Song to the side for Eliza is one that I think really fits her. Who I am Hates Who I've Been by Relient K

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For probably the first time since getting to London, I woke up before James. I stretched my arms over my head, my wrists bending against head board and cracking under the pressure.

I got out of bed and padded to the bathroom being quiet enough not to disturb James.

I stopped just short of the bathroom door seeing something sticking slightly under the door. 

I looked through the peep hole to see if there was anyone out there. When I saw no movement I opened the door just a crack. I looked down to see a paper on the ground in front of the door. My brows pulled together in confusion. I didn't know we got papers. 

I picked it up off the ground and went back into the room sitting at the desk with the paper. 

I nearly dropped it when I saw the front article. It was about a string of murders that had been taking place the past two weeks. 

I read all the gory details the papers had printed. The victims had been found with chunks of flesh removed. There were no pictures to accompany the story, at least none of the victims and what they looked like. I was both grateful for that, and slightly disappointed. 

I wanted to know what the markings looked like. 

I was fairly certain that the ghoul that I'd killed the previous night was linked to it. It had to be on some level. Mentally going through the creatures in the bestiary, ghouls were the only ones that ate flesh. Werewolves were capable of it, so I couldn't count that out but the description in the paper made me lean more toward ghoul. 

I heard James stir on the bed and I looked up from the paper to see him looking back at me.

"What are you doing?" There was something in his voice. 

"Reading the paper. Did you know we got a paper?" I asked with a brow raised. 

"No, I didn't."

I frowned. "You know, I may not be a werewolf who can sense the changes in a person, but I can most certainly tell when someone is lying to me."

He was silent before sighing and sitting up, the blankets falling down and pooling in his lap. His chest was bare. Bare and very distracting at the moment. 

"Why haven't I known that we got a paper?" I asked the question, but I was pretty sure I already knew the answer. 

James' eyes moved down to the front of the paper seeing the cover story there. They moved back up to my own and the look on his face said just as much. I think you know. That's what his eyes were saying. He'd been caught and he knew it. 

"You were hiding the papers from me because you knew about this." I tossed the paper onto the bed, the front splayed out showing the article that he'd already seen while I was holding it. 

"You've known that this was going on as long as it has been." It wasn't a question. This had been going on for a couple weeks, just shortly after we arrived to London. If I didn't know him better I would have gone back to my werewolf assumption. I knew that James would never do something like that though. From the description of what had happened to those people-

No, James would never do anything and I felt disgusted with myself for letting my mind even entertain the idea hypothetically. 

He sat there quietly. Apparently he'd started to learn that when I was getting angry he should just keep his mouth shut. While that normally would be good, it was really starting to irritate me. 

"Why on earth would you be hiding this from me?"

"Because I didn't want you out there running around trying to solve the problem. You killed the creature last night anyway. That's what it was, wasn't it?"

"I would guess yes. But there was another one last night. What if there are more?"

"It could have been the same one you killed. What if it had done that before you found it in that alley?"

James was trying to speak rationally, but I knew when it came to the paranormal, nothing was rational. 

"There's still the chance that it wasn't the only one. There could be more out there, who knows how many more."

"And this is why I wanted to keep you away from it. I already told you last night that I hate it when you go running in blind."

"This isn't blind, James. I know what they are. I know how to kill them."

"Now you do. You didn't even know what it was at first last night. Can you honestly say that you would have read the paper and declared that it was a ghoul and that you would have been prepared enough to go in after it?"

No. I never would have guessed it was a ghoul. They were uncommon. You were more likely to get attacked by a shark then run across a ghoul. At least that's what I'd thought, that's how it had been in the states. 

"If you would have just let me see this and we could have talked about it we could have avoided everything that happened last night in that alley. I could have saved some of the people that have died!"

James raked a hand through his already bed ragged hair and I could tell he was thinking the same thing as me. It's way too early for this. 

"Eliza-"

"James. You can't keep doing this. I'm supposed to be your mate, your girlfriend. That means we have to come to an understanding. We have to work together. You need to understand that I can't just sit by when humans are getting killed by these paranormal creatures. I just can't do that. 

"I've been working with you. I've been teaching you to fight so I feel comfortable bringing you with me. I don't think you get just how much I trust you. I trust you with my life. I didn't even trust my own family with that much."

I got up and grabbed a set of clothes before going into the bathroom. 

"What are you doing?" James asked sounding slightly exasperated. 

"First I'm going to shower and change. Then I'm going to go get coffee and find somewhere to buy weapons."

"You realize you're not going to find a place like that around here."

I stopped short looking at him with my brows pulled together. 

"Those rights to bare arms, they don't exist here. You're not going to be able to find an ammunition shop or a place to buy a dagger or anything that you're going to want or need to kill any of those creatures."

"What?" I couldn't believe that they wouldn't have something like that around here. It was just something that I'd grown up with. My dad had guns in the house our entire lives. Most of them had been rifles and things for when he'd actually go hunting, like real hunting. We grew up seeing stuff about it on the news. You passed shops all the time that sold guns and ammunition. Heck you could even go into Walmart and buy guns and ammunition. 

The fact that I wouldn't be able to do that here had never crossed my mind. I absentmindedly grabbed the gun that was hidden in a drawer next to me and checked the clip. Full minus the one bullet I'd used against the ghoul. I was going to have to use these sparingly until I found out how to replace them. 

What was I going to do now? I needed out of the hotel. I was going stir crazy and even though we'd been out to The Eye and the Tower of London, I needed to get out again. Staying in this small room with James wasn't a good idea. This was the second argument in as many days and I was in an argumentative mood now. 

I needed to get away from him and away from the place of our confinement. 

"Well then I'm taking a shower and then I'm going to get coffee," I said finally. 

After the argument my entire body felt tense, a bad habit I had. I seemed to always be so wound up, even worse since we had to start watching over our shoulder for any sudden movements that suggested The Organization found us. 

The hot water started to relax my muscles again and I sighed with the feeling of the tension releasing. It was the best feeling in the world. In this small room, in this shower there was nothing I had to worry about. There weren't any Organization operatives that were going to ambush me, there were no ghouls or paranormal creatures at least during the day they weren't a worry. Just the steam and hot water. 

I got out only when the temperature of the water went down slightly. The hot steam kept the room warm as I dried myself off. 

I pulled on a pair of black skinny leg dress pants and a silky looking royal blue blouse. I ran the towel over my head, trying to dry my hair as much as possible with the towel before I had to leave the warm bathroom to use the hair dryer. 

I didn't want to leave the small room though because I knew what would be waiting. James, the tension between us, the outside world that was far more complicated than most people knew. 

There were movies and TV shows where people had lives like this, living on the run keeping secrets that the rest of the world didn't know. They always looked so exciting. The truth was though, it was just exhausting.

I looked at the mirror. I could see the dark circles that were forming under my eyes. I hadn't had a decent night's sleep since before this all began. 

I opened the door letting the warmth that had been fading in the room completely disappear and I moved to the bed sitting down with the hair dryer. James was sitting in the same place he was before although he was reading the newspaper I'd thrown down on the bed. 

I turned the dryer on high and started running my fingers through my hair. I picked out the tangled spots and leaned over, flipping my hair over my head to dry everything underneath. 

I felt the bed shift as James moved. I felt his legs going on each side of me as he scooted close. I sat up a moment and my back was against his bare chest. I could feel his body heat, almost as warm as the air coming from the dryer. He wrapped his arms around my stomach, holding me to him. 

I sighed and turned the dryer off. 

"I hate fighting with you," James murmured. I felt the words vibrate through his chest. 

"I wouldn't exactly call it a fight. It was a difference in opinion."

"Isn't that normally what fights are? Differences in opinions voiced loudly?"

I chuckled once at that. I suppose that is what they were. 

"Well I hate fighting with you too."

"I'm sorry I was keeping the papers from you. I just didn't know what you'd do. I already told you, I don't know what I'd do if I lost you because you went running into one of those situations blind. We both know how dangerous this world can be."

"I agree, it is dangerous. But it's something I've been doing for five years now. There are risks involved and I've known that, I've had marks and scars to prove it. But this is something I was trained for, I know how to handle myself. I don't want you worrying about me all the time."

"But I do worry about you all the time. It's not something that I can just turn off. If anything happened to you, if I never got to hold you or touch you, if I never got to look into those blue eyes every again because something from this messed up world took you from me-"

I sighed and leaned against his chest. I understood where he was coming from. It was something I'd worried about as well. I had been ready to take a bullet for him, hell, I had taken a bullet in protecting him. My desire to protect him had been why I decided to teach him how to fight. 

He'd mentioned it back at Trevor's place. I hadn't realized how serious he'd been at the time but it had been the perfect thing to do. He already had the strength that came with the werewolf territory. All I had to do was teach him how to direct it and use that strength to the best of his abilities. 

The main reason hunters were able to take down werewolves, vampires, and other things that were stronger and faster than us, including Alphas, was because we knew how to direct. Supernatural creatures relied on their brute force. They knew they were stronger and that was what got them by. We knew we were weaker so we had to train. We learned how to use their strength against them, we learned how to make it their weakness. 

If I ever went up against a werewolf that actually knew how to fight, I'd be screwed. I most likely wouldn't even last five minutes. They'd kill me or turn me before I even knew what happened. 

I was trying to turn James into one of those werewolves. 

I just turned the hair dryer back on and started working with my hair again. I didn't know what to say to him. I was never good with expressing my emotions. I kept them bottled up inside, I let them consume me. That was probably part of what led to my break down at Trevor's. It wasn't a healthy way to deal with things, but it was the only way I knew how. 

I tossed my hair over my left shoulder, leaning my head to the side as I worked with it. James' lips brushed against the exposed skin of my neck and I felt those flames. The bond that connected me to him. It had gotten stronger ever since he'd marked me. I was almost afraid to find out what would happen after we completed the bond. 

Thankfully James hadn't brought up that subject again since talking to me about what the entire process of mates entailed. We hadn't gotten on the topic of... completing the bond. Was that even really something you talked about? Just like, Yeah, today would be a good day to just, you know, have sex and complete the bond. It just seemed awkward to me. 

Doing that with someone under normal circumstances seemed like it would be awkward enough but now it held even more of a meaning. We wouldn't just be giving ourselves over to one another, from what James had said, we'd be tying our souls together. More than they already were. 

I raked my hand through my hair as the thoughts tumbled around in my head. My hair was thoroughly dry now and I turned of the dryer and started running a brush through my long waves. 

I got up and crossed the room getting my short black boots and slipping them on. I grabbed my laptop putting it in the carrying case and grabbed some money. 

"I'll go with you," James said as he started to get up. 

"No. I need some time alone. I just need to get out. I'll be back in a couple hours."

He frowned at that. I knew he wanted to be with me, to go with me. I just needed some personal time. I needed a nice big cup of coffee and a place to sit down on my own. James finally nodded and I grabbed the room key and kissed him on the cheek before leaving. 

I went down a block where there was a nice coffee shop. I ordered a cup and sat down at a table with my laptop. 

I took a nice long sip of the coffee before pulling the laptop out of the case and setting it up on the table. 

I pulled my phone out of my back pocket and turned on the mobile hot spot. I was never sure where they would have wifi around here. It seemed like most places didn't, so I'd made sure to include the hot spot in our phones. 

I know I'd just checked my email the other day, but I decided to check it again. There was another email from Alex. 

I read over it. She was vague in her wording, only someone who knew what she was talking about would understand. I assumed Trevor was with her when she wrote it. He would have known the possibility of The Organization watching her emails. 

In the three months since we'd left them everything had gone smoothly for the two. Alex had disappeared under their noses from her home. They'd never seen Sarah and Josh get her. They also never suspected Trevor of being involved. I was glad for that fact. I would have felt horrible if he'd been found out because of me. 

I read through what she said. She was still with Trevor and they hadn't had any problems with The Organization yet. Trevor had apparently been assigned to our case. Meaning The Organization had placed him on with a group of others that were assigned the task to find us. 

That was actually good. He would know the progress being made on finding us. He'd know what they know. I wasn't entirely sure why there would be an entire group designated to finding us though. 

I started typing out a response to her. It took longer than I thought to find the right wording. I needed to find a way to phrase everything correctly. 

Finally I was able to. I'd asked if Trevor's group had found anything, and why there had even been a group designated to find us. I'd also slipped in a part about my inability to get weapons hoping that Trevor would be around when she read the email and that he might have a plan that would enable me to get something. 

I pushed the send button and I waited around. I didn't know how long it would take to get a reply. It was two in the morning where they were. 

I sat there for a moment staring at the inbox of my email, sipping my coffee. Within a few moments there was a ping from my computer telling me that I had mail. 

Alex had sent something back. Although this looked more like Trevor. The message was coded in a way that almost I didn't even understand. It would literally look like gibberish to anyone else looking at it. 

So far they had nothing on us and he wanted to keep it that way. He didn't want me letting him know where he was so he could be as honest when he went in there as he could. I had no intention of letting him know where I was anyway. 

Apparently they were after us because of me. James' old Alpha had been right, if it had just been him and if he'd gotten away they wouldn't have bothered chasing after him. It was me that they were after. Because I'd broken their rules. I wasn't sure why they couldn't just let me go. 

I couldn't be the only human with a werewolf or some other paranormal creature. Although if they knew what I had in mind, they'd probably be working double time to stop me. 

Within the email Trevor had coded in a contact for me to get a hold of. I wasn't sure if I'd gotten it correctly, but it was the only thing I had to go on. I think he was giving me that contact as a way to get weapons. 

Hopefully they would be able to do something about being in different countries. 

I closed the laptop and put it in the bag and sat back. 

I held the coffee in both hands and sipped on it as I watched the people bustling around outside and in the small place. I listened to the people talking, some on phones, some with the people around them. 

Take away the sound and it was easy to imagine that I was back in the United States. I was starting to miss home. I felt out of my depth here when I couldn't walk into a place and get weapons. I couldn't make my own, and I couldn't get any from The Organization. 

Or could I?

They had the branch here. I'd never heard much about it while I was back home. I had no idea how often they talked. Trevor said they had no clue where I was which meant they didn't know I'd left the country. He didn't say anything about all areas of The Organization looking out for me, only a small group there. 

There was a chance I could try to get myself into the branch here. Get them to give me some weapons, see how the branch here works. It wouldn't have to be for long. Just long enough to see how things worked there, and to get some guns and maybe some other weapons. 

I could probably do it in a week or two. 

It was an incredibly dangerous and stupid idea. And yet, it could also work. But I knew that I couldn't go through with it alone. I couldn't make a decision like this by myself, it would only spur on another argument between James and me. I had to include him in this. 

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Well... Trevor gave her one possibility and yet she comes up with a dangerous and stupid idea. That's so Electra- er I mean Eliza... 

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