Herrooooo friends! How are y'all doing today? Ready for the New Year? I'm not. I hate excuses, so I'm sorry to all my followers who have more than likely forgotten about this story because of my lack of writing. I've been out adulting in the world and lemme tell you, if you're not adulting… do NOT do it! RUN! RUN AWAY! Because it sucks. So do not go adulting, adulting is not worth it. Anywhoo….I'm on my Christmas break from college, and I happen to not be working tonight and I read through my books and..well I had nothing to do and was dying of boredom. So, I decided I'd hop on here and to be entirely honest I have no idea where the hell I was going with that last chapter, it's not what I remember it to be. It doesn't follow the storyline I've had set in my head for the past like three plus years so XD I'm just gonna run with it and hope it turns out well. If not…well there is reaaally nothing I can do cause all of my old hard copies are gone. So yeah XD I hope I do a decent enough job. Without further ado, Chapter 24!

Paul didn't let me go home for two days after I had woken up, and even then, he was hesitant of my moving about. Let me just say, missing school is a bitch. How can I have this much homework for missing a week? The homework itself is more work than my teachers have given all year! But I managed, and it gave me something to do while I was laying in Leah's bed with no one to accompany me for the better part of those two days. The wounds on my neck and face healed so well that it doesn't even look like I had been mauled by a fucking dinosaur.

Not that I can remember what broke my spin, ribs and eaten off my damn face to begin with. Watch it'd be a pack of rabid squirrels or some crap, because the universe would have a laugh at that. However, trying to remember it gives me this uneasiness, like something really, truly evil had been after my life that night. But only remembering parts of some chick flick that Kim put on might be cause for some of that uneasiness, I mean what the hell kind of movies does she watch in her free time? However, I don't think terrible chick flicks cause purple flames to shoot out from my fingertips either. I wasn't sure that I wanted to find out what I went through. I don't think I want to know how, despite the severity of my injuries, I look like I would any other day. If what Paul said was true then I should be a vegetable, maybe even dead. Here I am though, sitting in Paul's truck watching the trees roll by as fear knots in my stomach, telling me I shouldn't go home.

I didn't tell him about the fire. I feel like I should, like he might help me figure out what is up with me, but something told me not to. Instinct told me that whatever was wrong with me, he wasn't going to be able to help me with. So, I kept silent and stared out the window, occasionally feeling his eyes on me, probably in worry, as he drove. I didn't bother looking back at him, for some reason, I couldn't. I felt like a liar; I felt unworthy.

Here was the man who probably went through hell when he found me, and I couldn't bring myself to tell him that there was still something wrong with me. How do you go about telling someone that anyways? 'Hey baby how was your day? Oh good, by the way I can shoot purple fire from my fingers like a teenage boy ejaculating to porn for the first time.' That wouldn't go over too well. Well, I mean that's probably not the best way to phrase it either but telling anyone that you can control fire and make it magically appear at your fingertips will land you right in an Asylum; I'd be labeled a looney tune by the kids around here for the rest of my life. Hell, Paul would even say so as he shuts the damn door to my cell. I closed my eyes and exhaled.

What am I going to do? There's no one I can talk to about this…maybe…maybe it was just in my head. Maybe I imagined the whole thing in the bathroom because of my shock to what supposedly happened. I mean, shock can make you see things, right? It's not that uncommon. I had a feeling deep down though that this wasn't caused by shock. I tried to push that aside but, somehow I just knew. Paul made a left and turned onto the rocky drive slowly, bringing me ever closer to my home. I vaguely wondered if Ash had been around and if he had been eating. It was silly to wonder that for long though, he was a wolf not my pet and he was born to survive. He was fine, even without me.

Paul put the truck in park and shut the engine off before quickly getting out and helping me out as if I were an old lady near death. But I gave him a small smile for his effort. We walked over and into my house, Paul carrying my things and setting them in the living room as I stood in the doorway. It was only a week, and most of it I had been out cold for, but my home felt different. It felt...smaller. Less homely. It also felt like Paul and I weren't the only ones who were here. I shook that idea from my mind and walked into the kitchen. The dishes I had left last Thursday still sat there in their dirtied heap, and I felt disgusting. Already dust had begun to set as if someone hadn't lived here in ages. Perhaps I hadn't, as I'm hardly ever here.

I sighed and blanking out every thought and worry I had, I went and grabbed a wash rag. Holding it up in cold water that hadn't begun to heat up, I lathered it with soap and began cleaning the few dishes I hadn't touched. The circular motions I made into the plates were soothing to me, calming the turbulent waters of fear and worry in my head. I rinsed off the suds and it shined in the kitchen light and put it in the drying rack, moving onto the next dish. Paul came around from behind me to stand next to me as I did the dishes. I could still feel his worry as he looked at me. Gently he moved to take the cup I had been washing and I moved away from him, not paying attention and smashing the glass against the side of the sink in a panic.

"Shit," he muttered, quickly grabbing a dry towel and bringing it over as I looked down at the pieces of stained glass in the sink. I dropped the remaining pieces. My hand sustained a few cuts from the momentary reaction and blood was now dripping into the sink. I watched the red rain flood down the side like a raged river. "Give me your hand." Paul murmured.

I shook my head. "No point," I whispered. The first words I uttered to him all day. I watched as the cuts on my hand mended together and the lines faded to a pink, blood no longer dripping from the wounds. I looked over at him, hand out. Suddenly, I felt a wet trail fall down my cheek.

Paul's eyes widened a bit and he brought his hand up to cup my cheek. "Why are you crying?"

And suddenly I couldn't contain the flood gate anymore, I lept forward and crashed y head into his chest, wailing like a child. His shirt became wet in seconds as he wrapped his arms around me tightly.

"I'm a freak!" I managed to sniffle out in his shirt as I wept.

"No, no honey, you're not a freak."

"I-I am too!" I sniffed, trying to contain my hiccups. "Watch!" Pulling away from him, I moved to one of the drawers and pulled out a pair of scissors.

"Ray-" Before he could finish saying my name, I cut into the palm of my hand, blood spilling out again. I tossed the scissors into the sink before putting my hand under water to clean off the blood. By the time I had done that, the wound was sealed shut. I held my palm up.

"Do you see this? I just got open my fucking hand and nothing!" I rubbed at the skin in front of him to show my point. "That's not normal Paul. No one can do that."

"You can."

"Well duh Captain Obvious!" I sniffed.

He gave me a pained smile. "Ray, that just means your special. You have a gift, that doesn't make you a freak. Only a handful of people in this world know you're like that, and not one of them thinks you're a freak. Doesn't that count for something?"

I sighed, rubbing my eyes before turning and walking out of the room and up the stairs. He was right I was sure, but that didn't change the feeling I had about how different I was. How unnatural I was. Nothing he could say would fix that knowledge that had rooted in my heart. I was something unnatural, and I didn't know how I could fix that.
He followed me up the stairs and into my bedroom, where I took off my shoes and crawled under my blankets where I wanted to hide for the rest of eternity. Paul followed me there too, and held me close. I closed my eyes hoping maybe in sleep no nonsense of healing and fire powers would follow me into the normal bliss.

I'm sad that this is a short, filler chapter but I think it's a good start. I hope I can get bac on track enough to finally finish this story. It's been long overdue. Hope you all liked it!