(Hey there! Before you start reading this chapter I just wanted to let you know that I've started a small short story that it tied into the nightworld. Anyone remember Nala? The girl that was haunted by her sister's death and had, at one point, tied herself with nightworld hunters such as Rashel the Cat. The story is called "The Rain is like a Lullaby" Check it out and let me know what you think.)

Chapter 11

That story had scared her, the one where Ash had seen Poppy as a sort of toy one where revenge against his cousin was almost assured. Who was that person? He couldn't be the same person that Ash was now….right?

She sat there and listened to it all and when it was over she wasn't sure how to handle it all. Ash had stood there waiting for a reaction and didn't get any. Mary-Lynnette didn't know what was running through his mind.

"That's why we are leaving." He'd said. "I'm don't want to have to see those two. Not until things are different."

"Why don't you try talking to them? Apologize and show them that you're different." But her words sounded hollow. Could she follow that if she were in his shoes?

"This isn't a Hallmark movie. They aren't going to listen to that." He snapped.

"Why don't you just—"

"What? Try? Get your head out of the clouds for two minutes please! This isn't like back in Hicksville, this is the real world where things aren't so easy to fix!" Ash shouted.

It had hurt, those words, but she wouldn't let on. That was one fault with both of them that seemed to clash all the time. Both were very prideful and both didn't want to lose this battle, this war between them. Why? She would never be able to tell, but right then her pain had fueled something in her.

But she didn't want to be here for him to see that her face was turning red and her eyes that were getting heavy. She had moved toward the door, flinging it open in the process, "Fine! Well the hick won't give you any more help. Seriously Ash you are the most infuriating person!"

It was only because Poppy and James had walked into them that the fight ended. And even though when Ash was seeking comfort from her when his world seemed to be tightening a noose around him both of them were still sore around each other. They had both said hurtful things to one another.

That was another fault about them; both of them really weren't good at saying sorry either.

Thinking, that was all that she wanted right now. Mary-Lynnette only wanted to think about everything. Too much had happened and it was just too fast. With the new people that came it just seemed to bring about its own set of weapons to the battle.

The garden was the only place that she could find solitude for the moment. Ash had gone to talk to Lord Thierry now that he and Lady Hannah had returned from their time together. Since that had happened the world of reality had come crashing down on them all. So Mary-Lynnette had retreated to a place where she hoped that she could sort through some of the many things that she really had no hope of fixing.

The biggest and most important was of Ash. Today it had clicked with a horrible truth: no matter how much she loved him and wanted to be with him could it overcome the fear of his past? Would she be able to completely trust him the way that he trusted her?

How much of me does he really know himself? There wasn't much to tell, but the fact that he was so opened to her about the things that he had done, to prove him to her, what had she offered him?

The first time I turned him away to atone of his faults and the second time I have this built in fear about what he had done.

But he is not the same person he had been when you met him. That's what she kept telling herself, but when the past seemed to be biting him in the ass, her doubts were starting to bubble up more and more.

"Why are you here?" It's the same voice that had started to grate against her nerves the last time they had met, the one who seemed so sure of himself but the moment his thoughts were questioned was unsure and confused.

Timmy stood there; again the way he looked didn't quite match his face or even the clothes that he had one at the moment. The boy had been reduced to a simple tee and a pair of jeans. She really didn't want to deal with him at the moment.

"I'm thinking." She answered, but the usual sharp of her tongue wasn't there. Whether it was because he was a child or because she was just too tired she didn't really know.

"You're a strange creature. You know that right?" He said and cautiously moved closer to her, "Most of the idiots that walk around here and never really leave anywhere without-what do you call them? —'Your soulmates'. They are always walking around drooling over one another and holding hands."

Timmy was waiting for an answer that he wasn't going to get no matter how stubborn the kid was.

"Guess I'm different."

"Your strange. You're not like the other idiots around here. You fight with him. A LOT"

It just confirms everything; we are not the best example of what soulmates should be like at all. "Well I've never been one to follow what the rest of the crowd was doing."

At the moment she really didn't feel like talking, but the boy wouldn't let up. He was filled with questions and the only person he was set on to answer his questions was Mary-Lynnette.

Why was that? "Why are you asking me all of this? You keep insulting me yet you want all these questions you have answered. I'm not sure if I even have the answers that you're looking for."

Timmy stood in front of her, hangs on his hips in that way that made him seem superior to her, she hated that look, " That's why. You are different from the other idiots that walk through here thinking that they can save a world that doesn't need saving. They completely lose sight of reality and think that as long as their world is ok then the rest of the world will be ok in the end."

Was he right? Were Ash and I in the right because we didn't see the world in rainbows and butterflies? But did the other soulmates see the world that way? Mary-Lynnette had never even talked to any of the other circle daybreak members about how they felt or what went on with their soulmates. But did they see the world that way?

But then… that time… "Maybe that isn't true." She said

"What?"

Mare's brow furrowed remembering that time on the hill, "When I had first met Ash the only thing that we could was fight and argue. But there was this connection, this feeling that we found what we were looking for. Ash and I both fought against it."

She remembered his saying that he was hopelessly and desperately in love with her. She didn't wait for Timmy to say something and continued on, but now it seemed like it was more for her own sake then for answering the child, "There was this time on the hill when I knew that I wanted to be with him and for that moment…."

"For that moment what? " Timmy now sat on the ground before her, his face studying her as if she were a teacher. He was curious with anger that was still flashing from before.

She gave Timmy the satisfaction; "I wanted to be turned into a vampire for that moment. To be fierce and indestructible and to be able to see the stars without the help of a telescope, I love the night and had really truly wanted to be apart of it. So I asked Ash to turn me. We started the process and that was when I don't really know. Our minds somehow connected. Ash had never had that happen to him before and I know that nothing like that had ever happened to me. I knew that we had something that no one else had; not even my parents who loved each other had what I had—have."

She stared up at Timmy awkwardly knowing that he probably wasn't really understanding any of this. "I noticed a lot of the things that he had done, many of them were wrong. He was covered in thorns with each of the deeds he had done before he had met me. Now I know that I had sent him away not only because I wanted him to atone of the things that he had done, but also because…. Because I was afraid of him."

The words were choked down because as she was talking, without censorship or over thinking things Mary-Lynnette was finding out the truth about herself, " I am probably the only one in this whole world who has found the one person that completes them and I'm afraid of him. Your right I'm strange because I'm afraid of the one person that I love most in this world."

Timmy watched this stranger trying to hold back tears, spilling out the truth and breaking down in the process. "Why are you telling me all this?"

The girl was trying to regain her composure, keeping herself from letting too many tears slide down her face. "I don't know myself. Maybe because you are the only other one that was questioning everything about this world soulmate principal or maybe its because you don't have one right now. You aren't connected with anyone and see things from a different view. At least I think that's why."

Would I act differently if I had a soulmate? Timmy immediately erased that thought from his mind. That principal was a foolish motion that wasn't possible. IT was a spell or something that even Hunter Redfern knew nothing about and he was one of the oldest vampires that existed. Surely in all of those years he would know if there was any real thing as a soulmate.

"Ugh, I can't believe what I just did. I really need to pull myself together." And just by her words Timmy watch a girl that was breaking into pieces pick herself up and fit them back together like a puzzle piece.

Mare got up, brushing off dirt fro her jeans and looked over back at the mansion. "I got to thank you. Maybe its your superior attitude or because you're a kid but… well… I don't think that I would have come up with all of this and know what to do."

What had happened to the girl that had started to break down only a few minutes ago Timmy wasn't sure about? Immediately there was this new fire in her eyes against the tears that were already being forgotten. How can she change personality so quickly?

Perhaps it was her own power? That power that humans had throughout history he' read through books in Hunter's library. It was a strange power that made them do extraordinary things when the odds are against them. Hunter had always said that those humans had stolen something from a nightworlder. But this seemed to come from herself…. how was that?

"Thanks Timmy. I'll see you around ok?"

Something would happen that day that would change everything for them. Neither would know that they were both tied together in the events that were about to happen.