Gold Blood

Chapter 2

Acelynn scaled the large tree, she could hear Amos scrambling up behind her. He copied where she stepped and where she grabbed. They had always done it like this, Acelynn was naturally good at climbing and Amos was naturally good at falling.

    "Finally," he huffed pulling himself up on a large branch. He rested his back against the tree and closed it eyes sucking air into his lungs.

    "That wasn't even that bad," Acelynn exclaimed from a couple branches above him. She looked out towards their small town. She could see everything from up here, it was breathtaking.

    "Speak for yourself," Amos chuckled gripping the branch tightly with his tan legs. His white hair stood out next to the dark brown bark of the tree, and his grey eyes slowly looked down at the ground far below them. He shook his head and looked up again. Acelynn laughed at him crawled down towards him.  As she shimmied down the trunk of the tree she felt her knee scrape against the rough bark.

    "Um, I have to go," she mumbled as she continued on her way down the tree. Amos looked down and watched as she very quickly made her way down the tree, he jumped from his spot and started following her.

    "Where are you going?" he asked trying to carefully make his way down the tree. He fumbled in a couple spots barely catching himself on branches. "Lynn, please do not leave me here!"

    "I- I just have to go," she yelled back at him. "Please just let me go," she pleaded glancing down at the blood dripping down her leg. She reached the bottom of the tree and took off running towards her house. She looked back to see if Amos made it down the tree and when she turned around she caught her foot on a rock and landed face first in a pile of leaves. Groaning she rolled over and pushed herself up into a seated position.

    "Are you okay?" Amos yelled running towards her. He looked so frantic and he had branches and leaves stuck in his white hair. His eyes were opened wide and he came to a stop in front of her. Acelynn burst out laughing and began to roll around in the leaves. Amos looked bewildered as he looked over her to make sure she was okay. He looked at her knee and his mouth opened widely when he saw the blood dripping from her knee.

    "I'm fine," Acelynn replied before looking at his face and following his gaze towards her knee. She quickly tried to cover her knee, but she knew that he had already seen.

    "You, um you, you're blood, it's gold," he stuttered his eyes flashing towards her face. His normally tan face was ghost white and his hands were clenched at his sides.

    "Yeah, it kind of is..." Acelynn replied her voice trailing off. She looked away from his angry face. She had hoped that this would never happen. She didn't want him to treat her any different and she didn't want to end up in the castle. She liked it here, she wanted to be normal so bad.

    "Why?" He spoke anger laced in that one word.

    "It wasn't my choice, my parents made me. Amos you have to understand! I wasn't allowed to tell anyone. Only my family knows, Bexley doesn't even know and she's married to Ajax, please believe me when I say I wanted to tell you!" Words rushed out of Acelynn's mouth and she searched Amos' face to try and find out what he was thinking.

    "Nobody knows?" he asked slowly sitting down next to her.

    "No, I don't want to go away, I don't want to live with them!" she replied shaking her head. She pulled her hand away from her knee and looked at the gold blood drying onto her hands.

    "Okay, we should probably get back to your house, I don't want you to be taken away," he said cooly his voice never wavering. She almost liked it better when he was yelling at her, at least he was showing some emotion.