Chapter Eighteen

The sunlight shines through the curtains, warming my face. My eyelids slowly opens and I sit up, stretching. I throw the covers off my body and quietly walk past Daire and exit the room. I hear noises coming from the kitchen and I know I'm not the only one up.

I round the corner and see Chris looking in the fridge. He pulls out a bacon, eggs, buscuit ,and orange juice.

"I hope you're planning on sharing with everyone" I say, making him jump at my presence.

He turns around. "What are you doing up so early?"

I'm not an morning person but today I made an exception. I shrug. "I could ask you the same thing"

"I'm always up early." He tells me, sitting his things down.

I look at the clock on the wall. 7:45 am. We still have about a good two hours before anyone else wakes up. He places the biscuits into the oven.

"Do you know what we're doing today?" I ask, sitting down on one of the stool chair.

"I think we're going hiking then jet skiing." He says, cooking his bacon and eggs.

"Hiking?" I repeat. "Like as in walking through the woods hiking?"

He laughs. "Yeah unless you know another way to hike."

"Aren't there wild animals out there?" I asks, nodding to the woods near the lake house.

He shakes his head. "I don't think so."

I stare at him. "You don't think so? Great. We're going get eating by bunch of hungry crazy animals"

He rolls his blue eyes. "No we're not. Hayes wouldn't let you get eaten by wild animals."

I raise one of my eyebrows. "Hayes"

"Yeah. You guys really don't think we didn't see what happened last night. I'm surprise he made the first move. He never makes the first move."

His words didn't sink in until I replay what he said. Events from last night comes rushing to my mind.

"Wait. You saw Hayes and I kissing?"

He pulls out his bacon. "Isn't that not what I said. Hayes won the bet."

I forgot all about the bet we made. Hayes actually got me to fall for him. Maybe my walls weren't as strong as I thought they were.

"You knew about the bet?"

"Everyone knew about the bet. We all betted." He tells me.

"Explain."

Chris sighs. "Hayes betted that he'll make you fall in love with you before summer ended and you betted against him. Well everyone agreed with Hayes"

"So this was just a game for him"

"No. He likes you. We just know Hayes. He has his charms and something else that girls can't help resisting" Chris says.

"Meaning Daire."

"Well yeah Hayes dated her but it wasn't serious." Chris tells me. He looks at me with his blue eyes. "Why don't you ask him about all this?"

"I don't know." I admit.

"He has nothing to hide. He'll tell you everything"

"Why?" I ask.

He raises one of his eyebrows. "You mean you seriously haven't noticed you have him under your control."

I shake my head. "Not really"

Chris looks behind me and smiles. "Good morning, beautiful"

I turn around to see Gina walking into the kitchen. She sits next me and grabs a piece of bacon.

"Hey!" I say. "Why can she get a piece of bacon?"

"Because she's Gina Hudson. I can't keep her away from her food."

I roll my eyes. "Sure you can't."

The rest of the group walks in surrounding the island table. Teri quickly sits down before Hayes could and pulls me closer to her.

"You have some explaining to do."

"Okay I will. Let go of me" I tell her, prying her fingers off my arm.

After we get down eating, we get ready for the day. I walk out the house, putting my dark hair in a high ponytail.

"Shawn is there a trail we're following?" I ask, looking at the woods.

"Of course" He says. "Come on"

We follow him to the mouth of the trail. We walked about a mile in to reach a gaint waterfall. It's beautiful. I sit on one if the huge rocks, taking in the scene before me. Chris and Shawn are walking along the river looking at different things. The sun is smiling down on me and I'm glad I wore shorts. Birds flies out the evergreen trees and into the blue sky. I can't help feeling someone watching me. I look around and see nothing but trees.

"Hey, Shawn" I call out. "Are there animals around here?"

"Yeah but only the small ones. We're not deep enough for the big ones."

Teri jumps on me, demanding for answers. Hayes isn't here to save me from her. He didn't come with us on the mini hike. He said he had to take care of things but he'll meet up with us later.

"I knew it!" She says after I tell her what happened.

I roll my eyes. "Yeah thanks for betting on me."

She smiles, sheepishly. "Sorry about that. Hayes is really irresistible. You wouldn't have made it til the end of summer."

"Thanks for the faith." I say, looking out to the river.

Daire and Gina joins us and we talk about random things.

"Hey Daire look what I found" Chris says, wiggling a worm in his fingers.

Daire takes one look at the earth worm in his hand and picks up a rock. "You better stay away from me" she warns.

"Oh come on, Daire." Chris says. "It's just a little worm."

"I don't care what it is. Stay away from me."

Chris doesn't listen to her and begins chasing her. She screams.

"What are you? Five years old?"

I laugh. "Aren't you going to stop him, Gina?"

She removes her sunglass and shrugs. "Kids will be kids."

"Grow up, Christopher!" Daire says, grabbing Shawn. "You're eighteen!."

"Look who's talking." Chris says.

Shawn couldn't handle Daire and Chris at the same time, so Teri goes helps him.

The crunching of leaves caught my attention and I turn my head. Hoping to see a squirrel or something scurrying across the wood's floor but instead a median size grey and white wolf appears, bearing teeth.

I freeze, not wanting to tempt the animal to charge. Gina gives me a confused looks but I don't say anything. I stay still.

"What are you staring at?" She asks, following my glaze.

Her brown eyes locks with the wolf too but unlike me she doesn't stay still.

"Chris!" She yells, standing up.

Chris lifts his head up and faces our direction. He gets the others attention. They slowly walk over to us.

"It's only one wolf" Shawn informs us. "Not a pack."

"Thank you, Captain Obvious." Daire says. "What do we do? We can't outrun him"

"We can try" Teri says. "It's better than standing here."

Before we can agree to a plan, the wolf tilts his head back and howls.

"What's he doing?" Daire asks.

"Calling for the rest of the pack" I tell her, getting to my feet.

"Okay look" Shawn says. "There's a mile separating us from the lake house. We can get a head start if we leave right now or risk getting eaten by a bunch of wolves."

"Okay, smart ass" Daire says. "but the only problem is he's blocking the trail and I doubt any one could run through the tangle woods."

Daire has a point. We're trap on all sides. The mountains is on the east side, waterfall on the north side, and the wolf on the south side. The only way we could go is the west but that'll lead us deeper into the woods.

Not long enough, five more wolves appears by the first wolf. Their gold eyes turns deadly.

"Thanks a lot, Shawn" Chris says.

"I didn't know animals would be here. They're never this close" Shawn explains.

My eyes shifts to the wolves and connects with one of them. He stares at me for a long time. And I wonder if he was going to attack me first but he surprises me when he tilts his head to the side.

The rest of the wolves, claws the ground, waiting for the signal to attack but the alpha stops them with a dangerous low growl.

He snaps when one decides to disobey.

"What are they doing?" Gina asks.

"I think they're retreating." I answer but in the pit of my stomach I know they are leaving.

The alpha gives me one last look before running off into the woods with the rest of his pack.

"That was weird" Teri announces. "But let's go before they decide to come back."

We leave without any hesitation. On the way back we bumped into Hayes. Shawn fills him in on what happened. He comes to my side.

"Are you okay?" He asks.

"Yeah."

As crazy as it might sound, I felt no fear when I looked into the wolf's eyes. I felt like we somehow connected on a weird level of communication.

Like somehow, he sense how scared I was and then is vanished with one look. I sense that he knew me or part of me.

***

Night falls and the forest is silence. If it wasn't for the moonlight, Abe wouldn't have seen him standing directly in front of him.

"What happened?" Abe asks, concerned.

The young man shrugs. "Wolves were about to attack them"

"How deep were they in the woods?"

"A mile in." The man replies back.

Abe frowns then it creased. "Her scent got their attention."

"How? She doesn't have her necklace."

"Yeah but animal can still pick up the dullest scent in the world." Abe tells him. "They still can sense she's the moon"

"Is that why they didn't attack because of her?"

Abe nods. "Exactly. They might not know her entirely but they know her. They know who control them."

The necklace makes her stronger than what she is now. With the necklace she is powerful. A force to be reckon with. Ramadi knows this. That's why he wants them. If he has them, no telling what they might do.

"Is she singing, again?" Abe asks. Her voice is her most dangerous power. If you push her past her limits things can get deadly quick.

"No but I'm working on it." The man says.

Even through it's dangerous, Abe still wants her to sing. It's a part of her. He doesn't know how she's still resisting it. Singing should come easily to her. She gives meaning to every song she sings and ,with Lillian, life.

"Keep trying." Abe tells him. "She'll cave in eventually. Lillian is getting close to realizing her powers. It's only a matter of time before she does too."

"Reid got in touch me, this morning." The man informs Abe. "He told me that Lillian connected with Millian last night. It was brief but she got in her dreams"

Lillian's powers are growing stronger day by day. If they get any stronger pretty soon everything will be revealed. "Did Reidese tell you if Lillian thinks it was just a dream to her and nothing more?"

"No. He said she's getting nightmares of that night on Arsyn and it makes me wonder if Millian is having flashbacks too."

"Lillian is a seer. She's going to see more flashback than Millian. She's not going to understand only Millian is because of the music. In order for them to comprehend it is if they were together."

"That's exactly what Ramadi wants. He's testing them. Testing to see if they're smart enough to fill in the missing pieces." The man says. "He wants them to know they're not normal."