Defying Destiny

Chapter Three: Dirt Water and a Really Bad Idea

"Cobalt?" Kelly opened the unlocked door to her brother's room.

Cobalt looked up from the book that they'd found the previous night. "Kelly, I really need you to come with me, right now."

"But where?" Kelly asked him. "You're crazy. You know that, don't you?" She was still staring at the huge, quaint book with utmost displeasure as he shut it and placed it carefully in his cupboard, ignoring her comment.

"We need to go. Now." He towed her out of his house and soon enough, Kelly was walking beside him on the sandy road, having no idea where they were headed to.

She gasped as she saw that they were taking the route to the forest. Their house shouldn't have been built on the edge of a forest, or she could've come up with a ton of excuses. But now, it looked like her only option was to go where Cobalt was leading her.

"Is she ready?" Kelly heard a familiar voice call out from the thick undergrowth.

"Yeah, she is." Cobalt didn't hesitate even the slightest bit.

"Ready for what?" Kelly asked, taken off-guard. "I'm not ready! I don't even know what's going on!"

"That's okay, you will." Dylan finally emerged from the bushes, holding a deer carcass. "We need you."

"What's that for?" Kelly gestured to the deer, shaking nervously. "You guys are nuts. Has anyone ever asked you to go to the funny farm?"

"This," Dylan said, "is the bait."

Bait?

"And what are we catching, exactly?" Kelly crossed her arms and glared at him, still shaking.

Wait. Why was she shaking?

Just then, before Dylan could answer, she saw a beast running towards Dylan with a hungry growl echoing from its mouth.

Kelly's eyes widened in realization and she squealed as soon as she saw the beast. It was the one, the same one. She could see the small, green teardrop shape with a jagged right edge, inside the bigger, steel-gray, shield-like symbol, right where it was supposed to be, in the center of its chest.

Another growl from the beast set her heart pounding against her chest. A high-pitched scream burst out of her mouth and she attempted to run away, realizing that both of her wrists were trapped in Cobalt's vise-like grip.

"Kelly, please." Cobalt's eyes practically pleaded with her to listen to him, just this once.

Suddenly she nodded solemnly, took her hands back, and turned to face it, just like that. She had become aware of something in that instant. The beast frightened her. A lot. But something even worse was that she didn't even care about that. She didn't want to run. She was going to stay right there and stand her ground beside her friends. 

Kelly Wingate would probably die. She was afraid. And yet, at the moment at least, she really wasn't concerned with that.

Weird, right?

"If it isn't the thing of my nightmares," she said grimly. "Nice to--" A long, sickening ripping sound and a masculine cry echoed in her ears, stopping her mid-sentence. Dylan's panicked footsteps towards  Cobalt and herself reached her ears and she stiffened. He seemed to signal something to her brother, and strong hands pushed her to the dirty ground beneath them.

She turned around to see Cobalt lying on the ground beside her, his shirt torn and his hands still holding her. They looked up to see a tremendous, awful dark flash. Kelly exhaled the breath she'd been holding, and looked up to see the huge beast being handled by Dylan alone.