogues, and I'm not coming with you!"
Lily's chin wobbled and dropped, fixing her eyes on the ground beneath her. She wasn't about to tell Haidan the events of the past few weeks to him out of spite. She wasn't going to show her injuries to prove a point - he didn't deserve an answer after that.
She was about to walk away when a green light shot through the clearing, a vine of energy snaking through the grass. Haidan quickly backed up and avoided the vine as much as he could but Lily didn't resist. She'd seen witch magic like this before and knew only one powerful enough to conjure it.
Lily stepped forward into the vine's grasp and watched it snap around her ankle and form one straight line north into the lush forest.
"What are you doing Lily?" Haidan yelled, staring horrified at the bright vine around her ankle. "You're leading the rogues to us?!"
"I thought you didn't believe in rogues, Haidan." Lily snapped, her watering eyes drying out as she glared at him over her shoulder. "It's witch magic."
"There's no such thing as witchcraft." Haidan snapped but he stood closer to her, staring at the now pulsing vine wrapped around her ankle.
Lily sighed. "My friend is on her way and she'll confirm everything I just said."
"You think your friend is going to convince me that what you just said is real?" Haidan scoffed. "She has no chance. What's she going to do, turn on the crocodile tears? Get on her knees and beg me to go with you both?"
Lily smiled in the direction of the glowing vine. Someone was running towards them. "I dare you to ask her to beg - I really dare you."
Haidan frowned and walked to her side, waiting for whoever was going to run into the clearing. "You really believe all of this, don't you?"
"I've seen it all Haidan." Lily answered. "I get it, you're not used to this world yet, but I'm no liar. There are werewolves, vampires, witches and fairies, and more. There's so much you don't know yet."
Haidan narrowed his eyes. "And how much will you tell me? How do I know if you're telling me the truth? Lies often stem from nothing when you need an answer the most."
For a fleeting moment, Lily realised how Jacob felt. When her predecessor first showed himself, he was light on the details, not saying much to her at all. He told her she had no creature, and her and her abilities were one and the same, but he didn't tell her what she was - Lily didn't believe Jacob when he said he had no idea.
But standing next to Haidan now, she realised why he was light on the details - if he told her everything at once, Lily would call him a liar. Haidan was right; lies often stem from nothing when you need something desperately.
"I promise I won't lie to you," Lily vowed. "And if you come with me and help me, help everyone at risk from these rogues, you'll learn more about yourself as you go. In the end you won't need someone to tell you but I'll honestly answer any questions you have along the way."
Haidan narrowed his eyes further but didn't say another thing before someone stumbled into the clearing. Lily beamed at the sight of her friend - from the light scratches over her arms and the mess of short, dark hair to the green magic bracing both of her wrists.
Jack blew a hair out of her glowing green eyes as she stared at Lily. "You know this whole running-is-exercise trend?" Jack panted. "That can die off, like immediately."
"Good to see you too Jack," Lily greeted.
Jack opened her mouth to respond when her bright gaze flickered to Haidan. Her eyes ran over him - his tall frame, broad shoulders, skin a deeper shade than her own, to the wavy black hair and beginnings of stubble across his jaw. Jack blinked, and then blinked again. "Who are you?" Jack looked at her friend. "Who is he?"
"Who are you?" Haidan clenched his fists as his eyes flamed again, the orange glow flickering over Jack as she approached. He'd never seen a witch before but if they were all as wicked-eyed as her, he wanted no part in Lily's offer.
"Jack-" Lily tried to say but the witch interrupted.
"Is he with the rogues?" Jack narrowed her eyes. "Step away from my friend, hot shot."
"Me step away?" Haidan stepped forward, just to irritate her. "Make me. I'm not going anywhere on your order."
"Haidan-" Lily reached a hand out but Haidan stepped out of reach, eyes flaring and a hand coming up between them. Lily started to panic; the clearing was a clash of orange and green as Jack and Haidan's fight escalated - how much of the forest was going to burn if Haidan lost control?
"No!" Haidan snapped at her. Lily flinched at the tone of his voice, so similar to Yuric last week before she'd been tied up and sentenced to death.
"Don't yell at Lily!" Jack yelled, marching towards him.
"Don't yell at me!" Haidan yelled back and stepped away from the two of them, his feet brushing the charred forest behind him. Lily couldn't tell if his eyes were burning brighter from his anger or from the clouds that shielded the sun completely from the clearing. The wind stilled around them as Jack strode between him and Lily, ready to defend her again, and Lily took a few steps back - this was going to get messy.
"If this is who you're asking us to defend, Lily, then I won't no part of it!" Haidan snapped, glaring at Jack. "I'm not interested in some Ariel, Esmeralda team up, okay? I'm going back home! I have a life to get back to! A family!"
"We all have a life to get back to Haidan! There's just a hundred rogues between us and some sense of normality!" She said, trying to get him to understand what she was doing here. "We've been driven away from it, we just want to go home too but we can't, because there's a hundred people out to kill us. I'm asking for your help not your life!"
Jack was still speechless over Haidan's Esmeralda comment. She didn't care if he meant it as an insult, if he was trying to compare her witch abilities to the Disney character's tricks, but it was a huge compliment and she was taking it. "Hang on," She shook her head of her thoughts and turned to Lily. "Who is he?"
Lily was about to answer but Haidan beat her to it. "It doesn't matter who I am, you won't see me again. I want no part in this."
Jack took a step towards him as the clouds broke slightly, a ray of sunlight landing on Haidan's arm. His eyes flared, the orange shining so brightly Lily had to squint, and he raised his sun-kissed hand towards Jack, ready to unlock the fire in his bones.
A white blur fell from the clouds and crashed into the clearing. Lily only had time to lift her arm to protect herself as the wind erupted around them, knocking Jack and Haidan off their feet. The trees bent under the force of the gale and howled in their ears.
Jack and Haidan landed at the tree line but Lily was still standing. The gale had pushed her back only a metre, her heels skidding across the soil, and she stared at the trenched ground in shock. She pulled herself out of the dirt, confused at how the wind, clearly abnormal, managed to move her. Lily was immune to magic - and there was no doubt that what had just happened was supernatural - so how was she pushed back?
When she looked up to see what had landed in the clearing she had her answer.
The Nymph Who Has Leashed the Skies had found them.
~~~
I hope you liked the new chapter and learning more about Haidan. Do you think Niall's going to calm everyone down? Or do you think a fight is going to break out between them all?
Also, I've been interviewed! If you'd like to know more about myself and what I have coming up (and how I once fell 30 feet off an amusement park ride) I've left a link on my profile under "Conversations" and it's my top post.
Libby x