BlackMoon Beginnings (32 page)

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 tomorrow…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.

In the background, I can hear muffled voices.
I’m not ready to wake up yet. My brain is awake, but my body
refuses to fully wake up. I sigh and snuggle deeper in the bed.

“Ugh, I’m so stiff. I can’t believe we all
fell asleep in here,” Liam mutters, sleepily. I hear the sound of
something being moved across leather. “You look happy,” he adds,
quietly chuckling.

“Shut up.” My bed shakes. That doesn’t make
sense, where am I? I am pretty comfy, so I decide not to open my
eyes yet. Slowly, I fall back asleep. Then, I start drifting. I’m
not quite asleep, but I’m not awake yet either. I can hear people
talking around me, but I can’t get my body to become functional
yet.

“It’s weird. Usually she wakes up pretty
early,” I hear Logan say. “I’m not surprised that Emma is still
asleep.”

“Let her be. Today is going to be a long day.
For all us, but especially her,” Liam says.