Flying and Falling...[Chapter sixteen]

            “Do you want me to walk you home?” Nathan asked me through a yawn.
            I didn’t realize how long we had been sitting in his room talking. It was almost eleven, and I really needed to get home.
            “Please and thank you.” I responded sweetly.
            He rolled off his bed and helped me off next. I watched him open his door, waiting for me to walk through it, his ultimate gentlemen gesture, opening doors for me. I walked under the doorway, not letting me and Nathan’s eye contact break as I did so. We were in his hallway alone, and he slowly locked his arms around my waist.
            He rested his head on my shoulder and whispered, “I love you.”
            “I love you too.”
            He chuckled, “How you could love a monster I’ll never know.”
            “How you could love an imperfect loser I’ll never know.”
            “You not a loser.”
            “And you’re not a monster.”
            He sighed, “Natalie, angel, you have no idea what your getting yourself into. I’m horrified to death something’s going to happen to you.”           
            “Why me? Why would anyone that’s your enemy come after me? What would they gain from that? An annoying fifteen year old?”
            “They’d know I loved you, and they’d threaten to kill you if I didn’t die first. I can’t let anyone get a hold of you. Not just because of my life, I could care less about my life, I just want you out of harms way.” 
            “I care about your life. I won’t let you die for my existence. It won’t work that way buddy.”
            He sighed, “Natalie, if I didn’t have you, my life would have no purpose. I’d probably voluntarily take myself out of the world if I didn’t have you.”
            “No you wouldn’t, I wouldn’t let you.”
            “You’d be dead; there would be nothing you could do.”
            I had been defeated, “Your right. I would haunt you then.”
            “I would enjoy your company.” He said smiling.
            I laughed, “Somehow I doubt that.”
            “I love you so much.”
            “I love you too, more than life itself.”
            “I can believe that considering your basically giving your life to be with me, I don’t think it’s worth the risk.”
            “I do.”
            He picked me up into his arms and kissed me, I kissed him back willingly. It was a random action but, I liked it none the less. He carried me down the hallway and he treaded silently out his front door with me still in his arms. He was still warm; I started to wonder if when he was warm it meant he was mad. At the party steam was coming off his head because he was mad, so maybe, but then again he was made of fire after all, it was kind of an expectation for him to be hot.
            “What are you thinking about?” he asked me randomly.
            “You.”
            He snorted, “I would’ve never guessed.”
            I looked up at his face, “What is that supposed to mean?”
            “I would’ve expected that you’d be thinking about me. How big a monster I am.”
            “That last part wasn’t even close.”    
            “Then what?”
            “About how hot you are.”
            “Hot?” he asked, sounding amused.
            I realized what he was thinking, “Oh! I didn’t mean it like that! I meant like temperature. Not that you’re not hot or anything that’s just not what I meant.”
            He was laughing now, “I know I’m just playing with you.”
            “Whatever Nathan.”
            I realized we were halfway up my street already, “Will you stay with me?” I asked him. I was tired but I wanted him with me.
            “I don’t know if that’d be a good idea tonight.”
            “Why not?”
            “I’m probably expected for a beating when I get home.”
            My eyes widened, “What?”
            “I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone remember?”
            I didn’t want to hear this, “Oh no Nathan! You didn’t need to get…beaten…because of me! I didn’t even need to know! I don’t want you to get hurt!”
            His jaw tightened, “My father’s beatings are…bearable.”
            I felt tears swell up in my eyes, I didn’t want Nathan to get hurt because of me, “Nathan…” I started.
            He started to stroke my face and interrupted me, “Natalie, please. I’ll be fine I promise. You’ll see me tomorrow, alive. I’ll be ok.”
            “You don’t know that!”
            “I’ve lived through his beatings my whole life love, I’ll be fine.”
            His whole life, he’s been beaten his whole life, “I’m so sorry.” I said as I buried my face into his chest, ashamed of myself for some reason.
            “You’re making this hard.”
            I lifted my head, “Wouldn’t it be hard anyways?”
            “I’m already used to physical pain, it’s the fact that I’m hurting the people I love that kills me.”
            I tried to stop crying, “I’m sorry.”
            “Quit apologizing. Now come on angel, your home.”
            I tightened my grip on him and refused to let go, “No I don’t want to leave.”
            He set me down on the ground and pulled me off of him, “Please don’t make this any harder than it already has to be. Now come on, get some rest.”
            I scowled, “I don’t like it.”
            “I know, I can tell.”
            “This isn’t fair, why can’t you fight him back?”
            He exhaled sharply, “He’s my father.”
            “So?”
            “I can’t…do that…to my father. I won’t hurt another family member. I’ve already hurt one to many.”
            It made enough sense, “Ok…goodnight.”
            “Goodnight.” He said as he dashed off down the street.
            I sat on the ground in silence for a moment, and then my legs started to fall asleep so I decided it was time to get up. I walked into my living room cautiously to see my mother, sitting on the couch, asleep. My sister Marie came into the hallway, pajamas and all.
            “What took you so long?” she mumbled.
            “I was at a party.”
            She gave me an evil look, “Why did you leave so early?”
            “Because I could.”
            “Hm…” was all she said and then she walked back off to bed. I sighed and then walked into my room, put on my pajamas, and then curled up in my bed. The party had exhausted me, just then I heard the phone ring. I rolled off my bed to answer it, “Hello?”
            “Hey Natalie.” It was Jasmine. I had no idea how in the world she got my phone number.
            “Um…hi Jasmine.” I was surprised she was calling.
            “Do you know why Nathan hit Parker?”
            I didn’t feel comfortable talking about Parker right now, “No.” I lied.
            She sighed, “Ok I guess I’ll just keep asking around. Talk to you later.”
            “Uh huh.”
            “Bye.” And then she hung up the phone. That was probably the most random phone call I have ever answered. I got back on my bed and pulled my blanket over my head. I thought of Nathan, and the physical pain he was probably experiencing right now. I felt tears run down my face, they weren’t completely tears of sadness, they were also tears of anger. Overwhelming anger that my sweet perfect boyfriend had ever been beaten. How dare he lay one finger on him, I would’ve called but his dad scared me far too much. Now I knew if we ever had children not to let grandpa baby-sit.
            My window was still open from when I had escaped with Nathan this morning, I probably should’ve closed it but I was to lazy to get up. My eyes were growing heavy and eventually I just let them fall shut. About five minutes later I heard a little click coming from somewhere in my room, I ignored it and tried to go back to sleep. Then, not even ten seconds later, I felt something sit on the edge of my bed. My eyes flew open, but I couldn’t see. They were clouded and groggy. I rubbed them to see a girl sitting on the edge of my bed. I wanted to scream but I couldn’t, it’s almost like something was preventing me from it.
            “Don’t scream.” The girl said. She looked very familiar. That’s when it hit me, that was the girl from the party. The one that came in with the two curly haired girls, the same one that didn’t say one word the whole time she was there, and she was in my room telling me not to scream! I swallowed hard and tried not to tremble, I was horrified. She let her silky black hair fall into her face and looked me in the eyes. Her eyes scared me half to death, they were almost completely black, very strange.
            “Who are you?” I whispered, shaking.
            “Names Andrea, I believe we met at the party.”
            “What do you want?”
            “I came to…discuss some things with you.”
            “So you broke into my house to do it?”
            She shrugged, “Nathan told me how to get in.”
            “Nathan?” She knew Nathan?
            “Yes.” She seemed totally at ease here.
            “How do you know Nathan?”
            She laughed, “He didn’t tell you?”
            More secrets… “I would suppose not.”
            “Nathan is my cousin.”
            My jaw fell open, “Cousin?”
            “Yes, my father is his father’s brother.”
            I thought back to when Nathan told me his whole family had “supernatural abilities”. And before I could even say anything of it she spoke again, “Yes, like Nathan I also have “supernatural abilities.”
            I jumped back, “What in the world?”
            She laughed again, “My “ability” is a bit different.”
            I flinched, “What is it?”
            “I enter your thoughts and I can occasionally manipulate them.”
            “You can read minds and make them think of different things?”
            She shrugged again, “If that’s how you want to put it.”
            That was unexpected, “Willingly, or do you just hear everything everyone says?”
            “I do it willingly. I can drop in and change whatever I want, whenever.”
            “Is there limits?”
            She sighed, “Yes, there’s a distance limit of course, and the fact that sometimes it doesn’t work on certain people because their mind is…different.”
            “Like their…?”
            “Mentally crazy.”
            “Oh…”
            She sat there a minute, “I got home right after Nathan did.”
            My heart slammed into my chest, “What happened?”
            She bowed her head, “I left before his father got into his room.”
            I flinched again, “Is he ok?”
            “I don’t know yet. He usually is.”
            Usually… “Well what did you come here for?”
            “To deliver news that Nathan couldn’t at the moment.”
            “And that news would be?”
            “Zachary’s coming to town.”
            I held my breath, “Zachary? The same guy that—“
            She cut me off, “That Nathan got into a…fight, with yes.”
            “He’s coming here?”
            She nodded, “Yes. He has relatives here, and he’ll be living here…again. Not to mention that he’s going to our school…”
            “He’s coming here? To our school? With us?
            “Yes.”
            I bit my tongue, “Oh no.” Nathan’s worst enemy, the one that forced his sister’s vision from her, the one that was capable of freezing him and myself, was coming.