Searching for the Answers

by Paige Orr

  “Don’t worry, kitten, they know what they're doing. They’ll have the place fixed up soon. We have some things to sort out for the families of the ones that lost their lives, but they knew something like this could happen, and they were prepared for it. I know you're still not used to being responsible for so many people, so why don’t you let us sort this out for you. It’s not the first time we’ve had to deal with something like this. You don’t have to take this all on yourself, and we’re happy to help any way we can.”

  I slowly nod my head, pulling away from his touch and heading upstairs to my room to shower. He had a point, I can’t sit here and overthink everything that comes with being who I am, and before this war is over many more people will most likely lose their lives. I’ll have time once all of this is over to truly mourn those losses even if I don’t really know these people they still gave their lives trying to protect me. If I took the time to grieve their loss as soon as it happens, then I would never be able to make it through what’s still to come. The harsh truth of the matter is, I have to harden myself to things like this or I’ll never be strong enough to live up to the expectations of the people who gave their lives for me, and that would be like stepping all over their honor.

  They chose to be her, because they believe that I’m going to be strong enough to bring peace to us all, and if that means I have to suck it up until I can give them a better memorial, then that’s how it’s got to be. They know that if I succeed in what I have planned, that there will be a safer future for the families they’ve left behind, now all I have to do is make sure any sacrifices in my name aren’t in vain. I will give them exactly what they hoped for, and make the world safer for their loved ones, no matter what it costs me.

  I get to my room, closing the door behind me and lean against it. Right now I feel like I’ve got the weight of the world on my shoulders, and I just don’t know how to react to all of the people who are looking at me with hope in their eyes. All I know is I don’t want to disappoint them, they deserve better than that. Crossing to the bathroom. I slip out of my clothes, starting the shower letting it heat up before jumping in, letting the heat and steam surround me. Just for ten minutes, I can stand here and forget about all my responsibilities, and pretend that everything is normal. Like my whole life hasn’t changed in the blink of an eye, and the fact that I’ll never have a normal life ever again. I guess it was never really normal to begin with though, and maybe that’s why I took it so bad. I always dreamed of the perfect life, with a good job and a caring husband, but the normal life just wasn’t meant for me I suppose.

  Once I finish showering, I sit on the edge of my bed wrapped in my towel, and pull my phone out of my bag that one of the guys must have dropped off while I was busy. Unlocking the screen, I scroll through my contacts until I land on Gem’s number and press the call button, biting my lip as I wait for her to answer. I know that no matter how distanced I feel from everything, Gem can help me feel a little more normal. “Hey chica, what’s up? Did you and the guys get home okay? I swear if you're calling me to tell me you have more mates, I’m seriously going to whoop that ass!”

  I smile at the sound of her voice before laughing at her silliness, feeling some of the tension draining from my shoulder. I really fucking love this girl, she always manages to put a smile on my face. “Hey girlie, yeah we got home alright, and no I definitely don’t have anymore mates thank fuck there’s only so much a girls vag can take. I was wondering if you busy right now, a lot of shit went down while we were away, and I could really use my bestie to talk some fucking sense into me.”

  “Of course, I’m always free for you. I can totally bitch slap some sense into you if that’s what you need. I have some shit for you to look over anyway, and some signatures are needed. I can be at your place in like a half hour or so, I’ve just got to wrap up a couple of things first. I’ll pick up your favorite from our little coffee shop, give you something else to look forward to. Anyway I’ve got someone waiting in my office so I’m gonna have to go deal with that but, I’ll see you soon chica.”

  I say my goodbye, and flop back on the bed, closing my eyes and enjoying the silence around me. Life might have gotten crazy lately but atleast I have people to help me through it, instead of trying to do everything on my own. I feel a warmth settling in my chest, and I smile thankful that I’ll never be on my own ever again.

  Taehyung

  I walk into the kitchen after dropping off Lilith's bag to join the guys, we have a lot to go through right now. We’re just waiting on the head of security so that we can discuss how bad the fallout from Xilas’s escape really is. We didn’t want to talk about it infront of Lilith and make her feel anymore guilty than she already does, it really isn’t her fault that Asmo left a fucking crazy bastard hidden in his attic. The more I think about him not telling us anything, the more I’m left feeling like this was all a lesson for Lilith to show her that sometimes you have to make hard decisions, but if you don’t make them people will get hurt.

  It’s a rather cruel way of teaching her something, but it also makes sense, and he never would have left this for her to deal with if he didn’t think she would have been strong enough to face it. On top of that, he must have known that the only way she would be able to figure out how to stop Xilas, would be if one of his brothers decided to side with her and tell her the truth. It all leaves me thinking how much did he really know, and how much his little oracle friend may have told him about what would happen to Lilith after he was dead.

  I know that he loved her more than anything in the three realms, and he would never put her in any real danger, which means all the things that wait for her in the future are things that she must go through to become strong enough to rule over all of supernatural kind. It would take someone with an ironclad will, to be able to brave all the changes that will need to be made to bring true peace to us all, and from what I’ve already seen from her I know that she’s perfect for the job.

  When we first met her she was so timid and scared, but over these last few weeks she’s truly grown into herself, and I can’t wait for the future she’s going to bring to us all. The fact that me and my brothers get to stand by her side as she brings us all into a new era, is truly just the icing on the cake. Every new thing we learn about her, just makes us love and respect her more, and I know that even if she didn’t have us by her side she would still find a way to shape the world to what she thinks it could be. She’s exactly the kind of person that we’ve all been waiting for, and it’s an honor to be by her side.

  I’m snapped out of my thoughts when K and F walk into the kitchen, feeling the grin overtake my face, I’m the first one to greet them. I never thought that we would ever see them again, and I’m glad to have them back. They’re more than just our best operatives, They’re some of our closest friends. “It’s good to see you both again, and I’m sure I speak for my brothers as well when I say that we’re glad you're doing better. I want to thank you for what you did, even though things didn’t go according to plan you both were willing to die to protect Lilith, and that’s all we could ever ask of you both. Now why don’t you catch us up on everything that happened here. There’s a lot that needs to be done, and I’d like to get started as soon as possible.”

  They both nod their heads taking a seat around the counter with us, and begin giving us the rundown of everything Xilas did. To say that the fucker deserved to die is an understatement, a lot of good men lost their lives because of the bastard. “Well, as you know, you filled the others in on the fact that it was a matter of when Xilas would escape, not if. So as soon as we were able to give instructions, we told the others to prepare as best as possible, we asked that only those that were okay with the fact that they may lose their lives be the ones in the closest proximity. After that, we had the others stay back so that we had people to deal with the dead, we didn’t want him figuring out that we were basically letting him walk out of here, so we only had those select few volunteers in plai
n sight.

  Once he got out, the rest of us got a hold of you guys to let you know he was on his way, then we started returning the dead to their families. As you know demons like having fast funerals so we did our best to pay for the funerals of the fallen, and after attending the funerals we came back and started getting the house in order. All in we lost twenty men and the rest are fine. All that needs to be done is for you to compensate the families, we have already ordered all the repairs and put them on the card you left for us. I won’t lie to you guys, the house may look bad right now, but most of it’s already been cleaned. Xilas left complete carnage in his wake, he deserved a painful death, and I’m hoping that's what he got.”

  I take it all in, leaning back in my chair, and rubbing my hand over my face. Twenty men may seem like a lot, but that was only a third of the security we called in for this, so I know it could have been a lot worse than it was. I’m thankful that K and F were brought back in time for them to help the others with this, and their plan was flawless. Now we can move forward with preparations for what’s to come, and we still have enough of our men that we won’t be left with almost nothing for the fight ahead. It may seem callous but our men knew the danger, and they knew we would help their families to get through this, things are always difficult during times of oncoming war, and things could have been really fucking bad. I just hope that Lilith doesn’t dwell on this, in our world death is such a normal thing, but I hate that she has to get used to that.

  I’m snapped out of my thoughts when the doorbell rings, and being closest to the door I get up to answer it. When I open the door I find Gem, with her phone at her ear, and an arm full of folders. She gives me a slight nod of acknowledgement, before moving past me and straight up the stairs. I can’t stop the smile that forces it’s way to my face, I really am really fucking glad that Lilith has a friend like her.

  Lilith

  I spin around to face the door, as Gem barges in without knocking, talking animatedly on her phone, before tearing the head of whoever is on the line, hanging up and throwing the phone on my bed. I laugh at her as she literally pulls her hair in frustration, dumping the pile of folders in her arms on the bed after her phone. She turns to me with a huge smile on her face before basically leaping across the distance between us and wrapping her arms around me in a tight hug.

  I chuckle as I pull her tightly against me, I really fucking missed this girl, even if it was only a few days. I’ve never really spent time apart from her, and with everything that has been going on, I’ve not really been able to spend as much time with her as I would like, but to be fair I really don’t want to put her in any danger. I would rather none of my enemies knew about her, because if anyone hurt her...I don’t think the world would be prepared for my anger. I would rip apart the entire fucking world to find those that hurt her, and let’s just say that death would be a mercy for them after I’m through.

  I let her go, giving her a wink as I motion towards the bed and we both take a seat crossing our legs. “Alright before I get into the fucking wild ass story of everything that happened at the cabin, why don’t you catch me up on work, and show me what it is you want me to sign. I trust that you’ve already picked which things you think I should push through and this is the pile you agree with.”

  She gives me a winning grin as she leans back on her hands after bringing the files onto her lap. “Damn straight! I’ve looked through it all, you’d be surprised the type of shit these bloody demons try to get pushed through. There’s this Incubus that works for us who is trying to syphon his pheromones to turn into like a supercharged viagra, I’ve left that one for you to have the last say on. I’m pretty sure if you agreed it would be a bestseller, you know what guys are like when it comes to their dicks. Anyway the important shit is mostly the trial runs for synthetic blood, the lab thinks they’ve finally narrowed it down to two recipes, they have flavoured samples as well which should be pretty interesting to see the results from. You know how stuck up vamps can be, always thinking they're better than everyone else. The lab thinks the best seller will be champagne mixed with the synthetic blood, so they can pretend to be classy bitches. Here's the smaller things that I approved: they just need your signature, the bottom two folders are the viagra and blood.”

  I take the folders from her, scanning through the different paperwork finding a solution for younger Succubus and Incubus who don’t have the control to stop feeding before killing their prey, a pill for the larger demons running around to help them hide their size, and a few other things along those lines. I sign them all before stopping at the last two, without giving it much thought I sign off on the synthetic blood. I might not have the best history with vampires but I refuse to judge a whole race for what a few did to me, and if they want to make the change to synthetic blood who am I to stop them? The folder for the magical viagra intrigues me though, Gem isn’t wrong, men care about their dicks over anything else and if this drug will be safe for human consumption then I don’t really see why it would be a bad thing. I make some notes about wanting a full report on the effects on both a human and a supernatural before signing it.

  Finally finished with work things, I turn to Gem to fill her in on everything that’s happened since I went away. “So, I kind of met Lucifer and Abbadon. It was fucking crazy I was expecting them to be all threatening and shit, but they were the complete fucking opposite, they even told me that they’ll be on my side when it comes to fighting their brother!” I tell her everything that happened after the first meeting, and I just can’t stop spewing every little detail, telling her about everything that’s changed. If anyone can understand how hard this is for me it’s her.

  Lilith

  A couple of hours later, after I’ve talked the ear off of Gem, I notice how exhausted she looks and offer to walk her part way home. I know the guys are extremely busy right now dealing with everything in the wake of Xilas’s escape, and don’t really want to bother them, so decide to just leave them a note in the living room before throwing my jacket on. We walk down the street arm in arm, talking about anything and nothing, and I’m just happy to spend time with my bestie like I don’t have the fate of so many people on my shoulders.

  It really feels like old times, before people relied on me, when we were able to go for drinks and my only worries were losing my job and my fiance cheating on me. Sometimes I forget that was only a few weeks ago, it’s hard to accept that so much shit can happen in so little time, It would probably drive most people crazy the shit I’ve been through. Shit, I actually thought I was going crazy at the start of all this!

  I look up at the clear night sky, noticing how if I concentrate I can see the stars sparkiling against the prussian blue background, which should be fucking impossible in the middle of the city, but so many things in my life defy the impossible now that I don’t waste much time thinking about it.

  Some time later we reach the halfway point between our homes and I pull Gem in for a hug, before turning to start my slow trek home. Sometimes I really love walking through the city. There’s so many people, all with their own lives happening around them, and it makes me feel small in the best way possible. Like no matter what's going on with me, I’m just a small cog in the work of life that's been going strong for centuries before me and will continue on centuries after me if I don’t make it through the fight that’s to come.

  It’s as I’m walking, lost in these thoughts, that a deathly kind of silence surrounds me. I turn looking around at everyone that’s around me, only to find complete silence. I know that’s not right though, there were plenty of people here moments ago and yet the streets are now empty, as I scan them. I have no fucking idea what’s going on, but I know it can’t be anything good. The hair on the back of my neck stands on end as I get the feeling of eyes on me, so spinning in a circle I try to pinpoint where the feeling is coming from but come up empty, so I start to speed walk away from this sense of imminent danger.

  I’m a block away from home wh
en I hear evil laughter all around me, not coming from any one spot. I can feel myself tensing up, hoping that I’ll make it home before whatever it is catches up to me. My hopes go unanswered though when I feel a cool breath on the back of my neck, causing me to freeze where I stand, as my hands begin to tremble. I almost don’t want to turn around, because I know that whatever I find won’t be good for me. Knowing that the last time I was taken I hadn’t turned around in time, I force myself to spin on my heel, calling my fire to my hands as I do.

  What I see though truly fucking terrifies me, standing before me is a fucking wendigo straight out of my nightmares! Standing at almost ten feet tall, with long gangly arms hanging down by its knees, tipped with deadly claws and it’s bones sticking out through its grotesque corpse like skin. It’s eyes are blood red and seem to be sunken into the back of its skull. It’s lips are so dehydrated that they’re peeling back from it’s razor sharp teeth, and to top it all off the horrific stench of decay coming from it has me gagging and my eyes watering.

  I’m absolutely terrified, and it only gets worse when I hear more footsteps approaching. I back away from the monster in front of me, turning to check my surroundings, while still keeping the beast in my line of sight. I finally notice the other things that have surrounded me, and it’s fair to say I’m not filled with confidence on escaping. There’s what looks like a centaur and a minotaur, and I have no fucking idea how I’m supposed to fight my way out of this one. I let my flames travel up my arms as I take aim at the wendigo and the minotaur, but before my flames have the chance to strike, a shield appears around them. By this time I feel the centaur pressing up behind me, looping his arm around my throat and constricting my airway. I try to claw at him, even try to use my flames, but I’m fading too fast. Before I know it my legs give out and I’m lowered to the ground still unable to breath until everything goes black.