Chapter 33 SECOND DATE.

FRIDAY
We got back home, my training session with Jereum yesterday ended up turning into a full on clan fight. Leya had stayed behind to get more seeds and plants for her little garden while the rest of us departed. I was still flooded with the feel and emotional I had felt while I was in Jereum's memories.
His story was one filled with great contradiction and bends all over. Sure he had killed the Supreme that killed his parents but in that being impurified, and even begging to be killed rather than to live as a vampire. The hate I felt for my kind when I was in his life was enough to burn me up from the inside.
He had actually hated vampires with so much of himself, he would have rather died by the sword than live as one. As for his relationship with Tia, it was now becoming clear to me that she was not a direct cousin to him, rather more like a descended one. She was the only family he could be with without posing a threat to her life, and that was probably the reason he was over protective of her. But I wouldn't pose as a threat to Tia, not now, not in the next ten years I was sure.
The reason for Jereum's dislike and seeming hate for me was still a mystery. I was a Supreme, yes, but I still hadn't any skill or necessary training to hone my abilities. I had been living on borrowed luck for all I knew—acting mostly on anger and the fear of others helped alot in getting me through.
I was on the sofa, and Oddly, at that moment, a scene from our encounter with those wolves flashed through my mind. I remembered, very clearly, a part I had forgotten.
The little one had taken an obscured interest in Tia. I remembered, it was bellowing in my mind, 'What did you demons do to her?' Or something like that.
But why would a beast, that I was sure had nothing to do with Tia, show such an interest in her? I tensed in thought and my brows furrowed in deep thought. I felt like a bomb shell had been dropped in my mind and with its explosions brought about a new phase of questions and possibilities.
I needed to figure out what connection this beast had with Tia, maybe through figuring out this, I could find a way to bring our worlds closer. And, maybe, that was the reason the beast let us go in the first places.
'Something bothering you?" Tia asked. I had completely forgot she was right beside me so I desperately lifted the perplexity from my face but there was fooling Tia, she could read me like a book—something I hated more than the adjudicator that had given me a good whooping at the higher court.
I needed to divert the topic and so I though fast. 'It's just that… I was just thinking about the thrilling tales behind Jereum and Leya."
She bought it.
'Oh, yeah Leya had a…" She trailed off, better not to talk about it when Leya could obviously hear us clearly from her room if she wanted to.
'It's late," She said, 'Do you want to eat something?"
I thought about it, actually considering the fact, but then the thought of a pack of hunger giant wolves crossed my mind and drove away any hunger I felt.
I thought about Dawn, I had kissed her just yesterday and the feel was still fresh in my mind. I smiled to myself and frolicked—mentally—in my reminiscence .
'Kaldar?"
'Oh, me? No I'm not hungry," I said it on impulse as if she could see my thoughts and had caught me kissing Dawn. I had been very careful to only see her when Tia, in particular, was not at home. I wanted to protect her, I knew our world was way more than she thought and she could get hurt in this town.
Though the higher court had declared this area outlawed to all hunting activities, tyrants like the Dallas boys could still be doing mischievous activities to people in the darkness, where they would be unseen.
"I'm just a little tired, that's all."
I lied, I will meet the large black wolf today so I needed to the best way to get out of everyone's sight.
It was already late, past nine in the evening. If I had gone to my room now, I could sneak out and settle things with that wolf.
"I think I'll just rest," I said, putting an invisible fatigued load in my voice.
"Oh, okay," Tia said, and I was glad she didn't seem suspicious.
The door was thrown open and Jereum bursted in. He had gone to get Leya some minutes ago but it was obvious that was not successful.
"Leya is not in the forest," He said, his voice tensed and alarmed.
"What do you mean?" Tia asked.
Jhan came in also. I hadn't seen him leave but it was clear he was also looking for her.
"I found pieces of her yellow rain coat."
Now was beginning to get scared, I felt something move in my stomach, like a big warm. I hadn't felt.ljke this, at least to my most recent memories. Maybe the tyrant went back for her.
"Maybe that tyrant—"
"I've already paid him a visit, he's clean," Jhan said.
Tia was anything but stable, I saw her unsteady gaze. The fright that lingered in her eyes. I couldn't let anything happen to Tia but at the same time, I couldn't know what else could have taken her.
"Maybe she just went a little further into the forest to collect more seeds." Tia suggested, but I knew she was saying that to try and avoid the harsh truth that something bad could have happened to our little Leya.
"We need to go find her!" I said, standing up from the sofa. No one tried to stop me, good.
"I fear there was something else," Jhan said, stopping me on my tracks.
"The tress had multiple damages in the form of scratch marks."
Hid words dropped like a nuke upon my head. I had thought about it but locked it away in the back of my mind. If Leya was taken in the forest, the main logical explanation will be a Lobo.
My encounter with the wolves flashed through my mind again, the gruesomeness of those animals had scarred me before. But this was Leya, the little girl that had already gone through so much to be put through this as well.
"I know for a fact she's still alive because I saw no sign of her clothes, if she was killed her body would have disintegrated leaving her clothes behind."
"The what are we waiting for?" I asked, trying to sound as bold as possible.
"You can't just go out there Kaldar," Jhan said, "you remember what they did to last time?"
And I subconsciously rubbed my fingers against my left forearm.
"But we can't just leave her there."
"No one said anything about leaving her, but you need the right clothes, and weapons," Jhan said, "come with me."
I followed him up the stairs and, for the first time, I entered into Jhan's room. It was well arranged. A wardrobe, cabinet, small desk and chair. He opened his wardrobe and at the bottom I could see a dozen pair of silver plated boots.
He picked out a pair and handed them to me, holding them by a small part of it at the back that was still canvas. I carefully collected them and I realized that the boots had no laces or straps. They were made to hug the feet as had a slight elasticity as you slid your leg into them.
They were light, lighter than they looked and sounded and I went to my room and retrieved my custom one armed jacket. I got back to the parlour and I saw Tia already in her silver sneakers.
Jereum's boots were more heavily made, with the soles looking thicker and the top part coming higher up is legs. He handed me a small steel knife and I gripped it by the haft.
"Too bad you don't know how to use it," He said.
"It's easy, just jab at anyone who is not y'all," I said.
"Let's go clan, to bring Leya home."
We leaped to the roof tops and dashed our way towards the forest. Jhan had told us that he came back home after he got to the last tree with scratch marks. He connected us through his mind's-eye and I could feel all of the emotion. Every bit of fear Tia felt, or the anger burning in Jereum's chest I could feel it all. I couldn't quite hear their thoughts until they chose to speak and then I was almost like an echo in my head.
I wondered if they could feel my emotional as well, the uncertainty and the secret knowledge about the black wolf. We got to the forest, it was quiet and calm. We moved silently and I struggled to gain my balance in the hard boots I wore. We moved fast and I saw the tree I had punched down and also the spot Leya had fell down the trees to knock our opponents. We moved deeper and deeper, jumping and landing softly on branches, until we heard Jhan's voice in our head.
'Stop everyone,' Jhan thought, and we all came to a fault, 'this is the last tree I was able to identify wounding.'
I peered down from where I stood at the trees around, I could easily spot several slashed against their stems.
'Try to blend in and keep it as quiet as possible, we do not know what we are up against,' Jhan thought to us and we nodded.
We leaped onto a few more trees and then I heard a foreign voice, one I was sure Jhan could hear as well.
'Come any closer and I will cut out her heart...'
The voice was strange, hoarse and sounded wounded. We all stopped right where we were and I realized the others had heard I too through Jhan's mind tether.
We all looked around; I could feel Tia's fear and Jereum's anger as they rose simultaneously.
'Who are you?' I asked in my mind.
'Get down from the trees demons!' The wounded voice ordered.
I was the first to jump down and not even a second later Jhan and Jereum landed beside me and lastly Tia. The trees in front of us were thicker, growing more closely packed to each other.
'Move, forward—slowly.'
We did as it said, moving forward but slowly and cautiously until we got to the thicket if trees. I didn't take a second to notice the dangling form of Leya, she was wrapped all over with the vines so tightly, could only see her feet and head. She was unconscious or heavily dazed.
But there was something else, another person. Sense and sanity were both blown out of my head as I saw a second form suspended beside Leya. A girl, the vines were wrapped around her arms and she was suspending a few feet above the ground as Leya.
"No..." I breathed out.
I looked at Dawn's pale face, she looked like she had been rolled in the dirt. Her feet bare and her clothes covered in grime. I could hear her heart beat she was still alive. She was unconscious for all what I knew. They were both too far away from us to make any quick actions. I looked at Jereum and I saw the difficulty it took for him to remain in the spot he stood. Tia looked at both Dawn and Leya mouth agape but surprisingly Jhan looked rather composed, like he was thinking about something he wouldn't let us hear.
Anger flooded through me and I wanted rip apart who ever had done this.
A figure of a man appeared out of nowhere. The man stepped into the moon light. He wore a white long sleeve shirt that had dirt all over, brown trousers and a thick white scarf over his neck. His head was shaven skin and I recognized the edged and old face of our former neighbour.