Chapter 7: Bruises, Myths, and Silent Hints

The next day, Isaac woke up in a bed that wasn't his. His mind was foggy and every part of him was yelling at him to close his eyes, roll over, and pretend that everything was as it was a couple months ago. However, the fragrant smell of lavender that stained the pillow reminded him once more that he wasn't where he was supposed to be. He groaned and shielded his eyes from the sunlight streaming through the windows as he looked down at the comforter covering him. Once again, he felt his body panic at the unfamiliarity of it and he threw it off the bed before sitting up.

"You're awake,"

Isaac was startled by the voice, but he relaxed upon seeing Nina at the door. "Umm, where am I?"

"My room," she answered. "I hope you don't mind but we had to take off the hospital gown."

Isaac stared down at his body then and suddenly took notice of the fact that he was only in his underwear.

Nina offered him a small smile before pointing to the clothes at the end of the bed. "Danielle brought those over last night when we called her. She's downstairs."

"Last night…" The words felt heavy in Isaac's mouth and he returned his eyes to Nina. "How did you get me up here without Victor seeing?"

"Victor was out last night," she explained.

Isaac nodded, accepting her answer, and he gestured for her to take a seat. "Where did you sleep?"

"With Amber," she told him as she sat on her bed.

"Sorry." He frowned before looking down at the bandage that covered his stitches. "Did they break?"

"Not completely," she told him. "You'll probably have to get those checked again."

"Right," he sighed and put his head in his hands as the events of yesterday flooded his mind.

He gulped and looked up at Nina who was staring at him with wide eyes. Hesitantly, she reached up and brushed her fingers over the bruises that covered his neck.

"Isaac…"

Her hands were cold and he closed his eyes for a moment before taking hold of her hand and removing it from his neck. "Don't."

Nina frowned at the word, but she didn't let it faze her as she asked, "What happened?"

"Someone tried to kill me last night," he revealed.

"But how were they able to get in?"

"It was the doctor… He attacked me."

"What?" she furrowed her brow and lightly shook her head. "I don't understand."

"I don't either, but he didn't seem like himself. He was acting robotic and his voice was cold and slimy and his eyes… his eyes were red."

"Did he say anything?"

"Just that he had to kill me," Isaac told her.

Nina nodded and she stood up then. "You should get dressed. Meet us downstairs when you're ready. I'll tell the others what happened."

He waited until she left before walking over to Amber's vanity. He gulped and stared at the marks on his neck before picking up the school uniform that Danielle had brought over. He first put on his slacks, followed by his belt and his shoes. Then, he put on a tank top before grabbing his button up and slipping his arms into it. He buttoned it slowly and adjusted the collar as he brought his tie under it. He frowned upon realizing that it didn't cover all the marks on his neck.

(***)

"So he was attacked?" Mara asked from where she sat at the dining table. "Is he okay?"

Nina nodded. "I think so, but I think it's clear that we need to start watching our backs. None of us should ever be left alone, especially Isaac."

"What are you suggesting?" Patricia asked. "That we use a 'buddy' system?"

"Exactly,"

"I don't think it's us they're after," Jerome speculated. "I think it's Isaac."

"Jerome's right," Fabian agreed. "Every time someone has gotten hurt, Isaac was there and last night the man said that he was ordered to kill Isaac, not us."

"We're not abandoning him, if that's what you're suggesting." Nina glared at Fabian.

He shook his head and stood up. "I'm not saying that. I just think that maybe he hasn't told us everything. He may know more about what's happening."

"We don't know that," Danielle stated.

Patricia scoffed. "That's easy for you to say. We've only known him for a couple of weeks. You two are best friends. How can we really trust him?"

Suddenly everyone began shouting from where they sat and Nina frowned as she looked over at the door by the sofa and saw Isaac watching the teens argue. His eyes were dark and hollow and they sent chills down Nina's spine.

She wanted to know what he was thinking and yet she knew that he wouldn't tell her. They weren't close enough for that… but she wanted to be. Something about the boy intrigued her and she didn't quite know what to do about it.

"Quiet!" Nina's voice filled the room and everyone stopped to look at her, surprised at the demanding nature of the word.

"We can sit here and argue and say that Isaac is the only one they want, but we don't know that. For all we know, they could have a list and Isaac is merely the first one on it. We are in this together. If we start to turn on one another now, who knows what'll happen. We have some information and we're trying to piece it all together and I think that once we do, everything will be so much clearer. Just give me some time."

"Okay, but what do we do about Isaac?" Amber asked. "They want him dead."

"We can't leave him alone," Danielle declared. "One person should be with him at all times and we should try to keep him in public places."

"I don't need a nanny," Isaac spoke from where he stood.

The teens all turned to look at him, all suddenly taking notice of his presence.

"It's for your own safety," Danielle assured him.

Isaac shook his head and grabbed his backpack from where it sat on the sofa. Without another look at the group, he left the house.

Danielle sighed and she also grabbed her things. "I'll take first shift. We have two classes together in the morning."

She walked out then and the group of teens quickly dispersed.

(***)

"Isaac!" Danielle chased after her friend.

Isaac refused to acknowledge her as he sped up. She groaned and ran towards him before she was finally able to step in front of him and stop him.

"You can't just run away from me."

"I'm not running away from you. I'm running away from them!" he confessed.

Danielle frowned and she shook her head. "All they've done is tried to help."

Isaac scoffed and pointed back at Anubis house. "No, all they've done is put my life at risk because they don't know how to let things go. They could've ignored the letter. They could've left us alone, but they just had to take the words of some mysterious messenger. I've been shot and strangled and they have the nerve to sit there and blame it all on me. I'm done with this. I'm done with them and if you choose to stay involved then I'm done with you."

Danielle's face fell at his last words. "Isaac-,"

Before she could say anything else, Isaac walked past her, bumping shoulders with her as he did.

(***)

"I think I've got it figured out," Mick told the group.

They sat outside after classes, watching as Mick deciphered the letters before them.

"What do they say?" Nina asked.

Mick slid the letter over to her and placed his finger on the first few sentences. "Whoever wrote this apparently found a jewel at an excavation site in Egypt. He believes that it's one of the ones from some ancient text depicting a myth. He plans to send it to Peru before sending it to England, in order to authenticate it."

"We found the jewel in Peru," Amber stated as she leaned forward. "I guess it never made it to England."

"What does this mean?" Fabian wondered. "Are the people that tried to kill Isaac looking for this jewel?"

"I don't know," Mick sighed. "The rest of the letters are too damaged to properly decipher. My guess is that we'll be able to learn more by reading up on the myth he mentioned."

"Which is?" Amber waited for Mick to answer.

The blond shrugged. "He didn't mention a name."

"Do you have any idea how many Egyptian myths there are?" Fabian groaned and let his head fall to the table. "I'm going to be in the library for weeks."

"Best get started then," Patricia replied and Fabian glared at the girl.

"Do you think the myth will tell us what abilities we're supposed to have?" Alfie asked. "The suspense is killing me."

Mick shrugged and stood up. "I don't know, but let me know what you figure out."

"Where are you going?" Nina asked.

"I have track practice," he revealed. "And I can't be late again, so I'll see you guys later."

Once Mick walked away, Nina turned back to the group. She sighed as she gathered up all the letters.

"What are you doing?" Amber asked.

"We aren't going to get much done without Mick, so we should talk later," she replied.

Fabian nodded in agreement. "She's right. We might as well head to the library."

Nina watched as the group collected their things and began to desert the area. She frowned and looked down at the letters once more.

There was a part of her that wanted to rip them up and let everything go, but she knew that the action wouldn't accomplish anything. She was already in too deep. They were in too deep. Everyone she cared about was suddenly at risk. It wasn't just her, Amber, Fabian, Patricia, and Alfie. It was the people she shared a home with, the people she had classes with, and the people she had only just begun to get to know.

Perhaps it was just Fabian getting to her. He had had a look in his eyes last night before Isaac came crashing into Anubis house. He had seemed scared. Maybe it's because he had realized something that Nina had come to know about herself pretty early on after moving to England. She attracted chaos. Everywhere she went bad things seemed to happen and danger can only appear so many times in a person's life before it stops being a coincidence. It had to be her.

Nina shook her head then and she lifted it, her eyes meeting Isaac's. The teen stood a couple feet away, dressed in his track uniform, the bruises on his neck darker than they had been in the morning.

"Isaac,"

He took a step back at his name, and Nina could tell that he was debating running away.

"Can we talk?" she asked. The question came out a lot quieter than she intended almost as if she thought that if she spoke too loudly she'd spook him.

His shoulders relaxed slightly and he shrugged. "I don't have anything to say."

"Well I do," she replied. "I'm sorry about this morning."

"What do you have to be sorry for?" he asked. His words were strong and clear yet Nina could see the way his eyes dimmed after they had left his lips.

"They weren't thinking when they said what they said. They're just scared."

Isaac rolled his eyes and he walked up to her. In any other moment, Nina would've stepped back, but the way he approached her wasn't threatening. He wasn't angry… he was frustrated. "Why do you feel like it's your job to apologize for them? Why are you trying so desperately to make me feel better? For all you know, they're right. Maybe I am hiding some big dark secret. I mean, we don't know each other, so why do you bother sticking up for me? Why not trust your friends?"

"Because you're scared too."

Her answer caught Isaac off guard and, for a moment, his hard resolve dissipated and his eyes grew soft. Nina gulped and she stepped forward, but almost as quickly as his mask had fallen, it went back up and he turned away from her.

"I don't want any part of this. I don't want you or any of your friends to talk to me anymore. I want to be left alone."

Then he left her, a feeling of sadness and disappointment settling in her… and she didn't understand why.

(***)

"Nice practice Mick," one of his new teammates patted him on the shoulder before heading to the locker room.

Mick sighed and he wiped the sweat from his forehead as he looked around the now empty track. He picked up his water bottle and began to head down when he spotted a figure approaching the premises. He squinted and focused in on the person before realization dawned on him and he ran over to them.

"Isaac!"

Isaac groaned at the sound of Mick and he turned to find the boy racing over to him.

"What are you doing?" Mick asked.

"I going to run," he replied.

Mick frowned at his answer. "You shouldn't be running."

Isaac rolled his eyes at the comment and proceeded to tie his laces. Mick sighed and he placed a hand on the teen's shoulder. At Mick's touch, Isaac shrugged off his hand and glared at the boy.

"Do you mind?"

Mick frowned and he stepped back, prepared to leave the boy on his own, yet there was something that didn't quite sit right, so he stepped forward instead. "Don't do that."

"Do what?"

"Act like you did when we first met."

The words made Isaac grow stiff and he hesitated for a moment before continuing to tie his laces.

"I know I'm probably not the first one to give you this speech today, but I'm still going to say it because you're acting like a dick and all we're trying to do is help you."

"Help me?" Isaac scoffed and he turned to Mick in a flash. "Before I met you I wasn't a freak with visions. I wasn't in the hospital after being shot. I wasn't strangled and-,"

His voice faltered at the last word and he lightly shook his head before setting his eyes on Mick. "I wasn't strangled and convinced that I was going to die, that the heavy breath I took before someone's hands tightened around my neck would be my last."

There was something about the sentence that made Mick's heart hurt. Before him was a boy that in the span of just a couple of weeks had been through something that the average human would never come close to. That Mick would never come close to… or at least he hoped he wouldn't.

"Look, I'd be lying if I said that I could relate to everything you just said. And I'd be lying if I said that if you continue to help us you won't get hurt, but you need to know that if you were on your own during any of that, you might not have gotten to the point of yelling at me about it. I don't want for what happened in the kitchen this morning to be the reason you turn your back on us and end up getting yourself killed. I care about you Isaac and I need you to know that no one is against you. You're not alone, so please just trust me. Don't push me away."

Mick must've said something right because Isaac let out a long shuddering breath and gulped. "I'm sorry. Sometimes it's just easier to be a dick than to realize that not everyone has bad intentions."

The blond smiled and he gestured towards the row of houses by the track. "C'mon. I'm sure they could use our help."

Isaac nodded and the two made their way to Anubis.

(***)

"Wow, did you guys check out the entire library?" Mick asked upon stepping through the front doors. A majority of the Anubis residents sat at the dining table, which was currently covered by worn leather-bound books, as they flipped through various Egyptian myths.

"We've been reading for over an hour and still haven't found anything concrete," Fabian groaned.

Isaac raised an eyebrow at the teens. "What exactly are you looking for?"

"A myth that has to do with the jewels," Nina told him.

"Oh, you mean the myth of Ptah and Set?"

Suddenly, all eyes turned to Isaac and Fabian slammed his book shut. "What did you just say?"

Isaac looked at everyone before setting his bag down and repeating, "The myth of Ptah and Set?"

"You know the myth?" Patricia gawked at him. "Why didn't you tell us earlier?"

Isaac rolled his eyes. "Sorry, I guess I was a bit too busy getting shot and then strangled."

Patricia frowned and mumbled a quick sorry as she sank into her seat.

"That doesn't matter," Nina insisted as she stood up. "What's the myth?"

"Well, Set, the god of chaos and evil, wanted to find a way to defeat his brother Osiris once and for all, so he asked Ptah, the god of creation, to make him a weapon unlike any other that'd allow him to conquer Osiris. Ptah was hesitant at first, but Set threatened him and so he created the blood rubies, jewels that contained power that even Ra lacked. Set took the jewels and he went to attack Osiris, but before he could, his son, Anubis, stopped him at the gates of the underworld.

"The two battled before Anubis knocked the jewels from his father, and almost broke them. Set was so angry at his son that he tried to kill him, and with all the new power he now possessed he could of, but before he was able to Ptah appeared and revealed to Anubis that the only way to stop Set and keep him from killing Osiris was to kill him and have the jewels reabsorb all the power.

"Anubis then took his staff and drove it through his father, killing him and sending all the power from him straight into the jewels. As Set died, he swore to Anubis that he'd get his power once more. Ptah took back the jewels and buried them in Egypt, in hopes that no one would ever get their hands on them again.

"Legend says that Set's spirit was trapped in one of the jewels along with the power and that if someone were to get the jewels and break them they would receive the powers within, but also pay the consequence of unleashing Set's vengeful spirit into the world. Once Set is released he'll do anything in his power to retrieve the abilities and the fragments of the jewels in order to attain the power once again."

The room was quiet as Isaac finished the tale before Fabian shook his head and turned to him. "So you're saying that when the jewels broke, we released Set into the world and that he is coming after us to retrieve his power?"

"Yes, but Set would need to obtain a human host first before he could get to us," Isaac told him.

"The doctor!" Nina exclaimed. "You said that the doctor had red eyes almost as if he was-,"

"Possessed," Danielle finished for her. "Set's already here."

"Okay, sure, but that doesn't explain the letters and our crazy new teacher," Mick pointed out.

"Someone else must be after the jewels too," Nina concluded.

"So you're saying that not only do we have a crazy gun wielding history professor after us, but we also have a full-fledged Egyptian god that likes to sneak into people's rooms and strangle them in the middle of the night?" Patricia asked. She scoffed and pushed away the book she had been reading. "Awesome."

"Okay, so this may not be ideal," Nina stated.

Jerome crossed his arms over his chest. "You think?"

Nina frowned before gesturing to Isaac. "But at least we now know what we're up against thanks to Isaac."

A slight murmur spread throughout the group and Mick cleared his throat. "So what now?"

It was a good question, one that brought silence back to the teenagers. Nina examined them and took note of the fear and worry in their eyes. They needed guidance and a voice of reason and answers. Nina knew that she was as scared as them, maybe even more, but she still wanted to give them some sort of hope to cling to, some sort of normalcy, so she raised her head and forced a smile.

"How about a movie? My treat,"

She doesn't remember who agreed first, but soon all her housemates were standing up and heading to their rooms to get dressed. Once they were all gone, she let out a deep breath and buried her head in her hands.

"You think a movie will help?"

Isaac's voice broke through and she looked at him before shrugging. "Who knows?"

He nodded and shoved his hands into his pockets. She could see how hard he was trying to not look out of place, but with all the bruises and scars he had acquired since their first meeting, it was impossible.

"What?" he asked and Nina suddenly realized she had been staring.

"What changed your mind?"

He thought for a moment before bringing his own hand to his neck and gently running his fingers over his tender skin. "I don't want to be the guy that only regrets the bad choices he's made in moments of life or death."

The answer made Nina smile and she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him. Isaac was taken aback by the gesture and he remained still for a moment before returning the hug.

"What was that for?" he questioned when she pulled away.

Nina shrugged, her hand moving from his back to the tattoo on his arm. "After everything you've been through, I just thought that you needed a hug."

He didn't say anything for a second before he let out a small breathy laugh. "Thanks."

"No problem," she assured him before finally removing her hand from his arm. "Also, if you don't mind me asking, when'd you get the tattoo?"

Isaac looked down at his bicep then and his eyes widened slightly as if he was only just now noticing the black ink for the first time. "I-,"

Before he could finish his sentence, the Anubis residents flooded back into the room and the moment was lost. Isaac faded into the background and Nina regarded him with a heavy heart, only half listening as Fabian spoke to her.

Isaac tried to make conversation with Danielle, but he could feel Nina's eyes on him. She was getting too close too fast and Isaac didn't quite know how he felt about it, so he pushed back the millions of questions bubbling up in his mind about his tattoo because if he let them come to the surface then he'd be forced to accept that the question Nina had asked, was one he didn't know the answer to.