"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake."

 — Napoleon

/ / l o u i s / /

Evelyn pulls me to a stop. She has been off of my back for almost fifteen minutes. She cannot be tired already. I turn around to look at her and her eyes are wide, "Did you hear that?"

I scratch the back of my head, "No...?"

"Someone just screamed."

"You're imagining things." I murmur. "Even if you did hear a scream, it could be any of those bastards."

"It sounded like Harry."

"Why would he scream, Evelyn? He can't be killed so why scream? God, we've been out here too long. We need to get out of here."

"I know what I heard!"

"Evelyn, we have to go! You heard Harry when he looked at us. We have to get as far away from this place as we can." I attempt to grab her but she runs off. "Evelyn, get back here!" She glances over her shoulder but keeps running. "Evelyn!" I take a deep breath and start running after her.

It takes quite some time to catch up to her and when I do, she is already back at the cave. She looks around before looking at me, "Where's Harry? Where...Where are the monsters?" I look around myself and notice there's another dead, green body on the ground.

"Maybe they got scared and left?" I shrug and kick the lifeless body. "He killed one. Perhaps they thought he was going to kill, them too?"

"Look," Evelyn says and points to the ground. "Someone lost a lot of blood."

"Or something."

"Do you think Harry did it?"

"He could have."

"But..." Evelyn runs a hand through her knotty hair. "...where's the body?"

I kick the dead creature again, "Isn't this it?"

"I don't think so. Wouldn't there be a blood trail from here," she points at the blood puddle, "to there?" She points to where the dead body lays. "I mean, he would have dragged the body, right? It looks too heavy to pick up."

I move away from it and join Evelyn at the blood puddle, "If this blood doesn't belong to the dead body over there, then who does it belong to?"

"Louis, remember when I said I heard a scream?"

"This blood can't belong to Harry."

"He could have been in his human form at the time."

"No," I tug at my hair. "It's impossible. He can't die. He can't bleed!"

"Have you ever seen him bleed before?" Evelyn asks.

"No, but—"

"Then there's still a chance that Harry is hurt somewhere. Louis, we have to help him."

"Let's stop playing detective, okay? If he's hurt, he deserves it. He'll heal and find us for food." I grab Evelyn and her eyes widen. "Now, we're getting out of here and we're going to find someplace else to stay. I don't know where we are and how far away we are from the house we've been staying in."

"New house?" she quietly asks as we exit the cave.

I nod, "We're going to find a new house." I remove my hand from her arm and grab her hand. "But first, we need a car."

"We're going to hot wire a car...again?"

"Yes, again, now come on. We need to figure out how far away we are from the city."

She keeps quiet and lets me pull her along through the woods. I move branches out of the way to prevent them from hitting us in the face. Evelyn's grip on my hand tightens as I make a quick turn. I bite my bottom lip and slowly shake my head. So what if that was Harry's blood back in the cave? It shouldn't matter to me. We all know he cannot die.

But what if he can?

I shake the thought out of my head and pick up the pace. Evelyn has to jog in order to keep up with me. At this moment, I just want to get the hell out of these woods and find some real shelter. If we have to spend another night here in the woods, I'm just going to lose my mind. I take a step forward and Evelyn's quick to pull me back, "Louis!"

"What?" I turn to look at her and she looks like she has seen a ghost. "What is it?"

She looks behind me, "You...You were about to walk off of the cliff."

"H-Huh?" I turn back around to see that my feet are only a few inches away from the edge of the cliff. 

I stagger back, nearly knocking Evelyn over in the process, and let go of her hand. How could I not have seen that? I was literally walking to my death. Jesus Christ. If I would've fallen off, I would have taken Evelyn with me. We would've both fallen to our deaths.

"Are you okay?" she asks and gently rubs my back. "Maybe you should sit down for a bit, yeah? Take a moment to get your head together."

"I'm fine."

"You're not fine," she argues.

I scoff, "And how would you know that?"

"Louis, you don't look all right. You look...sickly. Are you sure you're okay? Do you feel off in any way? Tell me how your head's feeling."

"My head is fine. We need to go."

"If we keep going, I'm leading the way, okay? We don't need you finding any more cliffs," she says and I nod. Her hand goes for mine and I let her take it. I let her lead the way. As we walk, I stare at the back of her head and notice how tangled her hair is. It isn't...normal. I don't like the way it looks. In fact, when we get to wherever we are going, I'm personally going to get her a comb. She doesn't deserve to look this way. "Hey, I think I see a clearing up ahead. Maybe that's the way out?"

"Wait," I say and pull her to a stop. "If that's the way out, we have to look decent. We want to be able to blend in with the crowd, yes?"

"I suppose," she nods. "I mean, how long does it take to hot wire a car and then get in?'

"Your hair is going to get us caught."

Her eyes harden, "Excuse me?"

"It makes you look homeless."

"I am homeless!"

"You have an apartment."

"That I can't go back to because there's evidence of Joe's death there," she snarls. "So, I am homeless." I reach for her hair and she moves back. "What are you doing?"

"Trying to fix your hair. Now, be still."

She crosses her arms across her chest but stays still, "You're the one to talk. You look like you've been hit by a truck and don't even get me started on your hair." I ignore her and start running my fingers through her hair, trying my best to smooth it out. She tugs and pulls at my hair and I cannot tell if she's trying to fix it or mentally kill me. When she licks her hand, I stop touching her hand and move back. "Hey, what are you doing? Get back over here."

"You are not putting saliva in my hair."

"Louis," she sighs. "You have this one piece of hair that won't sit down with the rest."

"It can't be that bad." I tell her. "Is anyone going to think we're outsiders if they see my hair? They may think that when they see your hair but it's coming along. You still have a lot of tangles, though."

"Shut up," she says. "Who cares what we look like? Homeless people are seen everyday. Let's go before something bad happens. I don't want to be yanked back here, okay?" 

I don't bother arguing with her because I know she'll win the argument. I simply follow her towards the clearing and constantly run my fingers through my hair. Neither one of us look bad. We just look like we've had a rough couple of days...which we've had.

We exit the woods and I shield my eyes as the sun attempts to blind me. Evelyn gets close to me and I wrap an arm around her. There's a small shop across the street and there are at least ten vehicles in the parking lot. One of them's a police vehicle. Looking both ways, Evelyn and I run across the street and I examine all of the cars in the parking lot. Which one will be missed the least if stolen? Most definitely not the police car.

Evelyn looks at the shop, "There has to be a policeman inside. We can't just steal a car with a policeman nearby. We're just bound to get caught." She points to the building. "I can't go to jail. We can't go to jail. If we do, they'll eventually find out about Joe and we'll be forced to tell them the truth. What are we supposed to say? Oh, we've been marked by a demon that feeds on our fear and he killed Joe to get to me?"

"Calm down and just keep watch." I instruct her. "If you see someone coming, whistle."

"W-Whistle?"

"Just whistle."

"But I can't whistle!"

"Then clap your hands." I say as I approach the truck. 

I run my fingers along the side of the rusty vehicle and tilt my head to the side as I try to figure out how I'm going to get the door to open. I pull the door handle just in case it's unlocked, but it isn't There's no way to get this car open. I don't have anything handy with me to pick the lock and if I go into the shop to get something, I'll look suspicious. My hand balls up into a fist and I punch the window as hard as I can. It smashes and the noise is much louder than I thought it would be. I grip my bleeding hand and I hear the door to the shop open. Dropping to the ground, I roll underneath the truck and close my eyes. Evelyn's still out there. I left her. I'm so stupid!

I hear her yell, "Oh, please! You've got to help me!"

"What the hell happened to my truck?" a man yells.

"Please!" Evelyn continues. "My car wrecked down the road and I need some help contacting someone."

"Did you do this to my truck, woman?" the man asks and I hear footsteps approaching the truck. I bite my bottom lip and hope that he doesn't look underneath the vehicle.

"How on earth could I possibly have done that?" Evelyn asks. "Now, can you please help me? I don't have a cell phone on me and I need to call my mother. I'm sure you have a cell phone on you."

"Where's your shirt?" I hear him ask. 

"Are you even listening to me?" Evelyn shouts. "I need a phone!"

"It's inside," he mutters.

"May I please use it?"

"Fine," he gives in and a ton of weight's lifted off of my shoulders. "Follow me." 

I open my eyes to see the man's feet leaving the truck. Evelyn's bare feet are right behind him and I wait until it's completely silent to get out from underneath the truck. I stand up and put my hand through the broken window, unlocking the door from the inside and opening it. I enter the car and remove the plastic cover on the steering column. I immediately see the different wires and examine them closely. There are three wires: yellow, blue and red.

I yank the blue and red wires out and put them together. There's a spark and I'm careful not to catch myself on fire. I place the wires back together again and the door to the shop opens. Evelyn falls out of the doorway and the wires drop from my hands. A man steps out of the shop and when Evelyn sees him, she's quick to get back to her feet. 

She sees me and yells, "Run!"

The man looks in my direction, "You! Get away from my truck!"

"Louis, I said run!" she yells again and I don't hesitate to take off running. Evelyn's right beside me as we run down the street and I know the man's going to come after us. He probably knows that I'm the one that broke into his truck.

"What happened?" I ask.

"I don't know!" she keeps her eyes focused on what's ahead of us. "I was dialing a random number, because I can't actually call my mom, and the police officer was yelling at the man. I don't know if they saw you breaking into the truck but I was pushed out of the shop."

"Dammit," I curse.

A gun's fired.

Evelyn and I both fall onto the ground and I look back to see the man running at us with a gun. I manage to get on my feet before Evelyn and I pull her up. She gasps, "He's shooting at us!"

"Keep running!" I instruct her. "He should get tired soon enough!"

She looks over her shoulder, "I don't think he's getting tired! He's still chasing us!" I push her in front of me and she keeps running. If anyone gets shot, it should be me. I don't want Evelyn to get shot. Her life is too precious. The gun is fired again and I duck my head. "Louis, there's a building up ahead on the right!" I look to my right and see the building. It doesn't take me long to spot the cross sitting on top of the building.

It's a church.

"Evelyn," my voice is small and barely audible.

"Louis, hurry!" she yells and picks up speed.

"Don't go in there!" I shriek and hurry to catch up to her. She doesn't listen to me and gets to the church doors before me. "Evelyn!" Her hands get on the doorknobs and she opens the doors before entering the church. I run after her but as soon as I get to the doorway, I'm knocked down to the ground. Evelyn stands in the aisle between two rows of seats and she just stands there. I croak, "Evelyn, you need to get out of there. It's...It's not safe!"

She turns around, "Oh, my God. Louis! Are you okay? Are you all—" Her body tenses up and her hands go straight to her head. I sit up and try to enter the church. It feels as if there's an invisible barrier between Evelyn and I. I cannot get into the building. She clutches her head and lets out a scream. "W-What's happening to me?"

"You have to get out of there!"

"What is happening to me?" she cries out and drops to her knees. She buries her hand in her legs and lets out another scream. "Make it stop! Please, make it stop!" I bang on the barrier with my fists but nothing happens. I still cannot enter the church. She sits up and when she opens her eyes, my fists fall from the invisible barrier. Her eyes are bloodshot red and her nose is bleeding.

"Come to me," I say. "Evelyn, you have to come to me. I can't come get you." She begins to cough and when she spits, red liquid lands on the church floor. "Dammit, Evelyn, get out of the damn church!" Her hands go back to her head and she lets out another scream.

"I can't!" she whimpers. "It hurts so much!"

"You have to try!"

I know what she's feeling. I've had a similar experience to this when I was eighteen. My mother thought I needed to go to church and hear the word of the Lord because of the random attacks from Harry. Of course, she didn't know he existed. I entered the church and not even a whole minute later, my head felt like someone was throwing bricks at it. My chest burned and I started bleeding from the eyes, nose and ears. I coughed up blood and I was immediately taken to the hospital. I was fine two days later.

If Evelyn doesn't get out of there, she may not be as lucky.

I see the blood dripping from her ears and I see the blood trail from her eyes that goes down to the tip of her chin. "Louis..."

"Drag your body to me. If you can't stand, drag yourself to me." I demand. "Can you stand?"

She nods, "I...I think..." Her sentence is cut short by another scream. I throw my body against the barrier in hopes that I'll fall into the church but my side only rests against it. She slowly sits up and I place both of my hands on the barrier. If I don't get in there, she isn't going to make it. She's losing too much blood.

"Evelyn!" I cry out.

"Help me," she whispers and falls onto her side.