Another narrowly avoided attack from Jayden.  More and more wounds began to appear amongst the group, and no one was willing to sit around anymore.  However, with the condition they were in, no one was ready to attack the psychopathic redhead just yet, even if their minds screamed for vengeance.  Instead, they decided to filter their hate among one another, bating their time and riling them up for the showdown between them and Jayden.

“Someone like that doesn’t just turn on a dime.  He must’ve been deceiving us,” Scarlett noted.

“How disgraceful,” Marina chimed in. “We took him in, and this is how he repays us.”

“Didn’t he say he belonged somewhere else before us, but he wouldn’t talk about it?” added Scarlett. “I bet that’s how he got that scar over his eye… betraying those who took him in when no one else would.”

“Yeah, well the moment he attacked Rose was the moment he asked for trouble,” Sam growled.

Connor’s eyes flickered from his journal and back to the pages.  He had all but given up arguing with the group of them.  This was a battle he knew he was losing, and quite frankly, his hatred of Jayden was creeping up on him.  The only thing that kept him going was his notes.  How Jayden’s eyes changed the day the attack happened.  How he was at first fearful of his actions, as if he didn’t mean for those things to happen.  Maybe the old Jayden was still in there, just taken over by something… darker.  He chewed on the end of his pencil as his eyes scanned over the entry he began with Jayden.

    ·         Born into a family with a father that despised his existence.
    ·         Constantly surrounded by his father’s hatred.
    ·         Fears turning into his father, but won’t say why.

However, the next line struck him the hardest.

    ·         Vows never to hurt another human being like his father did.

Tears nipped at the corner of Connor’s eyes, but he blinked them away.  Seems like everything Jayden feared happening was coming true. Maybe this was all part of his fate. Maybe… maybe Jayden wasn’t changing, but succumbing to the monster hidden inside his subconscious.   What if it was all an act because he didn’t want the others to hate him before they knew him?  He shook his head.  Fate seemed to have Jayden in their negative favor.

“Let him run all he wants,” Sam vowed, “But what he’s done is unforgiveable.  What he’s done to all of us… to Phoenix, the only person in this place that still believes there is good in him… to Rose…” his voice cracked at the last part. Marina put a comforting hand on his back.

“Let’s face it. Jayden’s just not like us,” Scarlett growled.

“All that lying he did before is useless now. We’re not so blind to his actual self now,” Marina added.

“He’s not one of us,” Sam replied.

Connor snapped his pencil in half.  He stood up from his chair and left the room, phasing through the door instead of opening it.  They didn’t know him like he did.  If they’d just give him a second chance.  He shook his head. But they wouldn’t.  All they saw now was the monster that he had become. He was now an outsider.  A vicious killer.  Not human.  Not one of them.