Numbers that follows

chapter 10

It was amazing seeing the sky and not being confined to a small round room running in circles or running for my life. This was a different run; this was like nothing before. I felt free. I saw Caster stop so I caught up next to him.

“This is where I first saw you.” He looked at me.

“Yes, where I had beaten up members of your pack. Great first impression.” laughed.

“Normally if I see my men attacking I jump in and try and save them, but I saw you and froze. I knew you could almost sense me because you stopped for just a second and then you know.” he said.

“I was so mad at myself for that. If it had happened before when I was still there I would have been punished, I have never frozen before." I looked at him.

He took a couple steps closer and stood in front of me.

“You went through so much and lost so much.” Caster looked at me.

“How can you know how much you lost if you never knew. From my point of view I gained more than I ever could imagine. I never had anything to lose till I lost.” I corrected him.

“Didn’t think of it that way,” he said.

He pulled me over to a fallen tree and we sat down. I looked around the area and it was beautiful. Much better than a stone wall I guess. from where we sat I could hear the river was rolling fast.

We sat like that for a few minutes when I noticed Caster start to shift in his seat. He turned to look at me.

“I…. Um… What happened to you?” He asked. “I talked to Armin but he told me if I wanted to know ask you and if you told me it was your decision”

“well …” I paused for a moment. “Like you protect your pack I protected mine. In total there were 22 of us with 22 being the youngest at 5. Me being the oldest, I used to pick fights if one of them did something wrong because it would turn the focus on to me. I knew He would never kill me. If a guard went too far in punishment he would kill the guard. I spent my whole life keeping them safe. Until one day we were called for a meeting we were corralled into a room. Each of us sat in a chair. He said he wanted purebreds. When he finished talking a group of men entered the room and stood behind some of us and in a single motion they drew knives and slit their throats.”

I took a deep shaky breath, I could still see the way that their bodies slumped and fell off the chairs.

“It was at that moment I decided to leave. And as bad as it seems I wish I never left, because those that are left are all alone and I can’t protect them out here.” I finished.

“I am so sorry” Caster put his hand on my back to comfort me.

“I abandoned them.” I said looking at the ground.

“Sometimes we need to save ourselves before we can save others.” Caster replied.

“He has an army of incredible strength. Witches, wolves, vampires, and dragons, He has control like no other. He takes them when they are young, so they are less rebellious. He learned that with me.” I explained.

“With so many children taken, how has no one noticed?” Caster questioned

“I don’t know,” I said, “ But he did.”

“At the next alpha summit, It’s in two days, I am going to bring this matter to all the Alphas in the area and see if they can help. Because it sounds like this man is a threat. Not just to wolves but to everyone he kidnaped. This man needs to be stopped.” Caster turned to me. “We are going to save your friends who are left.”

“What is the Alpha summit?” I asked.

“There are 25 Packs in the area. We all get together to be civil and make arrangements like we help you you help us. kind of things. But we also discuss important issues like last year we had to settle a treaty with some witches that lived outside a neighboring pack who were causing trouble. This is a lot more important than that.”

“Oh” I understood.

“Come on, let's go back to the pack house and get you something to eat.” He said standing up and holding out his hand.

I took his hand and he pulled me up. He let go and started running back to the house. I followed right behind him. Soon we broke the tree line and the Pack house came into view. We slowed down and headed for the door.

We opened the door and I followed Caster to the kitchen. Once in the kitchen he pulled a stool from the kitchen Island and he gestured for me to sit. I sat down and watched him as he walked around the kitchen getting everything he needed. He opened a box and set the plate in and it beeped, then started humming. He went to the other side of the room for a moment.

He was walking back over when the box started beeping and I jumped. It caught me by surprise. He started laughing.

“It’s just the microwave, it beeps when it is done.”

I shook my head. He walked over to the microwave and pulled the plate out and walked over setting it on the counter in front of me. He made two identical sandwiches. He gave on to me and kept the other. I took a bite and it was amazing.

“The trick is heating the sandwich meat so it's not cold,” he explained.

“It’s good,” I said.

We sat for a little bit eating, when we both finished he stood up and held out his hand. I took it and he led me out of the kitchen and up the stairs. I followed as we got to the top floor. We walked down to his room and went in. We walked over to the couch and sat down.

“Do you want to watch a movie?” He asked.

“What?” I asked.

“A movie?” He said.

“What is that?” I asked, clarifying that I heard him, just not understood.

“Oh it's like a story, but it has sound and real life moments.” He said, “maybe I should just show you.”

He reaches over and grabs a black long thing with buttons. He clicked one towards the top and the black rectangle lit up. He started clicking other buttons.

“I think Disney is a safe choice,” He said and the screen changed again. “So four options, first is The Little Mermaid, not like real mermaids but it’s about a girl who wants to be human but her father hates humans. Second beauty and the beast, is about a girl who is different than anyone in her town saves her father by taking his place and staying with the beast who is cursed to look like a beast. Third Aladin, about an orphan boy who steals to survive and pretends to be a prince when he finds a genie, all to get close to the princess. And fourth Mulan, a girl who takes he fathers place in a war to save him and ends up winning the whole war, catch is she has to pretend to be a man.”

“Definitely the Mulan one.” I said “she sounds badass.”

“Mulan it is.” He said.

We sat on the couch watching this girl save a whole nation, when originally only wanting to save her father. She sucked at being what everyone else wanted her to be but when she became herself she became happy. It was a good movie. At the end Caster shifted and grabbed the remote to stop the t.v.

“So what did you think?” He eagerly asked.

“It was good, I liked it,” I said. “I have never seen anything like it. But why did the people look so fake.”

“It's a cartoon, they draw a whole bunch of photos and when you play them fast it looks like they are moving. They have movies where there are real people too.” Caster said.

“Cool.” I replied.

We heard a knock at the door.

“Hey Caster, are you joining us for dinner?” It was Armin.

Caster looked at me, and I shrugged. I didn't know what to answer. I would let him decide.

“Yeah we’ll come down in a bit.” Caster replied.

Caster closed the door and made his way back to the couch and sat down. He sat close and turned to face me, propping his arm on the back of the couch and leaning his head on it. He just looked at me.

“Tomorrow I want us to get ready and go to the summit together. I think you need to be there. If they get a first hand account with the proof on your back the scars are fading but you can still see them.” Caster grabbed my hand.

“I’ll go, for my friends. If I can help them I will.” I said, nodding yes.

He stood up and reached for my other hand helping me off the couch. Standing up I was inches away from him. He leaned down Sligh and placed a small kiss on my forehead. It was an incredible sensation.

"Sorry, I just really wanted to do that." Caster apologized.

"That was umm.. I don't know." I replied.

"Let's go down to dinner." Caster took my hand and led me to the dining room.