"He should've let us fight with him!" A familiar voice hissed angrily, making me stop dead in my tracks.

Later in the afternoon after Xavier had left and I was bedridden for a few hours due to my aching thigh, my stomach began to growl loudly which reminded me that I hadn't eaten anything since last night. I hopped down on one leg and limped my way to the kitchen for a snack; but the voices murmuring an angry conversation between each another from the inside of the kitchen brought me to a stop.

I backed up against the wall, my head slightly peeking over the end to glance inside without announcing my arrival. My eyes widened as I came to notice the two people who were having that conversation.

"He did the right thing." Elliot responded to Noah's earlier exclamation.

Noah scoffed. "The right thing? We're not a part of his stupid little "gang" so he has no right to order us around." He mockingly air-quoted the word gang. A deep frown was set on his face as he pranced around the kitchen, his hand tightly fisted around a glass of orange juice turning his knuckles pale white.

"He did it because he knows that if anything happened to us, Nora would never forgive us and would surely blame herself." Elliot went on. I frowned in confusion, then suddenly felt the heat of my blood boiling in my veins.

"That's bullshit. This is our decision to make. We're doing it for all of us, not just Nora," Noah reiterated.

"Noah, just drop the subject. And your damn tone; you might as well announce to the entire house what you're being so salty about." I could see Elliot rolling his eyes as he stepped away from the counter, reaching the sink to set in his empty glass.

"How can we even trust that he'll really end Darius?" Noah spat harshly, a deep crease set between his eyebrows.

I felt a bile rising in my throat.

"Are you out of your damn mind? He saved Nora's life. He's practically in love with her; do you seriously think he'll go easy on the man who hurt her?"

My heart skipped a beat, and I gasped involuntarily as soon as the words left Elliot's lips.

I strained my ears to hear better as their voices suddenly came to a stop. There was a slight tap, and when I sneaked a glance behind the wall I found Elliot's hand on Noah's shoulder, giving him a slight pat.

"Look, man. I know this isn't easy for you, but she's happy when she's with him. He's helped her break out of her shell. And what more could we ask for than someone who'd make her a priority, while keeping her both safe and happy?" Elliot spoke. My heart clenched at his words, and I could practically feel the warmth of his brotherly love engulfing me even from the distance. 

Noah scoffed. "Yeah," he whispered, unconvinced. 

I stood on the outside of the kitchen, hiding behind a wall, a soft smile grazing my lips as I stared at the floor. It suddenly hit me how creepy I must look to the outside world. 

Relaxing my features, I straightened my posture and prepared to make my appearance known. And although I was deeply touched by their brotherly affection and kind wishes for me, I couldn't forget the hidden messages in their earlier conversation. They knew that Xavier was after Darius, that he was going to find him and get to him, and not only did they hide that fact from me, but they were even planning on joining Xavier in his fight. That was beyond infuriating to think of.

Pushing myself off the wall, I erased the warm smile grazing my lips and the loving look in my eyes and put on a tough exterior. I stalked towards the kitchen, and through the open door.

As soon as Elliot and Noah noticed my appearance, their eyes snapped to my direction and widened in surprise.

"Nora? What are you doing down here?" Elliot was the first to speak, while Noah straightened up from hunching over the counter and playing with an empty glass. 

"I wanted to grab a snack." I stated dully.

"Do you want me to make you a sandwich?" Noah offered kindly.

I bit the inside of my cheek. Do not break your exterior! a voice hissed in my brain.

"I'd rather not get food poisoning, thank you very much." I lifted my chin up and scrunched my nose in playful disgust. And I watched as Noah rolled his eyes, breaking into a grin. 

"Yeah, she's good." He said to Elliot while turning around to head towards the sink. 

Elliot chuckled. "I see you're back to your old self." 

"Nothing ever changed. But enough about me, what have you guys been up to?" I limped my way towards the fridge, grabbing open one of its doors. I searched inside, and reached out for a bowl of fresh berries. When I shut back the door, I noticed Elliot eyeing Noah suspiciously.

"Nothing much. We were just grabbing some orange juice." Noah shrugged nonchalantly. 

I set my bowl on the counter, hopping on the stool and sighing as the weight was taken off my injured leg. "Oh, really?" I asked, eyeing them skeptically. "What about the past three days? Why were you guys in hiding? Plotting something?"

Elliot sighed. "Alright, enough, Nora. I know you heard us."

I frowned, feigning ignorance as I waited for them to come clean on their own. "Heard what?"

Noah rolled his eyes. "Come on, Nora."

Eventually I snapped, dropping the single blueberry held between my index and thumb back into its bowl. "Alright, I did! How could you hide something like that from me?" My voice rose an octave as my annoyance pushed through.

"You were practically bedridden!"

"And we knew you were sure to stop us."

"You're damn right, I would've!" 

Elliot sighed. "This plan wasn't even ours to begin with."

"Yeah, it wasn't. So take it up with your boyfriend." Noah mumbled.

My head snapped to him, a deep frown settling on my features. Elliot beat me to it as he smacked Noah on the back of his head, the loud tap echoing in the quiet of the room.

"Hey!" Noah frowned.

"Oh, grow up." I glared at Noah. "I can't believe you guys; do you not realize how badly Xavier could get hurt from this? He's facing a literal psycho!"

Elliot shook his head. "Don't worry about Xavier. He's way more powerful than you know. And he has his men by his side, nothing will go wrong."

"For us, that is." Noah finished.

"Wait, his men?" 

Noah rolled his eyes. "Well of course he wasn't going to single-handedly fight off one of the largest mafias in North America." He scoffed.

My eyes widened, my jaw loosening and nearly falling to the floor. I gaped at them in horror. How could I not have realized this earlier?

"What?" Elliot frowned in confusion, studying my expression.

"D-darius?"

They both went silent for a second, their eyes moving to one another. Elliot sighed, slightly nodding. "Yeah, we found out he's their right hand."

The right hand? As in second in command? As in directly underneath the boss in rank?

My mind was in a whirlwind, suddenly every single piece of the puzzle was magnetically being attracted to the next and giving sense to every loose end.

It suddenly made sense to me why he went completely mad that night when he found out I followed him and watched his private dealings. He thought I knew he worked and dealt illegally, and feared that I might rat him out.

But of course that didn't do him justice. Nothing ever would.

"Don't worry about Xavier, Nora. He'll be fine." Elliot assured me softly, which took me by surprise. I snapped out of the haze my thoughts had formed around my mind, my eyes finding Elliot's promising gaze.

I forced out a tight smile. I wasn't entirely sure that he would be fine, my anxiety was eating me up from the inside, churning my intestines. I felt like I might throw up.

I pushed away the bowl of berries, feeling repulsed by the mere thought of any food entering my mouth.

"I hope so," I whispered a prayer.

A short silence overtook us, until Elliot spoke up. "I have an idea." His eyes lit up in excitement. "How about a movie marathon for a distraction?"

Noah jumped up from his seat on the stool beside me. "Yeah, that sounds great." He turned to me with a wide grin. "What do you say? Harry Potter? The Hunger Games?" He listed some of my favorite movie franchises. "I'm even willing to put up with Twilight if it would serve you."

I shook my head, but couldn't hide the smile that grazed my lips.

"I'll go inform the rest, I'm sure they'll love the distraction." Elliot prepared to leave the kitchen.

"Yeah, and don't forget to drag Seth away from those Star Wars movies. He's been watching them for three days straight. We can't risk him losing the single brain cell he's got up there." 

Poor Seth, always the subject of their bullying, I thought to myself while trying hard to hide my smile.

But my friends were right, no matter how bad I didn't want to admit it out loud. I needed a distraction, desperately. If I sat back and got absorbed back into my paranoid thoughts about Xavier and what is going on, I'd go completely mad.

Noah's eyes remained on me, watching me expectantly. Reluctantly, I nodded. His lips curved up into a wide grin, and he instantly turned around and started rummaging through the cabinets in the kitchen.

"Well, we definitely need popcorn. Please tell me they have popcorn." He mumbled the last part as he continued searching through the pantry and cabinets.

The sudden hop I took down from the stool I was seated on made the blood rush down my wounded leg, and I grasped the counter for a couple seconds until the displeasing sensation faded away.

"Aha!" Noah exclaimed, which made me flinch back in surprise. He shifted around with a look of triumph, a bag of kernels clutched in his fist.

I chuckled and shook my head. "Well, I'll be down in the living room."

"Nora, wait." Noah's sudden exclamation stopped me in my tracks, and I turned to stare at him expectantly. He set the bag of kernels on the counter, taking various steps forward until he reached me and stopped a mere foot away. His eyes left mine as he stared at the floor, biting the inside of his cheek nervously.

"What is it?" I encouraged.

He lifted his head and his eyes found mine, full of unspoken words. "I want to talk to you about something."

As I kept staring at him expectantly for another few minutes, but found him to only stare back silently, my nerves started to run on overdrive. "What is it, Noah?"

His jade orbs kept traveling between my eyes, searching between the confusion I felt. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out.

Suddenly, his gaze shifted lower, and before I could make sense of anything that was happening, Noah was leaning in.

When I felt his warm breath fan my face, my heart leapt out of my chest and my hands came up to push against his shoulders. I gasped as I shoved him away roughly, losing my balance and stumbling against the counter.

"Nora!" His hands traveled to my waists as he tried to steady me, but I shoved them away.

"What the Hell?!" I shrieked, stepping away from his touch.

My widened and frantic eyes met his, searching for answers to his inexplicable action. He just tried to kiss me.

Noah understood the look behind my eyes, and instantly took a step back. His gaze moved to the floor, and his cheeks and neck began to redden up. "I-I'm sorry, I just had to-"

"Had to what, Noah?!" I exclaimed, furious.

"I had to try. You had to know!"

My eyes widened at his words, my heart sinking to my stomach. He took a step forward, his hands reaching out for mine and grasping them roughly. I stared at him in horror, seeing his eyes frantically moving between my own.

An inner voice shouted at me to silence him, not wanting him to go any further with his words. But I couldn't as he began to spill everything in a rushed, desperate tone.

"I've liked you for so long, Nora. I've waited for you for years. I never wanted to rush you into anything because you always claimed you weren't ready." My eyes widened and throat tightened, as did his grip on my hands. "But now you're moving on too fast, you don't even know this guy." He scoffed, his jaw tightening. "I had to- I have to let you know that you have another option."

"Noah, what the Hell are you saying?" I exhaled the question in horror; I couldn't be hearing correctly. I pulled my hands out of his grip roughly, creating a distance between us as I shook my head.

"You've seen what he can do! How can you trust someone like him?!" Noah's voice was rising in volume, and I shrunk back in discomfort.

"Noah, don't do this..."

"He will hurt you - Hell, he already has! Look at where he's gotten us. You can't keep repeating the same mistakes, Nora." His eyes were filled with rage as he stepped forward, coming closer to me.

"I'm not! Xavier is nothing like Darius!" My blood boiled at the mere thought that he could consider such a thing, that he saw a similarity between those two completely different human beings. I shook my head defiantly, my heart racing. "I'm not doing this with you."

"Nora-" he reached out to grab my arm, but I shoved his hand away roughly.

"No!"

I turned around and as quickly as I could muster made my way through the kitchen door to where I remembered the living room with the TV was; down a narrow hall, and to the left.

I felt nauseated with discomfort, my mind still not fully comprehending that Noah - Noah - tried to kiss me. His words continued to echo in my ears, and I forcefully shook them out of my head.

Surprisingly, when I walked into the living room I found a group of people already seated over the couches, some I had never seen before. Ariel's attention was diverted from a girl she was speaking to, to me. She smiled widely and gushed me over to take the seat beside her, so I did as told, inhaling deeply to try and regain my composure.

"Nora, let me introduce you to some of the dopest people I've met while staying here," Ariel began with a wide grin on her face. Scarlett sat right across from us, and when our gazes met she gave me a bright smile and whispered a greeting, which I returned. "That's Jonah," Ariel pointed to a guy with shoulder-length black hair who smiled shyly and waved a hand awkwardly. "And that's his twin Sam."

Sam looked nothing like her brother; instead, she had wavy blonde hair and twinkling green eyes.

"Luna, it's of real joy to see you doing better." Sam spoke up after Ariel's introductions.

My eyes widened in surprise, and confusion. "Oh, m-my name is actually Nora. But thank you," I chuckled nervously.

She wasn't the first one to call me that name, which really confused me.

The girl surprised me even further by laughing back. "Yes, I know."

I frowned. "Then why did you call me that?"

Ariel shifted in her seat, turning to inspect Sam expectantly as she was just as curious about the answer.

"Because being our Alpha's mate makes you our Luna," she replied with a light smile grazing her pink lips.

I stared at her blankly, trying to process her words. I had so many questions I wanted to ask back, but the second I opened my mouth to speak, Bella, Elliot and Seth entered the room, shifting everyone's attention to them.

"Mate? Isn't that like the British version of 'homie'?" Seth asked confusedly as he took a seat beside Sam.

I frowned, while Jonah snorted out his laughter, covering it up with a cough. Scarlett was giggling at his reaction, and Sam was biting back a smile.

"Homie, Seth? Really?" Ariel rolled her eyes.

"Nora," Bella greeted me with a wide smile, reaching our large couch and taking a seat to my right. "I see you've met our newest friends."

I smiled and nodded once.

As Elliot began to switch on the TV, Ariel grabbed a blanket and everyone began to cosy up in their space. Noah then walked in with three large bowls of popcorn, which he gave away with a slight frown, before plopping down on one of the seats. His eyes avoided mine, which I was glad for because just seeing him was making my blood boil.

I inhaled deeply and switched my attention to the TV. This was meant to be my distraction from my thoughts, and I will not let Noah take that away from me.

"Alright, as the majority have voted, this shall be a Harry Potter marathon," Elliot announced, rolling his eyes. "As if ya'll haven't already watched the movies a thousand times."

"And we'd watch them for a thousand more." Scarlett replied, smiling broadly. I agreed, and she offered me a wink.

And so I laid back in my seat as the Harry Potter marathon commenced, blocking all my troubles from entering my mind and rejoicing in the few hours of distraction I'd been offered.