The Heart Of A Warrior: Battle of the Orhas

Chapter 7

      The nights grew darker, and the days shorter. Everyone could sense the war that was about to happen. Everyone was ready, as we trained them to fight. Not only in the Orha state, but in the human state as well. Everyone needed to know how to defend themselves and others in both states.

Along with the dark nights, my anger and emotions were getting worse. It was starting to get harder to control it, and my family was worse at wanting to know what was wrong. I try to play it off as stress. It made sense that it was stress. A girl my age with the responsibility of a woman twice my age. It does sound stressful, but for me... It wasn't stress... it was Nolan. He was doing this to me, and I didn't know how to stop him... how to keep him out of my head. How to keep him from doing this to me.

Yeah, I was afraid, but I didn't know what to do. I was afraid of telling them. I was afraid of what they'd do. It seemed I was more afraid of my family and friends turning against me, than I was of what Nolan was doing to me. I kept it a secret, but it was getting harder and harder to keep it a secret.

I lied in bed awake all night, afraid of falling asleep... afraid of having the same nightmare that I've been having every night since. Every night since when I had the dream, Andy would be there to wake me up. I could see his mood always changing when he came near me. I could see that he is starting to be afraid for me, but would he be afraid of me when I tell him the truth. Why these dreams are coming. I was afraid of me. I was afraid of what I'd become.

Andy stirred in his sleep. He'd rolled over with his back turned towards me. I watched as he slept. It was always strange for me because I missed him. I missed him when he'd go hunting without me. I missed him when he was off doing anything without me. I missed him when he was taking a shower in a different room. Most of all, I missed him when he slept. I knew that while he slept, he was off somewhere else. In another land, dreaming about this world when everything was normal. The thought of that made me wish I could dream like that. I wished that I could dream of everything going back to normal, and just stay in that dream forever. Never wake up from it.

As he slept, the sun rose again. Another cold dark night in the trash. I started wishing I could sleep, and Andy knew I wasn't sleeping at night. He insisted on staying up with me, but I denied the offer many times in the couple of weeks since we destroyed the collar. The morning sunlight shone through the window and on to our bed. He lit up with the yellow-orange-ish glow of the rays. It was absolutely beautiful watching him sleep in the sunrise. Then it was disrupted by him rolling over. He wrapped his arm over my stomach and pulled me close to him.

"Good morning gorgeous." He whispered in my ear. "Did you sleep well? You were pretty quiet."

"Sure." I lied, and he knew that I lied. Some reason he always knew when I lied to him, and I wanted to know how.

"Violet, I can't help you, if you don't help me. Help me to help you." He begged holding me in his arms. I was quiet, and didn't say anything. He sighed. "Maybe you should stay in and get some rest. Everyone will understand."

"I don't know if that's such a good idea." I said looked at him. His beautiful gray eyes were different. They were sad and worried, and I was upset because I knew it was because of me. Something was slowly killing me inside. It wasn't pain, or that I was sick. It was seeing him like that... it was feeling all the emotions at once, but anger and hate being the strongest. I didn't know how to stop it, but I desperately wanted to. "I'll have the dream, and we need to get going anyway. The sooner this war is over, the better."

"Ok. But you're not training today."

"Bite me." I said trying to get up, and his grip tightened stopping me. "Just because you turned eighteen yesterday doesn't mean you can do that, Andy."