The Beautiful Monster

"Adelaide , she was my guardian "Melina replied. Her expression wavered for a moment. She almost looked sad, but she forced a smile on her face as she looked at him. "She was a witch too."

"Did you like her? Was she good at raising you?" Elias asked, unable to help his curiosity. His parents had done a good job raising him. Melina seemed to have herself together fairly well, so he could only imagine that Adelaide was a good guardian for her. At least his parents made sure that Melina was in good hands.

"She was incredible. In a sense, she was also my mom," Melina replied. 

Elias peered at Melina curiously as she suddenly fell silent. He could sense some tension in their conversation that hadn't been there before Adelaide had been brought up. Something had happened, especially since Melina kept referring to her in the past tense.

"You said that you went to boarding school?" he asked her, switching the conversation up. He didn't want to make her upset if something bad had happened. He just wanted to learn more about her. That was important for this trip.

Melina nodded, brightening slightly.

"I started going when I was twelve. It was a special type of boarding school,that's where I met Adelaide." she said with a sly smile.

"There are schools for witches?" Elias asked her with a look of disbelief on his face.

"For any supernatural beings," Melina replied as she tilted her head at him. "You didn't go to a special school?"

Elias shook his head.

"I was in school with humans. I guess my parents wanted me to get better integrated with them at an early age," he said, pondering on that. He hadn't even known that there were schools where people like him attended.

"That's smart. It's easier for witches to act like humans than demons," Melina pointed out.

"They did you a favor. A lot of the demons there had issues with being around humans. They were put in the boarding school to learn how to control their powers."

Elias nodded as he listened. He was glad that he had gotten control of himself fairly quickly. He couldn't imagine being unable to control his thirst.

Going too long without spilling blood was painful and exhausting. 

It drove demons to do crazy, dangerous things to get rid of that awful feeling. After all, they were created to kill and destroy.

"And you learned how to use your powers," he inferred.

Melina smiled and nodded. She glanced down at a few stray leaves on the ground near them, gently waving her hand to make the leaves suddenly float and drift away.

"I wouldn't be me without my powers," she murmured.

"I actually just wanted to be human for a while," Elias admitted to her. It felt easier to deny his nature as much as possible since he was surrounded by humans.

Even the love of his life was human, and all of his problems came from supernatural sources.

"You haven't taken full advantage of your powers yet. That'll change your mind," Melina told him. "Just keep an open mind."

Elias figured that she had a point. He needed to be accepting of his powers since a huge threat was coming their way.

His powers would keep him and those around him alive, and that was his goal at the end of all this. He just wanted everyone to be alive.

"There you two are," Scott's voice sounded from behind them. He trudged up to them. "I thought you two took off or something."

"He thought the same when he couldn't find me," Melina smirked as she got to her feet, dusting off her black jeans. She extended a hand out to Elias.

Elias took her hand, letting her pull him to his feet.

"We're safer together than alone," he pointed out. He knew that Melina hadn't gone far from the RV, but danger lurked in the places that they least expected it to.

"We're about to head out. Don't need to stay in one place for too long," Scott told them, motioning for them to follow him back to the RV.

Elias sighed softly, taking a moment to breathe in the fresh air. It was nice being outside and getting to stretch his legs for a moment.

There was no telling how long they would be trapped in that RV for.

However, he knew that staying in one place for too long wasn't safe.

They had no idea where Alaric was or how close he could be getting to them. It was better to keep moving.

"Maybe one of our powers is time travel and we can skip all this," Melina joked as she started to walk back to the RV.

Elias smirked and shook his head, wishing that could actually be true. They had a long journey ahead of them to endure, and they had only just gotten started.

So far, trouble hadn't caught up with them yet, but it was only a matter of time.

*******

A few days of driving across the country in the RV had passed. So far, there had been no signs of Alaric or his followers, but everyone waited with bated breath.

Eventually, something was going to happen. It was torturous not knowing exactly what and when that would happen.

Scott took over driving for the late afternoon. Melina and Tyler retired to the pullout couch to take a nap, while Elias and Alyssa went to the bedroom together.

Elias shut the door behind them and crawled onto the queen-sized bed, flopping down near Alyssa's side.

Alyssa turned onto her side to face him, giving him a soft smile.

"Hanging in there?" she asked him.

Elias shrugged his shoulders, unsure of how to answer that. He was glad that he was getting to know Melina more, but having to wait for something to happen was driving him crazy.

He felt like he was on edge all the time, and it exhausted him. However, he didn't want to sleep too long in case something did happen.

"Just tired," he told her. He didn't want to worry her even more. He could tell that she was stressed too, but she tried not to show it so much.

"Yeah," Alyssa agreed as she drifted her fingers through his hair, watching his eyes flutter shut. "Traveling and seeing new things is nice, though."

A hint of a smile crossed Elias' lips. She was still trying to find silver linings. He admired her for that.. He admired her endlessly.