Black Moon Beginnings

chapter Twenty-Five

I am planted on the porch, in the middle of a battle. Across the yard, people are in the midst of fighting. Dravin is nowhere to be seen. Of course he wouldn’t show up to a fight that he initiated. Colton is off to the right side, fighting against Adam. Their swords are clanging against each other in a metal on metal beat. I watch them for a moment. Colton’s movements are strong and precise. He knows exactly what he’s doing. The muscles in his arms ripple with each movement of his sword. It takes everything in me to look away.

Everyone else is fighting in different locations throughout the yard against Gadramicks. Tom and Bragden are fighting off numerous people at once, while David remains close to Emma to protect her. I spot myself standing in the middle of field fighting Thomas.

I have a sword in my hand, moving in ways I didn’t think were possible for me. I’m incorporating all my gymnastics tricks, but because so many people are in a small space, it’s hard to do all the moves that I know I’m capable of. I can feel the magic emanating from my body. I’m not fighting fairly, but I’m still not gaining any leverage on him. Thomas is larger than Bragden so this fight is definitely more difficult.

I hear Colton cry out. I, along with the vision version of myself, turn to see what happened. Blood is dripping down Colton’s arm where Adam’s sword had sliced him. That is all the distraction that Thomas needed. He knocks the sword out of my hand and back hands me, knocking me to the ground. I quickly roll over, avoiding his foot as he attempts to kick me. I jump up and spin around, bringing my arm full of magic out to punch him in the stomach. He doesn’t flinch. Smiling at me, he deflects my arm and thrusts his other arm into my stomach. Tearing through skin and muscle, his sword implants itself in my abdomen. I gasp and look into his eyes. His large brown eyes are looking down at me with amusement. He’s going to enjoy watching me die.

“RYANNE!” I hear Colton yell. I start to run towards myself, but I know that there’s nothing I can do. This is a vision. No one knows I’m here and I can’t interfere. Colton drops his sword and punches Adam in the jaw, sending him onto the stone patio. Hitting his head, Adam falls to the ground unconscious. Thomas jerks his sword out of my body and I stare at him before crumbling to the ground. I reach myself as blood starts to dribble out of my mouth.

Larkin blinks in behind Thomas and stabs him through the heart. He claws at the sword, but Larkin pushes it in deeper. Yelling over his shoulder to Colton, Larkin says, “Get her out of here!” I watch as my eyes close and my body starts convulsing. Blood is soaking the ground beneath me, turning the green grass a deep red. Colton scoops me up and runs towards the house

I gasp myself awake. I am upright, but fully leaning against Colton. Thank goodness he caught me. Everyone is watching me, waiting for me to explain what I saw. Bragden appears the most confused and worried. He’s never seen me go into a vision before. It always looks and feels like I’m fainting.

“Ryanne, what did you see?” asks Colton. His arms are still propping me up, which is probably a good thing, because I’m not sure if I can stand on my own. I can’t respond. My body starts shaking. I had a feeling that something was going to happen, but actually seeing it is a different story. Now, I have to go into tomorrow, knowing that I am going to die that night.

“What’s wrong with her?” Bragden demands.

Colton scoops me up and walks to the living room, placing me on the couch. Crouching down in front of me, he grabs my chin and forces me to look at him. “Ryanne, what did you see?”

“I saw my death.” Colton’s eyes widen, but he doesn’t say anything. He’s the only one. His hand falls from my chin. Sitting back, he runs his hand through his hair. I notice that he does that a lot. Everyone else starts talking at once.

“How is that possible? What? Who did it? Where were the rest of us?”

“Quiet!” Colton yells at everyone.

Liam walks over and sits beside me, “Are you sure that’s what you saw?”

“Yes. I was stabbed through the stomach. I saw myself fall, blood poured out of the wound, and then I started coughing up blood.”

“Where were we? Where was I?” asks Logan. I rehash the whole vision for everyone—not leaving out a single detail. They need to know everything. Visions aren’t set in stone, because the future isn’t. Only the past is. There is always a chance that something will change, but I’m not going to bet too much on it.

“It was one thing assuming that I was going to die tomorrow, but actually seeing myself…” My voice cracks. “He was laughing at me...”

“It’s not going to happen, Ry. We’re not going to let it happen. Visions can always be changed. We’ve seen that already,” says Colton. “What I don’t understand is why we were all split up. Why didn’t we stick together?”

Focusing on my lap, I stop listening to their conversation. I don’t know the answers to his questions. I told them everything I know. My mind keeps drifting back to the yard, when Thomas was standing over me, satisfaction in his eyes, as he watched me fall to the ground. It’s weird to see how quickly life can leave a person. A second after being stabbed, I looked like death. My pale skin whitened. My eyes looked dull and void of any exuberance and pain etched across my face.

I can’t get the images out of my head. The way the blood pooled around my body, creating an orb surrounding my torso. The way its deep coloring contrasted with my abnormally pale skin as it flowed out of my mouth. The worst part was the look on Colton’s face. The look that told me he blamed himself for not being able to stop it from happening. The look of pure helplessness, knowing that there’s nothing that can be done.

I am only eighteen. There are so many things that I have yet to do in life. I’ll never fall in love or get married. I’ll never have a chance to settle down somewhere and start a family. I don’t want to die, not yet anyways. More than that, I don’t want anyone blaming themselves for my death.

Even more than that, I know that I don’t want to dwell on what is going to happen. I bring my attention back to the present and find everyone still talking about the vision. I stand up and walk past everyone, towards the stairs.

“Where are you going?” Emma calls after me.

“I’m going upstairs to change out of these clothes. I don’t want to dwell on my imminent death anymore. I’d rather forget that today may be my last day. I’m going to push it out of my mind like I do your thoughts. I’m going to go into tomorrow and fight with everything I have. If something changes, awesome. If not…well there’s not much any of us can do about it right now.” I walk up the stairs and out of sight.

Dressed in a pair of white shorts and a large shirt, that I think I took from Liam, I grab my notebook and iPod and go to the entertainment room. Everyone will find me soon enough. Turning on Pandora, I sit down in the chair that I usually share with Liam and begin drawing. Drawing people isn’t my expertise, but today I feel like drawing a person.

I draw an extreme close-up on a face; the eye encompassing the majority of the page. I am shading it, when I see everyone walk into the room. My music is so loud, that I can’t hear anything they’re saying. Liam stops in front of me. Without looking up, I stand up and wait for him to sit down. He pulls me back to the seat once he is comfortable. Sitting on his lap, I shift until I am in a decent position and then continue drawing. The final detail is a small tear cascading from the corner of the eye.

Turning my music down, I flip the page and begin drawing another picture: my dream house. It’s an old Victorian house with a wraparound porch on the ocean. Its faded white paint chipping is in some areas giving it character. Sea gulls are flying over head. In my mind, I can hear the sound of the ocean slamming in small waves against the shore line. Liam reaches up and pulls one of the headphone pieces out of my ear. “What are you drawing?”

“My dream house. It’s what I always imagined I’d end up living in when I was older. An older rustic house. Nothing new. Nothing fancy. Near the ocean, so I would wake up hearing the gulls and the waves hitting the shore every morning.” I smile thinking about it. It sounds so silly to want something so simple. These guys are used to large lavish homes, so I’m sure they think it’s weird to want something so small.

“Something close enough to civilization that you’d still be connected to society, but far enough out for peace and quiet?” Colton whispers.

I take my other headphone out, “Yeah. Exactly.”

“Can I see that?” He nods towards my notebook, I hand it to him. After a couple of seconds, he says, “I’ve always wanted something similar.” That surprises me. “I’ve lived in a large house my whole life. At times, it feels like it could swallow you whole. I want to live somewhere where I feel comfortable and am able to fully be myself. Where I don’t feel like there’s a role I have to play.” I’ve never seen Colton speak so honestly before. His whole demeanor changes when he’s lost in his thoughts. He looks…younger. I can’t help it. I don’t care who else sees me; I can’t take my eyes off of him. My heart literally hurts because of how much I like him, but I keep visualizing him kissing Natasha. Knowing he is interested in another girl, hurt. A lot.

He clears his throat and stops looking at the page. Jerking my eyes away from him, I look up at Emma. She smiles sympathetically at me, recognizing the look on my face. Colton starts to hand me the notebook back, but Bragden asks to look at it.

“Are these flames?” he asks looking down at the large flames encompassing an entire page.

“Yeah. Actually, it’s Liam’s tattoo.”

“Is this Liam? You drew Liam?” Apparently to Bragden, it’s preposterous that anyone would draw him.

“In my defense, I drew that before I knew him; back when I thought he was just a figment of my imagination.”

“You’re really good. Like ridiculously good.”

Before I can respond, Tom comes into the room, “We’ve got some people coming over early. They’re going to sleep downstairs tonight.”

“Who?”

“The Stapleton’s.” David, Colton, and Logan all curse. Shocked, the rest of us turn to Tom to see if he’ll explain what the problem is. “James and Phillip Stapleton are, how can I say this, a little brazen when it comes to females.”

“I don’t get it.” I say.

Colton explains, “Ryanne, on a scale of one to Adam. They are just below Adam.” Oh, I completely understand Adam terminology.

“I just thought that I would warn you.”

With that, Tom leaves. “Emma, Ryanne, tonight and tomorrow, just don’t go anywhere on your own. James has increased strength, so make sure you’re not alone near him. Especially him,” David warns.

Could a guy really be this bad? It seems a little extreme.

For an hour we all sit in the entertainment room, just talking. No movie is playing. We just talk, laugh, and get to know each other more. It’s probably the most I’ve ever laughed. No one acknowledges my supposed death tomorrow. We push all problems to the back of our minds and just enjoy each other’s company.

When the doorbell rings, we all tense. Something obviously happened between Colton, David, and Logan and James and Phillip, but no one will tell us what. Walking down the stairs, I start to get nervous. Colton and Liam stay on either side of me with Bragden in the back. David and Logan stay close to Emma. They’re completely serious about these guys.

Two young men, mid-twenties I would assume, are standing with Tom in the entryway. They look exactly the same to me, except one is slightly more muscular with sandy brown hair, while the other has dark black hair. I’m assuming that the muscular one with brown hair is James.

When we stop in front of them, Colton reaches out and shakes hands with them. “Hey Colton, how’ve you been?”

“I’ve been good, James. You?” His voice is tense.

“Good.” James’s eyes travel from Colton and stop on me. I take a step closer to Colton. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friends?”

Colton is clenching and unclenching his hands. James isn’t being subtle in the way he is leering at me. I am glad that I’m wearing a large t-shirt, instead of the fitted clothing that I’ve been wearing. Even with the large shirt, I still feel very exposed.

“Of course. James, Philip, this is Ryanne,” he extends his hand. I glance down at it for a second and then look towards Colton. He briefly nods his head, so I place my hand in his. When our hands connect, he pulls me towards him, using a little more force than is necessary, so I slam into his chest. I can hear the guys exhale angrily behind me. He grins at me, before bringing my hand up to his mouth and kissing it; his eyes never leaving mine.

“It’s nice to meet you, Ryanne.” Not politely, I yank my hand away from his.

Backing up, I say, “Likewise.”

When I near him, Colton puts an arm across my shoulder and pulls me closer. I let him. I don’t like how James keeps looking at me. “James, this is Liam, Bragden, and Emma.” He just points to each person. He politely nods to each person. His eyes linger on Emma, before looking back to me. Phillip just stands off to the side quietly.

“James, Phillip, why don’t you come with me. I’ll show you to the guest bathroom, so you can wash up a little before dinner,” says Tom.

When they leave the room, I turn towards Colton, “That guy gives me the creeps.”

“Is he always that…obvious?” asks Liam, disgusted.

“Yep. And it’s obvious who he’s interested in,” David answers. “We’ll have to keep an eye out for you, Ryanne.”

I start messing with the end of my shirt, another nervous habit I have acquired. It’s too large anyways. Twisting it around my hand, I wonder how this night is going to go. After meeting James and Phillip, I’m definitely going to heed David’s advice and stick with someone at all times.

After witnessing my nervous habit, Liam looks at me, concerned. He seems to finally get a good look at me, “Is that my shirt?”

I glance down and nod. “Yeah, I forgot to give it back to you after I washed it. It was clean, so I just changed into it. You don’t mind, do you?”

He shakes his head and opens his mouth to talk, but Claire comes out of the kitchen and announces that dinner is ready. “If either of those boys tries to touch you…Ahh.” She angrily walks back into the kitchen.

“Whoa, I’ve never seen Claire like that,” Emma says. It’s true though. I’ve rarely seen Claire as anything but calm and collected. James, Phillip, and Tom are all already at the table, waiting for us when we walk in. The guys take the seats, directly across from them. Emma and I sit at the end of the table.

It’s very awkward to say the least.

“So, Ryanne, are you prepared for the fight tomorrow?” James asks.

I feel my whole body tense thinking about my earlier vision. “Yeah, I can’t really prolong it anymore, I guess.” I stop eating and look down at my plate. I’m not really hungry for spaghetti, but I don’t want to be rude. “I just have to accept whatever tomorrow brings and deal with it.” I smile sadly, forgetting that I’m supposed to be ignoring him. “Life’s too short, you know?”

I know he can tell that there is something more to what I am saying, but he just nods and finishes eating. He doesn’t try to talk to me the rest of the dinner. However, he does keep glancing over at me. In fact, I feel most eyes on me during the course of the meal.

Once dinner is over, we head back to the entertainment room. Colton turns towards me, still gripping my arm, “What was that about?” I don’t understand what he is referring to. “Talking to him like that.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I forgot who I was talking to. I have a lot of my mind!”

His grip lessens on my arm. He leans back against the armrest of the couch and runs his hand through his hair. We are both aware of everyone watching us. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to yell at you. I just don’t like how he was looking at you. Like you were some treat that he couldn’t wait to devour.” I roll my eyes. I know that he is being serious, but I want to lighten up the mood in the room a little. Everyone is so solemn right now.

“Everyone else in the room can see it. Everyone else but you. You don’t know you’re beautiful,” he says, the corner of his mouth rising with a small smirk. He knows that I understand the reference and is waiting for my reaction. I clamp my lips together in a tight line, trying to keep in my laugh in check, but fail at this feat. My laughter is apparently infectious because everyone starts laughing with me. I double over and finally sit on the ground when I can’t catch my breath.

“I can’t believe you just quoted a One Direction song.” It is okay for girls to listen to a boy band, but this is Colton. The fact that Colton knows One Direction is really hilarious to me.

“Someone help the girl, she can’t breathe.” I glance over and see James leaning against the doorframe, his arms crossed over his chest, with a cocky smile splayed across his face. My laughter dwindles when I see him looking at me. Colton stands up and reaches down to help me off of the ground.

“Excuse me James. Ryanne, can I please speak with you?” James slowly steps out of the way to let Claire into the room, but his eyes never leave me. Claire peeks her head into the room from the doorway. I can feel the urgency in her tone. She motions with her head to meet in the hallway. Letting go of Colton’s arm, I walk past everyone and briefly pause in front of James. He raises his eyebrows, as if silently challenging me. Understanding that he isn’t going to move, I squeeze past him in the doorway, brushing up against him in the process.

Ignoring his chuckle, I meet Claire in the hallway. “I know about your vision,” she tells me.

“You do? How? I told everyone not to say anything to you or Tom.”

“You can’t keep things from me, honey. I have ways of finding out information.” Smiling cryptically, she continues, “I figured it out during dinner when you were talking to James. You seemed so lost in your thoughts. Anyways, don’t worry child. You’re not going to die tomorrow.”

“I’m not?” I want to believe Claire, I really do. “But I saw…?”

“You didn’t see the full thing, Ryanne. You only saw a small section of what’s going to happen tomorrow. You’re all going to be fine…well you’ll all be alive.” I jump towards her, excited at this news, and wrap my arms around her in a hug. She chuckles and hugs me back.

“Thank you for telling me, Claire.” I can feel my eyes start to water; happy, relieved tears this time.

“You’re welcome. You’re like the daughter I never had, Ryanne. I know you have a lot of pressure on you right now, but everything will turn out right in the end. You’ll see.” I can hear the sadness in her voice. I look at her and notice her eyes are tearing up as well. I open my mouth to ask her what’s wrong, when she responds first. “Nothing, dear. Go back to everyone else.”

It seems like everyone can read my mind, when I am trying so hard to not read theirs. She lightly pushes me towards the entertainment room.

Halfway to the entertainment room, I hear someone walking behind me. “Why, hello Ryanne.” I stop dead in my tracks and slowly turn around.

James is standing too close for comfort. I take a step back to distance us a little, but he follows my steps. My breathing starts to become erratic. He continues to walk towards me, until I am pushed up against the wall. Placing his large hands on either side of my head, he creates a cage around me with his body. I glare up at him, but remain silent.

“You’re hard to get alone.” I frantically search for a way to escape, but come up empty. I know that James is a lot stronger than me. In fact, he’s a lot stronger than any of the mages I’ve fought against before. This is just like what Adam did last year. My heart rate increases and my breathing becomes erratic as the situation sinks in. I am starting to panic. I don’t want to know how far James will go with this charade.

“Please let me go. Everyone is waiting for me,” I whisper; my fear not letting anything louder come out.

“They can wait a little longer.” James starts to lean in. I turn my head to the side and start struggling to get out. He grips my shoulders and pushes me further into the wall, preventing me to move. He buries his face into my neck, inhaling deeply, and releases a moan of pleasure. One hand slips down my shoulder and slowly down my arm to my waist and continues down until it is resting against my thigh. I feel his lips trail down my neck. The hand resting on my thigh starts moving north. When I feel his hand against my bare stomach, I start fighting again. He’s getting angry. With his other hand, he grabs my wrists, squeezes tightly and growls menacingly for me to stop struggling. That obviously makes me fight harder. When his hand reaches the bottom of my ribcage, I remember what happened to Natasha earlier when I got angry enough.

Calling my energy is easy because of how angry I already am. I use more on James than Natasha since he’s so large. He’s leaning in towards me again when I release the magic. It connects with his chest. It doesn’t send him flying back into the wall like did Natasha, but it causes him to stagger back a couple of steps and release my arms, giving me the leeway I need to run the rest of the way to the entertainment room.

Once inside the room, I turn around, slam the door, and lock it. I lean against it to try and catch my breath before reluctantly turning and meeting everyone’s eyes. I’m attempting to keep a placid expression, despite my inner turmoil, but I know that they all can see through my façade.

Colton and Liam both jump up when they see me and start speaking at the same time. “What’s wro-” Liam asks.

“James?” guesses Colton.

I shake my head and walk over to everyone at the couch. Liam and Colton are still watching me as I lean against the armrest. I attempt to wave off their questions, but the movement of my wrist sends a jolt of pain through my hand. I examine my wrists and frown at the sight. My naturally small wrists are swollen and red with a large bruise forming on each.

“Did he do that?” yells Colton. I flinch at the anger in his voice, before slowly nodding. He clenches his fists and angrily brushes past me.

“Colton, don’t.” I stand up and try to call after him, but Liam tells me to wait here. He walks out of the door after Colton. When we hear shouting in the hallway, we all quiet and listen.

“He can’t just attack her in our house! He’s a guest here! Someone needs to put him in his place.”

“I know, but we really need him tomorrow. Afterwards, you can put him in his place,” Tom reasons.

“Listen to him Colton,” Liam says with the anger palpable in his voice. “This won’t solve anything.”

Colton stalks back into the room and sits brooding on the couch, mumbling something about smacking the smug look off his face. I watch him as he clenches and unclenches his hands. I want so badly to try and take away some of his anger; I want to see him smile again. He looks up and sees me watching him. His piercing gaze slowly travels down to my hands and I watch as his hardened expression turns on Logan.

“What? Don’t take your frustration out on me.”

“Couldn’t you have healed her wrists? They’re like twice the size they should be.”

“Colton, don’t be mean to him. They don’t hurt that much.” I say and try to tuck my hair behind my ears, but grimace when I tilt my wrist.

Seeing my reaction, Logan gets up and walks over to me, gently grabbing my hands. I feel the warmth from his magic seep into my wrists. He closes his eyes as he witnesses what just happened to me. His forehead creases with frustration, so I’m assuming that he’s seeing James demand that I stop struggling. I loudly gasp when I feel a couple bones pop back into place. I didn’t realize that James had fractured any bones. The pain subsides and my wrists look and feel normal again. Once he opens his eyes, his frustrated expression turns to one of amusement. “You go girl.”

“What did I do now?”

“Did you see the look on James face when you hit him with magic?”

“No, I was little preoccupied with getting away from him.”

Logan starts laughing, “He was so stunned. He wasn’t expecting you to be able to do anything.”

“Well, what I visualized was him flying back into the wall like Natasha did, but he’s a little stronger than I was expecting.” I lean against the armrest of the couch. There’s something that I wanted to say, but I can’t remember.

Liam stands in front of me. “Are you okay?”

“I’m not emotionally scarred if that’s what you’re asking. He didn’t really do anything. Just scared me a little.” Then, I remember the reason I was in the hallway to begin with. Turning towards everyone else, I say, “Oh, guess what?” When no one guesses anything, I continue, “Claire doesn’t think I’m going to die tomorrow.”

Emma takes a step towards me, “Oh thank goodness. I don’t want to lose you!”

“But your vision…” says Colton.

“I didn’t see how the vision ended. She thinks that there’s more to it. I’m pretty sure I’m still going to get stabbed, which should be fun, but she doesn’t think it’s going to be fatal. I don’t know how, because there was a lot of blood, but I trust her.” Despite knowing that I’m going to get skewered, I’m excited because this isn’t going to be my last night. I still have some time.

“But you’re still going to get stabbed? And I’m still going to carry your almost lifeless body?” I can tell that the whole scenario still upsets Colton.

“Well, you don’t have to. I mean you could just leave me bleeding to death on the ground…” I glance over at him and see the look on his face. “Look, this is exciting. Well maybe not for you, but I’m excited. There’s so many things that I haven’t done yet and now I know that I’ll at least get the chance to do them sometime.”

“Do what exactly, Ryanne?” asks Logan. His light tone implies that he is specifically referring to something.

Shrugging, I reply, “I don’t know…Fall in love. Climb a mountain. Adopt a pet. Get married. Travel abroad. Meet Josh Groban. Scuba Dive. Be in a flash mob. Discover a new species. Cure cancer. Anything and everything. Not necessarily in that order.”

“You’ve never had a pet?” David seems surprised at that revelation. Actually, everyone seems a little shocked. I shake my head and explain.

“My mom was allergic to cats, so we could never have one. And growing up, she worked at lot and with me in school, we didn’t really have the time necessary to take care of a pet.”

That’s how the rest of the night went, locked in the entertainment room, revealing little bits of information about ourselves. Growing closer to each other and strengthening the bond we’ve created. For the first time in a long time, I feel like this is where I belong. This is where I’m meant to be.