Chapter One

Landon woke up screaming. It was his first night back since MG had ripped out his throat. He had been skittish during car ride back to the Salvatore school. He had spent the entire drive in the back seat, unable to keep himself glancing over at MG.

He had thought that maybe once he had gotten some distance from both the forest and MG he'd be able to process the events of last night better, but here he was. Waking from a nightmare up in a cold sweat, screaming bloody murder. Turns out that dying tends to leave quite an impression on those who experience and manage to come back. Go figure.

"It's ok, it's fine, you're fine. You're not dead, you can't die, everything is gonna be ok." He said to himself right before Raf nearly broke down the door getting into the room.

"Landon! Are you ok?!" Hope asked, quickly sitting up from where she lay next to him. She checked him over while Raf stood at the foot of his with a worried expression on his face.

"What happened, Lan? Is there a monster?" Raf questioned, his eyes darting back and forth across the room to make sure there wasn't anything else in the room with them.

Taking a few deep breaths in order to calm down, he managed to respond "No, no monster just a normal old-fashioned nightmare. I'm sorry I woke you guys up."

"Regular nightmares don't usually involve waking up screaming you head off." Hope retorted concern still present in her gaze.

"Yeah, and don't worry about waking me up I was making my way in from a run. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been able to hear if I hadn't been passing by the door. Which is weird now that I think about it…" Raf said with a confused expression as he turned to inspect the door.

"Silencing spell." Hope answered. "Living in a school where almost everyone has super-hearing means you get zero privacy unless you take some precautions. But that's not important right now."

She ran her hand through the hair on the side of his head, letting if fall to a rest on cheek, she once more asked "Are you sure you're ok?" while looking him in the eyes.

He cupped her hand with his own and half-jokingly replied, "Yeah, guess dying takes some getting used to."

He moved to get out of the bed as he continued speaking, "Honestly, it was just a nightmare. That being said, I think I need some time to process everything that's happened to me in the last 24 hours so I'm going to head down to the dock for a little bit."

Hope immediately moved to join him, "I'll come with you."

"I appreciate that you want to help me and keep me safe, but I think I just need some time alone with my thoughts." He turned to leave and place his hand on Raf's shoulder. "I'm fine, brother. I promise."

Raf snorted, hugged Landon and replied, "If you say so, Lan. But I'm warning you, if you step a foot outside of school grounds I'm going wolf and chasing your ass down."

Landon returned the hug "Ok then. Deal."

With the threat of being hunted down properly delivered, Raf made his way out the door and towards his room. Leaving Landon with alone with Hope once again.

He turned to so wish her a goodnight in case he didn't make it back before she managed to fall asleep, only to find himself being pulled into a slow lingering kiss. Her right hand clutching his head while her left slyly worked it's way up his back.

"That whole hunting you down thing, goes double for me. Understood?" she asked breathlessly as she pulled away. Leaving him to clumsily stumble backwards as he searched for a response.

"umm… hunting, double, right, that, you me, sure…." That…. was not the response he was looking for, he berated himself mentally as he made his way down the hall, simultaneously laughing internally at the pun he hadn't said out loud.

Hope wouldn't get it yet, but one of these days he was going to sit her down and forceher to watch the original trilogy with him. He slowed at that thought, Two star wars puns in under a minute, maybe Lizzie is right, maybe I do have a problem….. Nah couldn't be. He silently chuckled to himself.

While successfully distracting himself from the phantom pain in his neck that he had been feeling since his nightmare had woken him up, sci-fi puns were not the reason he had decided to walk to the nearest body of water he could find.

No, that was almost entirely the result of the pulsating red dot he could see in the upper right-hand corner of his periphery.

Having only recently discovered he was a phoenix left him with a lot of questions. He had no idea what he was capable of or how to control his powers. He didn't know whether he was dangerous to his friends or not. Which was the very reason he'd assured them that he was fine and kept them as far away from him as he could for the moment.

He had an almost undeniable urge to mentally press the dot, and no idea what would happen when he did. It's why he currently found himself sitting on the docks. "Worst comes to worst, I can just lean forward and fall into the water. That way no one gets hurt." He said to no one. "Alright, come on, no more stalling."

As he finished psyching himself up, he took on finally look at the button and pressed.