Chapter 27 LITTLE LEYA ALL ALONE.

WEDNESDAY
They next morning I had gone through rigorous training with Jereum for the entire morning and when I got back I had slept throughout the day. Tia had told me—before I slept—that she would be going to hunt and Jhan had gone for a patrol with Jereum. It was just me and Leya at home. I woke up at three in the afternoon, the sun was shining brightly and all the curtains were closed against the yellow light, filtering it and allowing only the bright white light to pass, not harmful to us vampires.
I went to the parlour and saw no sign of Leya; she must have been in her room. I walked back through the short corridor and stopped at the door closer to mine at the left. I knocked gently three times, and I heard the sound of ceramic breaking, from inside her room.
'Leya are you okay?" I asked.
'Kaldar?" She asked, 'You can come in."
Gently twisting the door knob, I opened the door and stepped into her living space. The walls of Leya's room were white, instead of red like our and the room was well arranged. The only that baffled me was the fact that there were countless vases of weird looking plants and vessels, placed on her cabinet, the floor, on her bed, on her study table, just everywhere.
'Whoa… Someone is the un-dead mother nature," I said and then I saw a red vase lying in pieces on the ground, the earth and plant that were in in it had poured out, and Leya was packing the dirt with her hand into an identical vase.
'I'm so sorry Leya," I said, and I ducked down to help her pack up the contents of the broken vase. I reached for plant, having it in mind to pick it and place it in the new vase when Leya hissed loudly at me, revealing her three inch long fangs and marinating a red devilish glint in her eyes.
I backed away in fear, and she hurriedly picked up the plant from the ground.
'You don't want me to touch them or…"
She shook her head to either side, eyeing me carefully.
'Okay, I guess that's a no then."
She continued packing the dirt and this time, very slowly, I bent down and just watched her. She finished, set the plant back into the vase and set the vase on top her already cramped cabinet. She sat on the ground and looked up at me.
I knew Leya liked plants but I did not think she liked them to the point of not allowing anyone else to touch them.
'Leya?"
She contorted her head to one side.
'You really like your plants, don't you?" I asked her, deciding the slow approach to the conversation I wanted to start up was the best.
She nodded to the question and gently sat beside her.
'Well, I'm a plant lover too," I said, trying to sound as earnest as possible. She looked at me carefully as if trying to examine the truth out of me.
'You don't seem like one," She said.
I always knew Leya liked her space, but why she did was still a mystery to me. But today was the perfect opportunity to know more about her, she was the most mysterious amongst us all.
'Let me prove it to you." And I motioned towards a vase that was on a wall shelf just above my head. She looked at the plant, then at me, then at the plant again.
'If you hurt it, I'll break you Kaldar," She said, but there was an eeriness to her voice, a bitterness to it, it made me think twice about what I was about to do. I stood up and picked the vase as carefully as possible. I sat back down and slowly brushed the leaves of the green plant with my thumb. She looked at me, bored.
And after a few more brushes she said, 'Put it back Kaldar."
I obeyed and replaced the plant to its spot on the shelf.
'Kaldar?"
I raised a brow.
'How does it feel being a Supreme?" She asked.
I thought about it for a moment, it felt completely normal to me and I didn't know what to tell her.
'Well Leya, I'll tell you how it feels to be Supreme if you tell me a little about yourself."
She just stared blankly at me, and, strangely, the image of her suddenly leaping and attacking me crossed my mind.
'Okay Kaldar," She said, 'I know you want to know about my life before I was impurified."
'Oh…err…," I said nervously, 'that was among the—"
'It's okay Kaldar I'll tell you."
'Okay," I was beginning to regret asking the question in the first place because I reckoned I might not like what I heard.
'Where do you want to hear from? When I was tied up? Or when I escaped?" She asked, and my mouth fell open.
'Anywhere will be fine Leya, anywhere will be fine," I said.
'Okay, I'll start from the very beginning."
And I prepared myself for whatever tale she was about to tell me.
'I was an orphan, I never knew my real parents and the only home I knew was the orphanage I was brought up in. I grew up there till I was ten. I made friends there, there were my family. Our caretakers took good care of us and I was growing up in love and comfort."
She paused and I nodded for her to go on, now curious to find out the rest of the story.
'One night, I was sleeping and a loud sound woke me up. I thought it was just thunder but then I heard it again and it woke up the children in the orphanage. The lights went out and that frightened and that scared me even the more. I saw the other kids get up from their beds and walk towards the door. We all heard a loud scream and we knew it was one of our caretakers so it frightened us even the more. The kids ran to their beds and we all covered ourselves under our bed sheets. It wasn't long before we heard someone hammering against the doors and took even shorter for the door to be knocked down.
'A bunch of people dressed in black came into our rooms; they were harsh and mean and pulled us from under our beds. They told us to stand against the wall and not move. We were all kids, so we were scared and we did as they told us. They separated the girls from the boys and took all the girls outside, into the rain. We were all drenched in the rain and they took us towards a large van. The girl that was beside me, Kamila, she had been muttering to herself all the while. We all knew Kamila was brought in by the police a year ago, at the time she was brought in I had heard the police who brought her say something about child trafficking but I had not known the meaning of the word.
'Kamila was my only actual friend, we played games together, ate together and she told me first when she had started bleeding. She looked me in the eyes and told me to run to the opposite direction once she does, she told me that these were bad people and that they were going to hurt me if I didn't run once she told me to.
'I was ready to believe her, and as soon as she started running I ran to the left. I heard the loud sound again and then I heard one of the bad people say that I was running for the cliff. I heard the same loud sound and then I felt pain at my back. I tripped and fell, I fell down and down and down and when I woke up I was on a bed and covered by a warm blanket. I looked at my skin and I saw that my skin was as white as snow.
'My white night gown was soaked in blood and I figured out I was in a room. The door opened and Jhan stepped in. He told me that I had almost died and that he was sorry for what he did to me. He just started crying and crying and kept on apologizing. I told him I had forgiven him but he still kept on crying. He told me that my friend was dead; she was shot and loosing blood and he told me that he had given her a choice to live as a demon or die and that she chose to die.
'He told me that she had wanted me to see this and he touched my forehead and I floated into a white space. I saw Kamila, she was alive. I hugged her and she told me not to worry, that the people who caused this for us had received their punishment. She told me to forgive Jhan for impurifying me without asking and she told me to live to my fullest no matter what I was. I just hugged her tighter, I was crying all over her night dress. Then, she looked me in my eye and told me to do what we did best as friends; she put a seed in my palm and disappeared.
'When I opened my eyes the seed was in my palm and Jhan told me he would protect me no matter what."
She stopped and looked at me carefully. It was then that I figured out that tears had Indeed rolled down my face.
‘How does someone go through all that and still function?' I thought. This girl must have been traumatized at ten.
'I'm so sorry Leya…" I had no idea she had gone through so much.
'It's okay Kaldar, I drank the blood of the people that shot Kamila," She said, and that was just dark for a thirteen year old.
'Oh, okay…that…is—what did you and Kamila do best?" It was quick diversion.
'We took care of the garden at the orphanage…"
And at that moment we were both staring at the plant I had set on the shelf, and then I realized that, that was the seed Kamila had given her.