Shadow Keepers (Unedited)

Sixteen: Betrayal

I feel a pair of strong arms wrap around my shoulders. I expect to see Matt, but am surprised when I find Peter staring back at me. He gives me an attentive smile, knowing the real emotion behind my smile. We say good night to the family and he walks me out of the festival. We walk all the way to a creek just inside the tree line. We sit, me leaning on his chest, and him holding me. It was calming; the soft tinkling of the creek, the crickets chirping, the frogs trying to outdo the crickets, even the whispering of voices in the shadows.  The stars were bright and clear, and the moon nearly full.

I knew with all my heart that this moment was perfect, I only wished I could freeze time; make it last or never have it at all. Because in my life, you know that the perfect moment takes place before the ball drops and people start getting hurt. I put up my guard ready for almost anything, even if my emotions were raw as could be. I just stuffed them inside a box to be opened at a later date, when I could risk letting my walls come down and to let someone else get close to me.

I hear a peculiar whispering; I zone in on it, trying to make it clearer, but it’s too far away to get a lot of it.

“He almost has her in his clutches. I wonder what she would do if she found out about the betrayal. Oh to see her face, it would just tickle me.” The evil laughter that accompanied those words made me shiver, but not in a bad or good way, more in an effort to suppress the rage ripping my common sense apart. I hated betrayal. Traitors are all just cowards, it didn’t matter what they did before hand, if they chose to betray they chose to be a coward.

Now I know some of you may be saying something along the lines of, “What if they did it to protect their loves ones, or to have true love?” right? Well Shadow beings of any kind are more than capable of protecting their loved ones and two, if it was a matter of love, we would all come to an understanding. No, only thing any Shadow being would betray for would be power, money, or a title. Thus making them weak cowards.

I felt Gillian presence close by. He must have felt my jolt of rage. I stand up and turn to face Peter.

“We should get back, my family will be wondering where I am.” I say calmly looking directly into his eyes. I know we are the only new people in town and most others have been her for ten or more years so this can’t be a coincidence that he just happens to get close to me. The hunters must know that we’re here. I needed to get to the others and get to the house we needed to pack and get going now.

“Oh don’t worry they will be find without knowing for a little while longer. Come on relax.” I felt my body begin to relax as his voice seemed to wrap around my mind. All of a sudden I had a vision of my panther snapping at some unseeing intruder. Then Peter stumbles back and I clutch my throbbing head. 

“Well, I should have known your panther would be the undoing of my spell.” Peter says while dusting himself off. “But of course, it takes a while for anyone to recover from my presence being ripped out of their conscience.” He takes a step towards me. Yeah for a normal being maybe, but for me I simply push the pain and agony away and brace myself to fight. Right as Peter is about to grab a fistful of my hair, I grab his arm, intending to shatter the bones. But before I can, a voice stops me.

“If you want your family to live longer, I suggest you let him go.” Ash steps out from behind a tree holding Angel with a Hunter’s dagger at her throat. The one type of dagger that could do some serious damage to a Keeper let alone kill him or her if drawn across the neck, not me because I’m cursed. Hayden and James step out as well, each holding a dagger to Penny and Matt’s throat. I release Peter, and step back slowly, holding my hands up for them to see.

“Good girl, now walk.” Ash orders. I knew I had to do as told until I found an opportune moment, until then well, pray I didn’t have to hear the tortured screams of my siblings echo around me, because that would break me.

We walk for an eternity, until; finally, we come upon an abandoned looking two story house. We walk up the rotting steps, well they walk we are pushed, and up to a once red door, I think. Peter goes over and opens a panel beside the door that reveals a high tech, eye scanner. He scans his eye and the door swings open, Ash pushes me toward the door, I stumble and Peter reaches out to stop my fall. I snarl, knowing full well that my fangs were showing and my eyes began to flash from the burning silver of my fire to the dangerous neon green of my Panther and back again.

Peter visibly cringes and a look of regret flashes over his face before a hiss of pain from Angel, forces me to push my Panther back. I know I was fast but I didn’t know how fast they were and therefore wouldn’t be able to stop all of them. So I turn away from Peter and enter the building.

“Smart choice.” Ash comments as he grabs my arm again and begins to lead me down the corridor. The inside looked a little better than the outside, a little more stable. In fact the farther down we went, the more the run down house looked like a state-of-the-art hide out. Ash came to a stop at a stair well. Where two men were stationed, they stepped aside and let him through, he didn’t even acknowledge them and just kept pulling me down the stairs.

After a good few flights of steps we found ourselves in a room with at least twenty or so heavy wooden doors. That and the torches and stone walls, made the entire place feel like a medieval dungeon. The room was decorated with different torture tools, such as the Rack, whips, chains, fire with different metal prods sticking out of the hearth, knives, water, and many more tools I didn’t have a name for nor have I seen before.

In the center of the room sat two long wooden tables, and around one of those tables stood Jade, Jace, Willis, Twiddle sisters for whom I still don’t know the names of, a woman with dull red hair, a man covered in prison tattoos, and a few men that looked like heavy lifters. Ash nodded to the heavy lifters and they helped Hayden drag Matt to one of the doors. One opened it and pulled a fighting Matt inside. They left the door open so that we could see them force Matt to his knees and chin him to the floor. Then the Tat-man took Angel to another room, opposite Matt, and did the same. Then James took Penny away, each one of us older siblings felt the pain of her being forced to bow and then chained. She was too young and we didn’t want her to have nightmare over this torture. But she took it like a champ, head held high and a determined glare focused on our enemy. 

Then I was my turn, it might have been my pride or just the reminder of being someone else’s punching bag for years on end that made me refuse to bow or lower myself. So finally they just chained me hanging in the air, spread eagle. They each began to make plans on who to torture first and how. When the red head said that she could take Matt’s “soul for a spin” I knew what she was, what each of them were. They are children of the Hunter’s Council