Never Really Gone

Chapter 7

Xerea's POV

I try not to make a sound as I clean the gash on my arm, wincing in pain as I try stop the bloodflow. I don't want to wake the boys.

Well, I don't want to wake Grian. He'd kill Demetrius if he found out what the man had done to me, or at least try to.

I hate Demetrius. All he wants to to me is cause me pain. Hitting me, yelling at me, calling me worthless and stupid...

Making me take my sister's only child away from her. Making me break her heart. Just like the way he broke her heart when he took me.

My gaze shifts to Grian as he sleeps. I've only known my nephew for a day and a half, but if anything happened to him I would kill everyone in this school and then myself.

My thoughts drift to what Demetrius told him. The same thing he told me. That his big caring heart set him aside from others in the school. That his determination to protect made him special.

A stabbing pain in my forearm reminds me it needs attention. Sighing, I bite my lip, try not to cry and continue to clean and bandage the wound.

Once I'm done, my thoughts drift back to Grian. He's forbidden to know who I really am, so why put me in charge of the dorm he's in? Why do nothing at all to try hide the many connections between the two of us? Why make him a Watcher in the first place?

All these questions make my head hurt, so I try distract myself. Looking to my left, I notice poor Ezra hanging halfway off the bed, about to fall out.

Heading over to help him out, I notice a small dragon plushie tucked under his arm, one that looks old and well loved. Technically I should confiscate this and dispose of it, but the way Ezra holds it so close to him suggest how much he loves it.

So I only gently lift his head back onto his pillow, pretending I never saw it, nor the turtle plushie Xisuma cuddles as he lays beside beside him.

Despite them almost being teenagers, the twins are adorable sometimes. They try sleep in their own beds every night, but one usually gets scared and ends up sleeping next to the other for comfort.

I check on Joe, who seems totally fine, before heading over to the window and staring sadly into the endless Void that surrounds the school. I miss the Overworld. I miss my sister.

I turn back around and look at Grian one last time.

He's so much like her, it makes me want to hug him and love him and tell him everything is gonna be ok...

But I can't. I'm not allowed. And that's exactly why I hate Demetrius. That's why it hurts to look at Grian and see how much he's like his mom. Because I can't love him.