One Year Later
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what has happened this past year, it just all flew by way too quickly. Thanks to what had happened that particular day a year ago, Zayn has been visiting us once a week which seems like a lot for a King to visit his subjects but if you think about it, I’ve only seen him fifty two times.
During those days, he trained Jordan and every time he did I ran out thinking he had killed him. He was a lot more violent than Harry was when it came to training, but I’m sure he couldn’t help it. Not only did he have the strength of a vampire, but the strength of a zombie too.
I thought Jordan would hate Zayn’s company but due to him using all his strength in training, unlike Harry, Jordan preferred Zayn. I won’t get ahead of myself, he still hated Zayn more than Harry but when it came to training it couldn’t be anyone but Zayn.
I talked to Zayn nearly every day that he visited which made Harry overly cautious and it took a while but I finally managed to thank him for saving me all those years ago.
When I first allowed him to visit, I thought it would cause troubles like people would become suspicious of the King’s sudden disappearances but Zayn assured us they weren’t.
He had been absent from the palace for over a century and usually kept in contact as he travelled so they didn’t see much of a difference. In fact since he was now staying at the palace six days a week, he managed to keep people from becoming too distrustful.
I thought his zombie nature would slip through his grasp every now and then but he made sure to be well fed before coming to see us. Now that I was fifteen and my brother was ten, we were a lot more understanding and their meaningless adult chatter became understandable to us kids. Still, Jordan was growing up too fast and Zayn and Harry sat by pretending it wasn’t happening.
This morning I awoke to and walked out of the hut to find Zayn and Harry laughing and talking like nothing had changed between them. Sure, when Zayn was with me Harry seemed agitated and wary about Zayn’s actions.
I think he was scared that Zayn would hurt me or his zombie half would start showing, however when he was alone with Zayn he was almost a different person, they both were. Perhaps the love between creator and creation was stronger than I could ever understand? I liked to think I had a similar bond with my brother Jordan, inseparable ‘till the end.
“Lils.”
I beamed and turned to the voice which had come from my side. There was only one person who called me that and that one person was the one person I knew I could always depend on.
“Follow me.”
I laughed as he grabbed my wrist and started running towards the other side of the fence, behind the hut where we never went because there was practically nothing there. He stopped me and moved to the side, revealing a hole in the wood that disappeared to the ground beneath it. Either something had come in or gone out. I clasped my hands over my mouth and gasped.
“Shh! They will hear. Come on.” He nudged his head towards the hole and dropped down onto his knees to crawl through but I pulled him back up and grabbed the corner of his ear with my nail.
He groaned in pain and cried out for me to stop but I just stared straight ahead as I practically dragged him to the other side where Harry and Zayn immediately looked at us with frowns on their faces.
“What happened?” Harry asked concerned about what I was doing.
As I reached them I threw Jordan down into the ground in front of them and I saved a mental image of the looks they both had on their faces, pure confusion and worry. They both knew all too well that I would never lay a hand on Jordan unless he had done something seriously wrong.
“He made a hole in the fence up the back, who knows who could have come in or what they could have done? Unless…”
I knelt down and grabbed his dusty golden hair and the back of his head, making him fling his hand onto mine, trying to free it from his head. He may have been a better fighter than me, but I was good at knowing what made a person tick. Pressure points, weak spots even simple hand tricks, I knew them all.
“Did you go beyond the wall?” I asked sternly.
Harry’s eyes widened as he processed what I had just asked.
“Did you?” I roared making him finally answer a loud ‘yes’ in return.
“How far?” I growled.
I knew that both Harry and Jordan tried to avoid me when I was angry since it happened very rarely. I had only been angry one other time this past year and during that time Jordan and Harry didn’t breathe a word to me, only Zayn talked to me which calmed me down drastically.
He paused and looked up at Harry, obviously looking for a way out but Harry was just as desperate for an answer as I was.
“The bridge just outside the city…”
I let go of his head and watched as he got up and moved towards me, trying his best to calm me down but he knew very well that he was the object of my rage and he wouldn’t be able to do much to stop that.
“Don’t you understand what could have happened? You could have been killed! There are vampires and zombies out there who would do anything to sink their teeth into breathers like us! How stupid are you?”
Usually when I accused him or yelled at him that way he would retaliate but like I said, I’ve only been angry like this once the previous year so he knew better than to make it worse. Zayn stepped forward and gently put his hand on my back and led me away whilst I saw out of the corner of my eye that Harry immediately started gathering materials to fix the fence.
Zayn looked back at the gate and frowned before looking over towards Harry and calling out to him, grabbing Harry’s attention straight away.
“I’m taking her to the city.”
My eyes widened as did Harry’s and Jordan’s remained glued to the ground like a scorned dog. Harry flew over to us at vampire speed and within a second he was right in front of us.
“Are you crazy? You literally heard what she just said.”
“She’ll be safe with me, even the zombies know not to mess with anyone in my company.”
Harry hesitated but eventually nodded and like that, we headed towards the gate. Leaving it didn’t sit well with me since I haven’t wondered too far from its protection since we arrived three years ago. We were about to step into the forest when Zayn bent down and stuck his arms out by his sides.
“Get on.”
I stood back. What was he thinking?
“It’ll be quicker, I promise I’ll let you down once we reach the bridge.”
Uncertainly, I climbed onto his back and watched amazed as the forest flew past us and I felt like it happened in slow motion but he did as he said and a couple of seconds later we had already reached the bridge, where he let me down. I hadn’t done anything like that with Harry but I could already tell that Zayn was much faster than he was.
We stood at the town’s border and I sighed as I looked at it. It hadn’t changed. I had hoped that within three years it would become safe or at least safe enough so Jordan and I could move back in but the creatures still lurking here weren’t exactly being subtle.
I looked off into the distance where a vampire was attacking an old man and I looked up Zayn to do something, anything but he just continued scanning over the city as if it didn’t even faze him.
“So why are we here?” I asked curiously.
He turned his head towards me and smiled gracefully down at me. During this past year, Jordan had surpassed my height and was growing at a rapid pace. Soon he would be taller than Zayn and Harry, two fully grown men and meanwhile I had pretty much stopped growing, frozen, always looking up at Harry and Zayn.
“You were getting angry so I thought you needed a day just to clear your head.”
“So you brought me to the most dangerous place on planet Earth to do that?”
“Well, yes. Be honest with me, Lily. You don’t want to be stuck with Harry and I for the rest of your life do you? And I agree, having two vampires breathing down your neck all the time must be quite off-putting.”
I didn’t look him in the eyes but I knew he could tell what I was thinking. Still, I felt like I needed to say it out loud.
“You are both my friends but I do worry about how your presence affects Jordan. He’s becoming brutal and yeah he’s used to you guys but he still hates the both of you. How long will it be before he starts trying to kill you? And one of these days he might set you off and you might accidently kill him.”
He laughed and shook his head. I couldn’t help thinking that this day would just become another accidental experience. Reliving the old days I guess…