Chapter 15: Patience

When Sage looked at Xavier, she felt like she might have made their conversation from the previous day awkward. She contemplated whether she should walk up to him or walk away, but Xavier caught sight of her and approached her. It would have been weird if Sage walked away at this point, so she stayed put.

“Hi. Um, I’m sorry if I went out of context with our conversation yesterday,” Sage said while she tucked her black hair behind her ear.

Xavier was about to reply, but Drake butted in. “Wait, you know her?” he questioned with wide eyes.

Red walked in between Xavier and Drake. She was a keen observer, which was why Xavier had asked her to trace the vampire energy in the woods; she was really good at spotting things.

Red held Sage’s arm. “What is this?” Red asked, pointing at the particles on Sage’s green hoodie.

“It’s probably just dust,” Sage shrugged.

Red quickly let go of Sage's arm, then dipped it into one of Drake’s pockets and brought out a sample bag. She had no idea why Drake carried sample bags around, but it had come in handy today. Red dusted off the particles on Sage’s hoodie into the sample bag and then sealed it. Her action was strange to Sage, but this group never stood out as the normal type to her.

“Xavier, we need to go now,” Red said as she quickly walked for the exit.

“Till we meet again, Sage,” Xavier slightly bowed his head before walking after Red, and the rest followed suit.

Sage was able to get to school by using the twins' car. She was sure they’d have nowhere to go since she took their car, and the rickety car was parked along the roadside. Sage chuckled as she might have beaten them at their own game.

****

Xavier quickly jumped out of the car the moment he parked. He looked really calm, but everyone could feel the urgency in his every action.

Edward, a friend of Xavier, walked out of his house the moment he saw Xavier and the others pull into the compound. The wolf creed had a unique way of building and designing their territory; they built their houses in a way that gave off a rural vibe, but the buildings themselves were quite modern.

&Unlike the vampires, the werewolves valued development. The place they lived didn’t look like it had been there for hundreds of years.

“Ed, where’s Valarie?” Xavier questioned as he walked towards Valarie’s home.

“I don’t think she’s in. She mentioned something about being away for a while,” Edward replied.

Xavier stayed at his current spot as he thought of his next line of action. There was nothing he could do right now; the only clue they had was the powder they collected from the school hallway, and only Valarie could help them figure out what it was.

“Everyone can go; we'll meet again when Valarie comes back,” Xia said when he was done thinking. There wasn’t anything he could do other than wait patiently. The word patience wasn’t in Xavier’s dictionary, especially now when he felt there was something wrong with the way that strong energy came and vanished within seconds.

Xavier left everybody and stepped into his house. When he got in, he shut the door violently behind him.

“Mom!” Xavier called out as he took in a deep breath. He looked in the kitchen, but she wasn’t there. He headed upstairs, and when he got close to his mother’s room, he heard low sobs.

Xavier pushed the door slowly to peek in. He saw his mother curled against a wall, crying in silence. Opposite her was a large framed picture of his late father. Xavier couldn’t bear to see his mom in this situation. He had sworn to exact revenge on the vampires, but he needed time.

He walked into the room and crouched in front of his mother. Mitchell had buried her head into her thighs with her knees pointing to the ceiling.

“Mom,” Xavier was about to touch her, but she tilted back and stared at him in fear. “It’s me, Xavier, don’t be scared.” Although he was trying to get to her right now, he knew she was not in control of her body anymore; her pupils had enlarged and covered most of the white there. Her wolf had taken over.

Mitchell took off running out of her room and jumped down the stair rail. Xavier, who didn’t like the fact that his mom would run unconscious of her actions out of the house, chased after her. Mitchell ran out of the house exit, and the moment her feet touched the bare floor, she morphed into her wolf form and ran into the woods.

“Just let her be,” Red said, placing a reassuring hand on Xavier's shoulder as he was about to run after his mom.

****

“Kashina, if you strongly believe that one of the witches under you is responsible for guarding the hybrid, why don’t you use your dark magic and point them out?” Penny, another strong witch, suggested.

“You know that’s not how it works, especially against witches of your caliber,” Kashina scoffed.  I'm“Penny, I know you well. Are you hiding the hybrid?”

“Ha-ha, if I was with the hybrid, I would have given it to the werewolves a long time ago.”

“You know, it's better the hybrid isn’t found,” Ericka interjected. “If not, witches, werewolves, humans, every being we know would cease to exist. All because of the monster, Soren.”

Ericka’s words seemed to have annoyed Kashina. “Ericka, is it you who guards the hybrid?”

“Like I said before, if it was me, I would have killed it,” Ericka responded.

“Kashina, are you going to overlook the fact that she just called our lord a monster?” Nilla, Kashina’s right hand, questioned.

“If not a monster, then what is he? When he kills the innocent just so he can attain more power and rule over the earth as a dictator,” Ericka shouted.

“Ericka, shut your filthy mouth,” Kashina snapped at her.

“You’re the one who should shut up. You think he cares about you? No, he doesn’t. Just look at yourself, Kashina. When was the last time you took a bath or even brushed your teeth?” Ericka had been receiving firsthand the odor that proceeded out of Kashina’s mouth. She just had to include it in her speech as she poured out her heart. “He is just using you. You were once a beauty, but look at what he has turned you into. All of you,” she added, shaking her head in pity as she averted her gaze from Kashina to Nilla. “What has he done to you?”

“He showed me the truth, and not just me, all of us who followed him. You would have known the truth if only you joined us then.”

“And you believed whatever he told you? You believed a man who killed your husband, daughters, and sons.”

“You don’t speak about the man who made us his family like that!” Nilla was infuriated listening to Ericka blab, and she snapped.

“After he took the lives of the real ones,” Ericka wondered how much Soren had brainwashed her people. He must have fed them so many lies that they can’t reason properly anymore.

“I think that's enough, Ericka,” Penny stated, trying to calm her down. “With time, they’ll realize how they were nothing but pawns Soren used to achieve his goals.”