The Beginning Of The End

Chapter 8

The next morning, I was awoken by the sound of glass shattering. I bolted out of bed immediately. Out in the hallway, I turned my head, trying to work out where the sound had come from. I could hear water running and made my way to the bathroom just down the hall from the room I was in. Peering around the half-open door, I could see Jaylon, shirtless as usual, hunched over the basin. His head was bent over the water that was pooling in the basin, red with blood. Shards of the mirror, some bloody, were scattered across the countertop and over the floor.

"Jaylon?" I whispered.

When he looked up at me, all I could see in his face, in his eyes, was raw pain and anguish.

A wave of sympathy washed over me, along with a desperate need to go to him, to help him. In my socked feet, I picked my way across the floor, being careful not to step on the pieces of broken mirror. I place one hand gently on Jaylon's arm and my other on his back, then guided him out of the bathroom and down the hallway.

He kept his head bowed the whole way and didn't seem to notice nor care where we were going.

I lead him into his room, which was quite neat for a guys room, especially compared to Adam. Adam... I felt a pang of something as I thought about him, but pushed it down. Jaylon's hands were dripping with blood, he needed my help.

I left Jaylon sitting on the bed staring at nothing in particular, his shoulders slumped and his head bowed and headed over to the cupboard. I found a first aid box, and brought it back over to the bed, sitting down beside Jaylon.

I took his hands and gently laid them in my lap, turning him a little so I could sit cross-legged on the bed while he was facing me. I took a cloth and started to clean out his cuts. There were a few little pieces of glass stuck in them, and I had to find a pair of tweezers to pull them out with. Once I was sure there was no more glass in his cuts, I wiped some antibacterial ointment over his hands and then wrapped them in gauze.

He was a much better patient than Adam had been whenever he got so much as a paper cut. He would complain and yell and be such a baby, it had driven me insane. Well, I probably would never have to deal with that again, seeing as I was trapped here forever... and I was a witch.

"You okay?" I asked, my voice gentle.

Jaylon looked up at me and I saw the pain still in his eyes.

"I found a photo album" he whispered. "I got rid of all their stuff ages ago, put it all away somewhere because it hurt too much to look at. But I found a photo album..." He broke off, looking down, and I realised there were tears in his eyes.

"Jaylon" I whispered, and he looked up at me. "We'll find them."

"My family?"' he asked, sounding confused.

"Yeah" I nodded. "We're finding all the families, aren't we? The twelve of the coven?"

He nodded slowly and I smiled. "So then that means your family."

He smiled at me then. A real, genuine smile. It was the first genuine, heartfelt smile that I had seen on him, the first one directed at me too, and I suddenly felt drawn to him. It was like there was some kind of invisible cord connecting us that had just been activated, trying to pull us together, and by the way he was staring at me, I could tell he felt it too.

We met in the middle, closing the gap between us in seconds and then his arms were around my waist, pulling me against him. My arms went around his neck, my hands tangling in his hair as I met his mouth with mine.

When we finally parted, seconds or hours later, there was no way of knowing, I had a strange dizzy feeling and my thoughts were all a jumble. But one, one thought managed to sneak its way in and I untangled my hands from his hair and leapt back with a gasp.

This was Jaylon. Jaylon who had kidnapped me. What was I doing?

I turned and sprinted out of the room, no idea where I was going as I ran through the mansion, tears pouring down my face.