A/N: I just recently checked my hits……my story page has apparently been viewed a total of 125 times…Not a ton. Anyway, Here's chapter seven!
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"You'll be okay, Darren." She said quietly. A white glow touched his shoulder and the same warmth he had felt that night around the fire spread from the point of her touch, all down his body. "You'll be all right."
And he got no farther.
He passed out.
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"I'M SICK OF WAITING! I WANT TO KNOW WHERE MY SISTER IS NOW!" Sam yelled.
It had been 2 days since Darren and Whisper had gone on their walk, and they hadn't yet come back. Sam and Evra were currently having a "discussion".
"I want to know where they are as much as you do, but deafening everyone within a 30-mile radius is NOT helping!" Evra hissed back. "Everyone's doing all they can to find them, Mr. Tall finds it appropriate that no one leave the camp!"
"MR. TALL SAID THIS, MR. TALL SAID THAT, MR. BLOODY TALL IS DOING NOTHING!" Sam roared. Sam's voice had deepened a bit in the past month or so, and when he yelled, it was ear-shattering.
"Mr. Tall is doing nothing because he CAN'T do anything!" Evra exclaimed, his voice rising for the first time.
Sam just yelled in his frustration as a reply. He had been pacing up and down for that last hour, bellowing at anyone who dared speak to him. When Darren and Whisper didn't come back for hours after they left for their walk, Sam and Evra thought nothing of it, they figured that Darren and Whisper had finally hooked up and would be gone for a while. But when they still weren't back in the morning, they started to panic. Sam had been a nervous wreck since then.
Evra was keeping a cool head, but inside, his mind was screaming with worry, and he felt like he might explode. He was going insane with worry over his two friends, and he was anxious about Darren, as he had yet to drink blood. It was bad enough as it was, with the Cirque, but trying to survive in the middle of the woods? He was worried.
He was worried for their lives.
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Two days earlier
When Darren awoke, he found himself on a soft patch of grass. He could hear the sound of rushing water somewhere near. He sat up and looked around fully, so as better to examine his surroundings. The sun was just rising, the sky a pretty orangey-pink color, getting darker and darker as it reached the heavens. The river was about twenty feet away from him, flowing quickly. About a yard away, sleeping soundly under a tree with a big book tucked under her arm - was Whisper.
He slowly tried to stand; expecting pain to shoot through his body, but he successfully rose to his feet without even wincing. He felt fine. Good, even. He looked down at his body, bewildered to find only faint bruising around his ribs. Not that he was surprised he was bruised, but that he could see them……shouldn't he be……
His eyes flew open.
He was shirtless, and his pants had been cut into shorts, the cuttings used to bind a wound that was on his upper arm. He looked around wildly, looking for his shirt, shoes, and socks. His shirt was hanging over a tree branch – the one Whisper was sleeping under - blowing freely in the breeze. His shoes and socks were resting directly under it. Apparently, they were being hung to dry, which wasn't so unusual. But who they were taken off by was unusual.
Darren walked gingerly over to where Whisper slept, standing over her for a moment, watching her sleep. Her clothes and hair were still a little bit damp from the river, and her shirt clung to her body. She breathed deeply end evenly, and her face was peaceful.
"Whisper," he murmured. She didn't move, and continued to sleep.
"Whisper," He said, a little louder this time… still nothing. He crouched down and nudged her a little bit. She stirred, her brow furrowed and she muttered something inaudible.
"Whisper, wake up!" He said, with more force, nudging her again. Slowly, she opened her eyes. She just stared for a moment, then her eyes focused on Darren's face.
"Darren!" She muttered groggily, shifting herself into a sitting position, her back leaning against the small tree. He was about to ask her what had happened last night, but decided to let her wake up fully first and collect herself.
"Hey," He said, smiling softly at her, "Are you all right?"
"Yes, I'm fine…Yourself?" She replied, adjusting her clothes.
"I'll live." He said, looking around. Bringing his head back around to face her, he found her guiltily staring at her feet, predicting the inevitable.
"Whisper.." He began softly, but stopped immediately when he saw her express more emotion at once than he had ever seen her do before – She started to cry. Bringing her eyes up to look him in the face, silent tears welled from the corners of her eyes and slowly rolled down her cheeks.
Taken aback, Darren gasped inwardly.
"I know what you're going to say and think…I understand if you want to just leave me here." She croaked. She then brought her eyes back down to her feet sadly. Still making to attempt to get the tears off of her cheeks, Darren decided to get them for her.
Nervously, he reached out and cupped her face with one hand, gently brushing away one of her tears with the thumb on that hand, and turned her face up, forcing her to look at him.
"Now why in the hell would I do that?" He asked softly, but firmly. He gaze shot back into his own and she looked at him, apparently shocked.
"I suppose you – you want an explanation," She choked out, still obviously surprised he was going to hear her out. When he didn't respond, but took his hand away from her face, she took it as a hint to continue.
"In truth, Sam is not my brother… His parents adopted me right off of the street from a country some ways from here," She began, speaking slowly as if trying to word her story just correctly.
"I was a young child when they found me…maybe around five or six years old. I had been living on the street for a few weeks, having run away from an awful orphanage. At the time, I hadn't realized why my parents abandoned me, or why the matron at the orphanage hated me, or why the other children there shied away from me. I always knew I was a little bit different… but…" and she broke off, seemingly needing to regain her composure. He let her
take several deep breaths before continuing.
"After a while of living here with Sam, his parents, and his brothers and sisters, they eventually accepted that I was different, and considered me their sister and daughter, which I have been ever since." She said. She didn't give any signs that she wanted to continue, but there was a huge hole in her story.
"So what's wrong?" He asked her, encouraging her to elaborate.
She sighed, but yielded.
"The first strong memory have of discovering my…uniqueness, was an incident when I was around seven, when we were camping. Well, we weren't really camping, but it was me and Sam at a summer camp, and we were riding on the horses as one of the day's daily activities. It was all okay, until Sam's horse started to flip out, and he was bucked off. I remember the exact shade of the horse's coat, the exact smell in the air, and I remember very vividly the two seconds it took for my adoptive brother to hit the ground, flat in his head. The horse ran off, and all of the camp counselors and myself all ran towards him. It felt like time had stopped. He didn't get up. I…" And she trailed off yet again, struggling at reliving this particular memory. Darren took her hand reassuringly, smiling weakly at her, goading her on.
She nodded and swallowed hard. "I had the strangest sensation creeping from my heart, like my blood had been replaced with a warm, thick cream, pumping from my heart all down my limbs, and into my fingertips. Before I knew what I was doing, I was at his side, holding the back of his neck, and my hand was on his chest… And suddenly, the creamy sensation left my system through my hands and……it was like my hands were putting the sensation into his neck and collarbone. I just remember this white glow around my hands, and my hands were warm… it was so peculiar. The counselors just stared at me. Then Sam woke up… and he was fine! Not a single scratch on him! The counselors and the camp leader called Sam's and my parents than night and said we were a freak show…and that we were banned from there. I learned from that. From then on… it was different. I didn't have any friends growing up… and I still don't have that many." She finished. He obviously expected him to assume what her life was like, fill in the holes with guesses…why she was the way she was. It was understandable.
"So…you heal people." He said bluntly, more to himself than anyone else. His mind was racing. How on hell do you keep something like that to yourself? How?
She smiled sadly. "Yes, I guess you could call it that… I never thought of it that way, though."
"What do you call it then? The mechanic of the human anatomy? The Mr. Fix-It of the man?" He joked lightly, trying to cheer her up.
She chuckled, and sighed. He scooter up beside her, and they sat next to each other, much like they had the day before.
"You know," She began hesitantly, "It's kind of nice to have that off of my chest… thanks." She muttered.
"Huh? Oh… sure… any other secrets?" He asked, only half-joking.
"Hey now, I just spilled my big secret for the whole world to see… What's your secret, Mr. Shan?" She asked, smiling.
Darren froze.
Should he tell her?
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A/N BWA HA HA HA HA HA! You'll have to wait for the next chapter to come! Sorry for the delay… But anyway, send in those reviews and tell me what you think!