The Parasites That Live in The Cracks

19. And Then The Walls Crumbled...

Bree

I woke up gasping for breath, realizing that in these chains if I slept or passed out for too long they'd choke me. Dumb idea, putting chains on my neck.

  I looked over to see if Jamie was awake, he'd helped me have some grip on reality through all this. He was awake, though he looked oddly upset.

  "Jamie?" I said, my voice hoarse and shaky. His blue eyes flashed a little as he looked at me.

  "Yeah?" He asked, his voice tight.

  "I don't know... I just don't want to feel alone. What's wrong?"

  "Nothing!" He hissed.

  "Liar..." I whispered.

  He glared, it almost scared me, I'd never seen him this angry. "If you need to know, it's that vampire."

  Chayton? "What about him?"

  Jamie let out a low growl that barely sounded human. "He. Kissed. You. Before he drank your blood. Why?"

  Now I was more than a little scared, what was wrong with him? "I-I don't know..." I whispered.

  "What was he saying to you, before that?" Jamie had now stood up and was standing close to the bars between our cages.

  "I don't know... I don't remember..." I lied, now remembering his offer to turn me. My mind drifted off into thinking about what I should do about that.

  Then I was startled back to the present again by Jamie yelling. "You're lying to me, what did he say?"

  I stared in horror as Jamie growled and somehow smashed through the bars between us. What? How?

  I tried to calm my breathing as he got right into my face and growled again. "Tell me, Sabrina!"

  I opened my mouth to say I didn't know, but the wall behind me exploded.

  I flew into the bars and shook my head to try to clear it. It felt like it was full of fog. Somewhere through the fog, I could distantly hear fighting and with my blurry vision could barely make out two figures moving quickly.

  Then I felt strong arms wrap around me and felt the chains snap off.

  I couldn't move or speak, just limply felt myself be carried away, away from the sounds of yelling and chaos. I vaguely hoped I'd died and was being brought to heaven or whatever's next.

⇎

"Bree! Wake up! Come on, Bree..." I heard someone yelling. It was a familiar voice, yet I didn't know whose.

  "No... Go away..." I groaned. I was too tired and achy, I didn't want to wake up.

  But then I remembered all that had happened, and I opened my eyes and sat up. I was in a large, log cabin, Jamie beside me.

  "What happened?" I asked.

  "That vampire busted the wall open behind you, I took the chance to escape. You were knocked out so I took you with me..."

  "But how did you bust open the bars?"

  Jamie looked slightly annoyed then switched to confused in a millisecond. "What do you mean? I don't remember doing that... Well, you did bump your head pretty hard..."

  "This isn't a head injury. You got mad and busted the bars!"

  “I… I’m sorry. I wasn’t really mad, I was scared.” He muttered, eyes sweeping the room. 

 I leaned away from him. "Jamie you're scaring me..." I whispered. “What happened?”

  Jamie backed up a step and closed his eyes, breathing deep and clenching his fists.

  I watched him, holding my breath. After a minute he seemed to relax and he looked at me.

  "Ok Bree, I'm sorry..." He said in a shaky whisper. "There's some stuff I should tell you, no interrupting, please, this is hard enough already. Okay? I didn’t want to tell you because, well, things are complicated enough, right? But I guess I’ll have to eventually, and yeah."

  I nodded.

  "Okay, so first off... I like you. Really like you. So that's why I got mad when that vampire," He seemed to spit out the word vampire, "Kissed you. And I was just scared that something would happen I guess, and he was planning something, I just wanted to know so I could keep you safe. So, that's part of it. The second part is that I'm a werewolf. Only, I'll just have you know that real werewolves aren't like the ones in stories. We can actually transform any time we want, we tend to transform when we get angry, and around the full moon, there’s literally nothing different except it’s pretty. Oh and we aren't really enemies with vampires, I just don't like that one who kissed you. And I probably have a personal hatred for them in general."

  I stared at him and nodded slowly. I don't know why I was so surprised that he was a werewolf since I knew about vampires, but I was. And he had a crush on me... How'd that happen?

  "Okay, you can talk now." He said, the side of his mouth rising in a small smile.

  I said the first thing that came to my mind, stupid as it was. "Why do you like me? Me of all people?"

  Jamie burst out laughing. "So... I tell you I'm a werewolf and your first question is why I like you?"

  I bit my lip and nodded. Yeah, I need to get my priorities straight, but who cares! “I guess after vampires the werewolf bit isn’t that much of a shock.”

  "Well, I like you because you're strong and you stand up for yourself and even in the midst of all that you were able to be kind to me."

  "Oh..." I whispered, looking at my hands. Then I looked up at him and asked, "What happened back there?"

  "Well..." Jamie growled a bit. "When I broke through the bars, that vampire broke through the wall, I don't know much more about that. All he said was not to hurt you, which I wasn't going to, but anyway we ended up fighting until some guards broke us up, I grabbed you and ran for it. I think they caught him but he might have escaped and ran off somewhere too."

  "Okay," I said quietly, trying to keep my face blank. I thought it was best not to let him know that I was concerned about Chayton… If a squabble got him a few weeks of starvation, what would that event earn him?