Typhoon & Tempest

Chapter Five

Lily shivered as she adjusted Haidan's jacket over her body, the cuffs reaching her knuckles. She couldn't move her paralysed arm into the jacket without removing the sling and getting Haidan to help, but from the way he was acting she doubted he wanted to go near her.

He stared as Lily tried to stroke some of the water from her trousers, frowning, before walking back into the forest to pick up a large material bag she'd once spotted in a building warehouse.

"What are you doing in the f-forest?" Lily stuttered, drawing Haidan's warm jacket tighter around her.

Haidan merely lifted the bag. "Getting firewood."

"Cool." Lily said as she squeezed some of the water out off her hair, now soaked against her back. Haidan didn't say anything, still staring for a second longer before he began walking away.

Lily scurried to follow, quickly stepping over tree roots and looking at the older boy. "So, what are you?"

Haidan didn't respond. She couldn't see his face, only that his broad shoulders were tense and he kept looking forward. Lily wet her lips, blowing some air onto her wrinkly fingers. "You said you thought you were alone, your family aren't supernaturals?" She tried asking but Haidan didn't respond to that either.

Lily swallowed as his silence became the only thing she could hear. "Nice weather we're having this afternoon." She muttered, thinking about how it could be warmer so she could dry quicker.

"Perfect for a swim, you might say." Haidan turned and looked at her. "Or a jump off a waterfall."

"I-I was running away from werewolves." Lily explained and Haidan stopped in his tracks, turning to her completely with a skeptical look.

"Werewolves." He deadpanned. "Like the Twilight kind?"

"Not really." Lily shivered. "They're not as..."

"Shirtless?" Haidan raised an eyebrow.

"I was going to say theatrical."

Haidan scoffed. "Right. Any other things I should be aware of in this forest?"

"Well there are vampires too, fairies and witches," Lily narrated, her stomach beginning to churn. "Not to mention shades and whatever we both are."

"You don't know what you are?" Haidan asked with a raised eyebrow as he picked up a fallen branch from the ground and shoved it into his big bag.

Lily paused as she watched him. "No - and you don't know what you are either, do you?"

Haidan sighed. He shoved another branch in his bag carelessly, not looking at Lily's face when he finally answered. "No. I don't."

The two of them walked on in silence for a while before Lily spoke again. "How long have you known you were supernatural?" She asked, ducking under a low hanging vine. Her nerves were firing around her stomach as she tried talking, pondering why it was so difficult and awkward to talk to strangers.

"About a year." Haidan said, throwing in some thin twigs for the kindling in his fireplace. "You?"

"All my life." Lily flicked her drying hair off her sore shoulder. "My family were supernatural."

Haidan frowned. "And you don't know what you are, even with a supernatural family?"

"They died before I found out." Lily explained, narrowing her eyes slightly at Haidan's doubtful expression.

"How do you know your family's supernatural then?" Haidan frowned, brushing his black hair off his face as bent to pick up another branch.

Lily didn't have the energy to deal with those kinds of questions. "Are you the only one in your family?"