HELLO EVERYONE!!

I hope you all have been having a very wonderful holiday season!! =D I just wanted to let you all know that the next chapter will be up within the next couple hours as a late Christmas gift for you all! HAHA!! Just have to finish it up!

Thanks as always for reading! And please don't forget to vote and comment!

Happy Holidays!! And have a fantastic New Year!

Love,

Luckycharms!

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On my birthday, my mother had made it clear that she wanted to spend some time with me and also get to know Atem. We had arranged for a day the following week to meet up and all I could say was Atem didn't seem too pleased with the thought.

     "The last time I spoke with your family, it ended very badly," he said as he waited for me to put on my shoes.

     "That's because you were talking to my grandfather. Things always go badly when you're talking to my grandfather."

     Atem still didn't look very excited.

     The plan was to meet my mother at a coffee shop near my apartment, so Atem and I both made our way to the shop. Thankfully, it was a short distance away.

     When we got there, my mother was already sitting in a booth, cellphone in her hands.

     I walked over to her with a smile. "Hey mom," I said as we approached her.

     My mother looked up from her phone with a smile. "Hey, sweetheart," she said before giving Atem a smile as well.

     Atem nodded his head at her before we both sat down in the seat in front of her.

     To be completely honest, I did expect this whole thing to be rather awkward. I mean, my mom was getting a chance to really talk to Atem, who was my boyfriend.

     And to top it all off, Atem was right when he said that the last time she saw us, things didn't go so well.

     However, it was pretty great.

     It was clear that my mom also knew it was going to be awkward, so she definitely seemed to be trying to avoid any awkward topics to help all three of us out.

     Atem was his usual self, pretty nonchalant and lacking any kind of emotion in his tone.

     Luckily for me, my mother was like that as well. So she was not at all offended by his demeanor.

     And after a couple hours, my mother left early after giving me a birthday gift. Then, Atem and I left feeling completely satisfied.

     It worked out fabulously.

     By the end, my mother had made it clear that she definitely approved of Atem. She even complimented the confidence in his voice and the tone of authority he always let out... the same tone that often pissed me off.

     But anyways... it kind of felt nice to know that my mother approved of him.

     And even Atem seemed a little bit pleased.

     So as we walked home, I had a smile on my face.

     And it was on this walk home that we ran into Julian. I wasn't too surprised when we spotted him, since we seem to randomly see him around all the time.

     But today... something was off.

     He was practically marching towards us, hair a mess, a look of exhaustion in his eyes.

     "Hey, Julian! How are..." I started. My voice began to trail off when it kind of looked like he was going to walk right into me.

     Atem, who clearly noticed this as well, stepped a little bit in front of me, making Julian stop walking. He was standing only an inch away from Atem.

     I started to worry... there was definitely something off.

     "Move," Julian practically hissed.

     My eyebrows rose because there was something strange going on with his voice. It didn't sound like Julian.

     It did sound like someone I knew, but not Julian.

     He started to try and push past Atem, but Atem held him back.

     "Julian, what on earth–"

     "I knew I should have gotten rid of you," he surprised me by saying. "You have done nothing but ruin all that I have worked for."

     My eyebrows rose. "What?"

     "What is wrong with you?" Atem asked, giving him a good push so that he had taken a couple steps back.

     People who were walking down the streets were giving us nervous looks, which made me feel more nervous than I already was.

     What was going on?

     "What is going through your head, girl?" he asked, glaring with his hands balled up into fists. "Have you no sense? To aid a man like this?"

     "Julian, what are you talking about?"

     "He ordered the murders of innocent people!"

     Julian literally had this look of crazy in eyes. They were wide and angry and totally out of it.

     "I thought the woman with interest in learning more about him would be the only problem... yet I knew I should have killed her entire family. Should have killed you."

     Now my eyes widened.

     But before I could even say anything, Atem had landed a good punch onto Julian's face.

     However, Julian looked back at me, eyes still angry.

     And suddenly, a flash of red passed through his eyes and both Atem and I knew exactly what was going on.

     Atem grabbed Julian by the collar while I stood there frozen. "You!" Atem hissed. "You aren't dead?"

     Julian... or, the wizard, ignored him, still looking at me. "I will end you like I did your aunt."

     My heart sank to the ground.

     This was crazy.

     I was having one of those moments where everything started to fade out... where everything started to seem like a dream. I mean, this had to be a dream, right?

     This guy, who may have been the wizard, was claiming to have killed my aunty.

     That was impossible.

     She was killed by a drunk driver.

     He started to smirk. "Have you not figured it out yet?" he asked. "You are as stupid as you look. I killed her. I killed your aunt. Taking possession of a weak human spirit is a simple matter and that's what I did. I possessed a drunk man and got him to drive his vehicle right into your aunts. I killed her. And I–"

     Atem punched him again, this time it was hard enough to knock him to the ground.

     A small crowd had suddenly gathered, some random man trying to grab Atem and calm him down.

     But at this point, I had already turned around and started to run.

     I heard Atem call my name, but I kept running as fast as I could.

---

     Atem found me pretty quickly, only about an hour had passed since I ran off. I had made my way to the Oakville Park, which I liked so much and I was sitting at one of the benches at the cliff top trying not to cry.

     When he found me, he sat down next to me immediately, sounding kind of out of breath. "Do you know how long it took me to find you?" Atem asked, clearly angry. "Why didn't you pick up your phone?"

     I looked down at my hands, which were in my lap and started using my fingernails to scrape off my nail polish.

     I could tell that Atem was staring at me. My peripheral vision reached pretty far.

     "My punch made him lose consciousness for a moment," Atem said. "But when he woke up, he was completely out of it. The wizard must have left his body..."

     I closed my eyes for a moment before opening them again. "Do you think he was being serious?"

     Atem looked at me.

     "About my aunt?" I asked. "Did he actually... kill my aunt?"

     Atem watched me for a moment before he sighed. "My honest answer is yes... I do believe that he would have done such a thing. I find no reason for him to lie about that. Unless of course, it's an attempt to get you to hate me."

     "Hate you?"

     "If he really killed her... it was to prevent me from getting any help. It's my fault."

     I rolled my eyes, let out a huff and looked away. "Don't be an idiot," I said. "It's not your fault."

     Again, Atem looked at me but didn't say anything.

     This changed everything.

     But at the same time, it changed nothing.

     I was so upset but I didn't know what to do about it. Aunty Maya was still dead. She was still gone. The only difference now was that someone intentionally killed her. It wasn't an accident.

     And the more and more I thought about it, the angrier I got.

     "Why'd you run away like that?" Atem suddenly asked.

     I turned and looked at him.

     "You should not run away from your problems. You should have given him a good slap across the face. That would have been satisfying for you."

     I let out a small laugh. Though I had never slapped someone across the face before, when I thought about it I realized Atem was right.

     If I had slapped that guy across the face, I would have probably felt a lot better.

     So I sighed. "I guess you're right."

     "I knew there was something off about that man," Atem said.

     "Julian?"

     He nodded.

     I guess he was right... Julian did kinda give me the creeps. "But why... why would he tell me that he wanted to date me and stuff like that?"

     "Isn't it obvious?" Atem asked, "the wizards primary goal is to ruin me..." his voice trailed off as he realized something.

     "What? What's wrong?"

     "That time... a year ago. He was intentionally attacking you."

     Well yeah, I knew that much. He tried to choke me to death.

     "And it must have been because you're helping me... he wanted to get rid of you because you were helping him."

     Okay. That made sense. He mentioned something about that today too. "But I thought you stabbed him... then he turned into sand! Then he never bothered us for so long..."

     He shrugged now. "I don't understand how his magic works. My best guess is that it takes him too much power to be here. I'm sure he is not staying here with me... he must be coming and going."

     That made sense too.

     "So maybe when I attacked him, he was too weak to attack back. And all that time he was gone, he was just recovering."

     "But he's possessing bodies now."

     "Probably because it takes less work for him to possess a body then it does to bring his own body here. He did say that it was easy to take control of a weak spirit."

     I placed a hand over my head.

     Though I was feeling kind of faint, I was doing everything I could to push a certain thought out of my head.

     The wizard was back.

     Which meant that Atem could possibly be taken away from me.

     But no.

     I wasn't going to think about that.

     But still... the wizard was back after all. I definitely wasn't seeing things I that night before I fell.

     And what else could that mean?

     Was he going to try and hurt Atem and I? Was Atem going to be safe?

     I guess I kinda hoped that Atem was right... that the wizard was limited in power when he came to my world. That made me feel a little better.

     But still...

     When Atem and I got home that evening, we didn't say much to each other.

     Atem went to his room to read and I stayed in mine.

     I wasn't actually reading though. There was too much going on in my mind for me to be reading.

     But suddenly, I had this crazy idea.

     For some reason, I thought this would solve everything. Though when you thought about it, it wouldn't solve anything. However, at the time I thought it was a brilliant idea.

     I walked into Atem's room with a smile on my face.

     When he looked at me, my smile grew.

     "Let's go on a trip."