War of Phantoms.

Chapter 13

I should be the mad person here, not him. What reason he had anyway? Disobeying him? Well, he should get used to this. His rules stopped working on me since he gave up on Anna, and when I knew what kind of jerk he was. Even his charm was ineffective, kind of.

The warriors left in all directions calling Anna's name, and I thought of doing this too. So I glanced around and decided to just go randomly. I turned to walk away but the leader's hand grabbed my hood. "Where do you think you are going?" he asked.

"Where do you think I'm going?"

"I asked first."

Seriously, we looked like fifth grade kids arguing.

I sighed. "Looking for Anna, for sure."

"Can't you see the warriors doing that?"

"I wanna help them."

"You'll just get yourself killed, stay here close to me."

"I managed to survive five months in your kingdom, so I'll survive tonight."

He sighed and raised his head inhaling deeply, probably to make himself calm since I really pissed him off.

Yaay, point to Diana.

He looked down at me. "Why don't you ever listen to me?" his voice was smooth and quiet. "It makes me so mad but amazed, no one disobeyed me or ignored my orders before."

"Because I'm different."

"Definitely." he smirked.

Hey, what was that for? He said this with unusual warmth.

I shook my head. "Whatever, get off. I'm still mad at you."

I kept strolling aimlessly there with him, two steps away from me. I'm sure he was watching me, so I'd not cause any problem, though I didn't do anything wrong during all this while. All I wanted to do was finding Anna and take her back home. I missed her so much, and no matter how I tried, I just couldn't imagine myself living in her house alone, without her or spend the rest of my life in Infenya with no Anna.

The night passed so quickly with no results. I didn't want to lose hope, I was intent on staying there. The daylight occurred so little from the giant trees and since it was the dead forbidden area, the sun didn't emerge. It was still kinda dark and foggy but at least our vision got a bit cleared.

There were some flying phantoms that I had to shot and walking ones that the other warriors already killed. They looked so bored and done, I couldn't blame them, though. The leader wasn't going to lose all these efforts and attempts on a mere warrior, he'd just let them die. But it was Anna, someone who he knew well.

Did he really care about her? Or she was like any other warrior?

I was in deep thoughts when I heard one of the warriors shouting. She said that she found something.

I rushed towards her. "What did you find?"

Leo stood near me and kneeled down to brush that pile of dead leaves away. Something golden started to appear, it looked like some hair locks. My heart dropped into my stomach. unconsciously, I placed my hand on his shoulder squeezing it, he noticed that and looked at me with a blank expression.

He sighed then pushed all those leaves at once, and there it was, Anna's dead body.

"No," I cried and fell down. "This can't be true."

Her face was blue and purple bruises covered her cheeks. I reached for her cold arm and held it, it was full of bruises too.

"Anna," I called despite of the knot in my throat. "You're not dead, right? Wake up, please."