I told you not to say anything

I wonder, will this kill me? I'm falling from the fifth floor, is this just going to break some bones, or will I die? I ponder on it while I fall. I hit the ground and I scream.

I feel my eyes closing. Is this it? am I dead? I open my eyes and look around… alright, the good thing is: I'm alive! The bad thing is: that my body hurts like a bitch. I see people running towards me, confuse and surprise at finding my body on the floor. Don't get closer, I might end up sucking your energy… is it just me, or does that sound slightly suggestive?

I slowly turn my head to the side, since it hurts, and I notice the grass around me losing color and dying. I'm sorry grass, I can't exactly control it when I'm this hurt… it's like a survival mechanism.

"ALICE!" Nick shouts. He, Dylan, and Theo are running at me with worried faces. I frown… will they pass out if they get too close? Well, I don't have to worry about it for too long, my ride is coming.

"ALPHA!" I see one man running out of the forest wearing only basketball shorts "ROGUES!" he shouts while running towards the three-man "ROGUES ARE ATTACKI-" he's about to finish what he's saying when a huge dark brown wolf jumps on his back. The wolf doesn't kill him, but the guy does end up passing out.

A lot more wolves come out of the forest, unlike the wolves I've seen from this pack, these ones look wilder as if they're closer to nature than civilization. The wolves following the dark brown wolf are smaller than him, but they still look powerful.

Then a huge dark grey wolf appears, and I can't fight the faint smile forming on my lips. The dark brown wolf and the other smaller ones run towards the annoying trio while the dark gray one runs towards me.

He grabs me by the sports bra and throws me into the air, I suppose I should be scared but Blacky has done this a fair number of times. If I'm being honest, I find this really fun. I have to suppress the giggle fighting to escape my mouth.

I fall on the back of the dark grey wolf and once he feels me steady, he howls. All the wolves that came with him, except 5, stop fighting Nick and the others and run towards the forest, following the wolf.

The 5 that stayed are keeping Nick occupied, I look at the wicked shadow in front of me and he nods, he'll make sure they escape safely. We run for 3 hours until we reach a rustic settlement, which has tents and bonfires. Most of the people here are adults with scary-looking expressions and almost all of them have at least one ghost with them, the same type of ghost as Ethan. The ghosts around them are solemn and kind-looking ones.

I know with just a glance that the people here all have experienced the loss of loved ones, friends, family, and lovers alike. I know they're amazing warriors that deserve my utmost respect. They're people that suffered a lot but still keep going, the only word worthy to describe them is…

"…beautiful" the word escapes my lips.

The wolves around me tilt their head in confusion but I don't spare a second glance. The wolf carrying me walks inside the biggest tent and I climb down. He gets out and after a couple of minutes, Ethan enters wearing basketball shorts.

"Hey!" he waves his hand, greeting me with a happy smile.

"hey" I reply calmly, and he chuckles.

"So, I know you're tired and all but… my warriors are going to return safe and sound… right?" he says unsure, I open my eyes wide, but my expression immediately returns to my stoic one.

"They're already on their way, my crazy alpha saved them" Eliza talks next to me. She can't interact with our plane, but she doesn't need to. The reason ghosts are so useful is not that they're strong, it's because they can get information without anyone noticing.

"They're on their way" I inform Ethan and he flinches.

"You know… when you told me all this ghosts thing, I still couldn't believe it, even when I saw my friends but a message being written on its own in front of my tent? That was spooky as fuck"

"It felt spooky because he's a vengeful ghost, you'll get used to it" I explain with my monotonic voice, and he grimaces.

"All right, so… why did you need to get out of there?" he starts questioning me and I grin wickedly.

The moment I realized Nick was going to do something bad I started to stall for time. I called the wicked ghost I met at the meeting with Joseph and Claire, he really hates them both. Benjamin, the crazy vengeful dead Alpha of the Silver Dagger pack.

Today, during my walk before meeting Ethan, I taught him how to interact with us and when I couldn't run from Nick, I send Ben for Ethan, I needed to get away from them. He arrived a little too late but at least I survived.

"Nick was going to mark me against my will" I don't need to explain more since the shocked angry expression he's making tells me he understands how bad it could've ended.

"That bastard" he says with a clenched jaw. "Marking is… is something you do when both mates are in love when we're one heart and he was going to do it without consent!?" while talking his voice slowly raises as if what Nick was going to do was unforgivable.

"What would you have done if I hadn't gone?" he asks once he calms down.

I tilt my head in confusion, isn't it obvious? "I would've killed myself" I reply casually, and he flinches.

"HOW CAN YO…. Haaaaa" he sighs to stop his shouting "I forget I have to let go of common sense when talking to you" he frowns, I look outside the tent.

"They're coming" I say, and he looks at me confused. The tent entrance opens and the five warriors that we left behind enter, all of them looking pale and scared.

He notices their complexions, well… it was hard to miss, they look ready to pass out "What wrong guys?".

"A-a shadow…" one of them says and I grin, my eyes forming crescent moons.

Once I control my expression I talk calmly "Don't worry, he's not going to harm you" I swear I've been smiling far more than usual this last couple of days. Ethan looks at me tiredly. I must admit, being able to talk about this so openly feels freeing.

"Guys, go relax. You can skip training tomorrow" he sighs again.

I hope he's not tired because of me, even now my body is doing its best at sucking up energy to the point my life is not in danger, once I heal to that point this will stop since this is like an involuntary surviving mechanism. It's useful but I don't like to use it like this… I just use the energy of the death, using the energy of the living feels wrong and sometimes I can end up killing others, just like it happened with Sean and my mom. They were going to die either way but knowing I had a hand on it used to feel awful.

"One day" he says taking me by surprise "I've known you for barely one day and you already made my life a mess" he says in an easy-going way while snickering. He's saying something bad, so why does it look like he's enjoying it?

I remember what he told me earlier today.

'If you ever need help, call me. I'll help you with anything you want'

'don't say 'anything'. I take promises in a really literal way'

'Anything'

"I told you not to say 'anything'" I say calmly.

"…"

"…"

"AJAJAJAJAJAJAJAJAJAJAJAJAJA" he laughs loudly "Yeah… you told me so" he wipes the tears product of his laughter.