In The Crossfire

Chapter 2

Melodies sung by birds spread through the forest. Sounding bright and carefree, even though they were forced to share their skies with monsters.

It was just the three of us walking through the woods, Kat, Alec, and I.

Three weeks since my run-in with the royal Seraph had passed. After a night's rest, we left the other humans who we were traveling with. Everything calmed once we separated from the larger group. I welcomed the independence, being surrounded only by natural earth and my two trusted companions.

​Usually, we walked in silence.

​"Maybe we should go into a city," Alec spoke, his eyes trained on the world around us. His words were a statement, not a question. It was not the first time he brought such an idea up, but usually, it was always presented as a distant thought, a what-if.

My gaze cut to him. If he felt me looking, then he did not show it.

​"Right. Great idea. Let's go into the city where Hellions love to gather," Kat replied, blatantly rolling her eyes at the idea.

​"They might have found different places to defile. People haven't lived in cities for a very long time," Alec pointed out. He refused to give up the idea easily.

​"And what, you want to change that?" I asked, briefly glancing at him before turning back to watch the ground. I was thoroughly trying to avoid getting tangled in the roots and rocks below my feet. We got to a mountain terrain where tree roots traveled on top of the soil just as much as below. Unfortunately, I had always been prone to tripping over things when not careful. My feet had a nasty habit of keeping too close to the earth and snagging on things. I relearned that lesson a couple of days before when I nearly face planted on a rock. Thankfully, my hands caught my fall. Scraped skin was better than a missing tooth.

We didn't exactly have humans around to correct people's smiles. That profession vanished long ago. In a world where dentists were a thing of the past, a broken tooth could cause a heap of issues I was not prepared to deal with. Even if nothing terrible happened, simply having one less tooth to bite someone with if the need were to ever arise was not a positive.

​"If it's common knowledge that humans avoid cities, then it may be a safe place to go. Lie low for a bit," Alec pressed the topic. He loved the idea of staying in one place, of making some sort of home. It was something I never understood. Somehow the idea of a home made him feel secure, to have a base camp to work out from. I, on the other hand, preferred to keep moving. Staying anywhere too long and I got antsy. The thought alone made me feel closed in and trapped. It was not at all appealing.

​"We would be trapped in buildings. The structures are unstable. They carry sounds, and there would be no food," I pointed out just a few of the issues with his idea, avoiding the fact that the entire thought of staying somewhere like that made my heart beat a little quicker. I wasn't sure where the unsettling feeling towards a home base even came from. All I knew was that ever since we began constantly traveling, that became my new norm. Being on the move seemed safer. To always be running was comforting.

A cool breeze gusted in the air, blowing my hair, whipping it around my face while I studied the ground. I was like a breeze, I realized. A free spirit, always on the move... well, as free as a spirit could ever be in the world we called ours. To become stagnant was to stifle the breeze, to die.

​"Not true, deer and other animals probably have a ton of fun running around cities," he shot back, challenging. I felt his gaze on me, waiting for my response.

​"Right," Kat answered him instead, sounding as convinced as I was. At least she agreed with me. As long as I had her, we would overrule his foolish need for a stationary home. We were each other's homes. There was no need for a place to be one too. Wherever Kat and Alec were was where I belonged.