For rennieveiga who was almost close to completely right about what will happen XD I just love it when people try to predict what happens.

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Chapter 26

                They didn’t deserve it. No one deserves it. Especially since he was left alone. My heart has been torn over many times but this one was by farthest the worst along when I thought he died. So what happened? I couldn’t bear to think of the situation and horror over both of our faces. Our eyes avoided each other but instantly knew that were somehow mentally speaking through each other. So, the only thing that was to worry about is what would happen to him.

                “Hey, what happened? Who called?” Nathan’s voice broke the silence. Anyone believe in serial killers? Well, who knew the slaughters were right about it. It may not have been here but it still marked a good place. Tragedy seemed to follow me wherever I walked. Why? What did I deserve to live a life involving so much criminal activity? The two of us, now the three of us still stood in front of the phone. Demon clenched it tightly and continued to listen as I planted my ear close.

                “I’ll call her,” Demon whispered.

                “Don’t wake her up if she’s asleep,” Jasper cautioned.

                “Yea, I won’t. Bye, Dad, I might just come back home,” Damon responded.

                “No, she’ll hate that. Stay there with Lexis until the show ends,” Jasper warned. To hell with staying here. How could anyone say to stay here, acting like sitting ducks while things are happening back there. How could have this happened? Why? What was the point of them to do something like that? Why leave him alone? I know what it’s like to be alone and it tore down who you were. Damon must have been thinking the same thing. He shut the phone and faced me with dead eyes.

                “You got that all?” He asked and I gave a small nod.

                “Call her up. You’re right, we should leave,” I agreed. Nathan continued to remain in the dark of the situation. I’d rather not word it out. If I did, it would make it seem more real. I didn’t want it to be real that this was actually happening.

                “What are you talking about?” Nathan asked utterly confused and we continued to ignore. A sorrowful expression showed through my expression and Damon already broke down emotionally by giving a complete dead expression. I took a step forward and gave him a deserved hug.

                “What’s the occasion?” Nathan dryly asked.

                “A mass murder Nathan,” I snapped accidently with sharp cold eyes. I didn’t mean to sound harsh, it just came out that way. The silence continued to display over us. The air was heavy and hard to take in. I wasn’t too sure if Nathan thought I was being sarcastic. I was dead on literately serious. There had been a mass murder. No one had dared to crowd over us, not even the slaughters barged in with demand to the situation. Those girls were weird, crazy, possibly homicidal but truly genius when it came around to getting into others head and knowing the situation. I had a feeling, they just let themselves act out in that way, not because they were truly psychotic –and they were but because they were bored.

                Damon took a deep breath in and was the one to pull back this time. He looked torn down by the situation. I’m guessing, no matter how afraid of her she was, he wouldn’t want anything to happen. He dialled up her phone number and waited for it to be picked up. We had to wait about five minutes before we could reach her.

                “Hey, mom, you’re still alive?” Demon asked, sounding disappointed. Oh–he’s terrible at hiding emotions. I’ve been noticing a pattern. When he cares about someone and doesn’t want them to know, he starts being extra...harsh. Nah, he doesn’t care about me in that sense –well I guess he used to when we start almost killing each other at England. Otherwise, it didn’t really happen anymore. I carefully listen on.

                “Don’t be too disappointed. I still might not make it through,” His mother breathed out “Are things working out between you and Lexis.”

                “She made me touch crap,” He dryly stated.

                “Oh –tell your dad to give her a bonus,” She coughed out. She sounded terrible through the phone. It worried me. Through the weeks I meet up with her every time I get a pay check, she’s gotten close. I barely parted a smile and almost let tears develop in my eyes. I didn’t want her to go away. Truth is, Damon’s family and life became like family to me. Lucien, Essex, Nathan, Karen, his dad and mom, they almost brought a little memory from how things used to be around me.

                “Rest up. Dad will make us go bankrupt if you’re not around. I and Lexis will drop out of the show and help out with the arrangements and Essex,” Demon planted the suggestion. I glanced over at Damon and he flickered his sad eyes at me and removed them quickly back.

                “Who died?” Nathan spoke horrified. I took a deep breath in and turned to him, tried not to let my face swell up. I was becoming incredibly emotional this week –oh come, you’ve got to be kidding me. It can’t be the time of the month now! This has to be one of the worst week to be in an emotional mood swing.

                “Essex parents, workers in their mansion, people who visited, including Lucien’s father and two of his cousins... Only Damon’s mother got away and barely saved Essex,” I spoke with a voice breaking into tiny little pieces that would be impossible to put back. They said that most likely, Damon’s mother won’t live either. I can’t believe this.

                “Don’t forget Essex little sister, she was only months old,” Damon added on. I was about to smack him in head for created more sorrow into me. He was still on call with his mother. I was scared to hear if the situation grew worse. Essex had no parents, his cousins dead, and apparently had a little sister, just a fucking baby murdered! What kind of sick psychotic fucking bitches would do that!?  My lips wavered and Nathan gazed at me with panic.

                “No, we’re coming back. To hell as if we’re staying here. You’re on your death bed and you want to keep us here just to have it your way? I’m not giving it to Lexis! She agrees with me!” Damon loudly yelled out. He was catching others attention but I couldn’t blame him considering I would have more than yelled. I would have probably gone on a rampage, find the killers and torture them to their death –and then bring them back to life to kill them again! I give into revenge too easily.

                Damon flips the phone at the palm of my hand with frustration. I raised the phone and bared my anger and tears within. If this was about staying here and playing around in the wilderness, than we’re both coming back, even if everyone in the world stops us.

                “Lexis, I need to inform you of something. I’m trusting you with very important information and that involves keeping Damon at bay over there,” She barely spoke out.

“How do you know if you can trust me?” I carefully asked. I did convince his son to help me hire an assassin after all. Trusting me sounded like a bad idea.

“Because you’re very similar to me. I’m not trusting you, I’m trusting my moral,” She explained. My heart beat raised way high up that could probably give me issues when I’m much older. I continued to listen to her reason and the secret. I bit the bottom of my lip with my eyes growing wide and then shrank my expression into something that was unreadable. His mother had always been right about everything. I didn’t doubt it.

“I understand,” I confirmed.

“One more thing Lexis. Don’t let Damon worry too much about me and tell him that it turns out I have full chance of living,” She furthered.

“You want me to lie?” I whispered.

“It’s not a complete lie. I’ll be fine. Just remember to not let him anywhere out of there. Keep a careful eye on him and make sure the cameramen don’t leave you’re sight. I heard Nikki and Raven are in the show as well. As long as they’re around they can handle you’re problems. Oh and don’t give the phone to him,” She assured. So, the girls perhaps did actually had dangerous weapons on them.

“I won’t. I’ll tie him down to a tree if I have to,” I promised.

“How is the issue of your parents going?” She cropped out. I stood stunned and even more paled face than before –if that was possible. I remained quiet for a few seconds.

“Um... What issue?” I nervously asked.

“Don’t worry. I don’t have a problem with it. I know every activity that goes around my son. Do you know you’re parents ware bouts?” She asked.

“No, only that they’re kidnapped,” I truthfully admitted and fought a giggle to think that his mom actually was cool with hiring an assassin. That was one cool mom. I wasn’t too sure what she knew about my parents though. If she knew their secrets, it worried me. The moral me would have probably told the cops about my parents but the dominate part of me for my family would always follow ways to keep them save and not in jail. They’ve technically done nothing wrong except for host an illegal club. That’s it...!

Why didn’t I think about going into the club and question those dick heads before?

                Um... Maybe because you’ll be killed if you faced them?

                                Good point... Can’t the Assassin I hired handle it?

                                                Or they can kill him.

                                Eh... He lives a risk full life anyway.

                                                Cold hearted!

She remained silent on the other phone line and then finally spoke out “That’s unfortunate. Hopefully, it will be resolved. Good bye for now Lexis.”

“For now,” I recite with difficulty to even bother saying goodbye. The phone discounted and I slipped the phone back into Damon’s hand. He raised it over his ear and stupidly called ‘hello?’ multiple times. He frowned and closed it. He turned to me with a stern expression.

“Let’s go,” He said. Not a chance.

“We’re staying here,” I dryly stated. There was no room for suggestions. His jaw dropped and anger fired from his eyes. Nathan instantly saw the spark in his eyes and rushed to grabbed Damon, as if he was going to try to hit me. As if! The only thing he gave me was a bruise. I gave him a scar. I think a scar is worse than a bruise.

“Dame, calm–” Nathan began.

“–I’m leaving before it’s too late! Lexis, just because your parents are good as dead–” He interrupted and I stopped listening from there on. Tears  burned out of my eyes and my heart tore apart. I stomped quickly and picked up the fire wood log and weighted it over my head and lifted it to fly toward him and struck him out!

“Whoa, whoa! Lexis, stop! He didn’t mean it!” Nathan waved his head back in forth in panic, and almost stepped into view of Damon.

“NO!” I screeched out.

“As if you’d throw that at me!” Damon spat out laughing.

“Don’t encourage her man!” Nathan yelled out, crumpling his forward and faced Damon.

My jaw clenched and I swung the log aiming for him. Nathan leapt forward in front of Damon and the log struck his shoulders. More tears spilled down my cheeks. Nathan leaned down and held his shoulder in pain.

                “OH nice bitch! You just hit my best friend!” Damon angrily yelled.

                “What are you talking about!? It was your fault! If you didn’t say anything, this wouldn’t have happened!” I growled and ran over to Nathan and tried to help him up. I felt guilty for throwing it. I didn’t want him to get hurt.

                “Nathan, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it for it to hit you,” I sorrowfully spoke and raised my head to Damon “You’re so selfish!” His eyes burned into me and right away I received a slap. He. Did. Not. Just. Slap. Me. My jaw dropped and I raised up.

                “Dude that was not cool! I’m fine!” Nathan yelled out and tried to pull me down by the wrist with his working arm. It was too late for that. He didn’t do it hard, not hard at all in fact but  I was pissed off. More than pissed. Last night he helped me out and now he’s telling me that my parents are going to die. Didn’t he think I already thought that through and I didn’t need him encouraging my depressing emotions!?

                I properly kicked him in the shin when his eyes couldn’t even calculate where I was going to strike. Nathan struggled to get up and got in-between us again.

                “Both of you stop and think!” Nathan yelled out “What’s the point of fighting?”

                “He just said that my parents are dead,” I defended.

                “But they’re not,” Nathan pointed out “Damon doesn’t mean it and Damon, don’t you think she has a reason to tell you to stay?”

                “You’ve got to kidding me. She’s just doing that because my mom told her to,” Damon.

                “No!” I yelled out.

                “Then why? I let you have your revenge, and you don’t let me go see her?” Damon.

                “Because you ass hole, I’m worried and she’s worried for your life if you go back now. You can go visit her when we finish this,” I explained.

                “I can take care of myself Lexis! I’m not a seven year old! One car crash and you start babying me!” Damon scowled “Do you know how embarrassing that is?”
                “Well I’m sooooooooooooo sorry for wanting you to breath, and caring about you and loving you,” I spat out.

                “Ohhhhh!” Nathan yelled out. What was he ‘Ohhhhh!’ for!?

                “The only thing you care about is your crapy family who’s been putting you through shit, and Seth! It’s always Seth this, Seth that. Seth treated me like Daphne. It’s your fault Seth hates me! Seth thinks I don’t love him because of you. Seth is watching. Seth broke up with me, Seth, Seth, SETH, Seth!” He claimed out.

                “I don’t sound like that! And he’s my boyfriend, of course I’d talk about him! Oh and by the way, it was your fault he started hating me because you told him stuff,”

                “Was, Lexis, was your boyfriend,” He smirked tauntingly “And in case you haven’t noticed, he frankly doesn’t care enough to not make out with your sister!” Excuse me?

                “Oh now you want it! You really want to get another coma don’t you?” I was about to turn around, grab another log and play Whack-A-Mole with his head. Nathan stood horrified and grabbed tighter onto my wrist and then tried to separate us a meter apart from each other. I didn’t want to hurt Nathan, so I couldn’t get at Damon. Damon didn’t have to come up with a lie that I wouldn’t believe.

                “It’s true Lexis. The time you were gone with me in England, he made out with her. Daphne talks in her sleep considering you both left us on the couch,” He sniped.

                “Very funny, Damon. Ha-ha. If something like that ever happened than Daphne would have forced it,” I mentioned.

                “Oh, right, I forgot!” He laughed, trying to push through Nathan’s arm “If somebody forces a kiss on them, or on the lines of that, it doesn’t count as cheating. Doesn’t it Lexis? Just like you did with Seth, the time we were about to get together.”

                “I thought we already finished talking about this? I can’t believe you’re still not over it!”

                “Over you? I was over you a long time ago!”

                “Than why are you complaining that I talk about Seth so much? Are you that jealous?”

                “I just find it annoying. Besides, if you were over everything why did you just say that you loved me?” He smirked.

                “I didn’t say that,” I dryly said.

                “Yea... You did,” Nathan sighed “You said, ‘I’m so sorry for wanting you to breath, and caring about you and loving you.”

                “See,” Damon states.

                “I didn’t mean it.”

                “You meant it.”

                “Then you’re jealous.”

                “No I’m not. I just said– ”

                “Why don’t you just make up before my arm paralyzes?”  Nathan reminded.       My eyes widened and I calmed myself to remember I had just injured him and we didn’t know how serious it was. Both I and Demon looked back at Nathan. Demon ran out to go get Ryan to get him to call some ambulances. I stayed with Nathan and kept my mouth shut. Nobody else was around us to see the fight that went around. As far as we knew. I couldn’t find the words to express how sorry I was for injuring him.

                “It’s fine. At least I know never to get you pissed because you have the strength of ten men. To be honest, I was trying to play around with you,” Nathan struggled to speak the truth out. I doubly blink at him “Yea, I know. To be honest, I was playing with you too.” He stood there stupefied and paled faced. What...? He’s never been played before?

                “You’re joking right?” he speaks in horror.

                “Nope,” I smiled “You started liking me, didn’t you?”

                “No,” He was quick to say. He wasn’t going to give me that satisfaction after all.  Damon arrived back and we were told the paramedics were going to arrive. Nathan wanted to remain quiet of the actual situation. He had to drop out because of the injury and was relieved of dropping out too. Damon started to offer me to break his leg again. I was willing to do the breaking part but that involved getting him out the show. The third round was about to start and I and Demon had to push our hatred far for awhile. Though, did he just admit into not being over me? Did I just admit that I wasn’t over him? But I am over him!

You’d think Ryan would decide groups that gave us the best chance of breathing or arriving to the destination. All four of us, hardly had a clue on how to read a map correctly. The three of us were psychotic according to the one. The two of us were in love according to the media. The man of the group feared everything that went bump in the daylight. According to my terrible but very accurate math, we stood 0.999999999999999–you get the idea–percent chance of winning. I think Demon should invest on getting him and Ryan both a brain. Either that, or Ryan wants us to die here.

                 I open up the large map that showed bunch of symbols, no street name and no ‘you are here’ spot. We’re screwed. They poke their heads into the view of the map and stared obliviously at it. Just when I think their jaws were going to drop and say ‘I give up-‘

                “We go–” Raven began, dragging her eyes around our area.

                “–this way!” Nikki pointed to the right of me.

                “No, this way,” Raven pointed to the opposite with a large frown on her face. Demon scoffs, rolls his eyes and crosses his arms. His eyes continue to wonder around the map and glance around us and kept on looking back at the map. He rubbed his chin as if he was in thought.

                “No, we go south, which is behind us,” Demon declared. As if he knew anything. As I couldn’t see through him avoiding eye contact with me and probably dying inside that he was forced into this. I sniffed quietly and felt my eyes burn up. Salty tears were starting to develop. I’d rather have them completely clueless people to where to go then point at random direction.

                “What’s wrong Lexis?” Nikki said concerned.

                “We’re going to die here,” I quietly whispered in an extreme tiny voice.

                “I know the way,” He stubbornly claimed.

                “That’s the way we came from” I blurt out. The girls stood at me with shocked wide eyed faces. Did my anger showed through that much? Well, the viewers could not blame me considering I was stuck in a team of–I don’t know what to call them–but it was bad. Though, you’d think that I would calm myself more down considering I was on TV. Not a chance. It wasn’t like anyone knew me enough that I’d care what they’d think.  I follow up to a tree with one side covered with green moss. The three of them grabbed the map out of my hands and began yelling. I walked further ahead and looked around the tree and found the spot of the bottom of the tree, not covered in moss.

                “South is up ahead!” I yelled back.

                “It’s this way! Give. Me. The. Map!” Nikki gripped on the edge of the map and pulled it from her side. Raven frowned and took a hold of the other side of the map with deeming threatening eyes “Shut up, you’re terrible with maps!”
                “Like you’re any better!” Nikki rushed the words with a stretched out mouth.

                “In the matter of fact! I am!” Raven spat.

                “Nah uh! You got us lost when we were escaping the institution –and thought we were following our team, when we were following the enemy!” Nikki pointed out.

                                What are they talking about?

                “I planned that! They thought we were one of them! Last time I checked, I didn’t get us lost in our own house!” Raven continued to be louder.

                “Pssh, please, that was you not me! You can’t blame me, the house is huge with bunch of booby traps,” Nikki whined. Where did they live!?

                “I got gassed trying to get to the washroom because of you!” Raven. GASSED!?

                “That wasn’t as bad as having butcher knives, pitch forks, and onions aiming for me at the kitchen! I starved!” Nikki.

                “That has nothing to do with direction! You forgot we armed the kitchen!” Raven.

                “You’re the one that said it was safe to go,”

                “You know better than to trust me!”
                “Well, I can’t trust myself!”

                I glance back over to Demon and watched his complete paled expression. I’m guessing he wouldn’t want to know why I kept incredibly sharp knifes in my kitchen since I don’t cook.  I understood why he feared them but even that wasn’t enough to scare me. However, their house is a different story. Demon then grabs hold of the map and starts to tug it away from the girls. They were ripping it apart. My eyes widened. They were going to leave us without a map!

                “Let go of the map!” I yelled over their voices. Their fingers untwined from the map until it only stayed in Demon’s hand. All of their eyes returned to me. Silence followed through. I put my arms over my hips, raised my head a little and began to lead.

                “Alright troop, south is this way,” I motioned my head toward the direction. Demon smirked with stubbornness lurking with him.

                “You either follow me or go on your own. You’re choice,” I snickered and took the steps further into the forest. The girls followed my lead and eventually, Demon followed with a long sigh. I lifted my backpack a little higher over my shoulder and glanced around the forest maze. From the survival crash course, it was best to find a camping site that was near water, a clear space that gave good coverage. It could possibly take to nights to arrive to our destination this time.  We were at the bottom of it and there should have been a river running along at the left–that’s if I got this map right–probably not.

                “Aren’t we supposed to steal another team’s flag?” Nikki reminded. Each team had a flag for their team color that one teammate held. The group with the least flags had two eliminate two members of their team. There were flags around the place that we also had to obtain.

                “Yup...” I popped, pulling a branch out of my path. Telling by the spark in their eyes, they couldn’t wait till steal all four flags. Each person had one flag. That meant, if we stop four of their flags, and kept ours, we’d win. Or we could play it safe and just gather the ones on land.

                Time passed by as we hiked and surprisingly none of us started something.  Watching this show from the TV was a lot different than being in it. The snobby rich would always fight, cry, whine, and make out a lot. I’m pretty sure that not all rich people were like, only a couple insane ones were. The sun was setting down and we had stopped at shore of a long lake. It seemed like a good idea to have water surrounding us.

                We set up camp and fell asleep. Demon shifted his sleeping bag far off from us. I slipped out of my own sleeping bag, dragged it right beside him. We were laying on the grass instead of sand like Raven and Nikki. I loudly yawned and stared at the back of Demon’s head. His back was even turned to me. Why was he avoiding?

                I gently poked the back of his shirt and he jumped to sit up. His eyes widened and then relaxed once he assumed it was me. Still he didn’t fully turn his head at me. His looked behind his shoulder for a second and lay back down, quietly muttering “Don’t do that...” I gazed up into the starry sky and waited a second before I poked him again. He shifted his back toward me and gave a menacing glare.

                “Unless you’re going to give into sleeping with me, than let me sleep,” He said.

                “Fine,” I sighed. He tossed around and turned his back to me once more. I swore under my breath and blurt out the obvious meaning.

                “I said fine,” I cleared out my throat. He shifted his weight over back to me with an arched puzzled eyebrow.

                “Fine to what? Sleeping with me or letting me sleep?” He asked.

                “Sleeping with,” I confirmed and saw his smile growing. Did he have no pride in himself? I just said I was going to sleep in the same place. I climbed out of my sleeping bag and he unzipped in so I could fit. We’ve done this last night and it would be better for this to be on TV instead of him having his tongue into some other girls mouth. It made have make him seem bad but it also downgraded me and would give others the insight that they could cheat with him on me. I slipped into his navy blue sleeping bag.

                “I like to be on top Lexis,” He calls out. What in the world is he talking about? I blew air in his face and was right about to give an uppercut to his jaw if he thought I was going to do it with him.

                “By sleep, I meant actually sleep,” I grinded my teeth. He doubly blinked at me for long seconds. The pulse of my heart was quick and pounding loudly. It made me wonder if he could hear it. I guess I wasn’t fully over it but that didn’t change anything.

                “Get out,” he spat.

                “What...?” I asked confused.

                “Get out. I want my space. Sleep in your own sleeping bag,” He stated.

                “No!” I yelped and smirked “Why, you can’t handle being around me?”

                “It was hard having your ass in my sleeping bag for one night, I can’t stand another. I can barely move,” He fought.

                “Jerk,” I teased “Why don’t you admit it? You were jealous. Just because we don’t like each other now, doesn’t mean we didn’t before. I’m not the only one who’s thinking about what we said back there,” It was out of my character, but I hoped he wouldn’t notice that I was playing around.

                “Yea, you still got to work on it,” He sighed and directed his head toward my sleeping back “Get out.” Damn it! Footsteps started to stumble up from behind our heads. Demon created a feared little whiny girl sound. He tossed around on his stomach and looked up ahead as a soldier. A very cowardly solider.

                “Hey, were you making babies?” Nikki came out of the shadows with Raven. How did they do that? I swear they were just down below near the show. I look further down at the shore and found there sleeping bags empty. My cheeks reddened with embarrassment. I struggled out of the sleeping bag, but this time, Demon strapped me down so I couldn’t move. He was right. It was hard to move around here.

                “Yup,” Demon grimaced. Excuse me!?

                “Okay,” Nikki shrugged and Raven glanced away in worry she might see something.

                “NO! We’re not!” I burst out and looked between the girls “What are you doing out here anyway?” Demon turned to me in horror “Do you really want to know that?”

                “Yes,” I sniped back and glared at the two girls. The obliviously stared back and then smiles grew on their faces. Oh, this shall be good.