ILLUSION, ELI HALE

thirteen | the hunter

"You need to tell me what's going on. Right now." Nadia was driving Derek's truck about eighty miles an hour down these backroads going to Hale Auto. Eli was convinced that someone was following them, so they needed to get to the rendezvous point at the shop as quickly as they could.

Eli was in the passenger seat nursing both of his wounds at the same time. He was taking turns icing his nose, wiping the blood off his face, then icing his ankle, then back to the nose with the makeshift stolen ice pack that Nadia had given to him.

"Some lady tried to kill my dad and me in the locker room. She had a bunch of arrows, and she was this close," He showed the measurement with his hands. "To shooting me in the head. I'm still a little shaken, by the way."

"A woman tried to kill you?" Nadia repeated the boy. It's not that she wasn't believing him, she wouldn't be breaking the speed limit laws by forty over if she wasn't quite terrified herself, but she couldn't think of a single reason why a random woman would try to kill him. The boy felt bad when he had to kill a fly. "Why?"

"I don't know. I haven't met her before, I don't think." Eli swapped turns and put the ice pack onto his nose this time. "But my dad and I have a plan. We've had this plan for years so we need to stick to it."

Despite everything, Eli wasn't willing to call the police for help. He claimed to have a plan set in stone with his father. Then, when Nadia responded that was bullshit, she was still powerless. Her phone was safe in the grasp of her mother, the literal worst place it could be at this moment.

"Is your dad a wanted criminal? Did he get into business with the mafia?" Nadia questioned the boy. She was coming up with valid reasons why a lady would attack him and a fifteen-year-old kid. "Are you in witness protection?"

"No to all of those questions."

"Then what? There has to be a reason that we're missing. Why would that lady try to hurt you?"

Nadia hadn't seen the look flash behind Eli's eyes at her question. He had heard of hunters before. They weren't in Beacon Hills anymore, but hunters were still tracking and killing his kind in other countries. That lady must have come back to finish off the last of his people in his town. This is why he and his father had a plan in case they ever split up.

"I don't know."

Something wasn't adding up and Nadia knew it. It felt like there was more to the story that he wasn't telling her. Why would he and Derek have a plan for rendezvous? There had to be a reason why this woman was after them.

Nadia bit her bottom lip in nervousness. "Are we going to die?"

His response was the same. "I don't know."

Eli felt terrible for bringing Nadia into this situation. He was putting her in danger, real-life danger. He knew the stories. If the woman caught up to them, Nadia would get killed too. She could be collateral damage because of him. And even if she didn't get hurt, Nadia would eventually find out what he was. The monster that he truly was. That was something he never wanted to tell her.

Eli pulled the bag of ice off of his face and let out a slight groan in pain. "I'm sorry."

Nadia snorted. "For what? I'm the one who punched you in the face."

Eli felt the bridge of his nose once more at the mention of his poor face being attacked. "For telling you to drive me. You should be going home and not putting yourself in harm's way. Honestly, I'm beginning to agree with your mother. I need to stop getting you into trouble."

And there came that silly teenage girl butterfly feeling in her stomach again. Nadia was currently driving literally like her life depended on it, Derek could be dead for all she knew and they were beginning to run out of gas. But right now, she was smiling at the boy that she really liked because he'd said something that made her blush.