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❝i'm not antsy❞
"Are you okay?" Connor asks as he sits next to Cassandra on the sofa. She looks over to him and gives him a tired smile, nodding.
"I'm just tired."
"It's been a long day," he agrees. "You should get some rest."
She shakes her head, "Tristan said he wanted to talk to me after he'd finished getting some food."
After Cassandra had heard Brad's heartbeat, Brad decided to do some more drills to see if she could focus on other things. At first he'd play music on the other side of the training hall very quietly and she'd pick up on that and eventually she was trying to focus on things being said on the floor above them. It had used all of her energy up.
"I'll see where he is for you, then," Connor smiles and she thanks him as he leaves. Brad sat on the sofa by the side of hers, and she glances over to see him watching the television.
She purses her lips, turning away from him before she started staring. She wasn't sure why the curly haired boy didn't like her, she assumed it was about her and her personality but in all reality, even he wasn't sure why he didn't like her entirely.
"Come on," Tristan says, surprising Cassandra and she gets off the sofa quickly. Even Brad was surprised to see Tristan there but he only rolls his eyes at his friends. He was still annoyed that Tristan was bossing him around.
"Where are we going?" Cassandra asks as she follows him out of the room. They both get their shoes on and Tristan hands her a jacket.
"I'm gonna show you something in the forest," he smiles and they walk down together into the forest. It was only just turning dark, but it didn't worry either of them because Tristan reassured her they weren't going far.
Meanwhile, in the house Connor and Brad were sat in the lounge, watching some trash, reality television show.
"You feeling better now?" Connor asks Brad, referring to his almost scrap between Tristan and Brad's earlier.
Brad holds back a sigh, "yeah. Fine."
"Convincing," Connor says sarcastically, earning himself a glare off of Brad. "Are you gonna tell me what's got you all antsy or?"
"I'm not antsy," Brad scoffs, causing Connor to raise his eyebrows. "Oh, fuck off, will you?"
Connor chuckles at Brad, which makes Brad close his eyes and breathe out slowly before he says or does something that he shouldn't. He couldn't control his temper these past couple days and, as much as he wanted to, he couldn't take it out on his friends.
"Are we nearly there?" Cassandra asks Tristan as she looks behind her. She could barely see the house through the vines sprouting out and the willow trees' long branches wafting in front of it.
"Yeah," Tristan smiles as he comes to a stop, causing Cassandra to go tumbling into him and falls straight on her arse. He chuckles and helps her up, his arm over her shoulder.
At first, she was confused why he stopped but then she saw the beautiful blue and purple glowing on the trees, some flying around, Cassandra picking up the faint sound of their wings moving.
"They're. . . they're beautiful," she says in awe, putting her finger out to hold one of the butterflies. It seemed so normal for her to hold the animal, as though they had a connection.
"They haven't glowed since James went missing," he explains, his eyes never leaving her as more butterflies leverage towards her. "I hadn't seen them glow since then, but then this morning I came out for a walk while you were training and they were glowing again."
She turns to him, a smile on her face. She could certainly get used to this.
+
She couldn't sleep, despite how much she wanted to. She felt like she was suffocating in the stuffy room.
She pushes her quilt off of her body and runs her hand through her hair before pulling it into a quick bun and putting on some clothes to wear. Even though it was past midnight and everyone was sleeping, she got up and went downstairs and went into the training hall.
The lights were off and she turned them on and saw that it was entirely empty, just like she'd expected. She wraps some bandages around her wrists and sets up a punching bag, hoping to tire herself out so that she can go upstairs and sleep.
She spent hours punching the bags and she could feel herself slowly getting stronger, as though the adrenaline running through her veins worked as steroids. It was only when she had managed to knock the punching bag down that she realised how long she'd really been there.
She moves the punching bag and puts it by the others before taking off the bandages, sitting down and getting her breath back.
"Impressive," a voice says behind her and she jumps up, only to see Brad stood there against the wall with his arms folded. "Your punches, I mean, they're impressive."
He hadn't been there long, maybe ten minutes. She hadn't noticed because she was so concentrated on burning all her energy that she seemed to have had two hours ago.
"Thanks, I guess."
He purses his lips for a moment before pushing himself off of the wall and letting his arms drop to the sides, "I came down here to tell you to shut up, but you were actually doing alright."
She nods sharply, not sure what else to say. He bites her cheek, watching her get her drink and the bandage before walking out of the basement.
He stays frozen in place, his body heating back up as soon as she left the room. It takes him a moment to realise that he should go back to sleep and turns on his heel before going up the stairs and turning the light off.
"Good morning," Cassandra greeted Connor with a smile as she entered the kitchen. Connor looks up quickly from his toast and smiles, surprised to see Cassandra still up.
"You're up early," Connor says, noticing the sweat radiating off of her skin. "Dean's gonna be teaching you some stuff today."
"Yeah?"
"Mhm," Connor nods. "I heard you've got the pleasure of working with me today. You're gonna spitting out water fountains like there's no tomorrow by the end of today."
Cassandra laughs and grabs some food that Helen had prepared and puts it on to a clean plate before sitting down at the table with Connor.
Tristan wakes up not long after and joins the pair, "have any of you guys seen Brad this morning?"
"No, why?" Connor replies. "Not in his room?"
"No, he isn't," Tristan frowns. "I just wanted to talk to him about yesterday."
"He's probably just out burning off steam," Connor sighs before turning to Cassandra. "That boy is always angry or annoyed over something, I swear. We're pretty sure he has anger issues but we've never got him tested because he'll just shout at us."
She nods slowly, understanding more why Brad's always in a bad mood. Perhaps it's a good thing that they weren't really friends since it meant she wouldn't be on the receiving end of his temper tantrums if they don't talk to each other.
When she finishes, she waits for the other boys to finish and tell her what to do but Dean walks down the stairs, prepared to train Cassandra.
"Are you two ready?" Dean asks. Connor was surprised to hear Dean so loudly, so suddenly and choked on his slice of toast before nodding along with Cassandra. "Great. Let's go."
Connor looks longingly at his slice of toast before sighing and getting up from the table.
