Chapter 18: Any means necessary

I woke up in my own bed with bandages around my head and a killer headache. I didn't know what happened the first few minutes I lay there in total darkness. Only when I tried to get up (even with my head spinning like it was) flashes of the night before returned to me. The more I moved the more flashes came and I started to realize exactly what I had done. He had taken over again, and he had hurt someone again. I couldn't remember who it was and more importantly I couldn't remember if the person survived. All I knew for sure was that it happened and that I was back to clean up the damage. I was walking further towards the door of my cabin where the light blinded me. I still felt disorientated, obviously someone had hit me on the head pretty hard. When I reached the light at the end of the cabin I was blinded completely. All I could see was white light that hurt my eyes. When that in combination with my dizziness made me realize I had to sit down. The steps on the porch of my cabin felt familiar to me. I had sat there so many times that I knew the view even now that I was blinded. I couldn't see it though, my eyes were still adapting to the light which took a lot longer than it usually did.

"You back to your old self I take it?" I heard Luke's voice say. I looked up at him even though I couldn't see his face. I nodded slightly. "Don't worry, she's alive. Someone saved her." He said. It made me feel better to know that whoever Colt attacked survived, but that didn't fix the problem. He would be back soon and someone else would be attacked, and they might not be lucky enough.

"Who did I attack?" I asked. I still couldn't remember, given he said it was a girl made it easier but it still could be any random girl at camp. Of course Sophie was the first person on my mind. I still didn't know what I would do if I seriously hurt her. Of course there were a few others on my mind. Luke's fiancé for instance. Although if it was Maria he wouldn't be standing in front of me this calmly.

"Dannii Parker, the daughter of Hecate that was with Ethan when you beat him to hell." I remembered her. I still couldn't place her face in my vague memories though. I knew she was there, but I still didn't know more about what had occurred.

"Thanks." I said. I presumed it was him that stopped me by knocking me over the head. He stopped me before so I figured he had done it again. Luckily he was in the woods when Colt returned, either that or Colt had met Dannii in camp but he was smarter than that. Trying to kill a random person in the middle of camp was too risky and more importantly, completely pointless.

"It wasn't me that stopped him mate." I looked up at him with a surprised look on my face. Of course there were others that could take on Colt but if it wasn't him I wanted to know who it was. "There's this girl here that talked to him a few times...Colt seems to like her." That just plain shocked me. As far as I knew he was still a heartless monster that just wanted to cause death and mayhem. It was why I didn't believe Luke at first, until he told me that he saved her life, and that Colt refused to kill her for some unknown reason.

"What's her name?" I asked. I had to talk to this girl. I didn't know why, but she did something that made him act differently towards her and I wanted to know what it was. Of course it wouldn't really change anything. Even if he didn't want to kill her, that still left every other living being. Colt had to go, whether he saved a life or not.

"Paxton Avery." Luke said. "She's in the infirmary with Dannii. You should go there, you'll be able to see what you do to people whenever you lose control." He walked away after he said those harsh words. They were words I always expected from everyone, every time I lost control I was pretty much waiting for someone to tell me what kind of a monster I was but few people ever did. Luke always seemed to do the opposite, but not this time. This time he was cold and unforgiving, not the way I knew Luke. He was changing so much lately, and even though he had a right to say those words, it wasn't for the better.

Like always the infirmary felt familiar in a very negative way. I didn't really have good memories there which wasn't hard to understand. Dannii was the only one recovering there at the moment. Like Luke said there was another girl sitting next to her. She was younger than him, had long straight red hair and green eyes. Even though she was sitting next to her wounded friend she was smiling. It looked like smiling was as comfortable to her as the beds in the Hypnos cabin, obviously she was a cheery girl even in situations like this. Dannii wasn't looking as cheery as Paxton though. She was sleeping right now but even in her sleep you could see she was in pain. I didn't know what kind of wounds she had but if she met Colt I was pretty sure they would hurt more than they would kill. He wanted to cause pain after all, death came much much later.

"Mind if I join you?" I asked her. She looked at me with a smile at first, until she saw my face. I didn't know what she thought of Colt or what she knew of him. Which meant that her reaction could vary quite a bit.

"You're Colt's brother aren't you?" That was one I didn't expect. Brothers? How did she get that idea. It made me wonder what Colt said to her and more importantly to what person. I wouldn't place it besides Colt to want to try and corrupt a cheery girl like her just for fun. "You two really do look alike, exactly alike actually. With some slightly less obvious differences." I knew I should have told her that we weren't brothers but that he was living inside my head. That was always a tough one to explain but it was the truth and it did explain why we looked exactly the same. Which is why I was wondering what these differences that Paxton talked about were.

"Like what?" I was curious what she meant. Physically there wasn't a single difference, we had the same body after all. But she immediately saw that I wasn't Colt which meant there was something.

"Well, like I said you look the same, but the way you use that look is different." She said. "You walk heavier, like something is weighing you down while Colt seems completely careless. You look more exhausted and..." She paused. She didn't know how to explain what the difference was or she didn't want to offend me by saying it. Either way she told me after a short pause. "You seem...sad for some reason." Then she looked at Dannii who was still asleep. "Is it because of what he did to her?"

"It's because of what I did to her." I said. I figured it was best to tell her the truth whether she would believe it or not. "We're not brothers, we're the same person." At first she seemed confused but as I continued to explain she seemed to understand more and more. She was pretty smart to understand so easily and to be able to read the differences between me and Colt with one look.

"So he's pretty much all the bad you have inside you as a person?" She asked me. Honestly I didn't know if he really was all the bad. After all I still had enough bad inside of me without Colt. But as far as I knew he didn't have any good.

"You could put it like that I suppose." Honestly I didn't want to go into very deep details. I didn't want to have to explain everything about my past. Why he was even there took a lot of explaining and I didn't want to go through all that.

"But if he is that evil...than why didn't he kill me?" It seemed to confuse her. To me he was pretty much the devil incarnate but when faced with her he didn't do anything. It was apparently just as strange to her as to me.

"That's exactly what I want to know." Honestly there weren't many explanations. There was absolutely no way to explain it. She told me how she met him, and how he saved her. It didn't sound like him at all, but it wasn't me so who else could it have been?

"I can't think of anything that I could have done that makes me special. I was just nice to him but that's not rare I think." She said. I doubted that could be it. After all most people were nice to him at first because they confused him with me. What could have been different this time? What did Paxton do that made him change so much?

"Whatever it was, you're the only one that will ever be safe from him. Why that is, I don't think we'll ever know." Knowing why Colt did the horrible things he did was hard to understand but trying to understand why he changed his ways for this one girl was a whole different thing. I only knew one feeling strong enough to make a person do such a thing and I always believed Colt was unable to feel that way about someone.

"Can't you ask him? I mean...he's part of you?" She asked. Honestly I could try but I didn't think he would answer me if he knew the answer at all. From what Paxton told me he seemed as unable to explain his actions as I was.

"He might be a part of me, but I don't understand him, not even a little bit." I got up from my seat about ready to leave. I had met the girl that Colt couldn't kill which turned out to be pretty interesting. I still didn't want to be there when Dannii woke up though so the sooner I left the better. I was probably the last person she wanted to see when she woke up.

"Angel...if he can be nice to me...do you think he can change?" Paxton asked me. At first I didn't know how to answer her simply because I didn't even consider it. Colt was all that was wrong in the world, the devil himself. I had never described him any other way. To imagine him being anything else was something that took time.

"I don't know. Everyone can change for the better I guess." I lied. I knew it wasn't possible. For some reason he couldn't kill her but he could still enjoy killing anyone else. Nothing had changed which meant that I had to go do something I hoped I didn't have to. An offer I wish I could have refused. But no more, I had to do it. Whether they would understand or not I would have to go see Jaeden.

It was good to see that the big house was pretty much abandoned. Chiron was giving archery lessons which meant that there was no one there to see me go to the sorcerer that everyone seemed to distrust. It was better that no one knew. It would give us an important head start. I wondered if he knew that I would come back on it. I was reluctant at first, I hoped to control Colt instead of having to do something drastic to get rid of him again. But it had to be done. I couldn't control him obviously and if I let him be he would only get stronger. I walked into his room wondering what was going to happen. He sat there, facing the door with a cup of coffee in his hand. Obviously he was expecting me.

"I figured you'd be here a bit later." He said looking at the clock on the wall. I had seen what he could do, I knew that if anyone could expect me other than someone who saw the future, it was Jaeden. "I heard about the girl, she's alive isn't she?"

"Yeah." I nodded. "But the next person that he attacks might not be as lucky." I knew he would understand that. Of course me being there already meant that I was taking up on his offer.

"So I take it you'll do it then? Even if the price is high?" He asked me. I knew what the others would think, I knew they didn't trust him. I didn't know if I really trusted him. But he was the only way out that I had. I would have to deal with the consequences, but if Colt was gone, it would all be worth it. So I nodded. "Then we better get ready, we have about a week before we need to be there. And there are still preparations to be made" I didn't want to wait, I didn't want to put this off. This had to be done, so the sooner it happened the better.

"So when do we leave?"