Chapter 9

Walking out of the house back to the jeep, getting in the back, it all felt like I was on auto pilot. I couldn’t begin to understand what just happened because there was no way to rationalize it. What Lucas did to the officer? The grotesque way the officers face distorted in the sunlight? I wish I could say I was seeing things but I kept drifting back to the conclusion that maybe the boys were right. The hunters, the demons and that all of it was real.

Which means what I saw in the fire, the thing with the purple eyes, it was all real and I watched as it stood over my grandfather and killed him. Quickly slapping a hand over my mouth to stifle the bile I felt rising at the back of my throat.

“Stop the car! I think I’m gonna be sick.” I shouted over the boys’ conversation.

Hurriedly pulling the car off the highway, they both opened their doors and flew out of the jeep. Climbing out the back as fast as I could, I ran to the nearest bush as soon as my feet hit the ground. Leaning over I emptied what little I had in my stomach, dry heaving when there was nothing left to spew. 

Stepping back I dropped to my knees as I tried to even my breathing, the newly shed tears running down my face beginning to wane. Staring at the ground beneath me I leaned back onto my heels, collecting myself. I saw his shadow pass over me before I felt a hand tentatively touch my shoulder and hand me a bottle of water.

Taking the bottle and throwing a quick thanks over my shoulder at Daniel, to my surprise, I cracked the seal. Rinsing my mouth out, I drank as much as I could before throwing the rest on my face. Using the bottom of my t shirt, I dried my face as I stood and turned around to walk back to the jeep. Looking at the now empty space, where before, the jeep was hastily parked on the side of the Troian main highway, I looked back to where Daniel stood.

“Umm….?” I said in question as I splintered my confusion between the empty space and back at him.

“Lucas needed to go into the city, sort out a few things and pick up some stuff. Don’t worry, he’ll be back soon. Hopefully with food.” He casually answered as if it were no big deal that we were now stranded on the side of the road.

“He could have waited, I mean-” I began in between the sounds of the cars passing by.

“I told him to go on ahead without us.” He said looking down at me as he shaded his eyes from the glare of the setting sun.

“Oh..” I muttered in confusion.

“Traffic’s light, he won’t take long. Besides I figured we could use this time alone to have a little chat.” He said with a stern expression.

Looking at him as he stood there in the fading sunlight, he looked almost harmless in his dark jeans and plain white t, his hair taking on a darker tone than I remembered the night we met. 

“What do you want from me Daniel?” I asked, exasperated with him for cornering me like this and making me feel like this was somehow, all my fault.

“The truth.” He demanded in a toneless voice.

“About what? I have no idea what the hell is going on. I have NO answers!”      

“You think I wanted any of this? To miss my trip? To go back to my house and not only see all my memories being burnt to nothing but to witness my gramps being murdered” I said to him, my voice sounding raw and gravelly to my own ears.

“Murdered? October what happened? What did you see in the house?” he asked sympathetically.

“I don’t know. I don’t know what I saw.” I answered softly.

“October-” Daniel started to speak before I cut him off.

“NO! I’m done talking!” I yelled at him.

Settling his hands on his hips and sighing in response, he narrowed his eyes at me in look that said that this conversation was far from over as silence fell between us. We quietly waited for almost an hour, both sitting on the warm pavement until Lucas finally came to pick us up like kids after school. The silence between Daniel and I followed us into the jeep but it wasn’t long till Lucas put an end to it.

“Hey October, I have a surprise for you.” He said without looking back at me.

Not sure what to say, I waited for him to continue.

“Look in the back.” He said to me, a smile in his voice.

Unbuckling my seatbelt, I turned where I sat to look behind my seat and into the small tray at the back of the jeep. Crowding the back were two identical medium sized, royal blue wheeled suitcases, with black zippers and a huge, coloured in hand drawn white star on the front of each. The same white stars I half-hazardly drew when I was younger and decided that if gramps was going to make us move so much, then I’d mark my bags so that they’d never get stolen or accidentally lost. 

“Oh my God! How’d you!- When did you!-” I was at a total loss for words as I turned back around in my seat.

“I asked a couple of friends to pull a few strings. No worries” he answered with forced nonchalance as he shrugged in the driver’s seat.

“I could kiss you right now! Thank You!” I said to the back of Lucas’s head, a ridiculous grin spreading across my face.

“Oh.. I’d gladly pull over for that.” Lucas said, the jeep beginning to slow as he prepared to pull over.

Grabbing the steering wheel in a white knuckled grip, I watched from the backseat as Daniel leveled Lucas with a glare and told him to keep driving. A thick cloud of tension began to fill the jeep as Daniel finally released his hold from the wheel. Letting out a deep chuckle, Lucas held onto Daniel’s gaze for a few more seconds before shaking out his hair and returning his eyes to the road.