He tried to put it out of his mind but he couldn’t. Awkward silences were just that…awkward. Whenever he found himself locked inside one, trapped like he was in a prison cell, it drove him crazy. He even started doing weird things with his hands like cracking each knuckle. Or he would slap parts of his body randomly. Or, and this was the worst one yet, he would either hum ridiculously off-key or sing wildly out of tune.

He started with the cracking of his knuckles. Each little firework of popping sound went off like a tiny explosion and sounded way louder than he intended. Lola, however, was not in the state of mind to notice though so he counted himself lucky.

When they got to the village, the fires consuming all the houses, barns, taverns, and other buildings of Gloucester still burned brightly. Heat blasted them in the face but Lola was determined to keep going. The closer she got, the more her skin started to turn a bright shade of red.

“Lola,” Russel shouted. The roar of the fires was a loud, gruesome thing to hear. “It’s too hot. You need to come back here.”

But she didn’t seem able to hear him. All she could focus on was her village. Her quaint, perfectly adequate village. Its peacefulness. The way everyone in the village looked out for each other. The sense of family she’d had there. The beautiful nights spent looking up at bright, glowing stars on the roof of her cottage. A childhood where she had been loved and cherished by two amazing parents.

She couldn’t take it anymore. Her legs suddenly went weak and she fell to the ground, her eyes watching the dance of the flames as tears spilled down them. Russel stayed by her side, standing watch over her like an avenging angel. Her pain suddenly felt just as real to him and he wondered how that could possibly be. Just two weeks ago, he’d never even heard of the place. It was only after doing some hard thinking that he realized he felt pain because he couldn't stand to see Lola in so much pain.

Why should I care about her? I still have to kill her. Don’t forget that part of the mission.

Then why didn’t you just let Drake do it for you?

That thought hit home in a way the other ones hadn’t. That would have been the best course of action, of course. She would be dead like his father wanted and Drake would have been the one to do it, leaving his hands free and clear of blood. It was true he hadn’t realized it was her at the time but he could have let her die just on the chance she was the right girl.

“You don’t have to stay,” Lola told him, still on her knees in the grass. “You can head back off toward wherever it was you were going.”

“I think I will stay, just for a little bit. I don’t want Drake getting stupid ideas into his head like waiting me out and then coming back to try his luck again,” he told her. “And you need someone right now. I may be a stranger but I am better than nothing.”

“I suppose that’s true,” she told him, a tiny, barely-there smile on her lips as she brushed the tears from her eyes. She got up from the ground, wiped off the dirt from her pants, and looked at Russel. A hardness came over her and he could visibly see her forcing herself not to cry anymore.

“You don’t have to do that,” Russel told her. He tilted her head up to look him in the eyes. “You don’t have to shut down the grief. Let it out, Lola. Let it all out.”

She jerked her chin away from him, her eyes flashing angrily.

“No,” she said, sternly. “Not this time. I know there is a whole lot more grief, shame, and guilt inside me but I am done crying. Right now, there’s only one thing I want. To kill Drake and every last wolf with him today.”

“That’s going to be difficult to do,” Russel said. “He’s like me. A royal. His father sits on the throne of Harvenk. Getting to him will be impossible.”

Lola didn’t back down. She glared up at him, her mouth set in a firm line.

“Then train me to fight. I might not be a werewolf but you are. You know how to fight other werewolves. You can help me.” A wild, almost manic glee lit up her face.

Russel didn’t know what to say and quickly became uncomfortable.

“Please, Russel,” Lola said, insistent. “Teach me how to kill werewolves.”