Keera's Home

We arrive at Keera's village; it's the same as when we left. It's quiet and there's no one outside. We get off the horse and she grabs my hand and looks up at me. "I want to see my mom."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes." I hold her hand as we walk to her house, once we arrive she stiffens. She squeezes my hand as I open the door, I expect to see the mom lying on the floor but she's not there. "Where is she?"

"I don't know." I leave Keera waiting by the door as I look around the house, but no one's here. I grab her hand and lead her outside. "Let's check some of the other houses." She nods as we walk next door. I knock on the door and no answer; I open the door and leave Keera waiting as I look around. "Who lives here?"

"My friend and his parents." There's no one here either, we check a few other houses and the situation is the same in all of them. The people that are supposed to be there aren't. "Where did everyone go?" I'm not sure, Keera yawns, and I realize it's late. There's nowhere for her to sleep.

We walk to the stables where the horse is; I get my blanket out and give it to Keera. "Here, you can sleep outside the stall." Keera and I sit next to each other against the door to the stall, we talk a little bit. She's very shy and quiet, she told me her dad died in combat when she was only a couple of years old so she doesn't remember him. After a short while, we fall asleep leaning against each other.

I wake up to my horse hitting the door, Keera isn't beside me, I jump up worried to look around but I don't see her. "Keera!"

She walks out of her house and waves to me. "Here!" I sigh in relief as I run to her. "I woke up and you were sleeping and I wanted to come back here." We spend the morning searching houses to see if we can find out what happened to the people but we don't find any clues.

"Let's take a break, you must be hungry."

"No, I want to continue looking." An owl appears out of thin air it has a letter in its mouth, it lands on the ground next to me and I take a letter. It's from Luna. "What is it?"

"It's a letter from Luna. She said she went to check on someone and they weren't there, they were very sick yesterday and told them to stay in bed. People are-" I hear a noise coming from a house, Keera and I both run over to the house. It's quiet until there's a squeaking sound; Keera gets behind me and holds onto my arm as we walk to the source of the noise.

There's a door, I look are Keera she nods. I swing open the door and to my surprise, a kid is sticking out from underneath the bed. Before I have time to react they start yelling and crying for us to stay away.

"Jack!" Keera leaves my side and rushes to the kid, he stops crying once he sees her. He looks at me then back at Keera. "It's okay." He gets out from underneath the bed then wipes the tears off his face.

We take him to the stables and give him some food; there he tells us what happened and why he was under the bed. He said he went to visit his grandparents in a different village, by the time he came back his mom was sick and she wouldn't let him near her. He went on to say that she had passed a couple of days later but since everyone in the village was sick he couldn't go anywhere else. Then one day a woman and man came into the house and took his mom.

"Did they say anything?"

"They said they wanted her blood for tests. They were taking everyone who was sick and dying somewhere for some kind of experiment." Is Max working for them? What could they be hoping to achieve?

"Do you know if there's anyone else here that isn't sick?" He shakes his head.

"I heard them talk about something else. It's spreading to other villages and the amount of people who are getting infected is increasing. They also-" Another owl appears with a letter.

"Hold that thought." I take the letter from the owl. Trinity is ordering an emergency meeting outside Rins village. "I'm going to have to take you two somewhere safe."

"I can watch them." There's a soft voice, the three of us look over and Jack runs over to the woman. She walks up to Keera and me and smiles at us. "I'm Jacks' grandmother, I noticed there was something weird in the air when he left so I decided to come here and make sure my daughter and he were okay."

"I'm sorry, but your daughter.."

She stops smiling and looks down. "Oh, I see. At least Jack is okay." Her eyes are watering; she's trying not to cry in front of us.

"Dear, you should've waited until I made sure everyone was okay." A man walks up to us and gives us a weary smile. "I'm Jacks' grandpa; I would like to make sure you all aren't infected."

"You can tell if we're sick or not?"

"Yes, I'm able to see any diseases or infections inside the human body."

"What kind of magic do you have?"

"It's a type of healing, while I can't treat people I can know if they need treatment. My wife Gloria uses air magic, she was able to tell something was off with the air; she made an air wall around our village. We can take these two with us, once I make sure you're both okay."

I look at Keera and she nods at me. "Okay." Then tentacle-like things appear and they move all around us after a minute they disappear.

"Amazing, you're both healthy. We can take Keera."

"Thank you, it would mean a lot."

"No." Keera grabs my hand and she looks up at me. "I want to go with you."

I crouch down so I'm face to face with her. "You can't, this is official knight business. You could get seriously hurt."

I shake my head and a tear runs down her cheek. "I'm a good healer I am. I can help."

"Fine, but you stay at my side the whole time, understand." She smiles and nods.

Jack and his grandparents leave while Keera and I are getting ready. We get some fruit from a couple of houses and she packs some clothes. We saddle up and start heading to Rins village, luckily it's the late afternoon so well make it in the morning.

Once it gets dark I decide to stop for the night, the village is only a couple of hours away, but the horse needs a break and I'm tired. Keera gets an apple out of one of the bags as I lay on the ground staring at the stars.

They need blood for an experiment, what are they doing? Max is a demon; does that mean whoever he's working for is too? Is it my brothers doing? No, that's not it Max didn't even know about them. Although he could be working for them and he just doesn't know it. I yawn and look around for Keera, she's sleeping by the horse.

"Skye, we need to leave." I groan and roll away from her, but she keeps nudging me. "You're going to be late." I jump up and shake my head, the meeting. We hurry and pack everything.

Within a couple of hours I can see the wall surrounding Rins village, as we get closer to the village I see people standing outside the gate, it's everyone from the division. I stop the horse and get off before helping Keera off. I walk to where everyone is, they all look sad.

"Skye…" I hear Trinity's voice coming from behind me; I turn around to see her with tears in her eyes. "…I'm so sorry." She wraps me in a tight hug and cries into my shoulder.

"Trinity, what's going on? What's wrong?"

She looks at me and sniffles while tears are streaming down her face. "Rin…he found the ones responsible for the virus, but he got sick. The healers don't know if he'll make it the day."

My eyes widen and I can feel my eyes water. No, this can't be.