The Shattered

Chapter 6: Home safe

Ethan pulled off his boots and his socks, and held them in one hand, using the other to balance as he waded into the stream that we had been following home. He turned back to us, looking expectant. I quickly followed his example, jumping into the river next to him with my boots in my hand. Carter remained on the bank of the river, looking at us like we had suddenly announced that we were long lost siblings.
"What are you doing?" He hissed at us.
"We're erasing our scent, because if those things are following us, then that's what they're using to find us." Ethan replied impatiently.
"If they're following us, we should be getting back to the village. By the time that they could get to us, we could have the entire guard waiting for them" Carter countered.
"And how are we going to explain why we were going to explain how we were out in the woods after curfew?" Ethan asked. He was getting angry. I rested a hand on his arm. He looked down at me and relaxed. Carter reluctantly took off his shoes and socks and jumped into the river next to us. We began to wade silently down stream, the rushing water gurgling around our ankles. Ethan stopped us from time to time, listening for the animals. When we were within a hundred yards of the village, we climbed out of the stream, putting our socks and shoes back on. We sprinted to the village, right to my house. We said goodbye to Carter, who volunteered to pick up our prey. We told him where to drop it off so that we could give it my sister, and Ethan and I slipped into the house.
My mom was out with the hunters, and my sister didn't care that we went hunting at night. We walked into the main room and I hung my jacket on the hook, putting my boots by the front door. Ethan kicked his boots off and threw them into a corner along with his jacket and socks. He flopped down onto the couch, and I joined him, lying on his chest.
Some people thought that some of the things that we did suggested that we were dating, but the truth was that we were just really good friends. Ethan and I had never talked about dating, and neither of us really cared for it either. Most of the other girls in the village thought that dating made you one of the "popular" people. Mom said that it was that way back home, in the place that we came from. She said that there were people who thought that popularity was important, and people like me and her and Anna, who just didn't care. Ethan hugged me closer to his chest, another gesture that could have been interpreted wrong. We fell asleep like that, cuddled up on the couch.

----------------------------------------------

Oh my god!! These dashed lines are going to be the death of me!!! Anyways, sorry about the short chapter. I was trying to make up for the extreme length of the last one. Hope you're enjoying! Feel free to point out any of my grammatical errors via comment!