A branch snapped behind me in the forest, followed by a loud crash.

The hair on my arm stood on end as I turned towards the noise. Cat sprinted towards it before I could stop him, disappearing into the thick darkness with the ominous trees.

"Cat!" I yelled after him.

Before I could make up my mind about what the noise was, I was already running into the woods with my phone in my hand with the flashlight app ready. I ran as fast as I could, following the noise of breaking branches, hoping that Cat was all right.

"Cat?" I screamed into the dark night.

While the flashlight was somewhat useful to see directly in front of me, it didn't do much to illuminate the thick woods around me. I turned the small flashlight around and above me, trying to find where I was. I recognized most of it, I'd lived near the woods most of my life and knew most of it like the back of my hand.

A branch fell ahead of me, followed by small dainty footsteps.

I sprinted towards the noise hoping it was Cat. The only thing I could hear was my ragged breathing and thumping heart against my chest.

Suddenly, I came across a figure in the darkness, hugging herself against the cold night.

I knew who it was immediately, recognizing the dress from earlier that night.

Leah was hugging herself as she cried, walking through the trees.

But it couldn't be Leah, this girl had black hair, not blonde. She also looked miserable. Wouldn't she be happy that she got a date with the most eligible bachelor she knew? At least, that what I would bet on. It was Leah, after all.

After watching her for a couple of seconds, I realized it was definitely Leah – except she was a mess. Her dress was in tatters her feet bare, her hair a tangled nest atop her head.

She looked like she was in pain. Was she hurt?

As I got closer with my flashlight on the phone, she turned.

"Emylin?" She looked at me bewildered.

I nodded. "Are you all right?"

She took a step back as I moved towards her. She stumbled over the large roots of a monstrous tree behind her, falling back.

"No! Please!" She panted hard as she leaned up against the tree regaining her balance. The large roots of the trees came up to her hips making it look like the tree was swallowing her whole. Crying, she pressed her back against the trunk trying to make herself seem small.

I stepped warily towards her and felt static electricity and dryness in the air. It was March and cool but the air seemed to drop several degrees near her. I flashed the light towards the tree she was propped up against and noticed that the tree slowly started to warp around her, almost as if it were bending towards her, collapsing around her.

Her now black hair was plastered to her forehead, sweat beading all over her body. There were cuts up and down her legs and arms as if she were running into thorn bushes.

"Leah?" I whispered.

She looked at me, her blue eyes full of tears. "Emylin, please, I don't want to hurt you."

I shook my head and stepped closer. "You won't hurt me."

She shook her own head. "You don't know that!"

She was right. I didn't know what I was doing. I knew I wasn't equipped to handle anything like this but still ... I felt responsible in helping her. I was, after all, the reason she and Damien met.

And there was no way that what was happening right now wasn't related to her date with Damien.

There had to be something I could do.

I placed a hand out to her and gently spoke, trying to calm her. "Shh, you're not going to hurt anyone, Leah."

She shook her head. "I can't control it- I can't-"

I used the calmest voice I could. "Shh, it's okay Leah. It's just until you get used to it. You will control it."

She shook her head again and the air became even colder.

I tried to hide my fear. She really couldn't control what was happening to her. It looked like she was losing her mind.

"My parents adopted me. I knew I was adopted," she rambled. "I always knew it, they always told me. I didn't know I was this." She pointed to the tree above her. The light colored wood was turning darker around her and spreading to the branches. As the wood changed and warped, it groaned loudly and popped in protest. "I don't even know what I am."

She started to sob and continued without taking a breath. "I knew there was something different about me. I thought I was a witch or something. I knew that I could do different things but this - I'm killing things, Emylin."

I swallowed a lump in my throat and took my trembling hand back. I was in danger, in real danger. I could feel it around me - in my body. Everything felt so wrong.

"I killed all those pretty flowers in the room. They wilted as soon as Damien showed me what I could do. I feel so full, you know, I feel like I'm about to just spill over. I can't contain any of this, Emylin."

The air was full too. It felt like it was teeming with electricity and a heavy darkness like I'd never felt before. I could feel it seeping into my pores.

I hushed her in the same way my mother would to me whenever I cried when I was younger. Ironically, it was usually over something Leah did to me or said when we were younger.

The irony was not lost on me.

"Look at me, Leah."

She shook her head. "I'm afraid."

A spark flew nearby, making me jump. The air was crackling with power.

I let out a long breath. "Please, Leah."

"I don't want to hurt you."

I swallowed and shook my head. "It'll be okay, just take a deep breath."

Leah did just that.

I smiled. "Good. Take another deep breath." I also took a deep breath to show her.

She watched me and took a deep breath.

It didn't seem to be working. Nothing seemed better in the vicinity. My heart hammered against my chest. What was I going to do? I couldn't leave her but I couldn't stay either. Out of ideas, I only smiled at her. "You're doing great, Leah," I lied. "Just breathe."

She nodded, her tears still spilling.

"Em."

I turned to the voice behind me.

Damien was suddenly there, a little worse for wear too. It looked like they had been in some sort of battle since he, too, was a mess. While Leah had cuts and bruises with tears along her dress, Damien's hair was tossled around like he had been running fingers through them half the night. The buttons of his dress shirt were opened, obviously no longer caring whether or not he looked presentable.

I couldn't contain my sigh of relief, the tension in my shoulders finally gone. "You're here."

"Em. I need you to come towards me. Very slowly."

I shook my head. "She needs help, Damien."

"Yes, I know, it's why I'm here."

I looked at him, puzzled. Was he suggesting I leave her alone? It was my fault this was happening in the first place. "I can't leave her."

He shook his head. "We won't. But I need you to come here to me. Now."

His tone had such a finality to it that didn't leave any room for argument.

To anyone else, maybe. But I wasn't anyone else.

I was about to say something else when I noticed movement behind him. Four men came into view behind him in armor I had only seen once before on the night I first met him. Were these his royal bodyguards?

One of the men spoke, "Alteazor, we need to get you to safety."

Damien shook his head, never breaking eye contact with me. "I'm staying," he said plainly. "Em, come here. Now."

I looked at Leah, fear fully displayed on her features. She shook her head. "I can't help it, Emylin. Please leave." She gasped in pain and doubled over, pure power crackling in the air.

I took a step back hesitantly.

Damien spoke again behind me, venom in his voice. "Oren, should anything happen to her, I will hold you personally responsible."

I looked to Damien, incredibly mad. If anything, he should be the one held responsible for anything he sprung on Leah during their date.

The next couple of seconds happened so fast I barely registered what was happening.

Leah groaned in pain, holding her stomach, falling to her knees.

Someone called out, "Protect the King!"

I gasped, watching as invisible energy seemed to pour out of Leah. It looked as if pulling her core apart from her limbs. I dropped the phone in my hand, not ready for the oncoming blow of power.

Arms enveloped me and before I knew it I was in my bedroom just as the room started to shake. An incredibly loud blast boomed nearby behind the house from the directions of the woods.

It was like an earthquake, my pictures on the walls toppled over, everything on my dresser and nightstands shook to the floor and even I fell to the floor from the sheer force I felt reverberate from the floor.

Ready to give Damien a piece of my mind, I turned to him and stopped. It wasn't Damien that brought me here but someone else entirely.

A man who seemed to be in his late twenties with picture perfect features reached his hand out to me. His light brown hair reached to his shoulders and brown stubble lined his perfect jaw.

He was a fairy, like Damien, I could tell that much from his perfect physique, posture, and features. Then suddenly, I realized, I knew those hazel eyes.

I gasped. I knew those eyes.

I didn't recognize him at all save for his eyes. I'd only seen one other creature with that same color hazel in their eyes. "Cat?"

He helped me up off the floor and before I knew it, he was on one knee in front of me, his head down in apparent shame. "Forgive me, Lady Emmy."

Before I could form a sentence, the door burst open and my mother came into the room. "Oh, my God. Are you okay?"

The mystery man in front of me was no longer there, giving my mother ample room to cut across the room and take me into a large hug.

She hugged me close, "I found her!" She called over her shoulder to, presumably, my father.

I could barely get a word out before she spoke again, "Did you feel that? Was that an earthquake? I've never felt an earthquake before –"

"Emylin!"

My father's worried voice carried up the stairs, his thumping footsteps loud as he ran up the stairs. He also burst into the room with Woof, "Are you all right?"

I looked to my hands. They were shaking. I'd never seen anything like that. What I just witnessed, the shaking of the house, the reason my parents were freaking out. Was that Leah? "I-I'm fine."

The alarms of the cars in several driveways echoed down the street, the headlights lighting up my bedroom window. It looked like whatever happened in the woods spilled over to the neighborhood affecting everything in the vicinity.

My mother shakily ran out of the room, "I'm going to call Lorraine, make sure she got home safe!"

My father gave me a tight hug like he always did. "We didn't see you come upstairs, we were so worried."

"I- I came upstairs not long after Chris left," I lied.

The lights in the room flickered then went out. Judging from what was happening outside my closed windows, it went out around the block too just as our neighbors came out of their homes to investigate.

The intermittent headlights of the cars in the street lit up my bedroom in a strange light.

I sat down heavily on my small bed, Woof cowering next to me, finding a place to hide between myself and my hand. He was shaking, terrified.

I absently mindedly tried to calm him, his small body trembling.

"Stay here," my father told me as he left the room. It was more for his peace of mind than mine, I realized. I just nodded.

I had been in danger. In actual danger. I could have lost my life...

From being stupid, quite honestly. I'd just avoided death because of Damien's bodyguards.

If Leah could cause havoc from that far away ... Had I been standing that close ... I'd be dead. Simple as that.

I shuddered to think what would happen if I were as close as I was before the stranger took me away.

He saved my life.

But what about Damien?

Logic told me that his royal bodyguards would take care of him-

An illogical part of me though otherwise –

What if he didn't make it?

Panic began to set in right before a familiar feeling filled the air. The air was heavy again, and the wooden floors began to creak and groan with effort.

Woof jumped off my bed and took off quickly down the hall as he felt the room suddenly shake. The dense air seemed to fill my lungs as I breathed, making me clutch at my neck. Before I could form another thought, Damien appeared in my room in front of me.

It sounded like there was heavy electricity in the air that suddenly snapped like a rubber band as soon as Damien appeared in the room. I placed my hands to my ears as the loud sound reverberated in the small room.

In the intermittent white light shining in my room, he didn't look like himself. His eyes were completely black as if darkness was completely filling him. It even looked like the veins around his eyes were filled with black ichor.

He looked terrifying.

On any other occasion, I would have hesitated to get close but after what I just witnessed - seeing how close we both were to death, I practically leapt to him, wrapping my arms around him.

I'd never been more relieved in my life to see my best friend, to be able to hug him and take comfort that he was there.

"Damien." My heart practically broke at the mention of his name. "You're okay."

The tension the air previously held was suddenly subsiding. I could take in bigger breaths and fill my lungs with air.

He held me tight as he gently reached over and shut the door of my bedroom. It shut quietly.

"Yes." He answered. "Of course, I'm all right."

I could feel the tears in my eyes. "I thought – I thought you –"

I looked over his shoulder behind him and saw a group of three men. I recognized them as the men that were standing in the woods behind Damien just minutes before.

Everyone looked to be all right. Standing much closer together and invading each other's space considering they were in my small childhood bedroom but – they were in good condition. One of them was almost sitting on my desk in the corner in the room.

Damien turned to them and calmly spoke. "Leave us."

They didn't hesitate and at once, we were alone again.

I pulled back and looked at his cool, mauve eyes. He looked to be back to normal. Taking in the room, I realized that whatever had been in the air before was now gone.

Had Damien done that?

It didn't matter. He was all right. Nothing happened to him.

"And Leah?" I asked.

He nodded. "She's fine. Safe. She just needs to rest."

Finally getting my wits about me, I smacked him against the shoulder.

"Ow," I groaned as I shook my hand to get feeling back in it. He didn't even blink. It hurt me more than it hurt him. "What did you do to her, Damien?"

He shook his head. "Nothing, I assure you."

I looked at him incredulously.

He sighed. "I may or may not have shown her what she could do."

I finally walked away from him, sober. He was all right, fine. More than fine. I could be as angry as I wanted with him. I looked out the window. Since my bedroom faced the front of the house and the street, I watched as my neighbors engaged in conversation, ran to their cars and looked to the woods behind us. No doubt wondering what just occurred.

If they only knew.

I nodded with my head towards my neighbors outside my window. "Was that her?"

He shrugged sheepishly. "Not entirely."

I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion then thought back to the moment when I first saw him reappear. He too had unleashed – something.

The air was heavy, I had trouble breathing. The wood around me had groaned in protest to his reappearance.

Realization hit me. The noise, the quake, the power going out. "That was you?"

He looked away almost as if ashamed. "I had it under control. It could have been a lot worse."

He must have seen the confusion in my eyes. "I am King for a reason, Em. While I was born to the title there is a specific reason my family has ruled for thousands of years."

I was unable to form words. This was the first time he had been open about his capabilities in, well, ever. As children, he played mostly parlor tricks - still did with his stupid magic coins. He'd never let on about what he could potentially do.

He could take out power grids miles away. Make the air feel like I was drowning. Make the earth move.

He ran a hand over his perfect features. He looked worried with bags under his eyes, his hair falling over his eyes – he almost looked human. "Look, I have to go take care of this. I'll see you later."

"Thank you," I blurted.

He looked at me confused.

I swallowed. "I think this is the first time you've ever told me anything about your capabilities."

"Does it scare you?"

I nodded, not hesitating. I pushed my glasses up the ridge of my nose. "Yes. But I know you would never hurt me."

He chuckled. "I'll see you later, Em. Get some sleep."

My brain finally seemed to jump start - a million questions coming to my lips. "Wait-"

He turned and walked away, disappearing as he did.

I sighed, started kicking off my boots, when my mom came in the room, a small lantern in her hand. "Here, take this. Don't use your phone – it looks like it's going to be hours before the power company figures out what happened. Don't drain your battery."

My phone. Where was it?

I had it in my hands ... in the woods ... right before all Hell broke loose...

I lost my phone.

"Aw, crap."