The Girl From Tulsa

Chapter 10

Rephaim

"What?" Was all Dren and Rephaim could say. Balik was dying? And... he was excited? Dren and Rephaim glanced sideways at each other again. "What?" They repeated. Balik just laughed, though it turned into a cough which he tried to muffle so no-one in the canteen would realise.

"Nisroc won't be able to hurt me anymore!" Balik told them. "I'll finally be able to go to the Otherworld!" Many people were in the canteen now, not an empty chair was in sight except for near the three brothers, and guess who sat next to them?

"Hi." Stevie Rae said, sitting down in a hurry. "I saw Nisroc leave, I think it's safe. I can't see any other chairs, Nisroc destroyed the Jewellery. I think he did, who else would? How did the computer-thing go?" Rephaim only heard snippets of what she said, that's how fast she spoke.

"I'm dying." Balik quickly said. Stevie Rae just stared at him, and then looked at Rephaim and back at Balik.

"What? How? When?" She asked him. "What did Nisroc do to you now?" Balik coughed then, and Stevie Rae nodded.

"Oh, I see." Balik smiled at her. "You can't wait, can you?" He shook his head. She looked back at Rephaim and Dren. "I'm sorry." She told them.

Rephaim's breath caught, he never noticed how beautiful her eyes were. He blinked several times, reminding himself that that was exactly not what he was supposed to be thinking about.

"Did you say something about jewellery?" Balik asked her. Stevie Rae nodded, still staring at Rephaim.

"It was destroyed, Nisroc I think he-"

"He said something about jewellery." Dren said. "Balik told him he gave it to you-"

"What?" Stevie Rae turned to him.

"I'm dying anyway." Balik rolled his eyes. "He can punish me, then I'll be dead and the secret will live on past my grave." He smiled, eating toast. "Why did he destroy the jewellery though?" The four looked at each other.

"Hey! I barely know him, I just moved here." Stevie Rae told them just as Balik coughed again. A silence fell across the table. Balik was right, it'd be better if Dren, Rephaim and Stevie Rae secretly got together some form of plan before Balik died. If Nisroc discovered it, Balik could take the blame. However, for all of them it felt wrong. The guilt would be unbearable. Each of them would probably feel haunted by poor Balik. "Why did Nisroc destroy the jewellery?"

No-one answered. They all stared at each other, hoping to be unknown to the world. The canteen buzz went on around them. Rephaim overheard a few conversation, someone cheated on someone else, another's pet cat had just died, someone else was venting about a book she was reading, then it came back to them four.

Rephaim looked back at the table and saw why the table had gone so quiet. Balik had collapsed on the table. "I read it happened fast, but I never for a second thought..." Stevie Rae trailed off, Dren just got up and left the room. "Has he gone to get Lena?" Stevie Rae whispered to Rephaim, the answer he gave to her was silence.

One Week Later

Stevie Rae

Nothing had been the same since Balik's death. To Stevie Rae, it seemed as though the entire campus had changed. She saw Rephaim every now and again, but he'd been avoiding her. It was inevitable that she saw Nisroc, because she was his roommate. He hadn't said anything about Balik's death. Not even a tear shed for his brother. Stevie Rae didn't see him at the funeral either.

A lot of people came to the funeral to mourn Balik. Apparently during high-school he was best friends with a girl named Inquiete (AN: Inquiete is the author who invented Balik, in her story 'Son of the Beast' and while I'm at it, IloveZimAndNny16 invented Morpheus and Sara –from the last chapter- in her story 'Forbidden Love in New York'), but the two lost contact since he became a fledging. Apparently she wanted to say farewell to him, and that he'd still be alive to her in Son of the beast, whatever that was.

Anyway, Dren hadn't been seen since Balik's death. He did go to tell lena about it, which caused an uproar in the canteen, but since no-one had seen him. Stevie Rae was worried because if Fledgings were away from Vampyres for too long, they would die. She'd asked Lena about it, but Lena would run down a corridor shouting after someone who Stevie Rae was sure probably didn't exist.

It was times like this she wanted to go back to Tulsa. She'd asked her parents about it multiple times, but they said that they wanted her close to them.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Z asked her on the phone, waking Stevie Rae up. "I could always come down there to visit you, speaking of which you haven't mentioned Dallas."

"Dallas?" Oh, him. The boyfriend she'd broken up with because she was leaving. "Why would I mention him?"

There was a pause on the other end of the phone. "He came down to visit didn't he?"

"No." Stevie Rae said firmly.

"Oh." She heard on the other end of the phone. "Well he was asking his cousin if he could go there to stay and was saying to me he'd come visit you. He left four days ago."

"Z, I haven't even had a text off him to say he's in New York."

"That's it, I'm coming down this weekend." She demanded.

"You can't! There's a full moon Ritual for us, I can't miss that! Especially not so soon after..." She trailed off not wanting to mention Balik's name ever again. The way he died just so suddenly still shocked her to the day. Almost as if it were a message from the Goddess.

"This weekend. As in I'm leaving in the morning. We have Saturday and Sunday night." Stevie Rae gasped.

"You'll miss school!" She told Zoey, panicking now.

"Earth to Stevie Rae, Saturday and Sunday night. Weekend nights." Stevie Rae frowned.

"I'm not going to stop you, am I?" She heard a laugh on the other end of the phone.

"No, and while I'm down there I'll get your High Priestess to move you again, you seem to really hate your new roommate. Speaking of which, can't he hear you?"

"No, I spend my free time in Stacey's room. She's not around much since the death, but it's more friendlier in here." She could hear mumbling on the other end of the phone.

"We'll be there by 6pm. We'll meet you at the house of night."

"Who's 'We'?" But Zoey cut her off.

Remember how ages ago Kenzo did that hacking thing for Nisroc and said that Dallas was sending texts about coming down to New York. And Stevie Rae might just bump into a certain someone while Zoey and people are taking her around.

Speaking of which, who should Zoey take with her? Four people max, obviously. You guys choose!

And condolences to those who love Balik with all their heart. But he is alive in the other fics I recommended.