I had gotten used to the community a lot faster than I thought. It kind of felt like home, complete with the people walking around, whispering about me behind my back. "Why do they keep doing that?" I finally asked Jayden.
"Doing what?"
"Talking about me. I know Jed said I'm supposed to save this place or something, but come on..."
Jayden smiled, "Don't worry, it's all good things."
"Then why don't they say it to my face?" Jayden looked at me, opening his mouth and then closed it, realizing he had no reply to that. His eyes turned back to the notepad in his hand.
"What are you doing?" I asked. "Preparing..." he said absentmindedly, reading and rereading the list.
"Preparing for what?"
"Your friends." he muttered.
"Wait, what? They're coming here? When?"
Jayden shrugged, "Today, I think."
I almost screamed,"Today?!"
Jayden looked at me, startled, "I thought Jed told you."
I shook my head, "How long until they get here?"
Jayden looked a little scared, "Uh..."
"Jayden!"
"In a couple of minutes." he said, quickly. "What?!" I said. People turned to stare. Zee looked at them, "Sorry."
"Yeah, we need to welcome them. John gave them coordinates to a mile away."
"I'm coming."
"Are you sure you want to do that?" Jayden asked, concerned. I understood what he meant. They must be really mad at me. But I needed to get it over with. "Yeah."
"Well sorry, you can't." Jed said, coming up behind us, walking with a smaller, lanky man.
"You must be Zee." He said, holding out a hand. I shook it. "Your friends were pretty sad when you left. Oh, I'm John by the way."
"Yeah I've heard of you. You know my friends?" I asked hopefully.
"Yep They're good friends, covering for you. Oh, and Ashely Dexter is coming too." "What?" This time my voice was a whisper. Jayden took a step back.
"Ashely is coming? Here?!" I heard a lady scream, and glass shatter.I didn't care, as I stormed off. "We'll be back in 30 minutes." John called. I let out an angry breath and walked to my room.
* * * * * *
I sat near the window of a room that was bigger than my whole house with one of the albums of my father's that Jed gave me.
It's been 30 minutes. They should be here right now. I sucked in a breath. I don't blame them if they don't want to see me... but what if they do? And they have powers and stuff now. So much has changed. Will they be the same people that I knew? Am I the same person they knew?
There's only one way to find out.
I hopped off my bed and went downstairs to meet them. I was just in time. I saw them walking toward this place, talking and laughing. I almost chickened out. Almost. "Here we are." I heard John say. I saw half of them gasp at the hugeness of this place. I could recognize Ashely's red hair from here.
I ignored her at the sight of Cora. She was walking next to that police officer Cora was eyeing at the police station. It took a couple seconds, but she looked away, and at me. Her eyes widened and she screamed, "Zee!" And ran toward me. When she got to me, she enveloped me into a hug, "I missed you." She whispered, her voice unsteady. "I missed you too." I felt tears forming in my own eyes.
I thought I'd never see them again, and here they are. She pulled away, tears streaming down her face, "Don't you dare do that again, promise?"
I let out a weak laugh, "Yeah."
"Alright, let's get a move on people! We're five minutes behind!" It was Jayden. They started to walk in a direction, following him. Cora held onto my hand, tight, as if she was afraid that I would disappear.
I looked up to see Jacob. He was staring at me, and as soon as I saw him, he gave me a small smile and looked away. He wasn't even ignoring me, he was being polite. As if I was some stranger. I took in a shaky breath.
That's when I saw the kid with brown hair and eyes. The only one I didn't know in the interrogation. Cora and I ran to catch up with the group. He was in front of us and when we got there, he slowed down to keep pace with us. "Hey." he said, and left it at that. A couple of moments later, Cora caught on, "Oh! Right. Zee, Ethan and vice versa. He was the one that told us where you went. He saw you leave."
"Oh." Ethan's eyes had a dangerous glint to them. A familiar glint, but she couldn't place where she recognized it from. "We'd better catch up." Cora said, interrupting my thoughts. "Oh yeah." I said, putting Ethan in the back of my head as we walked faster to catch up with the rest of the group.
* * * * * *
After the day was over, I flopped down on my bed, landing on something hard, "Ow..." I got up and saw that it was the open album. I took it and sat back down on my bed. I flipped open the album and saw a picture of a group, laughing and looking at the camera.
My dad was in the middle.
There was a woman who looked like Lillian, wearing an innocent smile. Probably her mom.
Next, there was a man with eyes that looked like an animal's. His teeth were bared in a grin and we're unusually sharp. A werewolf. "They used to be friends..." I muttered, before examining the picture further.
Between my father and the werewolf, there was a woman. There was something about her... That's when I remembered Ethan's eyes. They both had the same glint to them. I looked up to see myself in the mirror across from my bed and saw that...
I did too.
