Chapter 25- Wicked Forest

“They’re coming! They’re coming!” the sound of a woman screeching made Crystal jump up. Levi jumped from the bed. Still half asleep she glared at him as he pulled on his jeans and t-shirt.
“Get up,” he snapped at her. Crystal heard the pounding of the earth, it sounded like hoofs. Horses and lots of them, heading for the cottage.
“Out the window,” Levi ordered.
“Margon,” he paused once he had the window open.
“Go, I will be fine. There is plenty of fight left in these old bones,” he nodded and climbed out, Crystal hot on his heels. He pressed his back to the wall of the cottage and pressed his finger to his lips.
They crept around the house. By now the sound of horses neighing and shouts from men could be heard.
“When I say go. You need to run straight into that section of the trees. Got it?” Crystal nodded.
“Go,” she did as he instructed and ran as quick as her body would allow her into the thick stretch of trees. She kept on running until Levi told her to stop. He pointed to a river, and they walked following the flow.
“Who were they?” Crystal asked.
“People we don’t want to encounter,”
“How do you know Margon?” Levi sighed.
“Crystal something’s are better not known,”
“Please,” she whispered.
“Fine. I lived here once. Before we were exiled,” Crystal thought about it for a moment.
“Wow you are ancient,”
“Crystal you are very naïve. How many brothers and sisters do you have?” he asked her.
“Seventeen sisters,” she had no idea why that would make her naïve.
“How old is your parents?”
“My father is forty-nine and my mother forty-one,” still she was puzzled.
Rolling his eyes, he stopped and faced her. “You are approaching your eighteenth birthday. Your mother is forty-one with eighteen kids. Try adding a few zeros on the end,” Crystal’s mouth hung open. What he said did make sense in a way. Then again, she couldn’t wrap her head around the fact that there could have been a possibility that her parents had been around for centuries.
“If you are so old, then why are you not married already?” Every witch was married off by the age of twenty-one, even them from other covens. There had been times that a match had been found from different covens, just like hers.
“Look, Crystal. I get you don’t want to marry me. The feeling is mutual.”
“Why didn’t you answer my question?” sighing he stopped walking and ran his hand through his thick mane.
“There is a girl from my pa…Coven. My father doesn’t think she is strong enough to be married to a Carmichael,”
“Which would dilute your bloodline,” Crystal finished, and he nodded.
“Don’t you think it sucks? We should be able to choose who we want to spend the rest of our lives with. Not be forced to marry someone we don’t love.”
“It may suck. We may hate it. But in the end, it keeps us alive.”
They both walked in silence. Listening to the sounds of nature and lost in their own thoughts. At times Levi would pull her into the cover of bushes while weird looking creatures past. Crystal wondered if her parents were looking for her. Were they worried or glad she was gone? She had always been the disobedient and stubborn one.
She thought about the wolf and the kids from school. “Levi?”
“Do you think my friends are okay? I mean with the wolf and all.”
“He didn’t make it into the party.”
Nodding she looked ahead. “How much further do we need to go?”
“About three more days on foot.”
“Three more days!” Crystal raised her voice.
“We have to get to the other side of the forest,” she groaned as he said that. How her feet would handle three more days walking she had no idea. She hoped she didn’t collapse from exhaustion.
***
She had no idea, who she was. Perhaps they got it wrong. She didn’t look strong at all. He had yet to see her use her power. She looked like a weak girl; one they had neglected to prepare.
Levi could only see a lost girl looking for answers. Her fantasies of a love-filled life were just that: fantasies. Witches had no choice but to do what they had to in order to survive. It was the only thing they knew how to do coming from a place like Athens.
He wished he could take her away from the horrors of Athens and the coven’s who wanted to use her.
Yet in the end all he could do was hope for the best. Crystal Hudson had gotten under his skin. She had made him feel things he had never felt before. It was her innocence; he had long forgotten what that was like.
He gazed at the girl who pulled a flower from the ground and took in its sweet fragrance. Her hair blows untamed in the wind. She was pure and kind. Two deadly characteristics in Athens, they would use her kindness to their advantage.