Okay So the Picture of the weeks story goes to Ashley. :P

Chapter 9

"So, who's Dawn by the way?" I ask as I lead the group to the river.

"What?" asks Ashley as she studies our surroundings.

"Dawn. When I told you about a voice in my head, you said that Dawn better be right about this. Who's Dawn?"

"Well, for starters, she's a girl." Danny says while he plays with his belt that's holding alot of small objects.

"Which..is what I kinda expected for a name like Dawn" Matt says with a confused look.

"Dawn's a fifth former at our school. She also has a very special affinity." says Trevor.

"What is it?" I ask curiously.

Ashley tilts her head, "She's a medium."

I look at Matt with a clueless expression. He shrugs. So I look back at Ashley. "What's that?"

"In other words, she's a ghost whisperer." Ashley responds.

I try not to giggle. But I don't really believe in ghost or anything like that. Even being marked is a kinda still hard for me to believe. But I continue the conversation just to be polite.

"Oh that's cool. So does this mean she can see the dead and such?"

"Sometimes, but most of the time she can only talk to them." says Danny.

"So is she the only one that has an affinity?" asks Matt.

"Oh, don't get me started. There's plenty of fledglings that have alot of affinities at H.O.N. very unique ones to be exact." says Trevor.

I look at them closely, studying them, before I ask, "Do you guys have any?"

Trevor is the first one to respond, "Yeah, I'm able to hear far distances."

"I'm a ticking time bomb." says Danny.

I raise my eyebrow and look at Matt, only to see him laughing under his breath. I turn back to Danny and was about to ask what the hell he meant until Danny rolled up his sleeve, pull on a string that connected to his forearm, and revealed what appeared to be lots of buttons and small switches. I look at him wide eyed and say, "OH MY GAWD."

He laughs, "Yeah I know, people aren't comfortable seeing this. I only got a few years ahead of me until I..well, you know."

"Why would Nyx give you such a horrible gift?" asks Matt, shocked at what he just saw. Danny shrugs, "All I know from what Chelsea has told me is that Nyx gave me this affinity 'cuz I'm going to save lives. I don't know how, but I trust our goddess. But on the bright side, I know everything that has to do with explosives, plus, check this out."

Danny bends down and grabs a handful of dirt. He throws it at least 5 feet in front of us and it slowly sprinkles down. Again, I question what I'm exactly looking at when all of a sudden, like little fireworks, it explodes.

Everyone, especially Ashley jumps by the loud, crackling sound.

"Crap!" says Ashley.

"Sorry, I'm still not able to control the timing yet."

I smile at Danny and then look at Ashley, "And what about you? Do you have an affinity?"

Immediately, she bubbles up, "Yeah, I'm able to channel people's thoughts."

I immediately get nervous. Holy crap, could she have been reading everything I've been thinking about since the beginning of our conversation?

"Wait what?" I ask dumb founded.

"Yeah, I know it's a really cool gift. Thing that sucks though is that I have to have physical contact with someone in order to read them."

I quietly let out a sigh of relief.

Still walking, my legs start to hurt.

"Can we stop here for a sec? My legs are killing me." I ask.

They all agree and we settle by a nearby tree that has blue flowers surrounding it.

I go through my pockets and pull out my phone. It's 6:58. I look up and the sun is almost over the hill.

"What are we gonna do if we don't find them? The sun is going to be down in half an hour and we still haven't reached the river." I say.

"Don't trip Mel, we'll find them." says Matt.

I look at him then at Ashley.

She was about to speak when Trevor beat her to it.

"Captain, we got a little problem."

He gets up and slowly turns south. "20 feet south, 2 females and 5 feet behind them is a male."

Ashley gets up and pushes me and Matt behind her. "Form formation." she says.

Danny reaches for his belt and takes out what looks like little ping-pong balls and lightly rolls two in the direction Trevor is talking about.

Trevor pulls out his battle-ax from a pouch and gets in a fighting stance as Ashley pulls out a fencing sword as she says, "You guys stay close. My squad and I got this."

"15 feet away captain. They're all together now." says Trevor.

"Danny, this time, try to control it." says Ashley.

"Sir, yes sir." says Danny.

"5 feet captain." yells Trevor.

I hold my breath, expecting something to pop out at us, but nothing happens. I let go of my breath and look at Ashley who's looking at Trevor.

Trevor looks back slowly and whispers, "They're right in front of us..."

I look back in front but still see nothing. We stay quiet and wait for a couple more seconds until Ashley breaks the silence.

"What the hell is going on Trevor?"

He puts a finger on his lips and shushes her.

"Oh hell no. Don't you start shushing me now Trev. What's going on."

Trevor then stands like a normal person again and looks confused.

"I don't know. They're right here I swear. They're so close, it's like i can hear them breathing.

"That's 'cuz we're right here Trev." says an unknown male voice, followed by two girly giggles.

Me and Matt share a confused look as Ashley says," Grey! Really?"

She walks in front of Trevor and smacks something. We hear a thump and a grunt.

"Okay fine." says the male voice.

I look closely to see little specks of shimmering light until it quickly disappears by three shapes taking form. Soon, two girls wearing dresses stand by each other laughing as a light skinned guy with light brown hair smiles innocently as he looks at all of us.

"Didn't think we'd see you guys today," says the male.

"What are you guys doing here? I thought you guys had an assignment in Oakland," Danny says as he pushes a button on his bionic arm, retracting the bombs he'd place back to his belt.

"We finished early. We just got back in town a few hours ago until Will told us to come here. He figured you guys might need back up with Gaby and Shelly." says one of the girls, whose blonde semi-straight hair just barely hiding her green eyes. She looks down and that's when I notice her clothing. Her bright yellow tank top slightly under neath her leather jacket. Her white scarf complementing her black mini skirt, which dances freely in the wind, and her black combat boots still clean as if they were just bought yesterday. As I'm looking at her, that's when I realized her voice.

"Wait, you're the girl from my head."

She looks at me and smiles as she extends her hand,

"Hi. I'm Dawn Swartz. It's nice to meet you."

I shake her hand and reply," Hi, My name is Melanie Gonzalez. And this Is Matt," I gesture back at my brother, who's smiling like an idiot and tapping the floor with his right foot, an annoying habit he does when he meets pretty girls.

"Hi. It's really nice to meet you." He says as he get's on his knees, takes her hand, and like a gentleman, kisses it. Dawn, who's probably weirded out by now, blushes and slowly takes her hand away from Matt.

"Nice move man," says Danny sarcastically.

"Okay, well, Will also wanted us to give you guys a little present." says the guy as he takes off a large duffel bag off his shoulder and unzips it. We all peak inside to see what appears to be a pile of junk. I look closely to realize what I was looking at.

"Are those weapons?" I ask unsure if I was right.

He nods and pulls them out one by one. The first one was a whip, followed by a bow and arrow. He then pulls out a pair of two black pistols, which catch my eye. The guy sees me admiring them and asks. "Do you want these?"

I smile and nod as he hands me the beautiful pistols. I scan them intensively, noticing every little detail about them.

"These are beautiful," I say," But why would we ever need weapons?"

"I'm not sure. Will just wanted you guys to have them just in case you guys might need them." he replies as he pulls out an odd object.

"Is that a cane?" Matt asks.

"No, it's a metal rod. It's just disguised as a cane. You have to activate it by tapping the tip three times. Here, try it."

Matt takes it and watches it. It glistens dark colors as I notice it has a snake skin texture. He then does as instructed and like a flower blooming, the cane grows until it's at least 7 feet high. I then spot 5 rows of holes, going down an inch.

"What are those holes?" I ask.

"Those are bullet holes. If you tap the rod 5 times to the ground while it's activated, it'll go in defense mode, sending bullets. So you gotta be careful with the rod if your gonna choose it Matt." says the girl who is still unknown to us.

"By the way, who are you two?" I ask.

The girl looks at me, smiles, and says, "I'm Dulce."

"And my name's Grey, but everyone calls me Grim." says the guy as he zips up the duffel bag and puts it over his shoulder again. "So I assume you guys want those weapons?"

Me and Matt nod.

"Of course. Thank you. and thanks for coming." I say as I turn to Ashley, "Now let's go find these girls."

"Girls, what girls?" asks Dawn, sounding a little worried.

"We're looking for our friends. While we were following Shelly and Gaby, we lost our friends on the way." replies Matt.

Dulce and Dawn share a worried look as Grim says, "What do these girls look like?"

"Um, well, Abby is ugh, medium height, long brown hair, is wearing black skinny jeans, and a LOVE pink sweater." I say as Matt takes over. "And Britney has dark red thick hair, tan, skinny, and wearing a black strappless dress with gold trimming, black staletto boots, and a heart shaped necklace that's gold."

I look at him wide eyed, "Oh My Gawd Matt your such a creep if you remember all of that off of her."

Grim stiffens as he looks back at Dulce and Dawn, who are looking down at the floor wide eyed, as if they're realizing something they've missed.

"What?" says Ashley.

"We think we know where they are." says Dulce.

"Yeah, by the river, just like Dawn said." says Matt.

Dawn shakes her head as she replies, "No, not anymore."

"What do you mean not anymore?" me and Matt simultaniously ask.

Dawn looks at Grim hesitant, and Grim takes over, "We saw them when we got here. We saw two girls slumped against a tree. We just assumed they were college drunk girls who came from a party."

My mouth drops as well as Matts.

"Why would you assume they were here for a party? And in the middle of the forest? Why didn't you get them?" I nearly shout at them.

"Melanie, trust me, high school and college kids come here all the time. It's the perfect place to do anything without being complained about." says Trevor.

"Whatever, Why didn't you get them?" I ask again.

"Mel, chill out." says Matt as he places his hand on my shoulder.

"Sorry, We didn't know you guys were looking for your friends." says Dawn.

"Then why would you send us to the river?!" I say.

"Because they were there. I couldn't tell you guys to change direction because my powers needed to recharge." she replies, sounding scared now.

"Wait, your a ghost whisperer right?" Matt says, chiming in now.

Dawn nods as he continues, "Then how are you able to talk to Melanie in her head?"

"I asked the spirits to lend me some of their strengths so I can send a message to her, instructed by Will and Miles."

"And Miles is..?" Matt asks.

"Miles Bow, but his old name is Justin Lopez." says Danny.

All of a sudden, a cat meowing breaks the conversation. We all look at Ashley as she reaches into her pocket and takes out her phone, "Sorry, I gotta take this, but go on." She walks a few feet away as I continue the conversation. "What are you guys exactly?" I say directly to Grim.

"Fledglings."

"No I mean this," I motion at his group, "are you supposed to be like, a cop or something?"

"No. Me and Ashley are what they call Sons of Erobus. Our High Priestess is doing a little experementing on having very well trained Son of Erobus warriors train people who want to follow in our footsteps. Me and Ashley are a few who got chosen to lead. So think of us as like, agents." he responds.

"And what's the point of it?" I ask

"To protect, serve, and fight for Nyx and fledglings."

"So you remember this, but yet you can't remember it when you see my friends lost in the woods?"

"Listen, We forgot OK, calm down. At least we know where they are now."

"Really Mel, you should calm down. Your starting to sound like a bitch." Matt says.

"No, I won't calm down. I'm just so frustrated with all that's happened today."

"Well, we're sorry." Dawn says quietly.

"Ugh, whatever, I need to take a walk." I say. As I start to walk away, Ashley comes back, phone still next to her ear, and says, "No your not."

"And why not?" I question back.

She takes her phone away from her ear and puts it on speaker. Everyone, including myself, gets close and listen. It's a female voice.

"Ash, this is Asteria, listen, you need to find these girls fast. Gaby and Shelly are going to hurt them if your too late. My visions have shown me that they're going to perform the Global Blood Ritual and unleash something evil into the air, infecting everyone. I already informed the High Priestess and she's with Will as we speak to evacuate the city. Anyway, whatever you do, don't leave Melanie and Matt alone. They need they're blood to complete the ritual. Anyways, you need to find them fast." the female voice stops there. I look at Ashley, horrified at what I just heard, and expected her to explain. But she just looks at Grim and her voice breaks a little as she asks, "Lead us to where you saw them."