SOMETHING ROAMS THE NIGHT...

FORTY ONE

My parents gathered me into a tight embrace. There were streaks of tears down my mother's cheeks, and her eyes were red and puffy from crying. My father had a hard expression on his face-I knew he was grieving too.

"I'm so glad you're okay," Dad whispered into my hair. "I regret leaving the house in the first place...I'm so sorry, Haley."

"It's not your fault," I told him. "It's nobody's fault."

"Your aunt, your grandmother..." my mother wept, burying her face in her hands. "I just can't believe they're gone..."

"Everything will be okay," I closed my eyes, let a single tear roll down my face. "They wouldn't want to see us mourning them like this. They wouldn't want to see us hurting like this."

"And the fact that I almost lost you too..." Mum didn't stop crying as she pulled me into a hug. "I don't want to lose you again, Haley. I'm so sorry for everything."

"Don't be so hard on yourself," I said against her shoulder. "None of this is your fault."

I could still picture the sight of Damon's dead body in my mind. The hole in his chest where his lungs and heart used to be, the tremendous amount of blood that completely darkened his shirt, the way his eyes burned into mine before he fell dead...

I knew I could never forget it, not in a lifetime.

"It's all over now," I told Mum. "We can live in peace. Those creatures will never harm us again. Now, let's go home."

I slung an arm around my mother's shoulders, rubbing my hand up and down her arm. My heart clenched at the thought of my aunt and my grandmother's deaths. They had just been victims, innocent victims that had been killed for no apparent reason. They never deserved to die like that.

I helped my parents into the car, closing the door after Andy got in after them. Ezra in turn opened the passenger door for me, and I climbed in, unable to stop the smile spreading across my face as I thought about what had happened earlier at the police station. He hid a shy smile, averting my eyes as he buckled his seatbelt.

"Time to go home," Dad announced, sliding his arms around my mother, holding her to his chest.

"Haley?" Andy said my name suddenly. He leaned forward in his seat so he could see my face in the side mirror.

"Yes?" I caught Andy's reflection in the mirror.

"How do you know for sure we're safe?" 

"Because the reapers are gone, and everyone can live their normal lives," I said, but strangely there was still a feeling in my gut that this wasn't the end.

"Oh," Andy leant back, and didn't say anything the rest of the way. I knew he didn't believe me. Did he feel it too? That sense of darkness that still lingered in the air?

"Home sweet home," Dad sighed, getting out of the car, glancing up at our house. It looked brand new, as if nothing had ever happened there.

"Everything's gonna go back to the way it once was," Ezra said to me, just touching my hand. "You're going to live a happy life now."

"We're going to live a happy life," I winked at him.

But why didn't I believe that?

Why didn't I even believe the words that were coming out of my own mouth?