Heartless Reflections Chapter 3: The Circus

Daytime

As we were preparing to leave, I told Raina to pack some food while I went to go get my dagger. From now on, there will be people who will be after our lives. The traitor and the last existing wolf.

"Noah, what about your family?" asked Raina. I was surprised by Raina's question since it came out of nowhere.

"There's no need to worry about that." I said not looking in her direction.

"What do you mean? Won't they be worried?" asked Raina.

"They're dead." I said finally looking at her. She looked shocked and then she had a sad expression on her face.

"Sorry..." said Raina.

"Look, they died a long time ago, so it's fine, it's not like I'm sad about it or anything anymore, so you don't need to apologize." I said.

In truth, I was lying. It wasn't like I felt absolutely nothing about their death anymore, but I don't feel as agonized as I did back then. I walked over to where Raina was standing and patted her head as she still had a sad expression. Then I walked towards the door. "Are you ready?" I asked smiling to her.

Raina walked towards me. "Yea." she said.

Night time

We've already walked far away from my house. God, they're persistent. "Noah..." whispered Raina tugging on my shirt.

"I know..." I whispered back. There were at least three people following us. They must've waited for us to leave the house since even though I made Raina wear a cloth over her head to cover her ears, they still knew. They were hiding, but it was obvious that they were there since it was like you could sense their blood lust from a mile away.

Since it was night time, all of Raina's physical abilities was better than it was during the day. Her ears turned into a wolf's ears. She was also able to determine that there was two men and one woman by smell. The woman was closer to us then the other two. Was she a decoy? Either way, we need keep moving with caution. "The woman is getting closer..." whispered Raina. What is she going to do?

"Noah! It's not a woman." whispered Raina suddenly.

"What do you mean?!" I whispered back surprised at what she just said.

"It's a man! He must've disguised his scent to confuse me." whispered Raina panicking. We were outnumbered and we also didn't know how strong the opponent was. This was definitely an attempt to make us off guard, even for a moment. Does this mean that the pursuits determined that we were stronger? To have to rely on a distraction. Well, Raina should be stronger anyways.

I stopped walking. Raina, who seemed to have started to understand what this meant, also stopped. We might have a chance of winning if the opponent really thought this way.

"Stop hiding, I know you're there!" I said. The pursuits came out of hiding and just like Raina said, the one closest to us was a man. I pulled out my dagger and Raina' nails sharpened. Her golden colored eyes also turned red. The pursuits stood there and watched her in surprise. I was surprised as well since this was the first time that I ever saw this.

The fight was over in about fifteen minutes. There was blood everywhere. Raina, pulling out the vital organs of the opponent, killed one of the pursuits. I, stabbing my opponent to death, also killed one of the pursuits. The one who disguised his scent to match a woman's, escaped. We were left with small injuries and blood on us. This was the first time that I've ever killed anybody. Terrifying, what a terrifying feeling. Raina's eyes turned back to it's original color. It seems that it only turns red when she's agitated.

"Noah, are you okay?" asked Raina. I wasn't okay. Raina's hands were stained red. I reached out to her and hugged her. The first time we met, her hands was also stained red from blood. She was someone who had experience in killing somebody.

When I left the house, I thought I was prepared for anything, even to be killed or to kill. Killing another was terrifying, but what did Raina feel as she killed another?

"Noah?..." said Raina. I let go of her and faced the opposite direction of her. "It's nothing, let's continue on." I said. We wiped off the blood and changed our blood stained clothes. We continued walking in silence. Then, after a while we saw bright lights.

"What's that?" asked Raina. We walked closer towards the light. As we got closer, we saw a tent and people crowding around it.

"It's  a circus..." I said.

"A circus? What's that?" asked Raina.

"Huh? You don't know what a circus is?" I asked surprised at her question. Now, that I think about it, since Raina was always hiding and running away from humans, she must've never experienced going to things like this.

"Do you want to go see their performance?" I asked. Raina's facial expression brightened, but she also looked hesitant about the ideal of going. I grabbed her hand and walked towards the tent.

"Wait, what if someone finds out that-" she began.

"They won't as long as you keep that cloth on." I said cutting her off. I haven't been to the circus in ages after my parents died, so honestly I was looking forward to seeing the show.

Amazing, just like how I remembered it. Although Raina seemed to be way more amazed than I was. "Are you glad that you got to see this?" I asked.

She looked at me then said "Yeah!" This was the first time that I've ever seen Raina smile so brightly. honestly, today was filled with a lot of "first times" for me. "Noah! Look, a tiger!" said Raina.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you , our amazing lion tamer, Sky and his tiger, Tira!" said the ringmaster. A man who looked liked he was about our age came out with a lion by his side.