Old Friends

Old Friends
Cadeon 
"I'm not running from you, Cadeon," he claims. "What I wanted to avoid is this—this senseless confrontation with you."
His face is fully healed from my attack. "Yeah? That's why you're here? To avoid confrontation? Are you even listening to yourself?"
"Your father made me his Beta," he claims. "I'm in charge of the army now."
I feel absolutely nothing when he tells me this. "Good for you. Now, you can kill as many Omega-borns as you please, right? Being a Beta doesn't mean shit, Lennox. You're a killer, that's all there is to it."
Scowling, he steps closer to me and asks, "Are you really this blind? Come on, Cadeon. I've always admired you for your intelligence. Those Emberborns or whatever the fuck they call themselves don't care about unity and fairness and everything else they're promoting. They just want to be in charge and have power!"
"You're wrong about that. This is Alpha-born propaganda—that's what they tell you to further their agenda. These people are good, and they care about everyone else. I wouldn't be here if I didn't believe that."
"You're blinded by your love for that Omega!" he barks.  "That's all this is about. When you wake up, it's going to be too damn late, can't you see that!?"
I shake my head at him. "You're the one who's blind, Lennox. Blinded by greed and hate."
"We had it all figured out!" he yells, spitting, his body trembling with rage. "You were going to rule and I'd be right beside you. Why'd you go ahead and ruin it? Is she truly worth it? You've gone against your pack and your family! You're a wanted man!"
Behind me, the struggle continues, but nobody comes after me. It's just the two of us. Lennox is glaring at me. I sense his aggression; it's emanating from him. 
"It's my duty to take you back," he claims. "I didn't want to—I tasked a few Gammas to get the job done, but now it's just the two of us here."
I don't say a word. All I know is that Lennox isn't taking me anywhere, and I don't care how many people I need to fight off. I'm not going anywhere and leaving Lili in this place to fend for herself. 
"I didn't want to do this, Cadeon," he claims as he starts walking toward me. I notice that he has a knife in his hand, and it practically glows familiarly as he approaches me. 
Silver. 
He tries to slash me with the knife, but I sidestep him and slam my elbow against his back. 
Lennox turns around, infuriated. His jaw is clenched. "You know what makes this harder for me? The fact that you were the most important person in my life. Yeah, you, Cadeon." 
He slices the air with the knife. I need a better plan. If it were a normal blade, I wouldn't have cared about being cut. But silver? That'll slow down my healing for the next few weeks. Who knows how many attacks there'll be at that point?
My medallion won't do a thing against him. Lennox and I were trained together as kids.  
"You never noticed it, did you?" he asks, going very still. I pause too, my hand reaching for the blade on my belt slowly. If I'm lucky, he won't catch this movement. 
"Noticed what?"
"That I loved you," he says, not missing a beat. "I've been in love with you my whole fucking life and you never noticed. You didn't care to."
This confession takes me off guard. "What?"
Rage contorts his features and he practically lunges at me. I loosen my hold on my blade and it falls to the ground, disappearing into the forest floor thick with fallen leaves. Fucking great. Lennox tries to stab me and I have to grab his arm to stop him. 
"You forgot all about me as soon as your eyes landed on her," he continues through clenched teeth. "I became insignificant to you in a matter of weeks. A friendship of nearly three decades just went to shit! You know what it made me wonder? If you ever cared!"
The tip of the blade is close to my neck. If my strength falters now, I'm dead. The thought makes me wild with anger. If I shift now, it'll offer him an opportunity to stick it in me. I can't shift while moving around. I can shift midair, but I won't be able to do that. 
I kick his knee and twist his arm behind his back. Lennox cries out but his hold on the knife is still strong. "Let go, Lennox. Let go or I'll break your fucking arm."
He doesn't, and this is precisely when I realize that he would gladly kill me if he had the chance. Unfortunately, Lennox is a threat to my safety. Lili's, too. He's an enemy, and I can't let him live. 
So, I break his arm and the knife falls between us. Then, I pick up the same blade and stab him just as he crashes into me. We both fall to the ground, and I watch as his eyes widen before they go blank. 
It's a sight I'll never forget. 
With a groan, I shove him off me. My hand and my clothes are covered in his blood. I sit up, resting my elbow on top of my knee. I glance at Lennox and nausea rolls in the pit of my stomach. 
I have to get up, but for some reason, I don't have the energy. This interaction stole that from me. 
After a while, I hear my name being called. "Cadeon! Cadeon!"
It's Timmon. I'm so relieved to hear the sound of his voice that I stand up. "Here!"
I see him racing toward me in the dark, and then he's standing right in front of me. He crashes into me, and we hold each other for a few beats before he looks over my shoulder and spots Lennox. 
He curses. 
We both inch closer to his body. Seeing him on the forest floor, dead, is strange to me. There's a part of me that genuinely cared about him. Lennox was my childhood best friend—I knew him longer than I knew Timmon. 
"This war, huh?" Timmon suddenly says. "We're gonna have to do a lot worse if we want to see the end of it. I'm sick of this, Cadeon. So damn sick. I can't stand it anymore. All this fight. All these losses. There has to be something we can do. An agreement or something."
I murmur in agreement. 
A moment of silence passes before he says, "I always knew he loved you, you know?"
I look at my brother in surprise. "Really?"
Timmon nods. "Yeah. I just had a feeling. I always dropped hints around him, and I'd just feel happy on the inside when he'd react. You never noticed?"
"No," I admit. "But he confessed before I killed him."
"He did?"
I nod. 
A few more seconds pass before he tells me, "We have to head back. Their soldiers retreated but as you know, they could come back. Plus, Lilieth needs you right now, Cadeon."
"What happened?" I ask urgently. 
"Corey. He got hurt badly. There's a knife stuck in him and he's in and out of consciousness. Wenton. The fucker managed to escape, too. He was here."
Dammit. We start to head back, leaving Lennox behind. In a way, it feels like leaving my old life behind for good. 
But I can't think about that. Lilieth needs me, and I have to be completely present so that I can give her the support that she needs.