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Chapter II

Chapter 2

Recap

... "Follow me." The newcomer, Julian, whisper-shouted in our huddle. Shortly after, he gestured us to strafe to the right, towards what seemed to be a hidden shelter. How did I not see that? Just as I got onto my hands and knees to crawl towards the destination, I saw something. Something that I thought I wouldn't see for a long time.

Nick.

Julian's POV

I turned back to see everyone had followed me towards the shelter that I had created. That's when I saw him.

Nicholas.

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That. Bastard.

End of recap

Blair's POV

I grinned from ear to ear. I was almost sure he was dead after he got captured during the raid two years ago. Yet here he was, alive, breathing, and in fairly good shape. My mouth shaped to form the words that were his name when I saw another person come up to him. It was Darcy. Co-general of Bloodline, the subdivision that had captured Nick and almost killed all of us. She put her hand on his shoulder and whispered something in his ear. They both laughed and he hit her playfully in the arm. His smile... it was just like I remembered. But, why was he smiling with her? Why was he touching her? Why was he with her? Every part of my body ached to go to him. To hug him, to tell him how much I missed him and how I wanted him to come back to us. But something about that scene told me that it wasn't a good idea. The Nick that's in front of me was not the Nick I knew before.

"That bastard..." I heard a voice mumble behind me. My head swivelled around and I saw the slightly shaking head of Julian, his fists tightly curled by his side. His mouth was pursed in a tight line, eyes squinted in hatred.

"Hey," I whispered, punching Julian softly on the arm. "You okay?"

His chest heaved up and down before saying, "Fine," he paused. "Let's go."

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For something I didn't notice, this place was gigantic. It seemed to have at least four floors, a glass elevator in the middle. Onto the right lay two 6 ft doors, engraved with silver mandalas with jet-black linings. On the left was a gargantuan dining room with a long table with high-rise chairs on either side; candelabras every meter and oil-paintings lining the Victorian wallpaper. It was modern and old-fashioned at the same time; I'd never seen anything like it.

"Hey Julian guy," Sabina started, "What the hell is this?" she sputtered out disbelievingly, waving her hands up like she was like a maniac. "We walked through the desert for hours and we did not see this—mansion?"

Julia looked at her – as if the answer was so incredibly obvious, "I made it, genius." He scoffed, "And just maybe you could be slightly nicer to me since I don't know... I saved your life," Julian smiled coyly. He clearly knew he'd won the battle as Sabina held up 'the finger' and stomped off to one of the doors on the right, which was apparently the master bedroom.

"Okay, but how did you 'make' it," using air quotations to make my point, "You can't just make a mansion out of thin air."

Julian sighed and sat down onto one of the entrance armchairs. The whole afternoon went by as he explained that he was from the future; something that some of us definitely couldn't grasp. But, with him, came with a vast amount of knowledge about the future and new technology, which included making structures out of nothing using air particles. And... also the fact that we all died. Except for Alex, whom he apparently knew. That relieved Alex cause he was very, not excited about some stranger knowing his name. He's paranoid someone's going to kill him in his sleep; which was pretty plausible since well... yeah...