“Seth,” I said, “calm down and think. We can’t stay here forever, and pace.”Seth didn’t stop and he started mumbling under his breath. I walked up and pushed him around. “Seth, you have to think. Kojas did this on purpose, he’s trying to weaken us by splitting us up. He wants us to go running to him.”
“I know what he’s trying to do, it’s driving me crazy. The nerve of this guy.”
“Faery,” I corrected him. “He’s not a ‘guy’, he’s some demon faery. Calling him ‘guy’ makes it sound like he’s just a normal human.”
“Does it matter right now?” he asked, through clenched teeth.
I looked away. “I guess not.”
“We should move,” he said. “I want to find out where we are and where the others are. We’re going to find them and I swear by the Bible, if Kojas hurt them, I’m going to kill him myself.”
“Seth!”
He shrugged. “It’s too late now Jazell, I just swore by the Bible. Kojas means business and if he wants this to be a war, I’ll give him a war.” Then he stormed into the trees and disappeared.
“Wait, Seth!” I yelled and ran into the trees. I scanned the trees. “Seth! Seth where the-”
A hand clamped down on my mouth and I spun around, knife in hand. Seth dropped his hand and pushed past me. “Stop yelling my name, Jazell, or you’ll tell the whole world that I’m here.”
My arm dropped and I slid the knife back in its sheath. I followed Seth through the trees. This time there were less of them and the only ones that around us looked half dead. The bark was peeling off and I could see the tree branches leaning towards the ground. The air was cold and heavy, like a mound of snow on your shoulders. The trees parted to show a cliff. We walked up to the edge and the wind whipped at my face. A feeling of déjà vu came upon me. I knew where we were because I had been here before.
“Seth, I was here in my dream, the one with Kojas and the dwarf,” I said.
His eyes widened and he looked down at the ground below, obviously trying to imagine what it had looked like. I had seen it and I was seriously scarred for my life.
“You sure?” he asked. “You know that this means that Kojas was here, so he can’t be too far away.”
“Don’t get your hopes up. I saw him once and I have no intention of being near him anytime soon.”
He sat on the edge, the wind tossing around his hair. It was going to be seriously wind-blown later. I sat down next to him and I was trying to forget the dwarf’s mangled body. I shook and hugged myself.
“Are you cold?” he asked, his voice full of concern.
I just shrugged and squeezed my eyes shut. I saw Kojas’ glowing eyes and sword, the dwarf, his armies, the ghost girl, the dark woods and her haunting voice. It all crashed down on me, the weight of the whole situation. We were being hunted, I could die. Oh boy, this is what happen when I think things out.
“You are cold,” he stated. “Don’t deny it; you’re shaking like a leaf. Wait I don’t like that analogy, you’re shaking like a mole rat.”
“Do mole rats shake?” I asked.
He rolled his eyes and wrapped an arm around my shoulder. We sat there in silence and I leaned on his shoulder. We both stopped shivering as we stared at the sky.
“Seth, I’m scared,” I whispered. “What happens if something goes wrong?”
“Nothing will go wrong,” he said fiercely. “I won’t let it happen.”
I closed my eyes. “I keep seeing what happened that night.”
“It’ll go away,” he said. There was a long silence. “This is too awkward and I don’t like the silence. It’s not normal for us.”
I laughed. “Someone make a joke quick!”
“Okay,” he said. “This feels like those weird movies where the boy puts his arm around the girl and then something comes out of nowhere and eats them both.”
I laughed so hard I gagged. “I’ve never seen that kind of movie.”
“I did and it was lame.”
I smiled and twirled a leaf in one of my hands. Maybe everything was going to be okay after all.