Sons of Night

Mayden’s POV
I tried to shove myself back into the wall, as if the wall wasn’t a solid object and if I tried hard enough I could sink back into it. My panic rose as I heard the door handle creak. I was silently praying that whoever it was would take pity on me and not hurt me. I was was sure though, that with these guys and the stir I just caused, I was in some sort of trouble. Tears rolled down my cheeks as the door swung inward revealing Andy standing there with a lantern in his hand. I covered my face, and as I did so my fingers ran through a thickly wet spot on my forehead and I was promptly alerted to a burning pain in my head. I was bleeding and I hadn’t even noticed, it was probably from when I ran into the wall in my panic on the way up into this room.
That wasn’t my biggest concern though, I could hear Andy’s creaking footsteps entering the room. They stopped a few feet from me, then he fell entirely silent. I sat there unmoving, and afraid to look. I couldn’t hear a sound from him, perhaps he had somehow not seen me. I tried to steady my breathing and think. Maybe if I just sat entirely still he go away and then I could try to find a better hiding spot. For some reason that logic made sense to me. I sat so still, I barely breathed. In the darkness I’d created by my hand’s I began to see spots because I sat so still for so long. After a while I began to question my own sanity. Maybe he wasn’t even in the room, maybe I’d been so afraid that I made up him coming in out of my own fear. He was so quiet. Maybe he wasn’t there. As time passed I slowly convinced myself of that. I took a shaky breath and uncovered my face, looking up to where I thought he would be if he was there.
I choked on my breath as I realised that I was wrong, he was there. He was sitting on a bed that had been revealed in the light of the lantern. He was looking right at me with unreadable icy eyes. His lip was cut, and his black hair was messed up. We, locked onto each other, neither of us moving. I was too scared to try to run, I didn’t want him madder at me. After a long moment he let out a breath and broke the eye contact, bending his head to look at his hands. He turned his hands in each other and I saw that the alabaster skin was blotched with bruises. He rolled his lips in before sighing again and running his hand through his hair, he seemed more exasperated than mad.
“Mayden are you okay?” He rumbled, his head turning in my direction.
“Well, if terrified and bleeding from the head is okay, then yeah I’m fine,” I snapped, blistering with sarcasm.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” He said softly.
“Why am I having a hard time believing you?”
“Look, what Ashley said wasn’t true. I’m not looking for sex from you,”
“So when you laid with me in the cave that wasn’t on your mind at all?”
“Of course it was, but I wasn’t going to like force you. Or even ask you, I was just going to let it happen if it happened,” He explained.
“You killed someone, Andy. How am I supposed to know that you won’t do that to me?” I snapped getting angry at him, before he could respond there was a solid knock at the door.
“What?” Andy barked.
“It’s Jinxx, I’m here to tend your battle wounds,” A timid voice from the other side of the door called. Andy sighed again.
“Come in,” he called. The door opened and Jinxx entered with a bag of ice in one hand and a beat up first aid kit in the other. He regarded me for a moment, curled up on the floor, bleeding with eyes red from crying. Then he turned to Andy, it seemed like he didn’t know what to do with me.
“Now, if I know anything about Ashley it’s that he loves to go for body shots. So stand up and get that shirt off, I want to see how much he broke you,” Jinxx directed. Andy stood and pulled off his shirt revealing, well, mostly ribs. He had a few tattoos scattered about his chest, but he was not at all muscular. Along with the artwork I could see blotches of darkening skin. One particular area on his side was very dark, and looked like it was a bit swollen. Jinxx trailed the tips of his fingers across the worst area and Andy gasped and flinched away. As Andy jumped the light caught on his stomach in a way that I noticed something that I hadn’t before. Jagged, and slightly raised ridges on his body, they were scars and I could tell that they had been deep. Different thicknesses dragged like lightning strikes down from just below his ribs to just below his belly button. I hadn’t meant to stare, but I felt eyes on me and when I looked up Andy was staring at me intently. I looked away in shame.
“Looks like he got you pretty good, but I don’t think it’s broken. Ice it and you’ll be fine,” Jinxx said.
“I still won the fight,” Andy said defiantly.
“I think we broke it up before either of you could win, and I’m glad. Now sit down,” Jinxx said pressing the wrapped bag of ice into Andy’s side. Andy sat down on the bed and then Jinxx turned to me.
“Now, what happened to you?” He asked softly. To my surprise I saw caring in his eyes.“I was running and I ran into a wall,” I told him, he tutted like a mother hen and I couldn’t help but smile. He offered his hands to me and I surprised myself by taking them, he pulled me too my feet and then held onto me while I swayed dizzily. He guided me to the bed and then pushed me down next to Andy, who would not make eye contact.
“I want to take a good look at that gash, but it’s way too dark in here,” he said. He went to the lantern that Andy had lit and took a bit of wood that was laying on the bedside table and stuck it into the flame. When It had caught he brought the burning twig to a chandelier hanging in the middle of the ceiling. He stuck the flame into the center of the chandelier and, I don’t know what was in the chandelier, but the flame took quickly and spread about the fixture and within a few seconds the room was alight with a bright flickering glow. Then Jinxx took the burning twig and held it to several candles on the walls around the room, when they were all lit he took the twig and held it to the fireplace on the opposite side of the room from the bed and a little controlled blaze appeared. He tossed the twig into the flames and dusted off his hands.
“Isn’t that really dangerous, I mean this is a wooden house,” I pointed out. Jinxx shrugged.
“We’ve got a system like that in every room, each of our personal chimneys leads up to one big one, it keeps us all lit and warm. Also we’ve had it this way for years and, yes we must be careful, but we haven’t had any mishaps yet, and we’ll continue doing this until we do,” He said nonchalantly. Then he pulled a chair from across the room and sat himself down in front of me. He pulled his chair up close and grabbed my chin, pulling me so he could see my wound clearly.
“It’s not as bad as I thought,” He concluded after a moment of intense study.
“It’s bleeding a lot,” I said.
“Head wounds do that,” He said as he opened up the first aid kit. He pulled out some wipes and started wiping the blood off my face and around the wound. His hands were gentle and I found myself being comforted by the fact that he seemed to know what he was doing.
“Hey, it stopped bleeding by itself,” He said, sound oddly enthusiastic. Again I couldn’t help but smile.
“That’s good,” I said.
“It’s actually not that big of a cut, it just decided to bleed a lot, I think this treatment will suffice,” He said, pulling a dinosaur band aid out of the kit and sticking it to my forehead.
“There we go, all taken care of here. If you all don’t mind I’ll be going to bed now, you know where to find me if you need me,” Jinxx packed up his things and left Andy and I alone again.
“Andy, why did you jump up to beat up Ashley?” I asked, he’d been silent for so long, I knew he had to just be stewing in his own thoughts.
“He made you afraid of me, right after I was just getting you to take some comfort in my being near you. That and, if I didn’t try to defend you from him no one would and then he’d assume that you were just there for the taking and he’d assume that he was free to try and get with you,” He said looking at the ground. I was shocked, he’d done that for my own sake?
“Thank you Andy,” I whispered, he nodded in response.
“You should get some sleep,” He said, and he was right, the day’s stresses had worn me out.
“Where do I sleep?” I asked.
“Well, you managed to get yourself into my room, so you’re sleeping in here,” He said.
“What about you?”
“I will sleep on the couch downstairs, if you feel safe being up here alone that is,”
“I’ll sleep on the couch, this is your bed, I’m not taking it,”
“No I’d rather you be up here. Also you are my guest, so you get special treatment,”
“FIne,” I said, not wanting to argue with him. He stood up and I slumped over onto the pillow. I was drifting off to sleep as he went around the room gathering pillows and blankets for himself. He blew out candles and twisted a knob on the bottom of the chandelier, as well as one next to the fireplace, putting them both out. Just as he was leaving there was a soft knock at the door. I was very still and very relaxed, and I think Andy thought I was asleep, but I was not. Andy opened the door revealing Jake in the doorway, I watched through barely opened eyes.
“I hate to drop this on you as you’re about to sleep but you need to know and I don’t want to cause panic, can you take what I’m about to tell you?” Jake asked. Andy sighed and rested his head on the door frame, nodding with his eyes closed.
“CC is bad. Like really, really bad. He hasn’t held down any food in two days and I can barely get water in him. He’s fever is out of control, none of the meds we have are helping. I’m terrified for his life at this point,” Jake said his voice thick with stress.
“So what are you telling me?” Andy said.
“He needs a doctor,” Jake said, “Like a real doctor with meds that will help him,”
“Okay,” Andy croaked.
“What are you gonna do man? We can’t just let him die,”
“I have to take her back to civilization at some point, and we’ll take him when we go and we’ll have to find someone who will take care of him without taking down his name,”
“There’s no doctor on the face of this earth who will do that. We have no money anyway,”
“I know, but I have a crazy idea,”
“And that would be?”
“Well, I’ve been having nightmares about my parents again. So I was going to try to find them when I took her back, and my mom’s a nurse,”
“Andy, you haven’t seen your parents in ten years. You don’t know where they are, they think you’re dead, there’s no way that will work,” Jake said.
“Well if you can come up with a better plan I’d love to hear it,” And said frustration clear in his voice.
“Okay, then we’ll tell everyone in the morning, and we’ll have to leave tomorrow or CC won’t make the trip,” Jake said.
“Okay then goodnight,” Andy said, bluntly ending the conversation. He pulled the door closed and went out into the hall leaving me alone.

Notes

Hello! I just wanted to say thanks for all the views and positive ratings as well as views and subscribers I appreciate every single one. I hope you all enjoy this chapter, please leave me a comment and let me know what you think. I have thought up some interesting stuff to come in the future. See you all later.