I seriously can't believe Alex drugged her. Then again he did ask in his own way. I look over at her laying in my sleeping bag, she looks so peaceful right now.

To be honest I'm kinda dreading the moment she wakes up. I know I'll be bombarded with questions. Miss. Mahogany said I'd know what to do but honestly I don't have a clue.

She shifts in her sleep, which only means she's waking up. Alex looks over to me and I know he's asking if he should handle her or should I. "You know I think it's best if you left."He nods his head and walks out of the cave.

With a deep breath and a heavy sigh she wakes up. Her eyes flutter open and look around. Her brow scrunches in thought, then her eyes open wide and she lets out a gasp.

I get up and walk over to her. When I crouch down next to her, her eyes slide to mine. "Milo?" Thats all she asks but it's all the questions in a single word pointed right at me.

I sigh and sit down crisscross applesauce. "I suppose the first question you want to know is what am I? Well that's a story in its self, " I say rubbing the back of my neck. When she doesn't say anything I continue on. "I'm what you would call the things we don't speak of, but my people call us Anima. To get even more specific, I'm a wolf Anima, and Alex is a Tiger Anima."

She blinks a couple of times then her brow scrunches. "you mean to tell me that you are one of the creatures that cut our Communication system from the other worlds?" When she sees me hesitate to answer she rambles on.

"Great just great I'm here with two anima that I'm sure the town would just love to chase after with pitchforks and torches. Not to mention that Alex drugged me to keep me quiet," she sits up and glares me down. "And now, this is just a guess, you want me to leave everything I know and run away with you to a magical world where hot guys can shapeshift and kidnap girls for a living." I let out huff of air, even though some of that is true she doesn't have to be so snobby.

"We don't kidnap girls for a living. Do you really think your mom would let you run away with a guy that kidnapped girls anyway?" I know it was a low blow but still, it got her quiet right? "Yes I do want you to come with me. I don't really think my home is a magical world but you might. It really isn't that bad, besides you owe me. I smile and cross my arms.

It's amazing how long girls can stay quiet and just stair at you. I never really got to talk to girls, they were always with their protectors or off training. The funny thing is I had to take a class on how to treat a girl differently than a guy. It is way harder in real life, and I passed that class with flying colors.

Finally she let out a sigh, "your right, I'm sorry." I can tell she trying not to sound mean, but I can also hear her grind her teeth. "What time is it?" I get up to go look out at the sky to see, and am surprised to find it well past nighttime. I turn back to her, "we have to go right now, it's three in the morning."

With quick packing we get everything out of the cave. I just hope the moss is enough to cover our sent. I look at the cave that protected me for four months and headed out with the others.

I'm surprised that Alex isn't flirting with Alina, just glaring at the ground. "I guess we should get going," I say. "I think we're going to have to go down the hard way. Here, your mom gave me this yesterday." I hand Alina a new backpack packed with clothes I'm guessing. (I'm only guessing because it's not like I'm going through a girls clothes, for reasons not mentioned.)

As we head out I notice that Alina is staying closer to me. I turn to look at her but she doesn't meet my eye. "You can ask me questions if you want."

This time she looks up at me and smiles. "All right, do you guys only kidnap girls or do you kidnap boys to?"

"Number one we don't kidnap people, number two it's usually girls because animas are manly guys, but we do protect guys on rare occasions. Guys don't really get along with other guys for long anyway."

"Alright next question, how can you tell if someone is an Anima?"

"Well usually I'd say you smell them, but that doesn't quite work for you, so myth says that our eyes give us away."

"Ok, so how did you become an Anima?"

"That's a long story...A long time ago deep in the Oakland forest lived a Princess." I hear her snort and I look back. "What don't look at me like that, I'm just telling you how I was told. As I was saying, an elvein princess sunk out of the castle to see her kingdom. She met an anima man. At the time anima were more like blends of creatures. You'd see a tail on some ears of a fox on others. Well she promised to meet him the next night, then the night after that. Till finally they emitted their feelings for each other. One thing led to the next and soon she had given birth to a healthy young boy.

The king was furious because it was illegal to interbreed between species. He was afraid that the people would find out about what his daughter had done, henceforth he changed the law so that interbreeding was aloud. And that's how you got so many Anima, like us today."

I stop and look up to the sky then around at where we were. "Umm, Alex?Look at where we are!" Where we are should have taken us at least six hours.

"Great now your going to win the bet." **flashbacks** "This is going to be the longest trip of my life." Alex looked up from the fire. "I bet it'll be shorter than you think."

"Oh yeah? I bet you twenty bucks and a burrito."

Alex smiled brightly "Your on!"

**present **
"Great, that's not-"
"Oh, I believe it is, Milo my boy." Alex says all goofy like.

"Um what's going on?" Alaina says.

Alex just smiles even wider than you'd think possible. "Me and Milo bet on what time we would make it to the Great Forest, and it would appear I'm winning. The prize is a twenty dollar bill, and out to eat."

Alina try's to frown but she fails miserably. "Wow you guys are so immature."

Alex bows and kisses her hand."Why thank you my lady." Great the old Alex is back.

"We should get moving or we could stay here and I'll win." Alex nods and goes to walk past me to the back of the group, but I elbow him in the side. What? Can you blame me for being mad that he just kissed her hand?

By late afternoon we finally reached "The Great Forest." I pay Alex my twenty dollars, then we cross the border between Anima and humans.