Chapter 20

chapter Twenty

*Ariya*

As I sat there slumped against the rock, bleeding out, Mya ran to me.

"It's going to be ok, Ariya! I'm going to heal you! Everything is going to be fine." Mya said frantically.

Pretending to be unconscious, I could hear footsteps approaching us. I felt Mya's hands on my rib cage as she healed the damage. As Mya approached the worst of the damage, I spat up blood right when the footsteps arrived.

"What the hell happened here?!" Justin shouted, a sound of worry in his voice.

"We found Drake!" Mya shouted through tears, "He almost killed them!"

"He was here?!" Jutin asked, a mix of anger and fear in his voice.

"YesJustin! I need your help. I need to get Ariya flat on her back. Hurry! Please!" Mya cried out.

"Oh my God" Justin said as he saw all the blood coming from my head.

Mya placed both her hands on my head as she started healing me. Justin touched his ear piece to key his radio.

"Boss, we have a situation." Justin said, "Yes, I found them. They're in pretty bad condition, Mya is trying to heal Ariya right now. Seems they ran into DrakeYes sir, we'll wait for you to get here."

"How long before he is here?" Mya asked Justin.

"About 10 minutes. Are you going to be able to finish healing her?" Justin asked.

"Yes, I'm almost done now. I'm just closing all the wounds. That should give me enough time to close Link's wounds too." Mya told him.

"I'll help Link get over here." Justin told Mya.

As Justin helped Link over to Mya and I, I could feel Mya closing the last of my wounds. Once Mya closed the last of them, I slowly opened my eyes up. With my right hand I reached up and grabbed Mya's hand. Mya gasped, surprised.

"Ariya!" She cried out, and hugged me, "You're ok!"

"Thank you, Mya." I told her, hugging back. Mya released me and helped me sit up. After I was propped up, she went to Link and began closing his wounds. As I leaned against the rock, Justin came over to me.

"You alright?" Justin asked, his hands touched the left side of my face. "You have a scar now"

"Yeah, thanks to Mya, I'm ok. It's just a scar. Not the end of the world. At least I can see."

"No kidding." Justin nodded, but he still looked concerned. He helped me sit up and pulled his jacket off putting it over me. I looked at him wide-eyed. He didn't say anything, just sat next to me, waiting for Boss to arrive.

As Mya finished closing up the last of Link's wounds, Boss arrived. Boss looked around in horror at the scene. Blood was everywhere. On the rocks, rubble, ground, our clothes, metal rods, and our bodies. Even though Mya healed us, there was still blood all over us. The air was thick with it. We looked as if we had killed hundreds of people. Just the sight of the scene was frightening.

"What happened?" Boss asked.

I started from the beginning, "We were tracking down Drake. We came across a construction zone, cut ourselve getting over the fence. Ran into a vampire. We got beat up pretty bad. During the fight we broke our coms and couldn't communicate back. Just when we thought we were going to be killed, Drake showed up and killed the vampire. He called it a Rabid and took off. We tried chasing him down and I ended up in a struggle with him. Then his hand got cut and he took off again. We tracked him here where we fought him. Obviously we lost."

"But you guys are alive" Boss said, "It looked like you guys were all killed at the first location, and more so at this one"

"I know. He didn't want us though. He just kept taking off."

"You should have come back and got new coms when your first ones broke. You're lucky you guys are alive." Boss chastised us.

I nodded, "You're right, I'm sorry. We were trying to catch Drake though."

"Well let's get you all home so you can get cleaned up, rest and meet back up at work and we can figure out what to do next." Boss said.

When I got home, I was still a mess. I could feel the hunger bubbling up inside me but I ignored it. I opened the door to the house.

"I'm home." I announced to let Drake and Caleb know that it was safe.

"I did a sweep. The place is clean. You look like hell kiddo. How are you feeling?" Caleb asked.

A soft growl escaped from me. Caleb looked at me concerned, then glared at Drake as Drake came up behind me.

"Sorry. I was a little rough. But it had to look believable." Drake said.

Caleb looked back at me, "How hungry are you, Ariya?"

I growled and my eyes changed color as my canines formed into fangs. I stared at the ground.

"You can't drink too much, little one." Drake said, putting his hand on my head.

Caleb looked at Drake and nodded.

"I'll stop you when it's time." Drake promised, taking his hand off of my head.

I looked at Caleb who nodded, then cocked his head to the side. I sunk my fangs in and drank. Just like Drake promised he stopped me. I then went to clean myself up. When I was clean we all sat down to talk.

"Did he believe what you told him?" Caleb asked.

"I think so, but he is still suspicious." I told Caleb.

Caleb nodded in response. I looked at Drake.

"Why do you seem so concerned?" I asked.

Drake sighed, "I haven't seen Keothi since that night, Ariya"