Chapter Ten

As we drive back to school, I stare out the window, looking at nothing in particular. Last night, I didn't sleep as well as I should have. It wasn't the first night I haven't slept beside Hayes but it was the first time, I willingly didn't want to lie beside him.

He didn't do anything wrong. It was me. I needed to be able to sleep without him sleeping next to me or I would never be able to escape from the past. Having him beside me is like having a drug. A drug I needed to not fall back into my nightmare and be haunted by them. Eventually, I'll have to let up on the drug. I have to let Hayes go even if he doesn't agree with me.

"I know you told me to not come tonight but you're wrong." Hayes told me when he come to my room. "You need me here." He grabs my hand. "And I'll be damned if I let you sink back into your dark place."

He meant well but I couldn't let him keep losing sleep because of me. If something were to happen, he wouldn't be able to perform efficiently. He'd be too exhausted to. He told me about his powers he had. The ones that allowed him to turn into an angel and a wolf. The powers that allowed him to magically produce weapons from thin air. Manifest as he called it. All of those things ran on energy and he didn't have much of it lately. He could get killed and it would be all mine fault. I couldn't let that happen.

"I went four nights without you." I reminded him about his trip he took to Europe unexpectedly. "I think I can handle this."

He shook his head. "That's different. I had the shell with me to make you fall asleep. Back here, I have nothing."

"I'll be fine, Hayes." I tried to assure him. "If I do need you, I'll come to you."

I did it before when I was upset with him. I thought I could stay with Lily and be fine but I wasn't. I couldn't sleep. I had to be next to him. So, I snuck to the other side of the mansion to be with him. Luckily, I didn't get caught being on that side. I didn't have any reasons to go over there.

"You shouldn't have to come to me when I can already be here. I should be here." He replied. "Tell me why, you don't want me here."

"I told you, you're exhausted and you need your sleep."

"That's not the real reason." He said as he shook his head.

"It is." I told him.

"Then it's not the full reason. Tell me."

He wasn't going to stop asking about until I tell him. I could saying that was the whole truth but he wouldn't believe me. He didn't believe me as it was.

I sighed. "Okay, fine." I glanced down. "I don't want you to die because of me and don't say it's your job to protect me either. You might think it would be a great honor to give your life up for mine but I won't. I would fall so deep into my dark place, no one would be able to help me. I would go crazy without you." I looked up. "I wouldn't be able to live without you here with me."

Before I said anything else, he pulled me to him and held me against his body. I didn't even realize I was crying until I felt my tears soak through his shirt.

"You don't ever had to worry about that." He said, softly. "I'm not going anywhere."

"You promise?"

He kissed my forehead. "I swear it on my life, I'm not leaving you." He muttered.

We stayed like that for a few more minutes before I pulled away to look into his grey eyes.

"Are you sure you don't want me to stay with you?"  He asked as we walk over to the door.

"I'm sure." I said, wrapping my hand around the doorknob.

"What if I said, I need you in order for me to sleep?"

"Then I'd considered it and maybe allow you to sleep with me but it'd better if it was true."

He arched an eyebrow. "I could make it true."

I smiled. "Goodnight, Hayes." I said as I opened the door and pushed him out my room.

I laid on my bed for awhile, staring at the ceiling, hoping I could sleep but of course I couldn't. At least not anytime soon. Eventually, I closed my eyes  and prayed I could find sleep and I did for little bit before I woke up before my nightmare could play out. I tried a few more times after that to sleep and every now and then I would nod off only to wake up an hour or so later. By the time the sun was rising, I had a good four hours of sleep and got an extra one before my alarm went off.

"Millie." Lily's voice brings me out of my thoughts and I turn my head from the window to look at her. "We're here."

I glance back out the window and sure enough we are back at the school. I unbuckle my seatbelt and get out the vehicle. The snow is still here and I don't think it plans on leaving any time soon. As I look up the sky, snow starts to fall, and one lands on the tip of my nose.

When the first snow falls, seven will rise.

The words are so clear, I think someone is standing beside me but when I look around me no one is near me. Lily's walking fast paced to the building to get out of the snow which she hated very much and Reid's right behind her. Hayes is parking the car so I'm standing by myself.

It's strange why those words came to me. It was from the poem the younger version of Lily and me told us during the summer. They were trying to help us find each other and put the missing pieces to our secret lives together. I haven't thought much of it ever since we got here. So, why did I suddenly think about it now?

"Millie, what are you doing?"

I glance to the sound of Hayes' voice and he's watching me with a concern expression. I probably look like a lunatic standing in the snow motionless, staring at nothing.

"Uh," I look around me. "Just admiring the snow. It's so beautiful." I tell him as I walk over to him.

"You know, normal girls would complain about the cold." He says as I get closer.

I smile at him. "It's a good thing I'm not normal then, huh?"

"You're everything but normal." He agrees, smiling. "But I happen to like it."

We walk inside the warm building and Lily is holding a cup of hot chocolate. She looks at me when I come beside her.

"I don't see how you like the cold." She says before taking a sip of her drink. "Spring and summer are the best weather."

"It might have something to do with this." I tell her, lifting up her sun necklace.

I'm not expecting it to do anything but it does. It glows a bright white and suddenly an image of a field I never seen before appears in front of me. The words from earlier echoes through my mind again.

When the first snow falls, seven will rise.

Then as quickly as it happened, it's over just as fast. The image disappears and I'm looking at Lily and she looks frightened. They guys are right beside us, shielding us from anyone who walks by.

"What happened?" Hayes asks, turning to look at us.

I shrug. "I don't know." I answer with a small frown. "Are you okay, Lily." I ask, touching her shoulder.

She blinks her eyes. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"Did you know recognize that place?"

She shakes her head. "No. I never seen it before."

"What did you do?" Reid questions.

"I just touched Lily's necklace and this image appeared along with a piece of the poem." I explain.

"The poem from last summer?" Reid says, lifting one of his eyebrows.

I nod. "Yeah the same one."

Hayes and Reid exchange glances before looking at us again.

"Don't do it again." Hayes says. "Anything could happened when you do that."

Before he can explain more, the bell rings and Lily throws her cup in a trash can as she walks away from us. She's acting differently. Ever since she seen the field, she wasn't herself anymore. She said she never saw it before so why is she being so quiet?

Maybe she heard something different from me. Maybe she saw something different. I don't know. If it's something horrible, she will tell me, right? Or maybe she won't. She still thinks I'm not ready to handle anything terrible right now. But I'm her sister and if she needs something, she has to know I'm here for her, always.

I wish Lucas can talk to her but sadly he can't. He isn't allowed in a ten feet radius of us. If Lily could, I knew she would turn to him for comfort from whatever was on her mind. The comfort only Lucas can provide. It's the same one Hayes provides for me. It's that comfort that assures hope and says everything will be okay.

During lunch, I can see Lucas looking at Lily, worriedly. It's the same expression he had during first period. I don't know if Lily noticed it at all because she keeps her head down.

I see Lucas make a move to stand up from the table and head to her but I catch his eyes and shake me head, stopping him. If he comes over here, he'll get in serious trouble and I don't want him to. He understands what I'm saying and sits back down. Laura and Danielle looks at him and I assume they ask him what he was doing because as he speaks he nods over to Lily. They turn their head to look at Lily who still has her head down.

There's no point in asking Lily what's wrong because she doesn't say anything. Instead she changes the topic all together and pretends like there's nothing wrong with her even through we all know that isn't true. I tell myself once she ready to tell me, she will until then I'll leave it alone.

Once lunch is over, the rest of the day goes by quickly. As soon as I walk into my last class, I pull out the CD Hayes gave me a couple of days ago. I walk over to Mr. Dean.

"What's this?" He asks when I give him the CD.

"I know it isn't my job to work on the music just the lyrics but I couldn't help myself." I say. "I figured it'll be one less song the musician had to worry about."

"I'm sure they'll appreciate it." He tells me. "I spoke to Mrs. Ray earlier today and she informed me that her students have been working extremely hard on the music so they should had everything done later this week."

I nod my head. "That's amazing!"

"There's one more thing I have to tell you, there's a few more students who decided to work on the lyrics as well, if that's okay with you."

"That's perfect actually. I need more ideas and having different voices will exactly what I need."

He nods. "Great. As much as I would love to work on the show during class, I'm afraid I can't. Considering not everyone is going to be in the play, they can't sit here and do nothing for the next couple of months. So, we will do what we did last semester and I will give you assignments to do."

"It's okay, I understand. We can always work on it after school or whenever we get the time to do it." I say.

"I'll give this to Mrs. Ray." He tells me, holding up the CD.

We part ways and I head to my seat as Mr. Dean walks onto the stage to inform everyone what he just told me.

"This assignment should be fairly simple." He says. "You will be in groups but everyone will be graded individually so one person can not do all the work and you expect to get the same grade as that person who did it all. That wouldn't be fair, now would it?"

He puts in our groups he had organized since the weekend and as I look at my group I'm in, I'm curious how our song will turn it. I've never works with any of them before. But it's something new and I look forward to working them.

"Now, that you're in your group, I'm going to go around the room and you will pick a word from this hat. Whatever word you draw, you have to incorporate it somehow in your song. You have to mention it at least once." He says before he walks around to let us draw from the hat.

Mr. Dean gets to my group and Mike, the only boy in the group, picks the word. He frowns at the word.

"What kind of song talks about hair?" He asks.

"I'm sure you'll figure something out." Mr. Dean replies before walking away.

"Great." Mike say, sarcastically. "If it wasn't bad enough, it's worse now. First I'm the only guy in this group and now I have to sing about something stupid." He pauses. "Actually I can't complain about being the only guy. You all are hot."

"Shut up, Mike." Kelsea says. "You're lucky you have us."

"What? I just took back the first remark." He says. "And gave you a compliment."

"Saying we're hot, isn't a compliment." Becca remark, rolling her eyes.

I might not talk to Becca everyday but she seems like a very smart person and she made my faith in the female race strong. She doesn't like being seen as a trophy from what I can tell and I agree with her.

"Maybe not to you," Ashley says. "But to me it is."

And...there goes my faith in my gender. Ashely is a pretty girl and there's no surprise she'd get compliments on a daily basis but she has to know there's more to life than just being another pretty face.

"See!" Mike exclaims. "Thank you, Ashley."

It looks like I'm going to have to take charge of this assignment or we won't get anywhere.

"Can we get to the assignment now?" I ask.

They all look at me and I can't help but to feel like they forgot I'm here because I'm standing so far from them.

"Yeah, of course." Kelsea says. "What do you have in mind?"

"I think all three of you should date me but then one of you gets extremely jealous and cuts the other two hair off." Mike says looking proud of what he came up with.

"Why." Becca starts. "do you insist on opening your mouth? Is the question the world will never understand."

"Hey! I'm just trying to be helpful." Mike defends himself.

"Well don't." Becca says.

"Actually, I agree with him." I reply.

"What?" They all say looking at me as if I said something crazy.

"I told you it was a good idea." Mike says.

"No, it wasn't." I tell him and the others laughs. "I meant the part about us dating you but instead of all us dating you, it'd only be one of us."

"And instead of the girl getting jealous, Mike cheats on her and the girl calls her friends for advice?" Ashley says, unsure.

"For the record, I'm not a cheater." Mike replies.

"You just wanted to date all three of us." Kelsea reminds him.

"I was joking." He tells her.

"Anyway." Becca say, getting us back on topic. "Mike then wants the girl back but the girl's friend puts a stop to it."

"Okay, I like it so far." Ashley says, nodding her head. "But how would we put the word hair into it?"

I smile as I think of the perfect way. "I have an idea."

I tell them what I came up with and they agree with me.

"I like that." Kelsea says. "But the bigger question, is who's gonna pretend to be Mike's girlfriend?"

"I absolutely refuse to do it." Becca flats out says. "I don't care if it's just a song."

"Well, neither do I." Kelsea replies. "No offense, Mikey. I see you just as a friend and I'd like to keep it that way no matter what."

They slowly look at me and I slowly shake my head.

"No, I'm not doing it." I tell them.

"C'mon Millie." Ashley says. "You can't be close to anyone anyway and what we're doing is to keep you away from him. You're prefect for this part."

"I'm just saying I'm not that bad." Mike says. "You're making it seem like I'm a horrible person."

"Shut it, Mikey!" Kelsea glares at him before looking at me pleadingly. "Please, Millie." She begs.

Like I said before, someone has to take charge of this assignment and I stupidly volunteer myself.

Way to go, Millie. I bitterly tell myself.

I sigh. "Okay, fine. I'll do it."

"I promise I'll treat you right." Mike says, grinning.

I roll my eyes. "That defeats the whole purpose of the song."

His smile drops. "Oh right. Then I promise I'll treat you horribly."

"Great." I say, sarcastically with a fake smile.

We discuss some more ideas for the song before the bell rings. I grab my backpack and walk out the door with the rest of the class. Usually, I see Lily walking in front of me and I'd catch up with her but I don't see her anyway.

I glance behind and I see Lucas. I call his name and he stops walking. He's no doubt heading to practice.

"Have you seen Lily?" I ask him when I get closer to him.

He shakes his head. "No but I asked a girl from her art class if she had and she told me Lily stayed behind to work on painting." He says.

"Okay, I'll go check on her."

"Let me know if there's any changes."

After telling him I will, we part ways and I head for the art room. And as promised, Lily is in the room painting with Reid standing by the wall. I head over to her, looking at what she's working on.

It's dark. Something I've never seen her do before. Dark isn't her style and she tends to stay away from it if she could.

"Lily?" I say, worriedly.

She glances at me briefly before she turns her attention back to her painting. Her hand is covered in black paint.

"I'm fine." She says and I know she can feel how worried I am. "Mrs. Zane wanted me to do something different from my norm." She shrugs. "I figured why not paint Arysn. A place that still terrifies me."

I can understand where she's coming from. Arysn didn't leave us with great memories. Our mother, Allison, was brutally murdered trying to protect Lily and me. Fights broke out and murders happened. It wasn't safe anymore for anyone especially not us. Abe fled everyone from Arysn and we come here to Earth for a new life but our past caught up to us.

"If dark and scary is what Mrs. Zane is hoping for, then she got it."