Crown Of Thorns (Black Veil Brides Fanfiction)

Chapter 9 [Revised - 3-24-22]

Chapters Nine and Ten (as I'm editing, I'm changing the chapter numbers to match up with joined chapters) have been conjoined.

By the time we reach the small but lavish village, the sun has set. This is both good and bad for us. Good in the sense that the villagers can't see us as easily due to our dark clothes but bad because the Shadows are stronger at night. Crouching low, I do my best to ignore the pain in my shoulder as the last of the suns rays go down beyond the horizon. Andy looks back at all of us, giving the motion to split up and remain silent. I make to move past Andy to follow CC, but he lightly grabs my forearm, shaking his head when I look back at him. "Stay with me." His voice is hardly a whisper, and his pointed glance at my wounded shoulder is enough of a reason for me understand why he gave the order he did.

Sighing, I stick by his side as we stand quietly. We start checking around houses, making sure everyone is asleep due to the curfew set. The rule is that all citizens need to be in their homes and asleep by 8:30, which passed about forty minutes ago. Jiggling the doorknob on a particularly well-off looking house, the door opens easily. Thankfully, there is no squeak as it swings open with the help of Andy's tattooed hand. Motioning for me to follow him, I do so without complaint, my boots making no noise against the white tile. Trying to rummage through the cabinets and pantry as quietly as possible, we take about a quarter of the homes' supply of canned goods, as they'll last the longest. Nothing that would be too noticeable. As I'm stuffing cans into my bag, as well as a roll of toilet paper (wonder why they were in the same cabinet), the creak of a floorboard causes both of us to freeze up.

Breathing as quietly as we can, we both carefully pocket our individually held items before making our way to the front door. A little girl waits at the stairs leading up to the second floor, staring at us with wide, curious eyes. In her hand is a small stuffed animal, a red elephant, I think. Andy and I glance at each other, though the girl can only stare in fascination at my head. I wonder for a moment if there was something behind me but then I realize what exactly she was staring at. Holding out my hands so the girl can see, I grow small columbine flowers all over my hands. I choose these ones, simply because they're beautiful, though they do have a common meaning of innocence. Innocence like a child.

Bringing a finger up to my lips to show her she needs to be silent, tiny flowers curling around my finger, I move closer to her. Picking a handful off of my non-dominant hand, I hold them out to her so she can take them. "You can't let anyone know we were here." My voice is nothing more than a whisper, but it's loud in this silent house.

She nods, eyes lighting up as she takes the flowers from me. I wave as I back up, nearly knocking into Andy as we both leave the house.

"Smart." Andy whispers, taking my hand as we walk back to the rendezvous point just outside of the town.

The vines curl around our hands again, but we don't particularly notice, used to it by now. I merely smile at him, the outline of his body just barely noticeable in the darkness of the night, blushing heavily at the praise with cheeks the color of the magnolias blooming in my hair. I adjust my demon mask with my free hand, as Andy said I should wear one in case someone recognizes me, the black painted object obscuring my vision only slightly, as, well... I've only got one eye anyway.

Seeing as we were the first ones to the rendezvous point, we wait around for only a couple minutes before more Wilds and regular soldiers begin to arrive, all carrying valuable day-to-day items. Doing a head check and making sure everyone was here, we begin to make our way back to camp. Everything was going rather smoothly until suddenly, my vines started going crazy.