Submerged in Water

"Demon?" I gasped.

"Listen, I can explain."

I shook my head. "It's okay, Rune, I'm not angry but I would like an explanation. Do your people hate me? I mean... us. My people?"

"Well... we didn't all hate each other until recently, but then the war happened and..." He sighed and his wings retracted back into himself. His form seemed to shrink away from the dominating angel that I saw him as. "It's really complicated."

"Let's just start with the basics." I offered.

He sat back down on the rocks again and I joined him.

"A year or so after I was born, a war broke out between the three races. A group of Kamille had this plan to allow water to be everywhere on earth... in other words, they wanted to flood the earth with water."

"That's a bit extreme." I commented.

"Yeah tell me about it." He scoffed. "It wasn't the entire race of Kamille that wanted to do this. The Kamille seemed to split into two sides, the ones that wanted to go through with the plan and the ones who were against it. To make a long story short, the Oro and the Ender were highly against this, since the Ender were the earth people and as much as us Oros love to be in the air, we still need to land sometimes. Drowning the earth wasn't exactly in our criteria."

"Did they try to stop them?"

He nodded gravely. His eyes kept to his feet. His body became rigid which shocked me because his movements were usually always so alive and free. I placed my hand on his shoulder to comfort him, the same way that Aubrey always did to me when I needed someone to talk to.

He went on.

"With all the confusion going on and the new information that the alliance between the Oros and Enders received, we were a little rash and... orders got mixed up or unrecieved, everything happened so fast that nobody knew what really happened and..."

"What happened, Rune?" I was dying by this point to know.

"There was a mass genocide of your people, Emele. As far as I know, you're the only one I know still alive."

My hand dropped from his shoulder. "What?"

"We killed them all, knowing that some of them were good, we did it anyway. We couldn't let any of them escape to go through with their plan to drown the earth. It was too risky, a lot of us were against it and we were going to save them but something happened and the plan went down to exterminate them all happened anyway. I'm so sorry, Emele."

"So... theres nobody like me out there?" I asked. "And you've never seen anyone like me before?"

He shook his head. "I've never seen anyone like you in the flesh. I've read of your kind... a little, but it seems that after the war things got even more screwed up. The alliances that we formed to exterminate the Kamille seemed to break off into different groups. Nobody really trusts each other anymore and everyone seems to have a different opinion of what really went down on that day. The reason we can't tell my Uncle that you're one of them is because... I'm scared he might try to kill you and as for my parents, I don't even know where they stand on the whole issue."

"You're saying that everyone is out to get me?"

"Not everyone, Emele." He took my hand and smiled gently. He could be so beautiful sometimes. "I'm with you, it's just... it's hard to know what everyone would do if they found out. I mean if Robyn or Talon..."

"Wait... what?"

"Oh." He laughed. "I guess I should've told you earlier. They're Oro. I talked to them during first and second period. They slightly overheard our conversation outside the school, they didn't pick up anything on you though, just the first half of it."

"Does that mean... Layla?"

He blinked. "Talon's sister?"

"Yeah."

"She's more than likely one of them unless she was adopted."

I stared at him in blank silence and then down at his hand. "I had no idea..."

"We keep our identities secret, even though we aren't at war, it's still hostile, it's hard to know who has a vendetta against the Kamille and who doesn't. It's best until we figure out where their allegience lies that you keep who you are hidden."

I smiled down at our conjoined hands, Aubrey's words echoed in my head. "Just like a superhero..."

"I guess you could think of it like that."

I looked back up at him and met eye contact. "Okay, I won't tell anyone."

"Good, I'd hate to see you get hurt." He smiled down at me.

I smiled back and then a question popped into my head. "Why do you trust me? How do you know that I was clueless about the war and your world? Not that I'm not grateful it's just hard to imagine that in your world how you could trust someone right off that bat, like you did with me."

"If I told you, you'd think it was stupid..." I saw him look away and a red tinge came to his cheeks. He was blushing!

"Oh, well now I have to know!" I grabbed his hands tighter.

"I..." He swallowed. "I saw it in your eyes."

"My eyes? What did you see?"

"The way you responded to what I said. I kept replaying the part in my head when I told you I could control the air. Nobody could fake a reaction like that. It was like your whole world was shifting around you and didn't know how to stop it. You looked so vulnerable and innocent at that moment that I knew I needed to help you."

It was my turn to blush. "Well, thank you."

"No problem." He let go of my hands, leaving them feeling empty. "This must really be information overload for you right now."

"Yeah." I took a deep breath. "It's a lot to take in, but I think I'll be fine."

I looked at the sun rising behind him and figured it was probably time to leave anyway. I didn't want anyone to catch me out here but a part of me really didn't want to leave. It was like I had spent half my life just talking to him, it was so strange.

He looked behind me, wondering what I was looking at.

"It's getting late... early, whatever."

I stood up from the rock and looked down at him. He was still shirtless and I couldn't help but notice he wasn't buff like most men tried so hard to be, but rather, he was just lean. It looked good on him and it suited him.

"You're leaving?"

"Yeah, I should get back by the time my parents wake up, I don't want them to find out I've been sneaking out here."

"Oh." He seemed disappointed, but then stood up and said, "just remember at school, we can talk a bit, maybe even slightly friends but if we get any closer, Talon and Robyn will think something is up."

I nodded. "I'll try to stay away from you."

"If it's important though, I don't mind." He assured me.

"Okay."

I started stepping back and collecting my dress from the rocks.

I heard him clear his throat. "Tomorrow?"

"Obviously." Did he even need to ask?

His heart-stopping smile said it all.

This little secret of ours was going to be fun.