Chapter 5

Avery's POV

NIGHT FELL.

“Do you want some water?” I turned weakly at Jameson. I was seated in front of the fire he had created, wrapped with my blanket to keep me warm.

I nodded weakly but without collecting the water bottle from him.

“I don't want to remove my hands. Can you please feed it to me?” I pleaded, not wanting to remove my hands that were under the blanket.

He sighed soundly before crouching, he held my jaw with his index finger and I drank from the bottle.

This little contact sparked some emotions within me and I knew it was the same for him. After I was done, he didn't say anything and also sat beside me.

“Thanks,”

“It's nothing,” he responded without looking at me. I bit my lips nervously for what I was about to say.

Clearing my throat, I did that to get his attention.

“A-About earlier, I'm sure that I wasn't hallucinating and….”

“Why didn't I see her then?” He cut me off, turning to face me. This made me swallowed the rest of my words. The bond was making it hard for me to respond to him and I don't like how I was giving him the satisfaction of intimidating me.

“I know what I saw,”

“Okay. Let's agree that you did see the old lady. What should I do about it?”

“I feel like she's bad and we need to report to the school. I don't feel good about it. She said some weird things that kept ringing in my head,” I stated, recalling how she mentioned Anna being weak.

“We will report to them when I see her myself,” he declared and I wasn't liking where this conversation was heading to.

“You think I'm crazy, huh?”

“You said that yourself,”

“What do you really take me for?”

“A heartbreaker!” He shouted that got me flinched because I wasn't expecting that tone from him at all.

“Do you really wanna pretend as if nothing happened?”

“We are not talking about this,” I stated with a slight frown, standing up on my feet.

“Oh really? Well, I shouldn't expect anything less. That's because you like Flair,” he stood up as well.

“Excuse you?”

“Excuse you, young lady!”

“Don't get me pissed, Jameson,”

“Now you're mad?”

“Do you even realize what you're saying?! These are false accusations, @sshole!” I yelled at him with the same intensity. The wood burning made me see his expression, he was clenching his jaw with his hands fisted.

He pointed his index finger at me, about to talk before I heard a rattling sound behind me. Instantly, I moved closer to him and gripped his wrists.

The fear of him leaving me alone just like what happened earlier surpasses the banter we were having at the moment.

“Someone is coming,” I said to him in a hush tone with my hands around his arms. He was quite taller than me, looking down at me calmly.

He wanted to remove my hands from his hold but I held him tighter.

“We are a team. We need to put our differences aside,” I told him with gritted teeth. He wasn't doing anything. I was scared of us coming close to a wild boar.

“I told you. I saw fire. Come quickly,” we heard a voice coming from that direction. It sounded familiar but I couldn't place it before they revealed themselves.

“Amelia,” I called out in disbelief, not expecting to meet her here. Flair also came out, they both looked tired.

“You're a wolf. I wonder why you didn't smell them,” Jameson scoffed, he walked away but I didn't care about what he thought. Now I have people I'm familiar with beside me.

“How is it going with you guys?” Amelia asked me, I didn't respond and only sat down.

“I will make the camp for us. Let me go talk to Jameson,” Flair said, Amelia hummed before Flair walked away and Amelia sat beside me.

“You don't you wanna talk about it?”

“I didn't tell you something was wrong,”

“Why did he give that comment?” she asked, referring to Jameson's words before he walked away.

“Scratch that, is it possible to be hallucinating when I'm brooding?”

“Why did you ask that?” I began telling her about the old lady I met. She listened attentively until it was time for her to respond.

“Flair and I did some research about this forest before we came here. We were told that an old woman, who died centuries ago, has her soul lingering around. She was a witch that got banished because she used dark magic,” she explained.

“Why did she reveal herself to me then?”

“You need to always thick around Jameson and not alone,” she advised and I pouted, scared of the unknown.

“To cap it all, my belt got damaged in the process,” I informed her, looking down at the broken buttons.

“You don't have to worry. We are all together and we will find the treasure together. But I'm not sure if you will make it alive,” she said in a creepy manner and I furrowed my brows.

“Stop it. Are you trying to scare me?”

“Maybe not darlington,” she smiled before her face began to change into that old woman. Making my heart dropped in my chest.

“What?” I mumbled, afraid as I rushed to move away from her.