Pleasantly Raising Cain

Save You Tonight (Songfic)

Extract from The Echoes Trilogy Book One: Echoes in the Dust.
This book will be being written after Secrets and Promises are completed, hopefully late next year. I may or may not include this one shot in the book, but for now I'm too excited to wait, so I wrote a small part of it! :)

The bonfire lit up most of the campsite, where the Dead Girls and their male companions were staying for the night. They would be heading off in the morning again. They all sat on logs around the fire, Kalani Nightfire staying close to Ruby Bly's side, and Lucas Byers with his arm around Bella Pleasant's shoulder. Karma Snow was sitting on Dexter Vex's knee, grinning up at him. Cayde Zavala and Tate Carnage sat on a log together, Blizzard Fernell and Aibhlinn Firrine beside each other across from them.

Lucas leaned in closer to Bella and she looked in the opposite direction; obviously not in the mood to be snogged... Tate watched with murder in his eyes as the blonde boy persisted.

"No," Bella said. Lucas sighed.

"Buzzkill," he snorted. Bella tried, and failed to hide the hurt on her face. Tate fumed, and mentally slapped himself. Why did he suddenly care so much about the dark haired girl? It wasn't his job to be looking out for her, but somehow he was drawn towards Bella...

I, I wanna save you
Wanna save your heart tonight
He'll only break you
Leave you torn apart, oh

In the corner of his eye he saw Cayde watching Karma and Dexter. He nudged his best friend and Cayde looked up, his eyes glazed over as if he'd just been snapped out of a trance.

"What?" He whispered.

"Keep your eyes off Snow, Dexter will kill you if he even caught a glance of you watching her like that," Tate replied quietly. Cayde narrowed his eyes.

"Aren't you a hypocrite?"

"What?!"

"I saw you watching Pleasant. She was like a field mouse and you were the hawk."

"No! I wasn't watching Bella!"

"Oh yeah? Then explain why I heard, 'stupid motherfucker' being said under your breath?"

Tate froze. "Fine, Luke was pressuring her."

"Ah, so you were watching her."

"Maybe, but that's not the point. You were watching Karma too."

Cayde looked at the ground, blinking. "I may have been looking at her briefly."

"Briefly?"

Cayde glared, and Tate didn't press any further into the matter.

It's a quarter to three can't sleep at all
He's so overrated
If you told me to jump, I'd take the fall
And he wouldn't take it

Bella kept her gaze on the fire, not really looking at anything in particular, lost in her own thoughts. She could still feel Lucas' arm on her shoulder. She kept telling herself that he loved her, and she loved him, but now it was getting harder to think that. All he wanted to do nowadays was kiss her. He'd even asked her to sleep with him as soon as they'd set up camp. She had said no of course, that was last thing Bella wanted to be doing right now. Because right now, her whole focus was on finding and rescuing her parents and sister.

She looked up briefly when she heard Tate and Cayde whispering with each other, and sighed. Classic boys. Bella rested her chin on her closed fist, and felt Lucas edge closer towards her, his hand travelling from her shoulder down her back. She shifted uncomfortably.