HEya :D

Thanks all for taking your time to read and then review my story. I appreciate it beyond what you may think! I've been trying to improve my writing, and hopefully this chapter will make a lot more sense than the first two chapters. If it doesn't, tell me! Just tell me what you would like see in the story, and I'll consider it. OF course, I have the basic outline for my story done, so nothing major can be done. Well, here's hoping you enjoy the 3rd chappe of Incomprehensible Truth. (i've actually started drawing out my characters--at first it was practically impossible! i could never really get a clear image of their profile, you know? anything, this is irrelevant ..actually the introduction at my first chapter was beyond irrelevant :D haha)

---

Squinting into the sunlight, Colorado looked out at the scenery around his house. He leaned against the wall of the front, staring at an odd-angled oak tree. One of its colorful leaf-covered branches hung out awkwardly away from it. He seemed to like this particular branch. He walked up to it. The branch seemed to be one of its lowest, and Colorado could easily grab hold of it, even at his height of five seven.

He began to wonder how much he and the branch had in common.

Well, if you think about it... He let the thought trail off.

After inspecting the long wooden bough, he sort of shrugged to himself and sat down under the shade of the tree. He leaned against its trunk and faced the house. His gaze set on the wall of astonishing and mortifying events. His thoughts went back in time to yesterday, when he’d met Victoria. She certainly was very beautiful, but she’d blown him off when he saw her combatting skills. She was a good fighter. But…then came the kiss. That was the big shocker. What had she possibly seen in him—and in a total of two hours—? Right after she kissed him, she’d left with her parents—who seemed quite happy she’d taken such a liking to him.

Distracted by his own thoughts, it took him about a minute to notice the sound of crunching leaves on the almost dead grass behind him. Curious and alert, the grin instantly fell off his face and he turned around to look behind the tree.

Nothing.

Then he looked around the other side, and still saw nothing, but the leaves rustling in a such an unnatural pattern alarmed him enough. Someone was dodging around the tree. He stood up abruptly and backed away in vigilance. A flash of orange shined in the sun. A single medium-frame figure popped out from behind the tree, ready to pounce.

And then it did.

“BLOODY HELL, WILL!” Colorado said through gritted teeth. "Get off me!" He shoved his friend off.

The redheaded boy was unable to control his laughter as he stood up. Will grinned. “Startle you?” Then he took an act of pride. “I—William Scarlet, have taken thee Jesse Villas by surprise! Not something that occurs often…” he trailed off.

“Yeah, well…you can’t really blame me…” he muttered. “They’re all over the place…" Damn. He let it slip.

Will looked up at him in confusion. “What? Who’s all over the place?” His blue-green eyes didn’t look so amused anymore, not please by the grimness of his friend.

It was surprising. The men that were after Colorado had never shown up when Will was around. He raised his eyebrows dully. “It’s nothing…” he said.

Will wouldn’t buy it. “I doubt it,” he said indecisively. He narrowed his eyes. “How long is a while?”

Sighing heavily, Colorado met Will’s eyes. “Since October. The sixth, I think.” He shook his head none-too-importantly and said, “Does it really matter?

It was Will’s turn to arch his red-gold eyebrows. “Does it matter? Well,” he said, sitting against the tree where Colorado had been, “I think it does.” He looked at him. “You know if you need me, I’m right here," he said. ".…doing nothing exciting…”

Colorado felt his shoulders sag, and he plopped against the tree right next to Will. “Yeah, I know.” He looked out in space with his currently bluish eyes. He remembered all the times Will held out for him whenever danger came near, and especially the time Matthews slipped from their grasp. They were trying to protect Jacob from enemies, but he ended up in their hands, surely killed. The death was hard to accept, and both knew that they’d never forget him.

Will turned to him. “What are you thinking?” he asked.

“Nothing,” he lied. He forced himself to think about Victoria, and a smile involuntarily spread across his face.

Will cocked an eyebrow enquiringly and turned his head at an angle. “What are you smiling about?”

“Huh?” Colorado said. “Oh. Just…well, this girl came over yesterday—”

“What’s her name?”

“Victoria.”

“Victoria who?

He blinked. “Rodriguez.”

“ Victoria Rodriguez,” Will repeated, saying the name as if deciding whether or not he liked it. Then he murmured with a mischievous grin, “Victoria Vill—” he was stopped short by a smack at the side of his head. “Owie!” he whined. “I’m telling Sarah!”

“Ooh, I’m so afraid of my skinny friend’s big sister.” Colorado rolled his eyes and grinned.

Will made a big show of choosing whether or not to let that go. Then he asked, “What does she look like?”

“Huh?”

“Victoria.” He gave him a blank look.

“Oh. Well, I'm pretty sure she's Mexican.” After receiving another blank look, he continued, “She’s about my height. Probably even taller than me…”

“She’s taller than you?”

Colorado looked at him in amusement. “You have no right to talk. You’re shorter than me,” he said, mocking Will’s English accent.

Will protested, “By an inch!”

“Uh-huh,” he said with a smile. “It’s burning,” he added with a slight frown, only now feeling the heat.

Looking up at the sun, Will agreed. “It is. And it’s November. Since when is November so hot?”

“Since we weren’t sitting in the shade,” Colorado replied. He stood up. “Let’s go inside.”

---

Colorado was caught yet again inspecting his sword for no particular reason. “What?” he asked, startled by the voice interrupting his thoughts.

“I said, what do you find so fascinating about that old thing?” his mother repeated. She tied her dark locks into a low ponytail that let out several short strands. Frustrated with the hair near her face, she tied it up again, but higher this time.

Will stood close to the woman and spoke to her confidingly. “Honestly,” he said, “you have no idea. He can spend hours upon hours just staring it, and never enters a state of boredom.”

“Oh, I think I would know…he lives here, remember?” she replied.

Colorado looked at him in slight annoyance. “Quit exaggerating.”

“Alright, that’s fine. But I have some news for you,” his mother told him, putting her hands together pleasantly. A smile grew across her pretty features.

“Ooh, it’s probably something Jesse won’t like!” Will cut in. He was rewarded with another look of irritation from this time both mother and son.

Just then Colorado’s father entered the room. He looked as if he wanted to say something to his wife, but let it go once he saw his son and family friend. “Hello, Will, Jesse,” he said, placing a pale hand each on Jesse’s and Will’s shoulder.

“Hello, Mr.—”

“Ah-ah-ah!” Mr. Villas cut him off and shook his head. “How many times must I tell you, boy? My name is Jon.” He smiled.

“Jon,” Will corrected himself, nodding his head.

Mrs. Villas cleared her throat, and everyone looked at her. “Okay, well, do you remember Victoria—the girl who visited yesterday?”

Every single person in the room gave her a dull look. She continued.

“Of course. While you were out yesterday, we were discussing your future…” Colorado's thoughts drowned out the sound of his mother's voice. Future? Let me guess. Victoria has this bright, wonderful future ahead of her, and she’s going to compare hers with mine—a life where I have no idea what I’m going to do later on, and oh yeah, fighting off people that want to kill me. I’m real excited. Of course, she doesn’t know about those people, though…

He was interrupted from his thoughts again, by a questioning voice and one amused, one expecting, and one disapproving look. Disapproving from his father, who stood with his arms crossed over his chest.

“Did you hear me?” his mother asked, frowning a little. “We’ve decided that you and Victoria are going to be engaged.”

The blade fell out of his hands as it hit the floor with a clang. The words struck Colorado like the time he’d walked straight into a wall. “W-what?” he stuttered. He wasn’t sure how he felt about the words ‘Victoria’, ‘you’, and ‘engaged’ put together in the same sentence. He looked at all the faces around him.

“Aren’t you happy?” his mother asked him. She was certainly confused.

“Uhm, no!” He was still unsure what emotion was going to take him over and his mind struggled to come up with a definite one to rule over the rest. He eventually decided fury would suit him best. “So this is what you were discussing yesterday? What kind of decision is that?”

His father noted his son’s ire by his dark brown eyes. “Well, I can certainly agree with Jesse. Don’t you think we should have discussed this with him firsthand?”

“Of course nothing is going to happen for another several years, and," she said, looking at her husband, "Don’t you start. You didn’t seem too keen on them coming over yesterday! I don’t understand what you don’t like about them. They’re very nice people, Jon,” she argued.

Will sensed this wasn’t a good time to be in the house, so he excused himself.

“Oh no you don’t,” Colorado grabbed his shoulder, stopping him. “Take me with you.”

---

“Whoa. So when you're old enough, you're going to be with that tall chick?” Will scrunched up his lightly freckled face. “I need to see her.”

Chick? “What the hell, Will! You—”

“Are only fifteen, and there's no way you're going to be stuck with her.”

“Whatever. But—”

Will cut him off again. “But you don’t like someone making the decisions without you knowing firsthand.”

He blinked. “Well, yes. I mean, no! I mean,” Colorado took in a breath, “I’m not saying I would’ve agreed even if I was told first.” He lifted a thick, sturdy twig off the ground and snapped it in half. The two pieces fell to the dirt.

Will nodded. “I know.” Then he picked up a few small stones and gently threw it several feet ahead of him. It landed in the pond, causing the still water to break into a hundred little ripples. After a moment he said, “Do you think she knows?”

“Victoria?”

“Yeah. Do you think she knew about this yesterday?”

“Aah! Stop talking about it.”

“Okay.”

“But...it didn’t seem like she knew. There we were, shut out of the house, just walking around. Next thing you know…” Colorado caught himself.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“What?”

“I said nothing.”

“I said what?”

“NOTHING. We were just…walking around.”

Will caught his eye. “And then those people came again?”

Colorado squinted at him. Mind reader… “Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because there’s no point,” he replied honestly.

“Really?” he asked sarcastically.

“I guess…”

“Well, don’t guess. Next time they come, I’ll be there. How many were there?”

Colorado shrugged and picked up another small stick. “Most of the time it’s three or four…the first time there were six, but I only took on half.” He threw the stick hard across the pond. “The rest never came.”

“That’s odd,” Will said while watching the stick bob a couple times on the water.

His friend nodded his head distractedly.

Then the thought Colorado dreaded would come suddenly came to Will. “Hold on. Why are there people after you? Seriously.”

“I don’t know,” he answered truthfully. He was also, strangely enough, keeping an eye on the floating twig, and the few, large ripples the splash caused.

“You’re not the type to go around wreaking havoc. Besides, these aren’t officials, right?”

“Of course they're officials. Because that's what they always do, right? Pull out their weapons with their minds set on making you never see the light again.” He shook his head, more to reassure himself that nothing exciting was about to happen to the little stick.

“Okay then.” Will said happily.

“Okay what?” Colorado paused, and frowned an eyebrow at him. “You’re not…you’re not planning on…”

“Following your every step?” He nodded his head and grinned. “Oh yeah.” His smile dimmed.

Colorado looked away and ruffled his longish dark hair. Without thinking, Will did the same with his orange locks. It was kind of contagious, particularly when the mood was a little tense.