The Cure Is The Curse

Chapter Five

Taveon has completely ignored me for the past week. It's driven me absolutely insane. He has avoided all eye contact and any possibility of talking to me. He was really infuriating and confusing. I could feel his eyes on me throughout the day, but every time I would look back he would already be looking away. I didn't understand him.

"Is that an old hospital?" Niva asked. We all turned to where Niva was pointing to.

"It is!" Celeste answered. "I can stock up on some supplies." When the curse hit, she was studying to be a doctor in college.

The hospital was small. It was only two stories high.

"Alright, since it'll be completely dark in about thirty minutes we can just stay here for the night. You three check downstairs, Taveon and I will check upstairs." Taveon started up the stairs without me. He took two at a time. I had to jog to catch up with him. I took my gun off my back and held it out in front of me. He took one side of the hallway and I took the other. It didn't take long for us to make it through the second floor of the hospital.

Taveon started walking back towards the stairs. I ran and caught up with him. He kept trying to get ahead of me. I stepped in front of him and put a hand on his chest. "Why have you been ignoring me?"

"I haven't been any different."

"You haven't said anything to me, until now, since I woke up."

"You haven't either," he defended.

"You haven't given me the chance to until now and you aren't exactly willing to talk to me."

"What do you want?" He asked.

"I want to thank you for what you did."

"I didn't do anything," he mumbled and looked down at the ground.

"Don't play dumb. Quinna told me that you took care of me. I really appreciate that. I'm always the protector of the group. I'm not used to being protected, so thank you."

"We should probably try to find them." He tried to side step me, but I followed.

"Why did you do it?" He froze in his spot and looked right at me. He clenched his jaw and I saw pain flash across his eyes. He looked away from me.

I felt bad. I knew if someone was doing this to me I wouldn't want to answer any of their questions. "I'm sorry. You don't-"

"I had a younger sister," he cut me off. "She was scratched almost exactly like you. We didn't have anyone like Celeste who knew how to take care of it. It got infected and she couldn't fight it off. She was only thirteen. I promised myself that I'd never let that happen to anyone else. Even though Celeste knew what she was doing. I was still scared that you would..." He trailed off and didn't finish his sentence.

"I know what you mean. That's why I freaked out when I realized that Jax and Axton had passed." He looked back at me. "My mom was bitten four years ago. It had always been Mom, Quinna, and me since we had to fend for ourselves. Mom was always the protector. No one was there to protect her. She was bitten and I had to kill her. I promised her that I'd protect as many as I could and I failed with Axton and Jax."

"We're a lot more alike than I realized," Taveon said. He looked into my eyes as if he could see my soul.

"We should probably try to find them." I turned around and started walking away quickly. Why did I tell him that? Only Quinna knew that story. Why was I so open with him? What am I doing?

He caught up with me and turned me back around. "We'll find them later." He placed his hand on my cheek and looked into my eyes. His hand was warm and I wanted him to keep touching me.

"What are you doing Taveon?"

"I don't know. I keep trying to figure out what's happening. I've never really had..." He tried to find the words to say, but he couldn't.

"These types of feelings before?" I offered.

"Yeah," he breathed out. I stepped closer towards him and tilted my head upwards. I had heard about kissing from Quinna and always thought it was an odd thing to do. Why do humans like to touch other humans' mouths with their mouths? But suddenly kissing was exactly what I wanted to do with Taveon. I wanted to know what it felt like and if it was as great as Quinna always dreamed it would be.

"Miri, can I..." He trailed off again, but this time I felt like he knew what he wanted to say, but was afraid to actually say it.

"Go on," I urged and stepped closer to him so that we weren't even an inch away from each other, yet the only thing that connected us was his hand on my face.

"Can I kiss you?" He asked.

I didn't trust my mouth to make any coherent noise, so I settled for nodding my head. His lips met mine softly. I let my instincts take over and I pressed my lips against his. He closed the distance between our bodies and I felt gooseflesh rise up on my arms. He slanted his mouth over mine and the kiss slowly intensified. My hands gripped onto his shoulders to hold him to me. I never wanted this feeling to end. His tongue slid across my bottom lip and I instantly opened my mouth. I wrapped my arms around his neck as his tongue explored my mouth. The feelings that were going through my body were indescribable. This was everything that Quinna had ever talked about and more. It was a million times better than I could've ever imagined it would be.

We pulled away slowly to catch our breaths and he rested his forehead against mine.

"That was-"

A high pitched scream interrupted my sentence and we both pulled away from each other.

"Shit!" I grabbed my gun from the ground, which I guessed had fallen off my shoulder.

I started running as fast as I could with Taveon running beside me. I heard a few growls and Quinna and Niva were screaming. I couldn't hear Celeste's voice. We followed the noises. We heard a couple of final howls from the creatures and Quinna and Niva continued to yell. We rounded a corner and the noises got louder.

"They're at the end of this hall," I told Taveon.

"Quinna!" I heard Niva yell. My mind went frantic and I started running faster. I busted through the door with my gun aimed and ready just in time to watch Quinna's head being ripped from her body. I yelled out in agony and started shooting the creature that was on top of her. I didn't care that it had already given its final howl. I kept shooting it.

"Miri, watch out!" Taveon called out. I turned and started shooting at the creature that was jumping towards me. It was jolted back mid-air from the shots I fired. It howled out and hit the floor dead.

I turned back around to survey how many more there were. Taveon was trying to hold back two as well as Niva. Another one starting running towards Taveon, but I got to it before. I was seeing red. These bastards had already taken away my mom, Jax, Axton, my best friend, and I'm assuming Celeste, and I'll be damned if they were going to try to take anyone else away.

I killed the one going after Taveon and one that was on top of Taveon. "Go help your sister!" I yelled to Taveon as I pulled the creature off of him. He did as I said and I turned around in time to dunk underneath another creature. I heard another howl and knew that there was only two left now. I tried shooting at, but it moved away. I cocked my head to the side. It stood up on its hind legs and howled out. Its hind legs were still human. I cried out. This was Celeste. No. No. No. I can't do this again. I started backing up and shaking my head as Celeste started stalking towards me. I can't kill Celeste. I can't do it again.

This isn't Celeste anymore. This isn't Celeste anymore. Celeste is gone. This is a creature. This isn't Celeste anymore. I shot at it and it finally howled out its final howl along with another one. Both of the howls sounded more like a human scream.

I stood frozen for a second and looked at all of the creatures and bodies on the ground. There were eleven creatures, including Celeste, and two bodies. I felt tears start to run down my cheeks as reality set in. Mom was gone. Jax was gone. Axton was gone. Quinna was gone. Celeste was gone. Niva was gone.

"Taveon," I cried out when I noticed he was hunched over his sister. I knelt down beside him and put my arm around his shoulder. "I'm so sorry."

I looked over at him and met his gleaming, neon yellow eyes.