Defiant

Blood drained from my face when I heard those words. Sheila slowly turned towards me and looked at me with cold eyes just like Ifera. She took a step and bent down to grab my neck. From the corner of my eyes, I could see that something had happened to Turek as he lost consciousness.

Sheila grabbed my neck tightly and started lifting me up. It was very painful to be lifted by my neck and I tried to reduce the pressure by holding on to Sheila's wrist with both my hands. Even then, the pressure on my neck was very tight and I couldn't breathe at all. I struggled with all my might but there was nothing I could do.

I looked into Sheila's cold eyes and all my little interactions from the previous day with Sheila passed through my head. The Sheila who cared for me so much before was now completely cold and merciless.

As I continued to struggle, unexpectedly a tear leaked out of my eye. It flowed down my face slowly and dropped on Sheila's hand that was holding me. All of sudden I felt Sheila's grip on me loosen. I looked at her and saw that She was tearing up as well. After a second, Sheila let go of me and I fell down to the ground with a thud.

I looked back up at Sheila and saw her looking down at me with a pained expression. She was now crying freely. Suddenly she kneeled down and hugged me tightly.

"I….I am… sorry Ren… hic…. I …. Am sorry ..."

Soon Sheila started wailing and I could feel my shoulder get drenched with tears. I hugged her back and tried to pacify her. As this was going on I heard a chuckle. I looked up and saw that Ifera was looking at us with an amused smile.

She started walking towards us but Sheila stood back up all of a sudden and raised her hands as if to sheila me from Ifera.

"Oh? You want to defy me? I raised you since you were a child and this is how you repay me?"

She looked at Sheila with anger.

"I …. I will not let Ren get hurt ...I … will protect Ren!"

These words seemed to have angered Ifera even more and she stared with blazing eyes at Sheila. Next moment she slapped Sheila so strongly that Sheila flew through the air and fell down a few meters away. The attack had happened so fast that I didn't even see Ifera's hand move before Sheila was flying through the air.

I was very scared. Seeing the amount of strength used by Ifera, it was entirely possible that Sheila was dead. I struggled to stand up but fell down as my legs refused to support me. I felt like I didn't have any energy in my legs. I started crawling towards Sheila with all my remaining strength.

"Are you worried about her?"