Rachel

Cassie and Ax had taken me home to my frantic mother. I had collapsed in her arms as soon as she opened the door. Cassie stayed a while trying to calm me down with the help of my mum and dad. When I had finally calmed down, Cassie, Ax and I went upstairs to talk a bit when we were visited by a red tailed hawk and an osprey. Tobias and Marco. Jake was having a hard time. According to Marco, Jake couldn't walk by himself and had to stop constantly when they were walking back. I hadn't been much better, but at least I could morph.

When I thought about it, Jake had it the worst out of all of us in this stupid war and it had gotten a whole lot worse for him.

We stayed up most of the night talking. It was strange, it was the first time that any of us could talk about our feelings so openly. I felt guilty that Jake wasn't with us, but I didn't expect we'd get anything out of him. We sat in silence for a while, thinking about everything that had happened that night, trying to get our heads around it and by the end of that silence Cassie's parents had driven over to pick her up and Marco's dad had rang Jake's mum that rang Rachel's mum and he was forced to leave. Tobias and Ax finally left out the window and I was left all by myself to cry myself to sleep.

I woke up the next morning wondering why the hell my pillow was so moist, and then I remembered.

"Hey, how are you this morning?" my dad was standing in the doorway.

"Fine," I mumbled, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes.

"If you want to talk about anything, I'm here for you," he said, quietly.

"Thanks dad, but I'm fine."

He looked at me shrewdly.

"Alright, then," and he walked away.

I flopped back down on my pillow feeling like someone had just stomped me flat.