Three Months In Hell

The Truth

~~~~~~~~~~Mitch's POV~~~~~~~~~~

I through my hood on to cover my face. I walked the long distance back in silence. Luckily, no one approached me. I walked slowly up the stairs and up to my room. I could feel the blood drip down my cheek. I slammed the door closed and stalked to my room. Unfortunately, Derek stepped in front of me. He grabbed my chin and forced me to look at him.

"What happened?" He asked.

"I fell.  Now let me go so I can clean up." I lied. He didn't let go. 

"Alex! Grab the first aid kit!" Derek yelled. He let go of my chin and grabbed my wrist. Dragging me over to the couch, we sat down.

"Here," Alex said. "What happened?" 

"Someone hit him, but he's saying that he fell," Derek responded. He let go of my wrist and took the first aid kit. He started to treat the wound. "Now what really happened?"

"I told you," I growled. "I fell in my rush to meet up with my Mother."

"You. Are. Lying." He stated.

"You might as well give up," Nikolas said coming over to join us. "Derek is basically a human lie detector. He gets it from his mom."

"Great..." I muttered. Now I have to watch what I say.

"Not going to talk now?" Derek asked. He applied a bandage to the cut and put the medical supplies back in the kit.

I closed my eyes to concentrate on putting a mental wall up. Once I opened my eyes, I said, "I ran off so quickly because I was let for a meeting with my Mother. In my rush, I tripped, which caused the cut."

Derek furrowed his brows. "How did you do that?"

"You're a type of Empath. There are always ways to block magiks users and their abilities. Now if you'll excuse me..." I tried getting up but Derek pulled me back down.

"Before you did that, I could already tell you were lying. Now please tell us what really happened. You might not believe it, but we care about you. Even though we've only met in the past twenty-four hours, we feel connected to you. You're part of our group now, whether you like it or not." Derek said.

I sat there with my head pointed down. I stared at my hands as I heard the words coming out of his mouth. I heard the emotion in them so I knew they were true. Luna was the only one who ever showed me compassion. Getting it from complete strangers was... different... I didn't know how to react. After a while, I choked out, "I-I ca-can't." I got up and closed the door to my room. I laid on my bed for the rest of the night.

~~~~~~~~~~Two Days Later (Alex's POV)~~~~~~~~~~

"I think we broke him," I stated. They had gotten Mitch's sister's room number and asked her to come over.

"What exactly did you do?" The spunky girl asked. She looked worried.

"We offered him trust and compassion," Derek said. He had been blaming himself the past two days for Mitch not coming out.

"That would do it," She said. She shook her head. "He doesn't have any friends back home and gets bullied a lot." She sighed and walked over to Mitch's door. We've been asking him to come out but nothing has worked. We tried breaking in, but he locked and barricaded himself in.

"Alright, Asshole! I'll give you the count of three to come out here or I'm burning down this door!" She yelled and started chanting a high-level elemental spell. "One! ... Two! ... Three!" Luna cast the spell which, true to her words, incinerated the door.