One...

My heart beats so fast, it's painful.

Two...

I'm holding on to the trunk of the tree so hard my palms are bleeding.

Three...

I leap out from behind the tree and run towards the opening. I'm two feet away when a Cray blocks the opening at the last second. I turn around and head back the way I came. They take after me. I run frantically through the woods. My body is making up for having frozen on me earlier. It moves with speed I didn't think I was capable of.

The forest goes by me in a blur. Every gust of wind seems to whisper "death is near." I run faster. The uneven ground makes it hard to navigate and the braches mercilessly cut into my skin. More than once I nearly fall, but I each time I gain my balance and forge ahead.

I will not die here...

I'm so concerned about the beasts on the ground, I forget about the ones in the air. A Fire Swan sprays me with flames from above. I move out of the way, narrowly avoiding the bird's wrath. But in the process, I lose my balance and hit the ground, hard.

I'm knocked out for what I think was only a few moments. When I wake up, I'm bruised and aching all over. I open my eyes and look up from the ground. There is a cl.u.s.ter of Cray looking down hungrily at me. There's nowhere to run. Even if there was somewhere to run, my ankle is broken. I can't walk let alone run.

They growl amongst each other for a few seconds and come to some kind of decision. I pray to Omnis they decide they're not hungry, but that wasn't the conclusion that they came to. They decided the biggest of them gets first stab-literally.

The Cray plunges his claw into my flesh. I let out a bone-chilling cry that's unrecognizable to me. Blood gushes out of my legs like a dam that's just been broken. The other Crays lean in to help themselves. Just as I am about to pa.s.s out from the pain, I see a bright light from the corner of my eye...

The next time I open my eyes, I'm in a cave. Everything is blurry and spinning. A voice tells me to rest. I think it's Marcus but I can't be sure. The darkness pulls me under again. I'm not sure how long I've been knocked out but when I wake again, the first person I see is Marcus. Concern and guilt are etched on his stunning face.

"Stop," I whisper softly to him.

"Stop what?"

"Feeling guilty," I try to smile but my face hurts.

"How are you feeling?"

"Like a lucky girl."

"How's that?"

"Did you see how fast I ran? I may have a chance at the next Olympics."

"The adrenaline kicked in."

"Whatever, next year I'm gonna try out."

He looks back at me. He's got this look on his face. It's not his serious First Guardian face. It's something else. I study him for a moment and then I understand, it's his concerned boyfriend look. s.e.xy.

"Marcus, I'm fine," I a.s.sure him. He helps me sit up and fills me in on what happened after the Cray stabbed me.

Wolf was able to distract them with a power ball while Marcus rushed me to safety. Marcus left me with Tony. Then he joined the team and they were able to fend off the Cray.

I look down at my right leg. Someone has bandaged it and fixed my ankle. Marcus tells me it was Tony who was able to heal me with Woe. I remember the side effects of Woe from when Jay got hurt. Fortunately it doesn't have the same effect on humans.

"So, I didn't walk around telling anyone I loved them?"

"No, it worked fine on you," Tony replies.

I ask Marcus about his wounds and he promises it's all been healed thanks to the Woe. Looking around the cave, I see everyone is fine. But there are two Angels I don't see.

"Where's Wolf and Ameana?" I ask.

"Four Crays ganged up on Wolf. He's hurt."

"How bad?"

"Bad. Tony set up a Cob just for him so he can rest. Ameana is in there now, trying to convince him to leave the mission and go get help."

"He has to agree to go."

"Ameana's been trying but so far no luck," Rio says.

I stand up and head outside. Marcus warns me that I am not all better and that I should rest. I don't have time to convince him I'm okay. I have to see how bad things are with Wolf. Although the Woe worked on me, I still feel sore and ache just about everywhere. It takes me twice as long as I thought to get to the next cave.

I enter and find Wolf on the floor with half of his left wing torn off. There's a chunk of his torso missing. The only thing preventing him from bleeding out is the bandage at his side. The light in his perfect face has dimmed significantly. At this rate if he doesn't get help, he'll die.

For once, Ameana and I are on the same page. She looks up at me with profound sadness. Wolf looks stubborn and unwilling to listen to whatever it is she has been saying to him. He greets me with a small voice.

"You're really a centered human to survive the Cray. I would love to feel your Aura sometimes."

"Um...sure," I say, not really understand what his request would entail.

"Wolf, you have to go back. Isabelle or one of the Twins will go with you," Ameana says.

"I gave the team my word. Do you know what happens when you go back on your word? Ever hear of Karma?"

"You ever hear of an Angel surviving injuries like yours without going to Daraquin to get treated?"

"I'm not going."

"Why are you so d.a.m.n stubborn?" Ameana shouts, about to lose it completely.

"She's right. You need to get help," I insist.

"I'll send the guys for some herbs and healing crystals. There's got to be some around here."

"What about Woe, won't that help?" I ask.

"His wounds are too severe for Woe to have any effect," Ameana replies.

In the short time that I've been in the cave with them, even more light has dimmed from Wolf's face. As Ameana tried to convince him to go back, I glimpse a familiar expression on the Para's face. It's a look that I saw just a moment ago on Marcus.

Wolf isn't worried about the mission. He's worried about who he's leaving behind...

"Hey, can I see you for a second?" I asked Ameana. She reluctantly leaves Wolf and follows me outside.

"What is it?" she demands.

"Wolf is never gonna agree to go home and leave you here."

"Why? I can take care of myself."

"Yeah, I get that. But he's...Wolf. He's always trying to do the right thing. And leaving the girl he...he's not going if you're staying."

"You think I should offer to go back with him?"

"It's worth a shot."

"The team needs my help. They can't handle Kairo when they're two Angels down."

"We'll be fine. Once you get to Daraquin, you can always come back. We can't let anything happen to Wolf, or any of you."

She says she needs to run it by Marcus. We head back into the Cob that holds the rest of the team. They discuss it and agree that Ameana should take Wolf back and stay with him. When Ameana tells Wolf she's going to accompany him home, he tries to hide his smile but everyone sees it. He has it bad for Ameana. Once Ameana saw how pleased Wolf was by the news, she supressed a smile by focusing on fixing his bandage. Although there was nothing wrong with it.

I swear somewhere behind that wall of perfection and coldness, a girl is falling in love...

CHAPTER ELEVEN: TIME WITH YOU.

After Ameana and Wolf head back home, I tell Marcus that while I'm not a hundred percent yet, I'm well enough for us to keep going. He takes me to the top of the cliff across from the castle. I hate to admit it but it looks intriguing.

Castle Relinque looks as though it was carved out of the mountain it sits on. It's built from some sort of smooth, glossy black stone. It reminds me of something out of a gothic romance novel. It would be a wonderful place to spend the night; well, that is, if a deranged lunatic didn't live there.

Although Kairo is the ultimate problem, the immediate issue is the vast lake that separates the castle from the cliff we're on.

"I'm a pretty good swimmer, if that's what you're worried about," I tell Marcus.

"Look at the water carefully."

There's a light reddish hue to the lake I observe.

"That's because he's making a stew," Marcus says bitterly.

"What does that mean?"

"It's just a morbid joke. Angels call this type of lake a Stew Lake. It's what we call a body of water with a Vsk at the bottom. And before you ask, a Vsk is a device that takes anything solid and mangles it into chucks. The Council has used it in the past to keep anyone from getting to them."

"That's why the water's a weird reddish color?"

"Yes. It's a mix of the red from human blood and silver from ours."

"How do we get around it?"

"We don't."

"We could fly overhead."

"I thought about that. When we were being chased by the Fire Swans, many would fly ahead of us in an attempt to surround us. But as soon as they get here, they'd turn back."

"There's some kind of force field or something?"

"That's my guess."

"Well, there has to be another way around it."

"We've watched the Swans, none of them have ever flown past this point. We'll have to turn around and find a side entrance."

"But Isabelle said there wasn't one," I protest.

"There may be one she doesn't know about."

"That's gonna take some time."

"A day or two at least," he says, filled with despair.

"Hey, I was thinking about it and maybe if I die, it wouldn't be that bad. I mean I would get to go to the bridge and choose the Light," I offer.

"It doesn't work like that. If you die as a direct result of the mission, you won't go into the Light. You won't go to the bridge, you'll go straight to limbo. Do you get that? Anything having to do with the mission goes into limbo if it's killed during that time."

"Oh, I didn't know that."

I look down onto the raging liquid death trap below. Marcus and I stay silent for a few minutes. Then I break it because I know it's time.

"Marcus-" I begin.

"Please don't, Emmy."

"Don't what?"

"Don't tell me some c.r.a.p about how I have to consider letting you go. For the last time, that's not gonna happen," he snaps.

I don't say anything. If I open my mouth, we'll just get into some stupid argument and that's the last thing I want to do right now.

However, I think my boyfriend was expecting me to reply. The fact that I choose to remain silent throws him off.