Ashes of Fire (#1)

Chapter 22: Breathing

Alex’s POV

            “Ruby, what are you—“ I stumble back, but regain my balance back on my Jell-O feet. “I mean, congratulations, you survived the Holy Warriors.”

            I still remember how we left her back then in the Cabin. Well, not really left her out, she insisted to be left out in the first place. But I stare at her in awe of how perfectly healthy she is; not even a scratch! She’s just flawless like that.

            “’Course I survived,” Ruby rolls her eyes. “I came here to safe all of your asses.”

            “That reminds me of Josh.”

            “I saw.”

            “Where—“

            Ruby passes me before I can finish my question. I better finish it fast later on. She goes on and stops at the tiny toilet. Joseph has the exact comical reaction just like mine. Ruby is calm and ignores the gasp and questions Joseph fires.

            “I never thought Judith was capable of these things. She’s never been a bright friend after all,” Ruby comments while taking a better look of Josh’s wound.

            “You’re not a bright friend yourself,” Joseph states.

            “Well how bright of you Joseph,” Ruby set a sarcastic smile.

            I pick a tissue roll and throw it between both of them. They snarl. Ruby groans like a dragon while Joseph simply dodges the tissue roll with an eye roll as an addition. “Stop it you two,” I finalize. Josh interrupts with—yet again—a groan.

            “Josh?” Ruby’s voice softens.

            “R-ruby…” That was the first word that comes out of his mouth from hours.

            That’s actually the first time I hear Ruby’s soft side. She kneels besides Josh and rests his head on her lap.

            “This is a rare sight,” I admit while whispering to Joseph besides me.

            Joseph watch Ruby heals Joseph. She rips a piece of her cloth and wraps it around his stomach to stop the blood from bleeding. I remind myself that Ruby isn’t a witch and she doesn’t know anything about spells. “It’s something about the past…,” Joseph sighs.

            I mouth an ‘oh’ and rest myself on the wall. Once Josh rests, Ruby announces, “We were put on a prison.”

            “What?” Joseph exclaims. Honestly, I’m not so surprised.

            “Yeah, I can’t handle that much of opponents. They keep coming and I have nowhere to run,” Ruby sighs, “They caught me and I met Gemini and Essie there too. Gemini told me that he hid both of you here so they couldn’t take your asses away.

            I made a chaos in the prison—not by accident—and I got away to fetch ‘em back here.”

            “So what’s our plan?” I cross my arm.

            “I’d say…,” Ruby pauses.  “Fetch ‘em back here.” We both roll our eyes in return.

            A/N: I’ll explain about Ruby and Josh’s past relationship in book 2 ;)