The Red Hunter

C h a p t e r 8

We were like two lions; growling and snarling as we circled each other in a small cage. For hours upon hours, Cole and I have been able to avoid each other as we cleaned the house, but as the sun started to slowly rise over the horizon, so did the tension seeping off of us. There was only one room left to clean up--the living room, and it was probably the largest room in the house. Now in that very room with Cole after avoiding him all night, it was hard to ignore the barely suppressed hostility consuming the room's atmosphere.

For another hour, Cole and I silently cleaned up the destroyed room, our own thoughts busying our minds as we worked around each other.

I was surprised I wasn't tired. I had gotten no sleep whatsoever due to cleaning, yet I felt well rested.Cole, on the other hand looked as if he was going to collapse at any minute.

I continued to watch him from the corner of my eye as I worked in my section of the room. His chiseled jaw was clenched tightly as his eyes strained with growing fatigue. The lean muscles in his arms were taut stiff as he picked up the sofa and put it back in its place against the wall. His forehead was pinched as he concentrated on everything but me, except when he'd send me annoyed glares for staring at him.

After the fifth time being caught for staring at him, Cole came closer to me and demanded why I kept looking at him.

"You should get some sleep." I pointed out.

"I'm fine."

"You're tired."

"And? What is that to you?"

I paused, taken aback by his question. Why did I care?!

"I--you . . . you're getting in my way. Your fatigue is causing you to clean slowly, and it's getting in my way. If you rest, you'll be doing us both a favor." A lie, but I was sticking to it.

"Flower, I've been cleaning just as fast as you've been, which brings me to what's been bothering me. Why are you cleaning?"

His query was enough for me to forget that he called me flower again.

I had been asking myself that all night; why I would bother helping. I wasn't the type of person that would do kind deeds out of goodness of my heart, nor was I the type of person that would do something out of pity.

"Perhaps out of guilt?" He mused.

"For the last time, I didn't do this." I hissed. "I just . . . I didn't want to see it anymore."

The words had tumbled out of my mouth before I could process their meaning.

I didn't--couldn't see the destruction anymore.

It had made my head hurt, looking at what the hunters had done. They had trashed his house without thought, without a care, and it had been wrong.

Had it been?

They had been under orders to kill Cole. Technically they had done nothing wrong, yet it had been so . . . barbaric.

If I thought their actions were justified, then why did I hate it when Cole clumped me together with them.

"'Perhaps out of guilt."' Bah! I had nothing to do with this, they--.

"They were wrong with what they did. Those hunters, they--Sorrel probably told them to do it." I voiced.

"They? Are you a hunter or not?"

I looked up at him, annoyed that he was asking all of these questions all of a sudden when we had spent all night avoiding each other like the plague.