Proud Of It! discussion

I thought I'd post the chapters of my book here, in case anyone is interested in reading them. I love getting advice, so be sure to comment! ^w^

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Prologue
______


The first of the chosen few,

blinded by her fear,

turns her back on a cry for help.

The helpless child

is devoured by the flames

and in turn

her tearful mother

curses the survivor.

“Burn everything you touch

until my child

has finally had her vengence

upon you!”

* * *

The second victim

is filled with an impenetrable hatred,

a thirst for vengeance

on a pure soul.

Sins weigh him down

during his quest to kill

his parent’s killer:

his elder brother.

The crimes catch up

and he drowns

in the darkness

that is flooding his heart.

* * *

The third sinner,

fooled by false desires,

loses what’s most important.

Gold means nothing

when you’re all alone;

a lesson not yet learned.

* * *

The fourth has lost everything.

He is constantly tormented

from the sins of an ancestor.

“Murderer!”

“Demon!”

“Witch!”

“Monster!”

The screams flood his mind

and twist his judgment.

He turns to the forbidden

for an answer

and recieves a darkened soul

instead.

* * *

The fifth

is torn between two loves:

one a scandal because of his past

and the other a living hell.

He rots

under the weight

of the deaths that he’s caused.

The desire of revenge

that twists these lives together

branches from the single crime

this man -

as a child -

condemned his soul to bear.

* * *

Then there are two

that are forged together by one evil

and bonded by a pure soul.

Completely opposites:

hateful and loving,

ignorant and compassionate,

dead and alive.

Tied forever together

with no hope of freedom

unless the ultimate sacrifice is chosen.

* * *

The seventh

is simply a cat that is always chasing a rat

but overturns a nest of serpents

instead of devouring his meal.

* * *

And then the last cursed existence,

a girl with nowhere to turn,

no-one to trust,

and nothing to believe in.

This girl has no right to exist

and holds the key to their freedom

in her demise.

* * *

Sloth.

Gluttony.

Greed.

Wrath.

Lust.

Envy.

Pride.

* * *

The seven deadly sins:

the bane of their existence

and the reason behind hers.

Chapter One

___________


“Jade.”

I laid among an ominous outline of sinister roses and crushed a few of them beneath my shaking hands when the first beat came. My eyelids peeled open – painfully – shortly after I had risen to my feet. My first steps were wobbly to be sure, but I gained better ground after a moment. My eyes were weighed down with the same sleepiness that comes from countless hours of useless naps after continuous hectic days of rushing around. And maybe I had been rushing around too much; I wouldn’t know.

The beat came again, from that same spot at the top of my head. The sensation wasn’t painful so much as it was confusing. Something told me I shouldn’t be feeling this strange beating feeling there. I brought a shaking hand to my forehead and let my fingers trail along this strange symbol that was inscribed there.

I blinked as my hand drifted back down. I allowed my arm to rest heavily by my side as I took another hesitant look around me. The mist made it difficult for me to see much other than the slight shimmer of what I could probably assume to have been water, but I made out the dark shape of foliage up ahead. The pounding – no, pulsing is more like it – continued just as solemnly as it always had.

But then… how long had my “always had” been?

“Jade.” I choked out, wobbling slightly but managing to keep my balance. My eyes squeezed shut as I clung – almost desperately – to the name; my name. It was the only thing I had. The only thing I could rely on. That and…

Father.

Salt burned my eyes; it took a few painful seconds to identify these as tears. The clear liquid ran down my pale face and then followed the rest of its path down my frail frame. Horror brought bile up to my hitching throat. I gagged slightly. The tears blurred my vision. I fell to my knees, crushing the flowers. Shudders overtook me as a cascade of petals rained down upon my trembling form.

Father… he had left me here, all alone; alone with only my own memories to betray me. They ran from me even as I reached for them. His last goodbye retreated from my mind. His lingering hand on my shoulder vanished within seconds. His gentle voice flickered out. His hazel eyes pierced through the haze that was supposed to be my memory, but even that was fading. Why? I searched the last few things left in my empty head to try and find a reason. Why was I alone like this? Where was I supposed to go? What was I supposed to do now?

Nothing.

I hiccupped a little, pulling my knees in to my chest. Tears continued to drown the flowers that nestled my face. Somehow I managed to keep hold of those two words: “Jade” and “Father”. These I refused to relinquish my grip upon, even as my memory became a bottomless pit of nothingness. I fought with my own nausea and rose to my feet. Silence ensued as I wobbled a bit – dazed, this time from the shock of suddenly remembering such a painful memory and then forgetting it just as fast – and then relaxed a little.

My eyes eventually were drawn back to the flowers that had surrounded me while I slumbered. I knelt and picked one up, bringing it close to my face. The petals were fresh as if recently plucked, and yet they were the same shade as the hair that draped past my thin shoulders. My brow furrowed. Even just by holding them, I got the uncanny sensation that they were… unnatural, to say the least. I brought one up to my lips and let it rest there. The bitter taste soothed the storm of my stomach but did nothing to clear my head or to stop the-

I blinked. That’s right, the pulsing.

I released the flower and let it drift back to the others before I took a few tentative steps towards the shimmering ground before me. My foot slipped in; I nearly fell, but caught myself in the nick of time. I stared down at the strange surface. It was a slow process, but eventually the memory of the substance broke through the barrier of my mind and reached me. “Water.” I whispered, squatting and running my fingertips along it. The feeling was a bit chill and also a little… strange. The water gave me a sensation that I hadn’t felt before; at least not as far back as I could remember. I tried to place the word. “…Wet.” There; I had found it at last, after a few seconds of struggling.

I felt a little proud of myself for figuring out the puzzle. However, my pride did not last long because my attention was drawn elsewhere. The pulsing from my forehead showed in the water. Its sapphire outline emphasized the strange jagged symbol that rested between each of my wide eyes. I watched the gentle rhythm curiously before finally tearing my gaze away. The gathering of trees on the opposite side was far more interesting.

My footsteps were hesitant as I sauntered over to a log that had been almost strategically placed across the running stream. It took no effort on my behalf to make it onto the log, and I managed to cross before it tumbled into the rapidly moving water and was swept away. I continued onwards, my eyes drawn to the trees even still.

But I was to be disappointed for the trees did little to help with my scattered memories, as I had wanted them to. I peered through a few of the branches and noticed that the trees did not go as far into the woods as I had thought; instead, there appeared to be a clearing there. I forced my way through the branches – with tore at my skin with vigor – until I reached that wide open space. I resumed my stroll while looking curiously around. The trees seemed to outline either side of the vast black… Well, I wasn’t quite sure what it was exactly. I approached the strange ground, willing my mind to fill in the blanks like it had with the water.

There was a bizarre roaring type of noise from somewhere nearby. It had only started up as soon as I reached the strange ground. This confused me; I turned to stare intently in the direction of the noise. It continued getting louder and louder as the seconds dragged by. Curious now, I began to trek down the long black-stained ground in the direction of the odd noise. I thought I saw something way down at the far end but I couldn’t be sure. If there really was something there, it would reach me soon at the speed it was moving. I squinted a little, trying to see the shape of the moving thing.

Sure enough, it was heading towards me. The thing – a great beast of a thing – continued on even though I was standing in its way. The weight of it slammed into me and I went sprawling. Fear clouded my vision when the first few seconds dragged by where the creature didn’t stop. I feared being crushed now, and this fear made my blood chill. I raised my hand in a plea – “Please! Don’t hurt me!” – and by doing so my fingers brushed the rubber of what appeared to be a wheel, if my memory served me right.

A strange sensation branched from my forehead, differently than before. Usually the symbol caused a pulsing sensation. This time, however, it was more like a… non painful spike of energy? It’s quite difficult to explain. This “spike” spread from my forehead to my wrist, where it exited my finger in the form of a substance similar to what had been in the lake, only more solidified. This material covered the wheel in front of me and prevented it from moving. The material appeared to having the ability to stick things to the ground.

While I was pondering the strangeness of this, I became alert of heavy footfalls. A tan, fairly tall male emerged from the beast. “What the heck are you doing?!” he demanded, looking more shaken than angry while I still continued to look on dumbly. “I could’ve hit you!”

Hit… I nodded. Right, the beast had been going to hit me. “Car!” I told him, smiling a little as I finally remembered what the “creature” was called.

He seemed a little taken aback by my response. His lips curled into a frown as his blue eyes looked me over. They had an anxious sort of glint to them as he looked me over curiously. “…Yeah, a car.” he told me after a moment. He looked slightly fearful, glancing back towards the car in sharp glances between each look in my direction. I couldn’t figure out why.

“Flaaaaaaame! What the hell’s taking you so looooong?”

The whine caught me off guard while also answering my question. I hadn’t known anyone else to be there; this must have been why the stranger had been looking back at the car. I looked towards the car as well, eyes wide as I watched as another person emerged from it, this time a girl.

Her dark eyes burned as she glared at me. “And who are you exactly?” she demanded, rather rudely. I didn’t answer her, mainly from trying to decide whether I should or not, but this appeared to piss her off even more. She approached me and tapped the symbol on my forehead with a manicured nail. “Are you deaf or something?” she sneered.

The motion hurt more than the words. I drew back with a whimper of fear as I stared up at her with wide eyes.

“Gloria!”

Now her glare turned to him. “How many times do I have to tell you not to call me that?!” she asked in a low and somewhat dangerous sounding voice.

I backed away slightly, eyeing the sudden tendrils of darkness that curled around her arms. What was that darkness, I thought to myself nervously, and – more importantly – how was she controlling it? The color was vaguely familiar but despite the fear that the memory conjured up, I wasn’t that scared of this girl. If anything, I was curious. Frowning slightly, I took a step forward again.

Flame rolled his eyes and sighed, slightly annoyed. “Whatever. Just leave the poor girl alone and stop acting like such a-”

“I am not!” she snapped back.

His hand snapped outwards like a cobra. He caught her by the wrist right as she was going to prod my forehead again. “She’s never done anything to you, DarkFyre.” He spat the name as if it tasted bitter in his mouth and wanted it out as soon as possible. “So just back off.”

DarkFyre looked less irked and more frustrated now. “Never done anything? She’s stopping us when we’re in a major hurry. She’s probably planning on turning us in as soon as we turn out backs.”

“No.” I whispered hoarsely, looking to and fro between the two strangers. They looked towards me, surprised at my sudden speaking up. “Wouldn’t.”

She looked mildly annoyed. “What’s with her weird way of talking?”

Flame returned to my side and helped me to my feet. “She’s like a little kid.” he told her over his shoulder, not even bothering to face her directly. “She doesn’t know how to talk very well.”

“Why?”

“Maybe she’s a foreigner.” He looked at me curiously. “Where are you from?”

I only shrugged, unsure of what he meant by that. Where was I from? I was from the water. But I had a feeling that that wasn’t exactly what he meant. “…Father.” I murmured at last.

“Not exactly what I meant… but okay.” Flame turned to DarkFyre. “She doesn’t even know how to talk in full sentences, and she doesn’t seem to know where she’s from. Still sound like a threat to you?” She rolled her eyes while Flame turned back to face me again. “Where are you going to?” he asked gently.

I pointed down the inky colored ground. “Father.”

He looked at where I was pointing. “He’s down the road?”

I was relieved at the new vocabulary. “Road.”

“Do you know where he is though?”

“….Road?”

Flame sighed. “The road goes to a lot of different places.” he explained. “Did he say something about when he’d come back?”

My lower lip wobbled a little at his words.

His eyes widened at the sight of the tears that welled up in my eyes. “Hey, what are you crying for? What’d I say?’

“No.” I whimpered, wiping at my eyes now. “No road. No father.”

His gaze softened. “You mean… he’s not coming back?”

The chapter must have been longer than I thought it was... Goodreads wouldn't let me post the full chapter in one post. So here's the second half.

______________________________________________________


I nodded dejectedly while Flame glanced back at DarkFyre. “Gloria…”

“I said don’t call me that.” was the immediate response, but then her eyes narrowed. “Wait a minute… Oh hell no Flame!”

“But she doesn’t have anywhere to go!” he protested.

“I’m not putting up with another mouth to feed!” she shot back angrily. She stomped her foot slightly as she continued glaring at him.

Flame held his ground though. “She probably won’t eat much. Look how thin she is!”

“I can’t watch her! I have too much to do!”

“I’ll be the one to keep an eye on her. I’m the one who found her anyways.”

DarkFyre continued to scowl. “Why would you even want to take in this stray?”

“Don’t talk about her like she’s a mutt or something!” Flame sighed and looked away. “She… She reminds me of someone I used to know.”

Someone he used to know? I perked up. “Father?” I asked eagerly.

But no, he shook his head. “It’s not your appearance, it’s your actions.”

DarkFyre frowned, showing that we were identical in out confusion. “You mean… because she acts like a child she reminds you… of a child?’

He nodded. “Exactly.”

She folded her arms. “Whatever. I don’t care if she reminds you of someone; we’re not letting her stay with us.”

Flame grounded his teeth slightly in a frustrated sort of way before sighing in a defeated manner. “I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this, but…” He turned from the both of us and made his way over to the car. Ducking down, he pointed at the tire that I had touched earlier. “Come take a look at this.”

Frowning, she made her way over and squatted as well. “…What is it?” she asked after a moment.

“Ice, duh. She froze the tire”

“I know that! What I meant was what’s it doing on your tire?”

He nodded towards me. “She caused it somehow. I… I think it might be Celcia.”

DarkFyre looked intrigued by this, but quickly covered it with another deep frown. “”N-No way.”

“Yes way.”

“But that’s impossible!” She stomped her foot and glared at him. “You’re honestly expecting me to believe that she can create her own Celcia? There hasn’t been anyone that can use that ability since Cristina!”

“Well it’s not like she can make it out of thin air – I’m guessing it’s more like she can freeze things – but she definetly has an Element.”

“No! I refuse to believe it! It’s impossible!”

“DarkFyre,” Flame scowled, clearly losing patience. “she has the mark on her forehead, clear as day! She’s one of us, there’s no doubt about it.”

“Unless she’s one of them.”

Flame rolled his eyes. “Quit being so paranoid. She clearly isn’t involved in any of this. She’s a newbie to the fight; whoever gets to her first will affect whose side she’s on. And you’re not making the best of first impressions.”

She folded her arms. “Why are you telling me this? Now it’s seeming like she’s a threat to us. I mean, if Cristina gets ahold of her…”

Flame chuckled a little. “Don’t you get it?” Now he strolled back over to me and put one hand on my shoulder. “We’ve both been fighting a Celcia this whole time, which means that she has the upper hand. Our Elements just can’t compare to hers! But now here’s a new Celcia user that nobody’s even heard of before now; better yet, she’s a neutral party! Plus, we found her first. That means we get to use her powers for ourselves if she agrees to help us.”

DarkFyre didn’t bother trying to hide her grin now. “So you’re saying that you think we can use her?”

“I have no doubt.”

She squealed gleefully and jumped up and down while clapping her hands. The racket she made hurt my ears so I covered them and frowned disapprovingly at her. “That’s awesome Flame! I am so glad I recruited you.”

He rolled his eyes. “As if. I chose to help you; I’m not working for you or anything.”

“Whatever.”

Flame laughed a little and then looked down at me. “What do you think? You want to come with us?”

I smiled, ignorant to what this ‘use’ of mine was or what exactly this ‘Celcia’ was, but still knowing exactly what to say.

Chapter Two

___________


I looked curiously around the apartment. “…Big.” I commented.

Flame laughed slightly, scratching the back of his head and looking embarrassed. “It’s not really all that great. This is just where we’re staying at the moment. DarkFyre loves changing locations all the time.”

I glanced back at him as I sat on the small couch. “Who?”

He frowned. “DarkFyre. The girl you met earlier.”

I shook my head. “No. Who?”

“Oh, you meant who is she to me?”

I nodded this time.

Flame was silent for a moment, but at last he sighed and sat next to me. “I’m not sure how much of this you’ll actually understand, but…” He propped his legs up onto my lap and laid his head against one arm of the couch. “DarkFyre is my girlfriend.” Seeing my blank look, he explained, “That means that we love each other.”

“Oh.”

“At least, we’re supposed to love each other. She’s pretty much like the world’s worst girlfriend, so I’m really just kind of stuck with her. We met a long time ago so I know her really well; it’s the only way I can put up with her.”

“How?”

“We met when she was causing some trouble between these two-” Flame broke off suddenly, tilting his head curiously at me. “You’re really good at one word phrases. Maybe you really do know how to talk, but you’ve just forgotten.”

I’ve just…forgotten?

I shook my head. “No.” I told him firmly despite the churning of my stomach. “Can’t.”

His frown deepened. “You’re so set on not being able to talk…”

I nodded determinedly.

Flame swung his legs off of the couch and stood again. He faced me. “Jade, talking is a good thing. You can communicate with people, and they won’t look at you like a-”

My hands tightened to fists. “-weirdo.”

He stopped, remembering his girlfriend’s words. “… Yeah.”

But I simply shook my head stubbornly once more. “No. Don’t want.”

His expression became frustrated. “Jade, you need to-”

“No!”

“Why are you being so stubborn?!” He was raising his voice now, which caused me to tremble violently with the force of – a memory? – something. Flame appeared to notice my reaction; he calmed down and softened his voice. “Can you at least try? Talking might be easier than you thought.”

I shook my head again. “Not… hard.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

I shivered. “… Scary.”

Flame was dumbfounded. “Talking is… scary?” He scratched the back of his head as he tried to puzzle out what I could possibly have meant by such an unusual sentence. After a moment he sighed in defeat and addressed me with, “What are you talking about?”

I wasn’t too sure myself; I could barely grasp my own memories as it were. I frowned at Flame as I struggled to force the slivers of memories back to where they were supposed to be. “Man there. Woke up.” I waved my hands, a bit frustrated. “Bad, very bad. Words. No like. Hurt! Bad words, I make. No like. Hurt man. Man angry. Man hurt.” I shuddered at the sudden flicker of pain that resided in my scrambled memories. “Hurt.” I whispered hoarsely.

He tried to piece together what had happened based off of my words, which I appreciated. “When you first woke up… before we ran into you… there was a bad man that used… words… that you didn’t like so you used… words… to hurt him… which caused him to… hurt you.”

“Darkness.”

His eyes widened. “That sounds like…!”

I tensed slightly. “Like… what?”

But Flame only shook his head. “That’s not important; I’m probably just imagining it.” He looked at me – specifically the way that I looked worried – and sighed. “Jade, seriously, its fine. We’ll talk about my life story some other time. For now, I want to focus on helping you.”

That was sweet of him. I let the frown fade from my face and smiled instead. “Thanks.”

“No problem. Now… about the whole talking thing…”

My smile vanished. “No.”

Flame let out an irritated sort of sigh. “I didn’t want to do this, but you leave me no choice.” He sat back down and took my hands in his. “Jade… either you work with me here, or I’m not going to let you stay.”

“What?!”

The devestation must have been clear on my face, because Flame looked sympathetic. Still, his eyes had the sharp glint of detirmination. “Jade, I can’t allow you to stay here if you won’t let me help you.”

“I… I…” I hesitated, knowing from the ‘car’ incident that I would not last long on my own. I bit my lip lightly, fear twisting my gut. “…St-Stay.” I whispered quietly after a moment of silence.

“Yeah, you won’t be able to.”

I shook my head. “No… stay.” I repeated, looking at him.

Flame looked confused, then blinked. “You want to stay, so you’ll listen to what I say?” He looked relieved when I nodded. “Great! Let’s get started then. Um…” The older teen scratched the back of his blonde hair and regarded me nervously. “I… actually don’t really know what to do here.”

“What?!”

He gave an embarrassed laugh. “I’ve only ever had one sibling, and he’s so close to me in age that I never got the chance to help teach him how to talk. Maybe… we should just start with some simple sentences? Like ‘the dog runs’ or ‘she is happy’. Easy stuff.” He shrugged, more to himself than to me. “I’m trying to remember my earliest school years. I think my preschool teacher was big on writing sentences… but maybe her teaching style could help you verbally too?” Flame groaned and buried his face in his hands. “If only I could remember! It’s been so long since I dropped out of school…”

I had no idea what he was talking about, so I just rubbed his back sympathetically.

Eventually Flame lifted his head again. He looked determined. “No! I promised that I’d help you remember how to talk and I’m going to stick by my word.” Taking in a deep breath, he turned to me. “Alright, let’s do this. You ready?”

After the immediate hesitation, I nodded firmly. “Yes.”

“Great. So… uh…” He clapped his hands around mine, startling me a little, and exclaimed, “Right! Simple sentences!” The young man leaned closer, staring at me intently. “To start: ‘The dog runs.’”

I trembled and had to force my lips to shape the words. Unfortunately no sound came out. I stopped trying and sighed sadly. Still holding my hands, Flame massaged them comfortingly. He looked so worried that I gathered my nerves as I decided to try a second time. “The… Thedog…”

“Take it slow.” he whispered, seeing my stubborn but fearful expression. “You can do this Jade.”

My eyes closed. I breathed deeply and then mumbled, “The… dog… runs.”

“Good job. Now try, ‘She is happy.’”

“She… is ha… happy.”

“See? It’s not so bad.” Flame smiled at me and – despite myself – I smiled back. “Now I’m going to try and ask you some simple questions and I want you to answer back in sentences, using the words that you already know. Okay?”

I nodded. “Ready.” He stared at me, a hint of a frown on his lips now. Was this one of the questions? I thought hard and then said clearly, “I… I am… ready.”

“There you go! Let’s see… What is your name?”

Easy! “My name is Jade.”

“What do you like?”

I thought about his question, attempting to bypass the haze of my mind. “…I like flowers.” I muttered at last. “Mainly roses… other types too. I like food. No… I like homemade meals. I like sunsets… and animals… especially small ones. I like swimming. I like… I like…” I searched my memory for more fragmented memories, but it seemed as though those were the only ones. I shook my head. “No remember.” I cleared my throat and added, “I can’t remember.”

“How about things that you don’t like?”

That I disliked? “I… like… no… I… don’t like…” A phantom face swam in front of my eyes when I closed them and saw the darkness of my eyelids. A whimper broke free and I pulled my hands free from Flame’s while bringing my legs up to my chest. “… I don’t like the man I saw. He hurt me. He scared me. I hurt him but he… he’s still after me.”

“…Jade!”

I looked up, startled at the surprised tone to his voice. “Y-Yeah?”

A grin crossed his face. “My god, I think you got it!”

“Got it? Got what?”

He leaned closer again. “Jade, when you mentioned that jerk you talked in your first full sentence. Not a simple one like I was teaching you; a real-life-conversation type of sentence! You didn’t hesitate until the very end. I think you got the hang of talking!”

What was he talking about? I shook my head. “No, that can’t be right.”

“There it is again!” He laughed incredulously. “Jade, we did it! We really did it! You’re talking!”

Reaching suddenly towards me, he pulled me up to my feet and swung me around in a circle. His strength surprised me; I pulled away and stumbled backwards into the lamp positioned next to the couch. I whipped around just in time to see the light shatter and the darkness explode from it.

Again, the chapter is apparently too long. Here's the next part of chapter two.

______________________________________________________


* * *


Someone’s here.

I can hear the sound of his soft voice -

like velvet,

and yet

also like the blade of a recently sharpened knife -

as it

sweetly caresses my senses

and stabs

into my very soul.

This man

terrifies me.

I flinch backwards,

blue eyes wide in fear

and doubt.

He frowns

and

I do not doubt that there is a hint of

anger

in his sharp silver eyes.

That silver hue

has no light,

only the same deep darkness that

floats

in thick waves

around his body.

His words come again;

they surround me and hold me prisoner.

The words he breathes speak of

truth,

abandonment,

pain,

sadness,

and this

frightens me immensely.

He approaches but I

flinch backwards

and raise cold hands

to

keep him away

and to

stop him from

hurting me.

There is a shrill hissing noise.

My hands get colder,

as cold as death,

and as the temperature around me drops

I scream,

“Just leave me alone!”

The man’s eyes

widen slightly.

“Celcia.”

he hisses.

His eyes are both

infuriated,

flaming with an unbelievable hate,

as well as

pained

as if he is deeply

tormented

by a foreign memory.

What has he gone through?

Why does he look at me with such

angry

hurt

eyes?

Despite my fear,

and my subconscious that screams at me

“Don’t do it!”,

I reach towards him

as if

to embrace the hurt child

that is hidden

in those eyes.

But no;

he lashes out with

his darkness.

It wraps around my pale throat with

greedy fingers

and

hot breath ringing with

chaotic laughter.

It smells of death.

I gag.

The shadows tighten their grip

around my throat

so that

I

can’t breathe at all.

My blood thickens painfully

and I gasp for the

blessed air

so that I can scream for help but I

just can’t seem to get past

the darkness.

Then

the same voice from before -

the voice I thought to have

been mine -

rings out again.

“Hurt him!”

He doesn’t

seem to notice

the shouting voice of a young girl;

if he does,

he doesn’t show it.

“He wanted to hurt you,

Jade,

so hurt him first!

He’ll kill me too if

you die

so you have to hurt him

first!

Stop him

before it’s too late

for either of us!”

Her words ring of manipulation,

but they’re all I have to rely on.

Besides,

I can’t get enough oxygen to my lungs

so that I can clear

my hazy brain.

Black spots dance in my blurred vision.

I heed her warning

and

let her shape my fate.

My hands clutch

desperately

at the impossibly strong shadows

that aim to end me.

Somehow

I don’t sink through.

My forehead first starts its steady throb

and a sharp pain

pierces the skin between my eyes.

A symbol

becomes engraved there with a

flash of blue light

that illuminates us both.

The light fades at last

but

the pounding continues

as the chill of my veins

spreads out

and consumes the darkness.

There is a piercing shriek -

I think from him -

and it shakes me

to my core.

I stay strong though,

tightening my grip and

devouring

his dark energy.

At last he relents.

He releases me and I

drop clumsily to the earth.

I only sit

in that field of roses that are

stained and tainted

by his sins -

and perhaps hers as well -

for a breath before he

smashes

the back of my head with

the back of his hand.

His strength is

impossible

and it leaves me frozen.

Red explodes as I tumble

but perhaps

that was only the

crimson

of my blood that

flows underneath me

after it is

freed

from my stunned form.

Thorns pierce me as I tremble

and the red deepens.

A different sort of

darkness

slides calmly over the red hue.

When it rests,

the color fades.

Then the darkness moves on to me

and blossoms across my fading vision.

The shadows release memories

long since forgotten.

The last thing I see

is that horrible man

turning

and leaving me here to die

alone

in the fading puddle of my own

faint blood.

Just like how

Father

did before.


* * *


Flame wrapped his strong arms around me and pulled me close. “Shh, shh.” he comforted, caressing my tangled hair and wiping a frightened tear from my eye. “It’ll be okay Jade. It was just a light bulb breaking. We’ll get another one. There’s nothing to be scared about. You’re not hurt. You’re okay.”

I shook my head violently, blinking in the effort of trying to find light in the impenetrable darkness. Deaf to his words, I sobbed, “It’s so dark! I don’t want to be here in the dark.” A scream vibrated through me as I clung blindly to him. I kicked out as if to forcibly move the shadows that I knew wanted to eat me like my powers had them. There was a slight crunching noise everywhere that my heel landed; evidently that strange material was already defensively spreading in an attempt to protect me from my fears. “Make it go away!” I howled, truly terrified. “Make it go away!”

And then, miraculously, it did.

I instantly relaxed as soon as the room was quickly illuminated and I was able to see that that man was not lurking nearby. In gratitude, I turned to look at my savior and was stunned to see that the light was not coming from something that he was holding, but rather from his skin.

All along his arms were an elaborate series of pulsing golden symbols, one of which – near his elbow- matched the one that I had seen in the water, the one that was on my own forehead. The symbols blazed with their jubilant energy, surrounding me with their brightness as the pulse spread from his shoulder to the back of his hand. I looked on in awe as the pulse of energy formed what could soon be identified as a small orb of levitating light. His symbols kept pulsating for a moment longer before they dimmed slightly and then faded completely. The orb still remained, floating gently like a leaf on a gentle autumn breeze.

Flame let his overturned hand drift carefully over to mine; where he moved, the orb followed. He smiled reassuringly at me. “Here, this will keep the darkness away.”

Amazed, I let the tips of my fingers brush the wonder before me and then turned back to Flame. “What is it?” I breathed, looking to him with
curiosity filled eyes.

The older teen looked quite a bit pleased. His tan skin had a decidedly rose-tinted shine to it; a blush, according to my jumbled memories. He grinned goofily and ruffled the back of his blonde hair. “Well… do you remember what the ‘sun’ is?”

I tore my eyes free from the light and glanced at him instead. “With the shock of the darkness… I remembered everything from about three years ago. Before that, all I really remembered was my name.”

My throat went dry. I remembered Father as well, and yet I couldn’t help but feel a though I were missing a few pictures of the puzzle. When I attempted to think back to the man that had abandoned me, I was unable to see his face. His voice was muffled – distorted as though he were trying to talk to me through water – and alien to me. I could recall a dark hand; just as tan as Flame’s hand, but unbelievably different. Flame’s skin tone was clearly from exposure to the sun while Father’s skin seemed naturally tanned in color.

His impossible to understand voice, his hand, and the thought of him abandoning me; that was all I knew of him.

It bothered me that I didn’t know more about my own father. The only things that I could piece together were things that anyone off the street could say about someone passing by. They gave no clue to why he had abandoned me. I didn’t even have a name to go off of in order to find him!

I blinked, startled by my own thoughts. In order to try to… but then, did I really want to find this man who had had such disregard for my safety that he had left me alone? As far as I knew, he could be the reason for my memory loss!

But I had to focus on Flame. Flame was who was important; Flame was the one helping me, not Father.

I stared at Flame as his golden eyes widened. “Two years… that’s such a long gap! But then what about the talking thing? You wouldn’t have been that young. You’re not much younger than I am.”

I shook my head solemnly. “Everything before that is still a blank. That was the time that I was alone in the woods, abandoned by Father.”

“You mean your father?”

“I… think so.” A frown hesitated on my lips. “Although I can’t remember having a mother…”

He shrugged. “That’s not all that unusual. A lot of people were only raised by one parent, either because they were divorced or because one of them was killed in some way.” His expression darkened. “Or because they ran out on the family.”

It felt as though he was speaking from personal experience. I considered asking him more about what he was talking about, but quickly discarded the idea. Flame still looked upset. Instead of pestering him for information, I cleared my throat awkwardly instead. When he looked up, I pointed at the hovering light. “So. You said something about the sun?”

The darkness faded from his face as he lit up once again. “Oh yeah!” He was grinning again as he moved along with his explanation. “This light that you see is just a small fraction of the sun’s full strength. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been able to create this orb whenever I wanted it to. It started off that it would show up whenever I got scared of something, but after a while I got the hang of it.”

Got the hang of it? My mind flashed back to the the strange material that I had used earlier, entirely through instinct. Flame and DarkFyre had both refered to it as ‘Celcia’. I could learn how to use my strange abilities?

Hope seared through me. I leaned forward slightly, eyes aglow. “So what, you’ve learned to control it?”

“Control it?” He laughed. “Not even close! You could never control an Element.”

I tasted the new word before laughing myself. “According to the memories I got back, an element is a scientific thing. You’re acting like it’s something alive!”

Flame looked uncomfortable. “That’s the wrong type of element. The kind that I’m talking about is… uh… it’s hard to explain.”

More of chapter two.

_______________________________________________________


“Then maybe I can, and then you can explain to me why this girl is in our apartment!”

We both jumped a little at the intruding voice. Flame visibly flinched as he whipped around and met his girlfriend’s smoldering gaze. “Oh… Hey… DarkFyre. I didn’t think that you were going to be back so soon. Are you done already?”

She frowned at him, sliding each sparkling ring into the pocket of her jean miniskirt. “Just because I said she could stay doesn’t mean she has to stay with us.”

Flame chuckled slightly. “What, do you have some other secret hideaway stowed somewhere?”

DarkFyre’s intense stare turned to a glare. “There’s no need to be sarcastic.”

“I’m going to take that as a no.” Flame waved her away. “Oh calm down! It’ll be just like those sleepovers that you used to always have before you went on this whole world domi-”

“Flame!”

“…. thing of yours.”

DarkFyre looked relieved for a second, but then her eyes narrowed. “Hold up…” She suddenly let out an enraged shriek and started stomping her foot. “No no no!” Black smoke began to snake up her legs and her arms, surrounding her. Her dark eyes flared angrily. “She’s not staying in my room!”

He raised an eyebrow at her. “You’d rather she stay in mine?”

She snatched his arm up and clung to it possessively. “No! My room sounds perfectly fine!”

I frowned at the two of them. “Don’t I get a say in this?”

DarkFyre rolled her eyes at me. “You’re just a kid, of course you don’t.”

“I’m not a kid!” I protested. “I’m a teenager, probably not much younger than you are!”

“Oh, how cute she’s talking back just like a big girl.” she sneered back, one hand resting on her hip while her opposite arm remained looped around Flame’s. The smirk on her lips faded and she glared at me. “Well here’s an eye opener for you: I’m twenty.”

“Well I-!” I broke off as her words finally hit me. I blinked, then averted my eyes in an embarrassed way. “…Oh.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” She smiled in an angrily sweet way. “And how old are you exactly? Ten? Eleven?”

I glared back. “I’m…!” I started angrily, then hesitated. “…Um…” I paused, embarrassed that I couldn’t actually tell her how old I was. After all, I still didn’t have all of my memories bac-

My mark flashed brightly, making me flinch. The pounding sensation from before returned, throbbing in the same steady way. I bit my lip lightly, trying to concentrate on DarkFyre. My vision blurred slightly, followed by a swift flash of my regained memories. The man. The darkness. The coldness in my veins. The… lines? A few disconnected lines darkened over the blurring images, slowly forming together. A number surfaced in the scrambled disaster of my memories.

I blinked. “… I’m… I’m fourteen actually.”

My answer caused Flame to frown at me. I felt uncomfortable; what was with the sudden change in attitude? Just because I was only fourteen… or at least, I thought I was. That had to be what that number had meant, right? I looked down at my hands. I certainly felt as though I were fourteen. But then again, how could I really be certain? Flame looked away, masking his frown to a neutral expression.

Meanwhile, DarkFyre had just gone ahead and rolled her eyes in annoyance. “Oh, that’s soooo old.”

“Nice sarcasm you have going on there.” I shot it right back at her. “It really helps you look younger, old hag.”

“Hey, I’m only twenty!”

“That’s still six years older than I am, and you’re not getting any younger.”

“What-ever.” she snapped, breaking the word in two dramatically for more of an impact.

At last, Flame stepped between us. “Whoa girls, there’s no need to fight.” He glanced at me worriedly. “Jade, if you’re going to stay with us then you need to get along with Gloria.”

“DarkFyre!”

“… Fine, you need to get along with DarkFyre.”

I crossed my arms and looked away, scowling now. “You’re taking her side?”

He held up his hands in surrender. “I’m just trying to take the path that causes less trouble.” Flame sighed, seeing my expression. “I meant less trouble for all of us, not just me.”

I remained silent, knowing well enough that DarkFyre had been right; I really was just a kid compared to her. And how old was Flame? No doubt he was an adult too. I sulked.

Flame shifted back and forth on his heels awkwardly before turning to his girlfriend. “You said something about explaining the Elements to her…?”

She flipped her hair to one side and sighed, irritated. “Well, if I have to.” Turning to me now, DarkFyre scowled once again. “Alright, I’m only going to explain this once so you’d best pay attention. Got it?”

“Got it.” I grumbled, not at all happy about it.

“Good. So, the Elements are basically what we call the sudden ‘powers’ that people have randomly started having. They’re all Elemental in some way, hence the name. Obviously you don’t know a thing about the basic world Elements so I suppose I’ll have to cover that too.” DarkFyre looked annoyed even though it was her own assumption. “First was Fyre.”

“Fire?”

“No, you emphasize the letter after the F, which in this case is a Y. It’s not ‘fi-yer’ it’s ‘fie-yuh-er’.”

I frowned at her. “The pronunciation can’t really be all that important, can it?”

“Hell yeah it can! Saying the word right makes the difference between ‘Oh let me just light a small fire to warm my hands.’ and ‘Fyre, come to me and help me in this battle!’”

“… I don’t see the difference.”

A smirk curled her lips. “Oh you will. Many of the words have only slight differences, but all of them are important.” Curling a strand of dark hair behind one ear, she continued. “Second was Aiere. It’s spelled A-I-E-R-E, but the pronunciation is the same as the regular word ‘air’.”

This word was easier. I relaxed slightly. This wasn’t so hard; I could learn this easily enough.

“Then was Guaritore, named for the ancient name for the first family to develop it. After that came Celcia, Gaia, Shadow, and then last was Void.”

I shook my head violently and glared at my self-appointed teacher. “What’s with these wacked up spellings and pronunciations?” I demanded, frustrated.

DarkFyre stuck her tongue out at me; personally I found this to be extremely childish, but then again who was I to judge seeing as I was the child here? “The ‘weird’ details are what make the difference between one word from another. It’s really no different than homonyms like ‘there, their, and they’re’ or ‘two, to, and too’.”

“So the names are important. Got it.”

“There’s more, kiddo.” DarkFyre chuckled lightly and then continued. “There are different categories for each Element. I won’t tell you all of the options – since the list goes on forever and we keep finding new additions anyways – but I’ll tell you one example. The known people to have Fyre, so far at least, can control sunlight” She motioned to Flame, who smiled sheepishly. “and sparks of fire.”

“Sparks of fire?”

“Kind of like fireworks. Painfully simplistic, but more than enough to cause some damage.”

I thought back to my powers once again. “So there are more people out there with Elements, like us. How…” I hesitated for a moment before finally asking, “How many of us are there?”

She looked towards Flame and arced an eyebrow. “You got this one?”

Even more of Chapter Two.

______________________________________________________


He sighed. “Might as well. Let’s see… The first person to show signs of a new Element – the first Element – was DarkFyre’s younger sister. The second to develop powers was…” Flame hesitated and averted his eyes as he mumbled, “… The second was DarkFyre.”

Was that a lie? I looked at him curiously.

“Then there was that whole family, the Guaritores. Mother, father, and two kids. The eldest is just a month younger than I am, but his sister probably isn’t much older than you are.”

I scowled. My age was being brought up yet again.

“They still lived in Italy last I checked, so I haven’t seen any of them in a really long time.” Flame looked lost in thought for a moment, then hurriedly continued. “DarkFyre didn’t explain about what their name means, but personally I think it’s pretty important. ‘Guaritore’ means healer. The name is used to describe those that were given powers that can only be used to help others.” He glanced away again and added darkly, “Usually at least.”

“… Usually…?”

“Next, Celcia.” he hurriedly interrupted. “The name is for both the Element and the person who first developed it. It doesn’t really mean anything in particular. It just has a nice ring to it.”

“She’s so stuck up.” DarkFyre snorted, rolling her eyes. “She thinks she has the right to give herself the nickname of an Element. The nerve!”

The frown returned to my lips as I looked over at her. “…Doesn’t your nickname have the word ‘Fyre’ in it?”

Flame cracked up. “She’s got you there!”

A slight blush crossed her face as she glared at me. “As if I care!”

Still grinning slightly, Flame continued with his explanation. “After Celcia had been found, a boy discovered the ability of Shadow. Even though that’s a very dark gift, it can be used for good if used carefully like he does.”

Did he know him personally? It certainly sounded like it.

“Then was Gaia – named for the one of the first beings to ever exist – which is basically a plant and animal Element. We haven’t actually met anyone with these powers, but there have been traces of them all over the world. As for the last Element to be found… Even less is known about it. I’ve only heard stories of this one; it might not even really exist.”

Intrigued, I leaned forward slightly. “Well? What is it?”

“Void. Supposedly this Element works as a negation against all other Elements. Obviously this can’t be controlled that well, and it also is very difficult to search for.” He shrugged. “The people who use Void – if they do exist somewhere – don’t leave any traces of their powers.”

“But then how do you know about it?”

He smiled slightly. “I have a close friend who’s been studying the Elements for years. We haven’t spoken face-to-face in forever, but he sends letters every once and a while.” Flame chuckled slightly. “Internet service is usually pretty bad at the places that he stays, so getting an email is like a miracle. We used to hang out a lot as kids, but it’s been probably close to ten years since we last saw each other.”

“That’s… sad.”

Flame laughed, shaking his head at me. “Nah, I’m just glad he gets to spend his time doing what he loves. He’s done a ton of stuff involving the Elements. He’s analyzed ancient legends hinting of similar abilities, interviewed witnesses, read every book with any of the names in them… Truth be told, he’s quite a bit of a nerd! I still remember how the three of us used to hang around; Angelo with his nose in a book while me and Shane kept trying to swipe it from him. He always got so mad at us…”

The names were refreshing; I could almost see the scene. “You three sounded close.”"

“Oh we definitely were!” Flame’s eyes lit up. He looked ecstatic, making wild motions as he chattered on. “Fyre, Shadow, and Guraritore; we had absolutely nothing in common, and yet somehow we ended up doing everything together. Unbelievable! I-”

DarkFyre cut in as soon as he paused, making a show of counting her fingers and holding them up at last while announcing loudly, “So there you have it. There are eight – no, nine counting Flame – people with Elements.” For a split second there seemed to be a flicker of some foreign emotion in her eyes. I wasn’t sure what to make of it, and it was gone just as soon as I noticed it.

So. There were eight others, and one of them shared the same abilities as me. For some reason this sent a chill across my skin. I shook it away, then nodded slowly. “I… I think I get it.”

“Yeah?” DarkFyre sneered. “Well we’re not done yet.”

I blinked. “There’s more?”

Flame nodded. “Every time somebody inherits one of the ‘abilities’, they get a mark somewhere on their body.” He pointed at the symbol between my eyes. “Yours appeared when you first used the Celcia, right?”

The name still seemed foreign to me, but I recalled my memory of seeing the frightening man and so I simply nodded. “There was a bright blue flash.” I mumbled. “There was this sharp pain there and then I could feel the symbol sketched into my skin as if by an invisible hand.”

He nodded along with my words. “That’s exactly how it was with me and DarkFyre, only the color of my light was that same gold that you saw earlier.”

“And mine was a black flash.” his girlfriend imputed.

“Yeah, DarkFyre’s mark appeared with a flash of black.”

I eyed the bare skin of his arm. There were no longer that elaborate series of symbols there; I could only see tan flesh.

Flame seemed to notice my confusion. He held up his arm and explained, “When someone has discovered the full extent of their new abilities, the mark soaks into the skin. You don’t see it anymore; except, of course, when the person is using their abilities.” He gestured towards DarkFyre. “DarkFyre has her mark on her back, but you can’t see it even when she does use her abilities because she’s tattooed every inch of the skin of her back. She’s the only exception to the rule.” Another thoughtful pause, then, “So far at least.”

I looked at her. “Why add a tattoo? Wasn’t it enough to just have the mark?”

DarkFyre smiled. “A tattoo makes the mark look more interesting though! It adds to the mystery of the marks. Nobody knows what use they have or why we have them. If anyone does figure it out, I don’t want to be the first to have it used against me.”

Flame stuck his hands in his pockets and sighed. “Gloria-”

“DarkFyre!”

“Fine, ‘DarkFyre’ has a theory that the reason why the marks are so obvious and then fade over time is because they’re supposed to be our weak points.”

“I have good reason to think so!” the woman protested angrily, approaching me. She reached up and flicked the symbol between my eyes. I withdrew with a yelp of pain. DarkFyre smirked a little. “See?”

“That’s only because you have sharp nails!” Flame protested. “Anyone would be hurt by that.”

She rolled her eyes. “Whatever; say what you want, my point still stands.”

“No it doesn’t!”

“Guys,” I interrupted, looking between the two of them. “Why does it matter?”

Both stared at me, but DarkFyre was the first to stammer, “I-I guess it doesn’t.”

“So then can we get back on topic?”

Flame nodded. “The Elements seem to correlate directly with the Marks; at least, so far they do.” He pointed towards the symbol on my forehead. “After you learn the extent of your abilities, your mark should fade from view whenever you’re not using your powers.”

I thought back to how Flame had been able to teach me to talk properly, how I had been able to remember some of the things that I had forgotten. I looked to him with hope in my eyes. “Could you…?”

“Sorry Jade.” He looked at me sympathetically. “I’m not much of a fighter.”

“Not much of a fighter?” DarkFyre laughed. “That’s the understatement of the year! You single handled disarmed twenty-two armed guar-”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it!” Flame snapped, his ears a bit red. “There’s a total difference between fighting on your own and teaching someone else to fight. I do my own thing. Maybe you should be the one to teach her; you need to do your part around here anyways. I can’t always do everything!”

“I can’t because I-!” DarkFyre started angrily, then stopped. She blinked, turning and considering me. “…You know what?” A slow smirk crossed her face. “Maybe that’s not such a bad idea.”

Flame looked taken aback. “Wha… Are you serious?!”

“Yeah! Jade is going to help us, right?”

“Uh…”

She frowned at him. “That’s the reason we’re letting her stay here, isn’t it?”

“O-Of course.”

The smile returned. “Well if she’s going to help us then she needs to be of use. She won’t be very useful if she can’t control her abilities. And if she can fight as well as I can, all the better!”

He raised an eyebrow. “As well as ‘you’ can?”

She scowled, leaning over and pounding him lightly with both fists. “Hey! I’m a great fighter, you-!”

Flame laughed, taking a step back and throwing up his hands. “Whoa, calm down Gloria! I’m just teasing you. I know you’re a great fighter.”

“My name’s DarkFyre, not Glor-” She blinked, looking back at him with sparkling eyes. “You mean it?”

He just smiled. “If anyone can teach Jade how to control her powers, you can.”

“Aw, you’re so sweet.” DarkFyre smiled, a light pink dusting the tan of her face. Her smile dropped to a slight frown. “Except for when you’re a total jerk.”

“I could say the same to you, except I’d rather replace the word ‘jerk’ with a much better insult.”

I cleared my throat awkwardly. “Um, hello? I’m still standing here.”

DarkFyre sighed. “Right. Well, I guess we could get started.” She turned back to Flame again and shoved him backwards. “You, out.”

“Wha-?” His eyes narrowed. “Hold up… No! No way! You’re not training in my apartment!”

“Your apartment?” she demanded.

He glared at her. “Yes, my apartment! I’m the one who pays for the rent!”

She threw up her hands. “Fine! Whatever! Then where do you suggest we practice, mister smarty-pants?”

“I don’t know, maybe the woods?”

I looked at him in surprise. “You mean where I found you guys?”

“Well that was actually the road by the woods where you found us, but pretty much.” Flame looked between the two of us. “Well? Wide open space, no civilians to worry about-”

“Ha! As if I’ve ever worried about civilians.” DarkFyre scoffed.

“- so it’d be perfect!” Flame grinned, walked swiftly over to the door and pulling out his car keys. He glanced back at the both of us, that same boyish smile on his face. “Well? You girls coming?”

Chapter Three.

______________


“God, you’re so stupid! Move it already, or do you want your head knocked clean off?!”

I lunged to the side to avoid the oncoming blow, lifting my arm just the slightest bit in order to block her attack. Her words caused a searing hatred to rise up in the very deepest reaches of my mind. With a shout – a war cry of sorts – I swung a kick at her head, bringing up my leg as high as I could and whipping it around with a snapping motion.

Who was she to call me stupid?!

DarkFyre only smirked. The grin twisted her lips to one side as she raised her left arm to parry my attack with only her unprotected flesh. Her other hand – lying bored and restless by her side – hissed upwards, three fingers (pointer, middle, and index) and her thumb locking around my wrist and holding it still while smoke drowned my skin.

I twisted away, feeling the smoke clinging to me even still, like a bad aftertaste. “Oh my god, that’s disgusting!” I coughed, trying to clear it from my lungs. Opening my mouth to talk had been a bad idea; the smoke trickled in and stuck there.

“Hey!” DarkFyre frowned at me, a bit of a pout to her lips. “I don’t insult your Element so quit dissing mine!”

“I’m talking about your Smoke actually, not your Fyre.”

She frowned at me, still tense and ready to land another blow at any second. “Sorry to burst your bubble, but I actually use a form of Aiere, not Fyre.”

“As if I c-” I stopped, eyes widening. “Wait, seriously? But I thought Smoke would go with…”

DarkFyre interrupted me by elbowing me in the side and sending me stumbling backwards, gasping for air but instead choking on more smoke. “Smoke gives off no light and it can’t be made to be solid. Both ‘light’ and ‘density’ are attributes for all Fyre abilities like sparks or sunlight. Smoke doesn’t fit either criteria. Plus, Fyre burns while Smoke suffocates. They’re totally different.”

Gagging, I managed, “B-But then why do you call yourself…?”

“DarkFyre?”

I nodded.

She shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe because it was the first thing I could think of. Maybe I wanted to have a name closer to Flame’s, since we changed our names together. Maybe I wanted to prove that I could wear the name better than my sister ever could, even though she’s the one who actually controls the Element. Maybe I only recently figured out that Smoke is an Aiere Element and not a Fyre one.”

“Maybe?” I recovered from the blow at last, straightening again but still frowning deeply. “Don’t you know the reason?”

“Well of course I do! I just don’t really see why I should tell you which reason is the real one.”

My hands tightened into fists. “You are the most infuriating-!”

“Tell me something I don’t know.” She scowled. “And I could really say the same to you. I almost think I liked you better when you didn’t talk!”

“I did talk!” I hurriedly corrected. “Just… not that well.”

“Same thing.” She shrugged, settling back into a stance. “Now then, are you going to attack me or not? I’m getting bored just sitting here.”

“I attacked you earlier!” I protested.

“Hm?” DarkFyre blinked, genuinely surprised by my protest. Finally recognition dawned on her face. “Oh, you mean when you kicked at me?” Once again the grin lit up her face as she laughed cruelly at me. “So sorry Jade, but I honestly don’t consider that an attack. A kick so clumsy with no probability of landing a hit? I’d consider that to be more like a…” She pretended to look thoughtful for a moment, then smirked once more. “…a flailing of limbs.”

“What?!”

She made a “come here” motion with one finger. “I’d like to see you put some effort into this fight. The human body can only last so long with smoke in their system before they collapse. And, believe it or not, those that use Elements are still human. I just lucked out because I have a high endurance for the stuff since I’ve been exposed to it for so long.” Her smile dropped and the look in her eyes changed to one that could almost be called concern. “Although… come to think of it… you’re holding up a lot better than most people would have at this point. Almost everybody I’ve ever fought barely lasted two minutes. That includes Flame as well!”

“Well then, I guess that just makes me special!”

DarkFyre didn’t respond at first. She gnawed her bottom lip slightly from anxiety, not quite hard enough as to draw blood or anything of the sort. “… I suppose…”

She looked distracted; I took the opportunity to throw a punch at her head, but DarkFyre recovered quickly and dodged my blow by stepping lightly to the side. She brought her knee up quickly when I stumbled past her, and the blow caught me in the gut. I coughed, unable to breathe due to the force of the blow. DarkFyre took the opening I had given her. She spun around, her leg snapping up and kicking me in the jaw with her full strength. I managed to step backwards with the blow at the last possible second so that the attack wouldn’t knock a tooth out, but it was still hard enough to leave a painful bruise.

She chortled. “What a stupid move.”

“I swear, if you call me stupid one more time, I’ll-!”

In no time at all, her hands were around my throat. She sneered at me. “Or what?”

Smoke crept into my pores yet again. I struggled to break free of the hands that choked me, but my opponent’s grip was like steel compared to my own weak hands. My lungs began to burn as my eyes watered painfully. The smoke had almost entirely filled my system by now, and I could feel myself slipping into unconsciousness. I grabbed at DarkFyre’s shoulder and dug my nails into the cloth of her shirt in a sort of desperation.

I could hear her laughing at me. “Jade, you have to learn how to fight all sorts of enemies. Some have abilities that you could never even dream of!” The smoke prevented me from uttering a retort, no matter how much I wanted to.

Black and white spots exploded in front of my blurring vision in time to my gasps for breath. Smoke formed a barrier in the back of my mouth, preventing all air from passing through. I fell silent, clinging to DarkFyre with one hand and clawing at my throat with the other. The effort did me no good; no air was able to pass the barrier. My thoughts became wild and fragmented.

Air.

Need air.

Can’t breathe.

Stop.

Make stop.

Can’t.

Get off.

Smoke.

Burning.

Hurts.

Stop!

There was a sudden blast of blue – admittedly more like an indigo than anything else – that shattered my panic. As my body went limp, the indigo light flowed across my eyes and then faded to black. Not a terrifying darkness like when the lamp broke; the peaceful darkness of sleep.

I could remember nothing else.

Then…

The girl.

The dead girl… and her other living half.

* * *

There are two of us here.

One

is in two halves.

The first

has no light

in her blank eyes.

The cold air

around us

has no white cloud

to show her breath.

That girl

scares me

just like how

that man did.

Her other side,

a mirrored reflection,

looks just as

similar

to me as

the dead girl does.

But both of them

dead and alive

are still only one

of the people

in this dark forest clearing.

I’m

the second one,

the one

that doesn’t belong

here.

The other girl smiles

hauntingly

at the other version

of herself,

at her better side.

Chills

race up my

paralyzed

spine.

Paralyzed…

no.

I’m not paralyzed.

I’m…

frozen.

Celcia that isn’t

my own Celcia

holds me down

and

stops me

from reaching out

from screaming

“Don’t listen to her!”

It’s too dark.

My Celcia

is almost white with

the faintest traces of

a pale blue,

a pastel blue.

This Celcia is darker

in color.

Instead of white,

it’s almost entirely

indigo

like

the light I saw before

this memory

and the smoke

overwhelmed me.

On the dead girl’s lips

there is

that same

cruel smile,

so similar

to the man’s,

the man of Shadows

that invades my dreams

and

changes them

to the darkest of nightmares.

A single frail hand

that is pale

and grayish,

dead,

reaches out as if

to touch

the vibrant flush

of life

on the other –

the mirrored –

girl’s palm.

Tears burn

at my eyes.

I know

that I can’t allow

her to steal

her life

and yet

I can do nothing

but watch.

The dead girl

still smiles.

The living girl

doesn’t move,

doesn’t even comprehend

what is going to happen

to her.

“No!”

My voice

tears at my throat.

Neither look my way.

“Don’t do it!

No!

No!

NO!”

* * *

I forced my eyes open, too terrified to witness any more of the flashback. I couldn’t stop shivering all over, as if I could shake off the sense of foreboding I had gotten from seeing that girl. She hadn’t said even a single word, and yet I got such a sense of darkness from her, such a similar feeling to what I sensed from the man who had wanted to hurt me.

“Jade!”

Flame’s shout brought me to a sitting-up position, a shriek of alarm in my throat. He was right in front of me, looking down with worried eyes. “What?!” I gasped, scooting back away from him. “What is it?!”

He frowned at me. “You fainted.”

“Oh.” I looked past him and saw DarkFyre. She had a blanket wrapped around her shoulders and she was sitting with her knees pulled up close to her chest. If I was shivering, she was vibrating. Her dark eyes were clouded and distracted. I watched her, confused, as she finally noticed that I was watching her and – instead of snapping at me – she simply looked away. “… What’s with her?”

“Well…” Flame looked nervous. “You… scared her.”

“I scared her?” The thought of such a thing was ridiculous. I had just blacked out; wasn’t that what she had wanted in the first place?

“Yes. Your Celcia…”

I rose shakily to my feet. “What are you talking about? I never used my Celcia.”

He frowned at me. “Yes you did. I hurried into the clearing as soon as I heard Gloria hollering. She had Celcia from her left shoulder to her right hip. She was completely unable to move, and terrified to boot.”

“I’m telling you, I didn’t do that!”

“She was unconscious already.” We both looked over and saw that DarkFyre had struggled to her feet and was walking shakily over to us. Her dark eyes were full of life once more. She let the blanket drop and brushed off the rest of the half-melted Celcia. “Jade, as soon as you fainted your powers took effect. I think…”

“Your powers might work as a safety mechanism.” Flame interrupted. “That would explain why both times you used your powers it was when you were scared. First, because of the car. Second, because of the darkness.”

The darkness. “I got another memory!” I blurted out, recalling the dead girl and her replica. “There was this girl that looked kind of like me, but she wasn’t me! I got this sense that she had used Celcia on me.”

The chapter was too long; here's the next part of Chapter Three.

______________________________________________________


Flame and DarkFyre exchanged looks. “You didn’t tell her yet, did you?” Flame asked his girlfriend quietly.

She shook her head. “I didn’t think it was important.”

I frowned at them both. “What? What didn’t you tell me?”

“Before that, answer this.” DarkFyre peered at me curiously. “The girl you saw… what color was her hair?”

“Her… hair…?”

“Yes. Was it blonde?”

I was dumbfounded. “Blonde? No, it was dark like mine. She was exactly like me, but I got this feeling that she wasn’t me. She scared me.”

“See?” DarkFyre looked smug. “There’s no relation.” She turned to me again. “Jade, that couldn’t have been a memory. You must have hallucinated.”

“Hallucinated…?” The word was alien to me.

“What DarkFyre means is that you probably imagined it.” Flame explained.

“Imagined…” I shook my head violently. “No! That’s impossible! I couldn’t have imagined something that felt so real.”

“All hallucinations feel real.” DarkFyre looked almost as if she were barely holding back a laugh. “What exactly happened in this ‘memory’ of yours?”

“I…” I swallowed. “I was… frozen in place by Celcia. There were two versions of that girl that looked like me, one dead but moving and one alive but perfectly still. I got this terrified feeling that if the living one touched the dead one she would be the one that was dead and the other girl – the one that reminded me of that man – would be alive in her place.”

“A moving dead girl?” DarkFyre covered her mouth with one hand. A snicker broke free.

I blinked rapidly to fight back tears. “It was real! I’m telling you, it was real!”

“Yeah right!”

“DarkFyre.”

She looked at him, annoyed. “What?”

“Jade has been through a traumatic experience. You nearly killed her with your smoke and, hallucination or not, she saw some very frightening things. Stop making her feel worse.”

“I’m not!”

“You’re laughing at her.”

DarkFyre blinked, looking at me with surprise clear on her face. “She doesn’t care about something as trivial as that.”

“You’re mistakening her for yourself.” Flame’s voice was quiet, but even still I could hear the anger in it. “Your laughing belittles her; you need to stop.”

“I…” DarkFyre kept her eyes on me. “Is he right?”

I nodded. “Please don’t laugh.”

“Oh.” She blinked. “Okay then. I didn’t… Okay, sure. No laughing. Got it.”

Flame addressed me now. “Your memories – or dreams – can’t hurt you anymore. What you saw was scary, but it’s gone now. Okay? The dead girl and the shadow man can’t hurt you.”

“I know that already.” I lied.

DarkFyre recovered from her earlier shock. She approached Flame and gave him a slight shove. “You heard her, she already knows that! Now leave so we can go back to practicing.”

“Hold up!” he protested, digging his heels in and refusing to move. “After all this you expect me to leave? What if you nearly kill her again? What if her Celcia automatically attacks you again? I won’t be close enough to help!”

“We’ll be fine.”

“No, that’s what I’m saying! You won’t be fine!”

“Yes we will.”

“But if you’re fine, then Jade will be the one that gets hurt, and vice versa!”

I stepped forward. “Flame…”

He looked relieved. “Jade, talk some sense into her!”

“… stop interfering. I can handle myself. I… I need to be able to handle myself.”

Flame’s eyes widened with shock. “You… You’re not actually… Are you agreeing with her?!”

“Yes.” I looked at DarkFyre and saw that she was just as startled as her boyfriend was. “I need to be stronger. I need to learn how to control my powers. I can’t do that if I don’t take the necessary risks.”

“That’s pretty big talk for a kid such as yourself.” DarkFyre seemed amused. She glanced back at Flame. “She’s pretty determined. Can you really still say no?”

He glared at her. For a moment it looked as though he was planning on saying something. But he closed his mouth instead; apparently what he had been planning on saying wasn’t worth it.

DarkFyre smirked, clearly taking Flame’s lack of response as he own personal triumph. “Well then, you should be on your way. Jade and I have a lot of work to do.”

Flame looked at me. “Jade…”

I didn’t look back. “I need to practice. You should go.”

Silence greeted my response. When I looked back, Flame had already left, leaving me with DarkFyre and a strong sense of guilt.

Even more of Chapter Three.

___________________________


* * *

I coughed, wiping sweat from my forehead as I rolled away from the wave of smoke. Clearly some still stuck to my lungs from the last few times we had trained. The thought irritated me. My muscles throbbed in pain from so much ‘training’ with DarkFyre; really, only an excuse for her to beat me up. Still, I knew that I had to get stronger. DarkFyre and Flame wanted me to help with something. I couldn’t allow other people to keep me safe all the time, not if I actually wanted to be of some use to them.

DarkFyre’s mocking laughed echoed through my head, which was already pounding with headache from the smoke I was breathing in. But I had to keep calm; if there was one thing I had learned from DarkFyre, from all the pain of getting beaten every time, it was that losing my temper got me nowhere. Blood pounded in my ears; a heated memory of my first fight against DarkFyre. Flame had had to get involved then. I could never allow that to happen again.

I focused on the heat – the rage – I felt from the memory and kept focusing on it, not as anger, but as energy. My adrenaline sparked as I bolted back to my feet and caught DarkFyre’s wrist when she attempted a blow to my face.

The look in her eyes made all of this worth it.

I pulled her forward, using my grip on her wrist because, in order to avoid twisting her wrist unnecessarily, DarkFyre had to stumble forward to follow me. Smoke gathered by her feet, but the smoke seemed to be more of a protective shield rather than an attack. Because of the smoke, I would be unable to attack her feet or legs. But then, that didn’t really make much of a difference; I wasn’t planning to attack her legs or feet in the first place.

I twisted my captive around while she continued to struggle. As soon as her back was to me, I released one hand from her wrist – still more than enough to hold her in place – and put my forearm against her neck. Now I released my grip on her wrist at last. Before she could pull away, I grabbed my own wrist and pulled as hard as I possibly could. DarkFyre let out a strange garbled squawk as she struggled to free herself from the chokehold I had forced her into, but to no avail. I held strong and pulled more on my hand to choke her further still. Tan hands pawed helplessly at my arm as I kept her there for what felt like an eternity – although truthfully it could really have only been a few seconds.

At last the older woman tapped three times on my arm to signal for me to let go, that she had had enough. I complied, letting her drop. However, instead of letting her recover so that she could attack me again, I kicked her to the ground with all of my strength and then jabbed my heel against her throat. “If you move even one muscle,” I warned. “I’ll kick down and you’ll die within several airless minutes.”

DarkFyre got this funny look on her face. It looked as if she had been slapped, but was struggling to come in terms with the fact that someone had slapped her. As the look faded away, she began to tremble and her mouth twisted. It took me a moment, but finally I realized what she was doing; she was laughing.

I let her up slowly, still cautious in case of a sudden attack, but DarkFyre appeared to be done. A feeling of relief washed over me.

As if a plug had been pulled, smoke fled from the forest clearing. I took in a rushed breath of clean air – What a contrast! – as I watched the smoke soak back into DarkFyre. The smoke went straight to the back of her shirt.

I remembered our conversation earlier about how all people with Elements had a ‘mark’ and so I asked, “Do all Elements eventually go back to the user?”

She blinked. “… Huh?”

I pointed. “Your smoke is going back to your mark. Flame said your mark is on your back, right? So the smoke is returning to your mark.”

“I suppose.”

“Well then, do all Elements do that?”

“Flame’s does, and so do mine. I haven’t stuck around long enough to see most other people deal with the leftovers of their attacks.” She frowned at me. “Are you saying that your Element doesn’t return to you?”

“No, it just kind of melts away after a while. Didn’t you notice that before?”

DarkFyre scowled at me. “I was focusing more on warming up after you nearly killed me!”

“I already told you, I have no idea how I did that!” I turned and pointed at a nearby patch of grass, calling forth my Celcia and frosting it slightly. “I think I’ve finally gotten the hang of consciously creating Celcia, but I still have no idea how to use it in battle.”

“Yeah, you still have your mark.”

I covered it subconsciously with one hand.

DarkFyre looked amused for a flicker of a second, and then her expression darkened slightly. “How much have you figured out about your Element and how you can use it?”

“I don’t know how to fight with it.”

“You just said that!” She stopped and took in a breath of air to calm herself down.

I sighed and turned my back and her so that I was facing the frosted grass. I pointed at it again and added a few more patches of Celcia. “I can’t bring the Celcia back into my body and I can’t make more, but I seem to be able to make as much of it as I want. I don’t think I have a limit of how much I can use.”

“Good for you.” DarkFyre leaned against a tree. “It’s kind of weird though. You only being able to create more Celcia, I mean, and not do anything else with it. The other girl with the ability to use Celcia can do all sorts of things with her powers, but you can’t? That’s quite a downer.”

My eyes narrowed. “But can she freeze things?”

She blinked. “What are you talking about Jade?”

“The other girl who can use Celcia. You said that she can do a lot of things, but can she take the Celcia and make it appear where she wants it to?”

“She can move it.”

“But can she make it?”

At long last, DarkFyre caught on to what I was implying. “No, she can’t. There has to already be ice in the area that she can turn into Celcia, or at least some kind of liquid that she can draw water from and then turn into Celcia. She can’t create Celcia out of thin air like you can.” She looked thoughtful. “I’m also fairly certain that she might have a limit on her powers, like I do. I don’t know for certain – I’ve never actually had a normal conversation with her – but I have noticed that whenever I see her she is always drinking from a blue plastic water bottle. It’s always the exact same one too. That’s probably a key sign, right?”

My gaze suddenly darted to one side of the forest clearing – meaningless considering that there was nothing of interest over there – and an uncomfortable chill settled over me. Celcia crept through my veins, but instead of exiting through my palms, it continued up through my veins until it reached the veins of my neck and then rested on my pulse there. I was aware of this, but did not actually control the path of the Celcia. My stomach knotted with fear. Trying to raise my hand to feel where the vein was did nothing for me; I couldn’t move at all.

“Am I… better than her?”

What was this? That voice was definitely mine, but I wasn’t saying it! My lips moved on their own, as if they were only the wooden jaws of a lifeless puppet. A presence settled around me – no, inside of me. It was eerily familiar. Almost as if… as if… maybe…

Her!

My mind flashed to the memory of the man of shadows, specifically to the girl’s voice I had heard. Was that what this was now?

But just as soon as the presence had appeared, it vanished. Almost as soon as I realized that I was being controlled, I found myself freed. I stood in silence, moving first my fingers and then reaching up to gently prod the vein. Yes, my body was under my control again. The girl, and the Celcia that had gone straight to the pulse in my neck, were both gone now.

When I looked back over at DarkFyre, I saw that she was watching me curiously. I cleared my throat and asked again, this time as myself and not as the mystery girl. “Are you better than her?” she repeated slowly.

“You act like you know the other girl that uses Celcia.” I clarified. “So am I-?”

DarkFyre scoffed. “Not at all.” Before I even got a chance to be depressed about the news, she continued and proved that she had been talking about the first statement and not the last question. “My baby sister knows her better than I do.”

Oh yeah. Flame had mentioned DarkFyre’s sister earlier, when he had talked about the Elements. “What’s your sister like?”

She sighed. “Her name’s Francine and she is the most annoying sibling in the world. She’s always getting in my way. I was so glad to move out of my home simply to get away from her. And like I said before, she’s really close to that girl with the Celcia pow-”

“Does she look like you?” I interrupted.

“No!” she snapped, surprising me. “Francine and I are nothing alike! We act different, dress different, hang out with other people… and our hair and eye colors are nothing alike!”

“Okay fine! Calm down! I was just asking. Nothing to get so worked up over.” I frowned at her. “So how about my original question?”

“Hm?”

“The girl with the Celcia powers. Is she better than me or am I better than her?” I was started to get pretty frustrated by now.

“You mean Cristina?”

At last, a name! I tasted the foreign word like I would have back with Flame was teaching me how to talk correctly. “Cristina.”

“Yeah, Cristina Hielo. Stuck-up, rich, trouble-making, good-for-nothing, whiny, chatty, self-righteous-!”

I interrupted once again. “I get it already! You don’t like her!”

“Damn right I don’t! She’s always getting in my way. Her and Francine both.”

“Look,” I told her, as calmly as I could manage. “I don’t care about how much trouble she causes you. All I want to know is whether or not my abilities are better than hers. So just tell me already!”

DarkFyre looked slightly irked. “Well she’s certainly more patient than you are, that’s for sure.” she grumbled. Sighing, DarkFyre ran a hand through her dark hair and then addressed me again. “Jade, you have little to no control of your abilities, despite regaining some of your memories you are still missing a good number of them, you suck at fighting and have only won against me once, you anger quickly and it is way too easy to play with your emotions, and you’re really no more than a kid…”

I swallowed, feeling my heart sink.

“… but you’re still a trillion times better than she could ever hope to be.” she added with a small smile.

My head snapped back up and I looked at her with wide blue eyes. “R-Really?”

She laughed. “Jade, you are one of the weirdest people I’ve ever met. Seriously.”

“Hey!”

“This whole time that I’ve known you, I’ve never shown any signs of giving a damn about your feelings. Why would I start now? I’d never lie just to try and make you feel better about yourself.”

Last little section of Chapter Three.

____________________________


“Well to be fair, you two do seem to be getting along much better compared to her first night staying with us.”

We looked up simultaneously when Flame’s voice was heard from the branch of a nearby tree. He leaned there nonchalantly, but there seemed to be something dark in his eyes. Was it the shading of the branches above his head? Or was it something more…?

As soon as we approached the tree to greet him, Flame jumped down and walked the rest of the way so that he stood before us. There was no smile on his face, no light in his eyes. He seemed to be looking directly at his girlfriend.

It took DarkFyre a moment to notice the change. She was all smiles at first, chattering happily. “Flame! Hi! Jade actually was able to beat me. Isn’t that such a surprise? Although I doubt she’d be able to do it a second time. What about y-” But at last she did notice, and she stopped short, hesitating a few steps away from Flame. “Is… Is something wrong? Did something happen?”

When Flame spoke, his voice was forcibly indifferent and strained, almost as if he was struggling with his own emotion. “DarkFyre, we need to talk. Alone.”

They passed by me, DarkFyre trailing slightly behind as if she was aware that something really bad had happened. Her eyes were scared. The sight of that made me scared as well, but not quite so much as seeing the back of Flame’s arm as he walked away. I flinched, seeing the dark burns that lingered above and below the pulse of his illuminated mark.

Chapter Four

____________


I never intended to follow them. What Flame needed to talk to me about was none of my concern; I had only just met them after all. When DarkFyre followed Flame past the trees, I stayed put. Since I couldn’t find my way back to the apartment without the help of Flame or DarkFyre – as much as I had learned these past few weeks, a sense of direction was not one of the things that stuck with me – I sat uncomfortably on the ground and waited, hoping that they wouldn’t take too long.

There was the sudden sharp sound of a slap; I leapt from my sitting position and ran to the area, eyes wide and heart pounding. Flame stood with one hand to his face. Underneath his fingers, the skin had already started to redden from the blow. His blue eyes calmly held the gaze of his girlfriend, whose own dark eyes swam with tears.

I stood dumbfounded. What was going on?!

Despite his indifferent expression, Flame’s eyes were filled to the brim with sympathy for his now sobbing girlfriend. He folded his arms, easily hiding the burns on his arm from prying eyes. At last he spoke, his words soothing if not a bit cold. “Gloria, I know what I’m talking about.”

“DarkFyre.” The response was automatic, practically robotic.

“Gloria.” he repeated stubbornly. “This is important, so listen to me. I know what happened because I was there. There’s no doubt about it. They were definitely focusing on me.”

“But why? Why would they target us? Why would they turn on us like this? Why go after you?” DarkFyre began to sob harder. I realized that her tears came from fear, not sadness, when she spoke with a shaking voice. “We don’t deserve this! What reason would they have to go so far as to…?” Her eyes widened slightly as if she had been struck by an idea.

Flame shook his head quickly. “It isn’t because of anything you’ve done.”

“You don’t know that for certain.”

“Yes I do.” He insisted. His expression became stricken. “Gloria… they were after me because of my Element.”

Shock dried her eyes. “H-How did they know?” she whispered with a small catch in her voice. “You didn’t use your powers, did you?”

“Not until I was attacked.”

“Then how did they know you had an Element? Your mark shouldn’t have shown. You weren’t using your powers, and your mark doesn’t show up otherwise. So how the heck would they be able to tell that you had an Element?”

He looked very grim. “Somebody must be a traitor.”

She blinked. “What do you mean?”

“Well,” He began to pace. “the only people that know about the Elements are those that have Elements, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So that means that the person who told them about me would have to have had an Element themselves. Otherwise they wouldn’t have known about me in the first place.”

DarkFyre mulled about this for a moment, then nodded with an anxious expression. “That makes sense, but…”

She trailed off, but Flame caught on immediately. “Who would’ve done it?” he finished darkly.

“Cristina and Francine are innocent.” DarkFyre looked upset. “They have to be. They’re annoying and always getting in my way, but they wouldn’t go this far. Besides, they’d be at risk themselves. Neither of them is that stupid.”

He nodded in agreement. “Until we can find the snitch, we need to focus on more important things, such as staying safe.” Flame brushed his injured arm with one finger, wincing just the slightest bit.

DarkFyre noticed immediately. Her eyes widened as she reached out and felt the wound for herself and noticed the pain that immediately leapt to his eyes. Her voice was very quiet; meek and almost frightened. “It’s worse than it looks.” she murmured, looking to him with eyes full of concern. “How did they manage to hurt you this badly? They didn’t have another Element user with them, did they?”

“No, it…” The young man hesitated for a moment, then sighed. “It was my fault.”

DarkFyre looked as dumbfounded as I felt. “Huh?”

“It’s from the gunpowder.” He held his arm out to her. “Smell my mark. You can still smell the gunpowder on the burn.”

“Ew, no way!” She withdrew, wrinkling her nose in disgust.

He shrugged. “Your loss.” He folded his arms again and hid the burns from view. “Gunpowder is highly explosive when its exposed to a lot of heat, like from a match.” He looked down guiltily at his mark. “Or from exposure to direct sunshine for too long.”

“So then you…?”

“Yeah. When I used my Element to try and disarm the guy, the gun exploded at nearly took off both of our arms. Luckily the guy had enough sense to drop the weapon at the last second.”

DarkFyre looked horrified. “So they shot at you?!”

“They didn’t have the chance.” He scratched the back of his head sheepishly. “As soon as the first guy had drawn his gun, I reacted. But yeah, he probably would have if I had given him the choice.”

Her eyes softened. She grabbed a hold of his uninjured hand and lifted it off of his injured arm, holding it close. “I’m just glad you’re safe.”

A smile lingered on his lips for the briefest second, but it was gone soon enough. His expression darkened once more. “Speaking of being safe…”

She read him like a book, and she clearly didn’t like what she had read. Her expression became stormy as she growled with fury clear in her dark eyes, “Don’t you dare have one of those dramatic hero moments.”

“Dramatic hero moments…?”

“Yeah. ‘You’re in danger so long as you’re with me.’ ‘I’ll just endanger you.’ ‘You’re better off without me.’ If you say anything along those lines, I swear to god I’ll kill you.” She angrily twirled a strand of hair behind one tan hair as she continued to glare at him. “I mean it, Flame. If you try to do something that stupid then I really will.”

His eyes narrowed. “Gloria, I have good reason to say something like that.”

“There’s never a good reason to say something like that!”

“DarkFyre,” He raised his voice slightly. “these people weren’t kidding around. They seriously intended to kill me!”

“All the more reason why we need to stick together! We’ll protect one another.”

“It doesn’t work that way.” He sighed. “Please try and understand. They didn’t mention you when I was attacked. I… I don’t think they knew we were together.”

She put both hands on her hips and glared at him. “What are you implying?” she demanded heatedly.

“I’m not trying to imply anything!” He put both hands up defensively, then brought them back down and rested them on both of her shoulders. They gazes met and he looked her dead in the eyes. “Gloria, the assailants showed no intention of ever planning on going after you or Jade. If they did, they probably would have attacked you both by now. But they haven’t. Which means-”

DarkFyre had begun to cry again. Her tears made her much younger, almost childlike. “Don’t say it! Don’t you dare say it!”

“Gloria…”

She wiped her tears away in a sharp swipe, as if trying to show all of her anger in that single wipe. “Don’t.”

“I-”

“I said don’t!” she shrieked, slapping him again.

As soon as he recovered, his girlfriend was already preparing for another slap. Flame moved much swifter though; by the time DarkFyre drew her arm back, he had already grabbed her wrist and given it a sharp twist. She yelped in sudden startled pain. “Stop it!” Flame yelled, causing both DarkFyre and me to flinch. “I refuse to be the death of either of you! I have enough guilt to deal with as is, enough blood on my hands to never wash away, enough pain to last me a lifetime. I refuse to stand by and let anyone else be hurt because of me!”

“But you can’t just leave me!” she yelled back. “Not like this!”

I finally burst out from my hiding place, startling both adults. “Hold up!” I made an “X” motion with my arms to indicate that I wanted them to stop arguing, then demanded of Flame, “You’re leaving us?!”

To give him credit, he did look guilty. “Jade, I don’t have a choice.”

“Like hell you don’t!” I snapped back, taking a leaf from my sparring partner’s book. I marched over and gave him an infuriated shove. “You’re planning on abandoning us. Don’t you care about our safety? How are you going to make sure that we’re safe if you’re gone? You’re just throwing us out to the curb, like we’re garbage or something.”

Tears stung at my eyes now, but I refused to let them fall. I would not follow in DarkFyre’s footsteps in that way; one of had to be strong, and from the look of her it was going to have to be me for once.

I shoved him again, harder this time.”Why did you help me if you were just going to abandon me like this?! You were supposed to help me get stronger. You were supposed to help me master my powers. Did you forget about all that?!”

This was no longer about him leaving me and DarkFyre to fend for ourselves. This no longer involved her in any way. This was about me and Flame, the closest thing I’d had to a brother, to a friend, and how he was abandoning me now. Just like father had. Just like how that man did, the man from the shadows.

DarkFyre stepped cautiously forward. Her expression seemed still shell-shocked from my reaction to the news, but she found her voice at last. “Jade, we-”

I glared at her. “Shut up.” At her shocked silence, I turned back to Flame and gave him one final shove. He stumbled back and smacked against a tree, rubbing his head and looking down at me with a peculiar expression. “Fine!” I yelled at him; well, I screamed it really. “Go somewhere else! Abandon me just like how everyone else has! I don’t need you! I don’t need you, or DarkFyre, or anyone else!”

“Jade!” Flame made a grab for me when I turned to stomp away. His fingers locked around my wrist. He pulled me close.

I reacted instinctively. My mark flashed indigo as I grabbed his fingers and pried them off, coating them with just the slightest bit of Celcia. When his eyes widened in surprise, I used the opportunity to pull him closer. While he was off balance, I flipped him to the forest floor despite the height and weight advantage he had over me. When he collided with the ground with a loud thud, I leapt upon him and drove my knee against his throat, choking off his air.

Just as quickly, I snapped out of it and realized what I had done. “Oh my god!” I yelped, starting to get up quickly. My knee moved away from his throat. “I didn’t mean to-”

Flame was already moving. Was it through instinct, like with me? Or did he really think I deserved it? The answer still evades me. All I know is that he was back up to his feet in less than a second, and that he used his elbow to smash into the side of my face with enough strength to knock me into a tree and make me see stars.

The clearing became deadly silent, as if the forest had taken in a shocked breath like all of us had. DarkFyre looked pale, a weird change to her usual tan hue. I blinked rapidly, feeling the tears that I had fought so hard to hold back escaping down my face. Flame reached towards me, trembling under the weight of what he had done. After doing so much for me, he had raised a hand against me so easily. The thought astounded me.

Horrified me.

Flame’s eyes were wide, fearful. “Jade…” His face crumpled in pain. “Jade, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I just…”

I managed to get back to my feet despite my ringing head. I stepped around the tree so that it was now between us. “Don’t.” I whispered, my voice wobbly from my tears and from my spinning head. “Just… don’t” Turning away, I began to walk.

“Jade!” he called out again, sounding desperate and tortured. Hearing that, I broke out into a sprint. “Jade, please!” I ran faster, trying to outrun the pained voice. DarkFyre’s cut in, mumbling something quietly to him that I was too far away to hear. Whatever she said worked; Flame called desperately for me one last time, but then his voice faded and was gone.

What hurt the most, out of everything that occurred that day, was that neither of them bothered to follow me.

Chapter Five

____________


“You can’t sleep here.” The voice was irritated and sharp. It stabbed at me, preventing me from staying asleep.

I blinked, raising one arm to shield my eyes from the bright light coming from the sun that glared down past the frame of the teenager that was looking at me. I blinked second time, staring at her for a moment, but then decided that it wasn’t worth getting up over and settled back down to try and doze off again.

This time it was a swift kick in my side that jolted me awake, followed by a demand of, “Get up already!”

As I fully awakened with a sharp yelp of pain, I became more aware of the girl. She was leaning close, a scowl on her pale face, and muddy brown eyes were narrowed. There was a flicker of irritation, of which I suspected had nothing to do with my sleeping arrangements.

As I attempted to sit up slowly, I felt the cold burn of a metal fence from my lower back. Apparently my shirt had ridden up my body when I collapsed against the fence the night before. My head pounded and my vision was far too sharp, both paired with my jittery mind, which leapt back; typical for someone that did not sleep well. (Clearly trying to sleep in the first available spot I could find, after crying my eyes puffy and red, was not my brightest idea.) My back hurt as well; the girl’s blow from earlier didn’t help at all. And to top it all off, my throat was unbearably dry. I really needed something cold to drink, but I doubted that this girl would be willing to help me look for one.

Inch by inch, I was able to conquer a leaning stand, placing most of my weight against the fence, seeing as I was still a bit wobbly from being half-asleep. Once up, I focused my attention on the strange new girl. She couldn’t be much older than me, much unlike DarkFyre, but the impression I got from her was very similar. This girl clearly didn’t want me around. I ran my eyes over her from head to toe, taking in the differences. Her hair was a lot darker than DarkFyre’s, and far longer to boot. Her pale complexion was a shocking contrast to DarkFyre’s tan face.

My throat hurt at the attempt to talk, but I was still able to croak out, “Wh-Who…?”

The girl made no effort to help me to stand without the assistance of the fence. She put one hand on her hip and let it rest there, using the other hand to a loose strands of messy brown hair. “Alexandria.” she told me curtly. She continued to eye me suspiciously for a moment longer, then gave a sudden snort of disgust and turned to leave. “Alexandria Alpha.” she tossed carelessly at me, continuing to stride away.

By putting all of my strength and focus into tightening my leg muscles, I was able to stand on my own. I knew from my experience of meeting Flame and DarkFyre that first impressions meant a lot. Even so, the first words out of my mouth were simply, “That’s a weird last name.”

While I scolded myself for saying something so stupid and unbelievably rude, the girl stopped mid-step. She seemed almost to hesitate. There was a flicker of emotion in her stone eyes, an emotion that I almost identified as amusement, but it was gone too quickly for me to fully understand it. She turned on her heels, walking back over to me in long steps and reaching me in mere seconds. Her eyes skimmed my face as if she were searching for something – lingering for a bit on the mark sketched between my eyes – but at last the teen seemed to relax just the slightest bit.

She rolled her eyes dramatically. “Ugh, I know! It’s so annoying. Luckily I’m not the only one. There’s a girl in the Junior class that has the last name ‘Hielo’. And get this: she’s Spanish! Not that you could tell by looking at her. She looks totally different from her mom.”

“How so?”

“Well for one thing, she has blonde hair but her mom’s hair is dark. For another, her eyes are this vibrant blue color while her mom’s eyes are a dark hazel. Plus, her skin is not much lighter than yours, however, her mom’s skin is fairly dark.”

“Why do you suppose that is?”

She shrugged. “I dunno. Some people say she’s adopted, but I think she’s way too fluent to be American. She speaks Spanish naturally.”

I frowned at her. “But can’t people learn Spanish?”

She laughed. “Not that well. She accidently switches to Spanish sometimes, without even realizing it. People don’t typically do that with a second language. At least, not in America, and certainly not as teenagers that are already trying to get though the struggles of high school.”

High school. I was unable to identify with the term. I swallowed at my dry throat, still wishing for a glass of water or something of the sort, and remembered that I had yet to introduce myself. “Oh, right. I’m Jade. It’s very nice to meet you Alexandria.”

Her nose wrinkled. “God, I hate my name! It’s so long!”

I shrugged, embarrassed by her evident disgust. “Well… I think it’s pretty.” Then, seeing as this didn’t help and she still looked bitter, I added clumsily, “Who are you then?”

She blinked. “Excuse me?”

Embarrassed, I tried quickly to backpedal. “What I meant was… um… do you go by something else then, if you don’t like your name?”

“Well, yeah. I just cut it short, to ‘Lexie’. It’s much easier to say.” She winked. “But of course I only let my friends call me that. Why should I let others take the easy way out?”

I laughed. “I suppose you shouldn’t.”

That got a smile out of her, but I found myself distracted. Why pick a nickname when you had a perfectly fine name to begin with? My name was no shortened version; it was all I had. But then DarkFyre, Flame, and now Lexie… all of them had looked down upon their original names. Was I missing something?

All it took was that reference to them, and all of a sudden the memories came flooding back all at once. ‘Fine!’ I had screamed at him. ‘Go somewhere else! Abandon me just like how everyone else has! I don’t need you! I don’t need you, or DarkFyre, or anyone else!’ My head spun and my chest hurt. I must have made a mistake; of course I had made a mistake! Flame had shown me nothing but kindness, and I had been so fast to shove him away. I didn’t know his story. I had no idea what he had gone through. I could barely follow his conversation with DarkFyre, and yet I assumed that I knew exactly what he had intended.

I felt like crying. I probably would have, but my tired eyes couldn’t conjure up any tears. My body felt drained from my rough nap, on top of the emotional strain I was already under. My thoughts weren’t so much with DarkFyre as they were with Flame, and his broken expression paired with that pained voice that had called after me. I had to go apologize. To fix things.

Before the command could reach my legs and make them move, I crushed it. How could I possibly fix things now? After making a scene like that… I’d be lucky if they wanted me back. And considering that they hadn’t followed me, I could almost guarantee that no, no they did not. I would have to become stronger if I wanted to face them again. As I was, I was practically worthless. I was no benefit to either of them. Why would they want to hang with such an emotionally unbalanced girl? A child. A whiny brat.

I hated myself.

The teen cleared her throat, looking at me with a mix of concern, annoyance, and amusement. I snapped back to present, remembering that she had said something else while I had been distracted. “S-Sorry, what?” I stammered, coloring just the slightest bit.

Her lips curved to a gentle smile. “I said that ‘Jade’ is a pretty name too.”

“Oh.” I smiled as well. “Well thanks.”

“Hey Lexie, what’s keeping you?” a light voice suddenly called out.

When I looked past the gate, I was greeted by the sudden appearance of a pale-haired boy with even paler skin. I glanced back at Lexie. Suddenly she didn’t seem quite as pale as she once had. The new boy was fairly tall. His face was hidden, both because of the hoodie he had on and because of the dark sunglasses that hid his eyes from view. Still, his features seemed almost familiar to me, as if I had seen him somewhere before. He came to a halt, frowning slightly at us as he took of his sunglasses in one fluid motion and stared intently at me, revealing iris’ that were so pale of a blue that they were almost milky.

He frowned, as if confused, eyes never leaving my face. “Lexie, is there someone else with you?”

His question startled me. He was looking right at me; couldn’t he see for himself that there was someone else here besides Lexie?

Lexie didn’t seem bothered in the slightest. “Yeah. Terrance, this is Jade. Jade, this is Terrance.” One look at my face must have told her of my confusion. She hurriedly filled me in. “My buddy Terrance here is blind. He can’t see anything, no matter what he tries.”

“Thanks for pointing out my disability yet again.” His words were harsh, but his tone was so light and free that I felt I could safely assume that he didn’t mean anything by it. He smiled. “Well then. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Jade.”

“Same here.”

Terrance slid his sunglasses back on, pressing them against the bridge of his nose. “A lot of people are intimidated by my strange eyes.” he informed me, picking up on my confusion immediately. “And besides which, direct light can be sort of painful.”

“How come?”

For a split second his expression darkened. But the shadow was gone just as swiftly as it had appeared. He laughed nonchalantly. “Just because of a painful memory. Nothing to worry yourself about.”

I shrugged. “Well it doesn’t bother me all that much,” The symbol between my eyes was probably a lot stranger than pale eyes, and while you could hide pale eyes with a pair of sunglasses, you couldn’t possibly hide my mark with anything similarly easy. “but if the light hurts you then you should probably keep your eyes covered.”

He chuckled. “If you say so.” He looked suddenly in Lexie’s direction, a frown tugging at his lips. “He’s not here yet.”

Lexie looked startled. “Well… yeah. Neither of them have gotten here quite yet.”

Terrance was silent for a moment, and when he finally spoke up again, his voice was tense, angry. “You know that they don’t get along with each other, and yet you still let him go off with him?”

Her hand went to her waist. “Well what else was I supposed to do but agree?” she snapped. “Sometime you try saying no to him when he’s in one of his-” Her eyes flickered to me. Fear registered there for a split second, but was quickly smothered. “-moods.” she finished lamely. “When he’s in one of his moods.”

The blonde boy sighed, relaxing a little but still looking troubled. “I know, I know. I just… I’m always worried when we’re not there to keep an eye on them. They’re always bickering, you know? What if they really get in a fight, and we’re not there to separate them? Xeph doesn’t trust me – or any of us really – very much as is.”

Lexie nodded in agreement, a motion that I found strange considering that Terrance was blind and would not be able to see her. “They do argue an awful lot.” she admitted, bringing one hand to her mouth and chewing a little on her thumb nail.

I cut in, my curiosity getting the better of me. “Who are you guys talking about?”

Terrance smiled at me. “Two of our friends.” he explained cheerfully, all past darkness in his voice and expression long gone. “Xeph and Shau-”

“Shane.” Lexie interrupted, her voice having such a sudden bite to it that I instinctively flinched upon hearing it. She twirled a few stands of her long, dark hair nervously with one finger.

Terrance winced slightly. “Y-Yeah, of course. Shane. That’s what I meant to say.”

Second (and last) part of Chapter Five.
__________________________


Lexie’s dark eyes darted to the side. “… Speak of the devil.” she muttered, looking irritated for the briefest of seconds before plastering a false smile in place of her frown. “Hey guys!”

There was a smile on my face as I turned, a smile that dropped as soon as I saw the duo. My gaze no more than flickered over the dark-haired boy; I stared mainly at the silver-haired man with the blank slate eyes that stood beside him. My horror grew as I recognized his features and the icy glint that appeared in his otherwise lifeless eyes as he saw me, recognized me.

I cowered instinctively, all my training from DarkFyre instantly forgotten in such a crisis. My legs wobbled and slid out from under me, bringing me crumpling to first my knees and then to the earth itself as I continued to shake uncontrollably. He continued walking towards us, his cold eyes locked to mine and a cruel smirk at his pale lips. He opened his mouth to say something. I could still hear his velvet voice in my memories. I could still feel the pain it had inflicted.

I screamed.

OMG. Your writing is brilliant, Roxanne. It drew me right in and I couldn't stop reading. Your characters are so REAL! And your dialogue is excellent.

You should be published!!

Thank you so much! I'm so glad you like it! :D

Yes, I do plan to get published someday. But I have to finish writing my book first. ^w^

Well to be fair, I finished writing it once... I just was reading back over it and realized, "Hey. I don't like this." and started to completely rewrite it.

I was reading over the poems you posted in your poetry corner. I was very impressed! You're a great poet. :)

You're welcome! And I like it a lot!

Good for you. I wish you the best. I have to finish writing my book, too.:)

I know, right? I've done a couple of re-writes.

You like my poems? Wow, thank you so much!:)

Thanks! :)

Re-writes are a pain because they take so long, but then they're totally worth it in the end because the final version is so much better. ^w^

Of course I like your poems! They're fantastic! :D

Chapter Six

_________


Terrance’s hands flew up to his ears. “What the hell is wrong with her?!” he shouted, having to raise his voice in order to make it audible above my shriek. “Somebody shut her up!”

Lexie grabbed me by the shoulder and pulled me forcibly backwards. As I stumbled, and continued to wail, she drew her arm back. She then brought her hand down in a sharp motion, catching me across the face and sending me stumbling further back. My scream cut off, died in my throat. Shock spread through me. And yet she still brought her hand up again and made as if to hit me again.

“No!” I yelled, lashing out at her.

Celcia blossomed throughout my system and was soon released from my shaking fingertips. The crystallized substance hit Lexie immediately, pinning her arm to her side and sending her backwards this time. She shrieked in fear, clawing at the thick coating of Celcia which now began to spread further up her arm.

I took the opportunity to flee, not even bothering to glance at the nightmare man. If I had, perhaps I would have noticed that his eyes were not quite as I had known them before.

But I did not notice; I had no reason to think of looking at him a second time. I had already seen the smirk on his lips, the deadness of his grey eyes.

Maybe I should have kept running, out into the street and further into the city. Maybe I would have run into a new group of people. Maybe I would have had to start all over again. But I did none of these things; I ran not outside of the gates, but further in.

There were more people now. They stared at me in confusion, laughter flickering in their eyes as the noticed the symbol on my forehead. I shoved past teenager after teenager, desperate to get somewhere, but not sure of where I wanted to go. As I ran and shoved, my panic deepening, I bumped into someone and her books went flying.

“Hey!” she exclaimed, sounding not mad, surprisingly enough, but just surprised.

I stopped immediately and knelt beside her, attempting to retrieve the spilt books. I grabbed a hold of two of them. She got the other two. I straightened, extending my arm to hand her said books now in my possession.

I froze. My jaw might have dropped, or I could have been too stunned to do even that. The blonde girl looked to me in shock as well. We both stared – motionless – at each other for what seemed like an eternity, but could only have been a few measly seconds. We puzzled over each other’s eyes, widened with our confusion and surprise. We questioned the shape of each other’s noses, ears, and lips. We wondered about the curve of our shoulders, and how they were remarkably similar. The only difference between us was the dark contrast in my hair, eyes, and skin.

She broke the silence first. “Y-You look like…”

“You,” I finished for her, and then added, “and you look like me.”

Curiosity clear in her features, she asked almost hesitantly, “Who are you?”

“I’m Jade.”

She smiled. “Well it’s nice to meet you, even if none of this makes any sense.” She extended her hand for me to shake. “I’m Cristina. You’re new here right? I could show you around if you’d like.”

I shook my head quickly after accepting her hand and shaking it. “No, actually I’m not supposed to be… I mean, I really should be getting back to my friends.”

“Oh. Okay then.”

As I turned to go, Cristina suddenly reached out and grabbed my arm. “Hey, hold up a second.”

I glanced back at her. “Yeah?”

Her brow furrowed with concentration as she stared intently at my face. “You’re part of the Hielo family, right?”

Her words confused me. I shook my head again. “No.”

“But we look so similar… and you have the mark…”

I put one hand up in order to hide the symbol between my eyes. “I think I would know if I had any family.” I snapped, quite angrily, mainly due to a mix of me being confused and still a little embarrassed about the mark on my face. “And believe me, I don’t.”

“But our similarities can’t just be a coincidence!” she protested.

“It has to be.”

Cristina looked as if she wanted to say something else, but she hesitated for a moment. When at last she spoke again, her eyes seemed frightened. Mine likely matched hers; two deer caught in the headlights of a speeding van. “How… How old are you?”

“I’m fifteen.”

She frowned slightly, looking a little disappointed by my response. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” I insisted, quite defensively. “So what?”

Now Cristina was the one to shake her head. “N-Nothing. It’s just…” She frowned at me. “You seem… older than just fifteen.”

I recalled Flame’s expression when I had told DarkFyre my age. “I… Really?”

She nodded. “You don’t look any younger than me.”

“And how old are you?”

“Seventeen.”

Two years! I shook my head frantically. “No, I’m definitely fifteen.” I told her, with enough conviction to convince even myself.

The girl held her hands up as if in surrender. “Okay, fine. You’re fifteen.”

I folded my arms and scowled at her. “You know, with the logic you used of how we look the same, I could say that you must be fifteen and not seventeen.”

Cristina laughed a little, at last her frown brightening to a smile. “You could, but I have thousands of people that would testify to otherwise. We Hielos are a very popular family.”

Now at last her name registered. I flinched, stepping away from her. “W-Wait a second! You’re Cristina Hielo?!”

She seemed startled by my reaction. “Y-Yeah. Why? What’s wrong?”

The name instantly made me remember DarkFyre and Lexie’s words simultaneously. Both memories brought guilt and pain. With both of them, I had run away without giving a proper explanation. Was I destined to always be a coward?

Cristina waved a hand in front of my face, bringing me out of my thoughts and back to reality. She looked concerned. “Jade? Are you alright?”

I shook my head to clear it, and then somehow managed to nod shakily despite my hectic thoughts. “Y-Yeah, I’m fine. I just…” I looked backwards, as if I had heard someone call my name. I gestured to the empty hallway. “I really need to get going.”

She still looked worried. “Are you sure you should be walking around the school? You look like you’re going to faint. Maybe you should sit down for a moment.”

“No really, I need to get back to my friends. They’ll be looking for-”

Before our argument could progress any further, I suddenly realized that the hallway was no longer empty. A familiar boy was now walking towards us.

I couldn’t place him at first, and clearly Cristina couldn’t either. “Oh, hey!” she called out to him. “You’re…” She struggled to recall the name. Her face heated up when she was unable to, but she tried desperately to recover. “You’re… um… I know it starts with a…” She shrugged sheepishly. “… a Z?”

He looked at her, slightly amused, before correcting her. “It might sound like that, but my name actually starts with an X.”

I suddenly remember Lexie and Terrance’s conversation, and realized that this was the guy that had been walking with the shadow man. “You’re Xeph, right?”

Cristina looked surprised as she looked back over at me. “You already know him?”

“We…” I hesitated, trying to figure out the best words. “…briefly met.”

There was a faintest hint of a smile to his lips before he swallowed the laugh that threatened to escape him. “Yeah. We didn’t get a chance to talk, but we did see each other.”

“Then I’ll leave her to you.” Cristina chirped, evidently relieved. “I really need to get to class.”

He looked startled by that, but covered his surprise with a quick nod. “Sure.”

She turned to me again, smiling. “I’ll see you around, Jade.”

I nodded, unsure of whether I meant it or not.

As Cristina disappeared around the corner, Xeph turned back to me. “We’re both supposed to have English right now.” he told me quietly. “Apparently she doesn’t remember that I’m in her class.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I’ve sat right next to her all year.”

I laughed a little. “And she never noticed?”

He shrugged. “It’s not entirely her fault. I don’t talk to very many people. I usually don’t have much in common with any of them, least of all with the most popular girl in school.” Xeph explained. “Cristina never had any reason to notice me, so she didn’t.”

I frowned slightly. “That’s kind of… depressing.”

“Only if you think of it that way.”

“Do you think of it that way?”

He shook his head. “I don’t like to socialize. It’s more of a blessing to not be noticed, if you ask me.”

“And yet you’re talking to me.” I pointed out, my smile returning.

Xeph stared intently at me. “Well yeah. I mean, I was curious after all.”

“About?”

“That incident from earlier. With the screaming and running away.”

My face flamed. “Oh, right.” I looked away. “Sorry about that.”

He didn’t respond for a moment, but then smiled a little. “…School can be a bit overwhelming to newcomers.”

Although that had nothing to do with why I had run away, I accepted his explanation gratefully. “You could tell I was new?”

“Yeah.” He looked uncomfortable. “I was homeschooled for most of my life, because I was so different from the other kids. Readjusting to a new environment is difficult.”

I looked curiously at him. “Different? You don’t seem much different than the other kids here.”

His dark eyes jumped to the mark on my face. No words needed to be said; his meaning was clear.

My own eyes widened in shock. I took a step back as I pointed to my mark and exclaimed, “You have a mark as well?! You have an Element?!”

He nodded. “We all do. Me, Terrance, Lexie, and Shane.”

“All of…” I was amazed. “Seriously?!”

Another nod. “Mine is on my right shoulder and stretches across my neck and around to my throat, stopping at my jaw. It used to be visible even when I wore a shirt, but now that I have control of my Element, most people can’t see it. Lexie has hers on the roof of her mouth, so she’s always been able to easily hide hers. Terrance’s is on the wrist of his left hand, and it stretches all the way to his fingertips. He had to wear a glove to hide it until he learned to control his Element like I did. Few people questioned him about his glove while he wore it; most people assumed it had something to do with him being blind. Which is a stupid assumption to make. Shane has his mark-”

He paused. “Actually… I don’t think I’ve ever seen his mark. Lexie and Terrance both said he has an Element, but I’ve never seen him use his abilities.”

“Maybe they lied?” I suggested.

“But they would have no reason to.”


“Xeph!” Lexie’s voice rang through the hallway as she appeared and stormed over. She looked livid. Reaching us, she grabbed him by the collar. Because he was taller than her, she pulled him forcibly down. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, running your mouth like that?!”

He smacked her hand away and straightened. “She has a mark like the rest of us. She has a right to know about ours.”

Lexie scowled. “So do Cristina and Francine, but they don’t know about our group having Elements!”

Xeph blinked, looking caught off guard. “Cristina Hielo and Francine Browning? They do?”

She froze. “Uh…” Realizing that what had been said couldn’t be taken back, she nodded guiltily. “Yeah.”

“Then why didn’t you guys ever say anything?!”

Last little bit of Chapter Six

____________________


“It didn’t seem important.” Terrance cut in, appearing at the end of the hall and making his way towards us. Close behind followed the man from before.

I flinched, closing my eyes and pretending that I didn’t see him. My heart pounded and I broke out into a sweat. I trembled. Through my closed eyelids, I could still hear the others talking.

“Look, she’s going to scream again.” Terrance announced, sounding disgusted.

“I’ll slap her again if I have to.” Lexie volunteered.

“Don’t you dare!” Another voice, an unfamiliar one, joined them. “She doesn’t deserve to be hit. If she got scared then there has to be a reason.”

I had heard no more footsteps, and yet this new voice was completely alien to me. I thought back to all the people in the hallway. Lexie? No, the voice was clearly male. Terrance? It couldn’t be; Terrance’s voice was much lighter. Xeph? No, Xeph was talking now, saying “Then why don’t you go ask her about it?” in a sharp voice. Then who…?

Footsteps approached me just as I made the connection. I didn’t recognize the voice. I didn’t recognize the fourth person in the hallway. But I had met the evil man that time he had attacked me; I had heard his velvet voice. I did not recognize this one. Meaning… what exactly?

The answer came to me just as I opened my eyes. He was a different person.

Sure enough, the cold grey eyes, devoid of life, were now wide and concerned. I could see flecks of green among the grey – no, among the silver.

Those eyes were what drew me in, what kept me trapped. Some people say that the eyes are windows into the soul. If that’s true then his soul was mesmerizing and suffocating enough to swallow me whole, along with my common sense and even my dignity.

He spoke softly. “Are you okay?”

I recovered from my shock, already feeling the blush return to my face. “Y-Yeah, I just…” I looked away. “I took you for someone else.”

He looked relieved as he turned back to his friends. “See? That’s why she screamed.”

Xeph looked a little disappointed. Terrance and Lexie looked relieved.

The boy turned back to me. “Now that we have things straightened out, I’d like to introduce myself properly. I’m Shane.”

I accepted his hand and shook it. “I’m Jade.”

Shane smiled a little. “Jade. That’s a very pretty name.”

My blush darkened. “Th-Thank you. Listen, I… I’m really sorry about earlier.”

He shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. You had your reasons.”

“But still, to scream and then run away like that…”

He shook his head. “Don’t dwell on it.”

“But I-!”

“Don’t dwell on it.” he repeated firmly.

I sighed. “Okay. I’ll try not to.”

“Good.” He glanced at the others, then back to me. “You’ve already met everyone else, right?” At my nod, he smiled again. “Good. We won’t have to go through any more introductions then.”

A sudden bell rang out. Terrance looked concerned. “Hey guys, we need to get going. We’ll be late to class.”

Shane nodded at him and looked back at me. “We could walk you to your class if you want.” he suggested.

“No, I-”

“She doesn’t go to this school.” Lexie cut in.

Shane frowned, looking to me with confusion in his eyes. “Really? Then why…?”

“I-I just got lost.” I explained weakly, flustered and embarrassed.

“Oh. Then… we’ll walk you to the gate.”

“You can walk her if you really want to,” Lexie frowned at him. “ but don’t talk for the rest of us. I, for one, have to get to my Math class. I don’t have time to walk her to the gate.” Turning on her heel, she disappeared back down the hallway.

Xeph shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I really need to get to English.” he explained, following her lead.

“I’m blind.” Terrance reminded us, before turning to leave as well.

“That’s not an excuse!” Shane yelled after him, but he was laughing. “You know this school like the back of your hand, sight or no sight!”

Terrance shrugged, chuckling a little as he continued down the hall and vanished around the corner.

“Okay, fine. I’ll walk her and then meet up with you guys later.” Shane decided, even though he spoke only to empty space.

“Um…” I brought up nervously. “I could always walk myself.”

“Nah, it’s fine.” Shane quickly reassured me.

I frowned at him. “But don’t you have class to get to?”

He shook his head. “I just assist a teacher this hour. She won’t notice I’m gone.”

I didn’t understand, but nodded my head as if I did. “Okay. Then let’s get going.”

Wow! Well done. Now I can't wait for chapter 7!

Thank you very much! I'll try to work on the next chapter as soon as I can. ^w^

Welcome! Okay.:)

Chapter Seven

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Just a heads up: This chapter has violence in it. I personally don't think it's that bad, but that might just be my personal opinion.

______________________________________________________________


When we reached the gate, Shane looked at me, and expression of concern still lingering on his face. “Do you know where you’re going?” he asked anxiously.

“Yes,” I lied.

He looked relieved. “Oh. Well that’s good.”

I nodded, looking away from him. I played nervously with a few strands of my dark hair, curling them between one finger, releasing the strands and letting them fall back to my shoulders, then retrieving and curling them once again. “So… um…I guess I’ll see you around sometime.”

“Sure.”

I stood in awkward silence for a moment longer, before finally turning to leave. I took a few steps. Stopped.

When I glanced back at him, he had already begun to turn back towards the school. His eyes flickered towards me just as I looked towards him, and our gazes met. There was a flicker of something in his silver eyes. A chill went through me. But it was gone almost immediately, just as soon as I saw it.

Shane smiled a little as he turned back around and really did go back through the gate this time. I stood there for a moment longer, watching him go. I found that I couldn’t quite be sure of what color his hair was. At first glance, it had been definitely silver. But after figuring out that he wasn’t the man from before, I had realized that his hair looked more like a pale sort of blue. And yet now it had changed again, appearing to have the slightest hint of a mint-green as it hung in front of his gorgeous eyes like some sort of multicolored curtain. All colors unique. None the same.

As he vanished into the building, I thought back to the change in his expression, that slightly familiar, and yet completely unfamiliar, change. I just couldn’t place it, no matter how hard I tried.

Distracted by my thoughts, I never saw the punch coming.

My Celcia took over, racing through my veins seconds before the impact, only moments before I was forced backwards against the gate with a loud crash. The Celcia numbed my mark, but didn’t mask my exclamation of alarm as I slid to the ground. I looked up in confused alarm and saw a strange man glaring down at me. Behind him, two others walked up, both equally foreign to me.

I blinked, still unable to comprehend that I had just been assaulted. “Wh-Wha…?” I stammered.

The first man wrinkled his nose in disgust. “The mark on its face is practically glowing,” he spat, eyeing the symbol etched into the skin between my eyes.

“Yeah,” snorted one of the others. “What a freak!”

“Freak? It?” I began to tremble, finally figuring out that whatever was going on, it was very bad. Fear took over. I struggled to stay calm even as I asked in a choked voice. “Wh-What are you talking about? I’m not… I don’t understand.”

The man in front tightened his hand to a fist once more, holding it threateningly in the air. “Shut your mouth or I’ll shut it for you,” he threatened.

I shut up immediately, seeing enough hatred in his eyes to know that he would punch me again if only given the chance. Though immensely terrified by these men, my shaking stopped, as if my body was too scared to be scared any more.

“Come on, just kill it already!” the third man whined. “We don’t have all day! We still have to find that other one too you know.”

“Shut up and let me concentrate,” the first hissed. From his jacket, he pulled out an unfamiliar metallic object. He pointed it towards me, one finger looped around the small trigger.

Instinct took over. I threw myself to one side, scraping both legs against the gravel as I dodged the resulting exploding bang. As I crashed to the ground, I found myself frozen entirely by the threat of death. “I… what… why…?”

“Hold it down, you idiots!” the leader ordered, aiming once more. “I only have a limited number of bullets, and it’ll cost a fortune to get new ones.”

I struggled to my feet and tried to get away, but one man grabbed my arm, choking it in his unforgiving grip, while the other caught my hair, tearing at it. I shrieked in pain and panic. Hysteria began to set in. “Let me go! Let me go!” I pleaded, struggling to free myself but unable to. My Celcia remained dormant in my veins. “Please, please let me go! You have to let me go! I-I don’t want to die! Don’t kill me!”

A scream ripped free from my lips as the resulting explosions shattered the sidewalk underneath me. Sparks – from where metal bullets met their embedded fate – flashed all around me in a series of whites and yellows; twisted fireworks, the remnants of wild flames.

“Watch it!” one of the guys holding me in place yelled. “You almost shot me!”

“Shut up!” he growled again, aiming once more. He put one hand around his wrist to hold it still, to try and stop his shaking. The finger curled around the trigger once more. My legs gave out from fear. The other two followed me down. The man’s hand trembled slightly, dropping the gun just the slightest bit as he fired.

Unimaginable pain.

I could feel blood soaking my leg now, spreading rapidly from the hole in my calf. I couldn’t scream anymore; the words were choked off in my mouth, my throat frozen by pain and terror. Each pulse of my heartbeat caused the sticky mess that I lay in to worsen. I thrashed free of the two men that held me still, but could escape nowhere. I was trapped in a puddle of my own blood.

Like before. Like with that man.

Fire raged through my veins, chasing away that Celcia that sought to protect me. I was helpless – vulnerable – to the cascades of bullets that would soon pour down on me like metallic rain that brought forth the stench of iron and tears. My eyes shut involuntarily; I couldn’t bear to see my death before me.

The squeal of tires reached my ears seconds before I smelled the burnt rubber. I blinked my eyes open again, clearing them of tears before I was able to see the scene before me. I was able to make out the still slightly blurred shape of a single rider on the back of a vehicle that my mind quickly classified as a motorcycle.

He couldn’t have been much older than me, and yet his hazel eyes had the calm intensity of a mature adult. I saw this as similar to Flame at the time; only later would I realize that the familiarity between the two came from something else entirely.

He skidded to a halt, sticking out one bare foot to slow the motorcycle even as he pressed down on one pedal with the other. He left the motor running even as he reached towards me with one hand. “Quickly! Give me your hand!”

I trembled, choking out my words. “I… I can’t. M-My leg…!”

“I know. Trust me on this.” He gestured towards me once more. A note of desperation entered his already frantic tone; the stunned men had already begun to recover from the surprise. They began to fumble for their weapons. Soon more shots would ring out, and the strange newcomer would fall just like I had. “It’s going to be okay. You just need to grab my hand.”

Dragging myself back up, I strained through the pain and felt my fingers brush his palm. Instantly he leaned forward and locked our hands together, intertwining my fingers with his. His grip was iron and his skin was an icy temperature that didn’t suit his tanned skin tone at all. I shivered, all too aware of the blood that continued pulsing from my wound, as well as the bullets that could take my life at any moment.

A sudden light – pale rose in color and warm to the touch – flowed around each of his fingers. They wormed their way around each digit, like glowing serpents, spitting out pink sparks that sank into the flesh of my own hand. A mark flashed to life upon the boy’s throat. It was a darker pink than the light, and was more elaborate than the mark on my own face. The lines spread up to his jaw and dropped down beneath his shirt.

The sparks sank deeper into my system at a rapid pace, easily maneuvering past the Celcia that stood guard inside of me. They rushed down to the pain in my calf. More and more sparks joined them, moving rapidly through my veins and dodging the Celcia that threatened to overtake them. Foreign energy coursed through my body. I shuddered.

The boy kept his hand locked to mine even as he climbed off of the bike and knelt beside me. I flinched slightly at the movement. He stopped and glanced at me. “I need to take out the bullet,” he explained.

“Are you insane?!” I protested in disbelief, putting my free hand against the wound in order to hide it from view. “No way!”

He sighed. “Jade, it won’t hurt at all. Your Element will keep you numb until the bullet is removed, and then I will be able to patch you up without fear of trapping the projectile inside of your skin. Please, just trust me on this. I know what I’m doing.”

It never even crossed my mind to ask how the hell he knew my name.

I was quiet for a moment. “A-Are you sure?” I croaked at last.

“I’ve done this hundreds of times before,” he assured me. “And your injury isn’t the worst I’ve ever se-”

I saw the leader of the group recover at last and aim his weapon towards us. I yelled, first in warning, then in agony, as another bullet tore through me, this time tearing into my hip and stabbing out through the other side.

I trembled, blinded by pain, but the boy continued to hold me steady. He moved like lightning; moving far too quickly to be followed by one’s eyes, and striking only once. Pink sparks joined the Celcia that already worked to numb the wound.

Now at last I realized what the sparks were doing for me; bit by bit, they healed my injury. With each healed skin cell, a spark returned from me to him, re-entering the snake-like glow along his hand. I watched incredulously as both wounds vanished as if they had never existed in the first place.

I recalled Flame’s lecture on the Elements. The word was out of my mouth before I had even lifted my eyes to meet the warm hazel irises across from me. “Guaritore…” I breathed, amazed.

He smiled at me. “Angelo.”

Before the rest of the sparks could have a chance to sink back into him, Angelo yanked me back up to my feet and pulled me towards his motorcycle. “Hurry, get on.”

I pulled away. “What?! No way!”

He insisted, reaching for me once again. “There’s no time for arguing. They’ve already shot you twice, and I can only heal you so long as I have enough energy. They won’t stop until we’re both dead! We have to leave.”

“But-” I glanced back at the school gate. “But I-!”

The sudden spray of bullets interrupted me. I shrieked, stumbling forward and grabbing a hold of Angelo’s arm. Angelo took the opportunity to swing me up onto the bike so that I sat comfortably behind him. He tossed back a helmet. “Here. Put this on.”

I did so, asking him in a slightly muffled voice, “Don’t you need one too?”

He chuckled a little, running a hand through his blonde hair while shaking his head no. “It’s not for safety, it’s for hiding your mark. They’ll follow it as long as it’s visible, so we need to hide it from view.

I frowned. “But what about yours? Your mark is kind of obvious.”

Instead of answering me, Angelo simply revved the bike and slammed his foot down on the pedal, bringing it as far down as it would go. The motorcycle tore forward. I gasped, clinging to the back of Angelo’s shirt in my fright. He laughed again, leaning to one side so that the motorcycle moved easily between two parked cars. The engine roared as the tires squealed in protest. A shriek of alarm caught in my throat – almost choking me – as we sped onwards. I clung even tighter still to the boy in front of me; to relinquish my grip was sure to mean certain death.

More of Chapter Seven

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He, on the other hand, seemed to hardly notice the struggle to stay on the bike. His fingers rested lightly on each handlebar and his foot remained glued to the pedal, forcing the bike to go as fast as it could manage. The only sign that proved that he was aware of the turbulent winds was that his knees, hidden by his jeans, dug into the side of the bike.

Angelo continued to maneuver the motorcycle past parked and moving cars alike. He moved the bike as easily as if it were a part of him and not just a piece of machinery. Sliding past vans that were parked too closely together, dodging away from cars that pulled abruptly away from curbs, never hitting a single pedestrian; I was as impressed as I was terrified.

The ground gave a sudden quiver, causing the bike to shake slightly. The movement was followed by a sudden rumble that was loud enough to even be heard above the roar of the engine and the howl of the wind in my ears. Angelo was able to regain control of the bike, but only after we swerved slightly and knocked over a few trash cans, sending their content spilling across the street behind us.

I leaned forward. “What the hell was that?!”

He didn’t answer. His expression was very grim, and it darkened all the more with each rumble of the street. Brow furrowing, he mumbled, assumingly to himself, “What the hell…? Why would he be…? What reason would he have to…?” Angelo shook his head. “Doesn’t matter.”

“What doesn’t matter?!” I demanded, but I received no answer; Angelo didn’t even seem to have heard my question.

His mark pulsed with the same brilliant pink light as he turned the motorcycle with enough force to earn another squeal of the tires. We sped down an alleyway now. Angelo didn’t seem at all concerned about being careful anymore; we left a trail of spilt trash cans as we went further and further along.

I used my knee to jab him in the back, still keeping my grip on the back of his shirt. Angelo glanced back at me for a split second before returning his attention to the road. His voice drifted back. “What?”

“I want to know what’s going on.”

“I don’t have time to explain!”

I jabbed him in the back again, glaring now. “Listen, I’ve put up with a lot recently, and now I’m forced to go wherever you’re going. If we get killed because of you and your reckless speeding, then I want to know why everything happened before that.”

“Okay, fine.” There a scowl clear on his face now as he yanked the bike out of the alleyway and back to the main road. “But first, you need to look behind us.”

“Why?”

“Do you want answers or not?!”

Frowning, I tensed my muscles – so that the movement wouldn’t loosen my grip on Angelo – and turned around as well as I could manage. A few seconds passed where I could see nothing but the dark strands of hair that stung at my face. Then, at long last, the wind pounding against me changed and blew my hair away from my face instead of against it.

Immediately I wished that I hadn’t turned around at all.

The shadows that plagued my nightmares were rippling along the street. Clawed hands and other demonic images stretched towards us, trying to grab a hold of the bike. Small patches of flowers that still grew along the side of the road despite the extension of bustling city life shriveled when the shadows did no more than brush their petals. Flashbacks flickered across my vision and a scream very nearly tore free from my lips.

Releasing on hand from the handlebars, Angelo reach back and gave my helmet a sudden flick. When I flinched, he ordered, “Keep it together Jade!”

“But I-!”

“Focus on me, not on the Shadows.”

I forced my eyes to the back of his head and held my gaze there. “Angelo…” I asked in a hesitant and very quiet voice. “… what the hell is that thing that’s chasing us?”

He laughed in a light but tense way. “It’s not a monster, like you’re implying. It’s just Shadows.”

At last I made the connection. “You mean… like the Element?”

“Yeah. Just like your Celcia, or my Guaritore.”

“Then somebody’s controlling it.”

I could feel him tense. “… Yes.” he admitted at last, his voice tight.

I blinked, realization dawning. “You… You know who it is, don’t you?”

He jerked the bike roughly to one side. “No.”

“Yes you do! You know who’s attacking us!”

“It can’t be him,” Angelo snapped, crashing past more trash cans. “He would never do this! He’s better than this!”

“Then who else could it be?!”

“I don’t know!” Another sharp turn. The Shadows clawed at the back of my shirt and succeeded in tearing it slightly. “But whoever he is, he’s able to manipulate people.” He glanced back at me. “If you think you’re brave enough, try looking behind us again. Those guys from before have been following us in a car for quite some time now.”

Forcing myself around, I was able to see that he was right. I swallowed. “Why are they so determined to go after us?”

Headlights flashed in front of us as Angelo leaned his full weight to one side in order to avoid an oncoming truck. “It’s because of us.” Sensing my confusion, he added, “Because of our marks.”

“Why?! What have we ever done to them?!”

“Absolutely nothing, but that’s just the way the world works. People are easily frightened by what they don’t understand. Scared humans are just like scared animals; they panic and become violent.”

“Has this happened before?”

He nodded solemnly. “And it will happen again and again.”

“But how do they even know how to identify us?” I reached up and tapped my helmet. “My mark is visible to anyone that looks in my general direction, but a lot of other people have barely visible marks.” I thought back to Flame, and to the burns that had been on his arm. “How can they find us so easily?”

Angelo tensed. “The only answer is that somebody must have told them about our marks.”

Flame had come to a similar decision, I remembered. “So they were just waiting for us to use our Elements, so that they could attack us?”

“Pretty much. And they won’t stop for anything.”

I blinked. “But they’re in cars. They have to run out of gas eventually, don’t they?”

“Yeah, but it won’t do us any good if we run out of gas before they do,” Angelo sighed. “We’ll have to think of a way to distract them.”

“I’m on it!” Tilting backwards in my seat, I focused on the Celcia inside of me and forced it outwards. Celcia crept along the Shadows, paralyzing them and allowing us to ride away freely. I breathed a sigh of relief, relaxing slightly.

The sound of gunshots interrupted my congratulations to myself. I turned back around and was faced by the glow from his throat. “Angelo, they can see the glow! You need to stop your mark from glowing!”

“I can’t,” he grunted. “I just need a few seconds more.”

“What are you waiting for?!”

“There are civilians around. We need to get to an open area.” He tilted and turned the bike swiftly to one side. We entered another alleyway. As we sped further along, Angelo’s mark flashed brighter than ever before.

He shuddered in pain with each pulsation, finally screaming in sudden agony. His mark seemed almost to shatter, blasting the light towards me and with it a sudden wave of the pain that had been taken from me before. I looked down, fully expecting to see gushing blood, but instead only seeing drying stains. It lasted for a few seconds before fading away once more, this time not into Angelo, but behind us.

Our pursuers were not so lucky.

The guns clattered uselessly from the opened windows of the car as all three men spasmed with the same unimaginable pain that had plagued me only moments before. The leader lost control of the car. None of them noticed as the car swerved off the road.

I forced myself to look away, and so I only heard the impact of metal and glass against unyielding brick. My stomach churned, but I still looked to Angelo in gratitude. “I don’t know how you did that, but it worked! They won’t go after us anymore. They-”

I stopped. The tears that were in his eyes – remaining there through sheer force of will alone – cut off my words. His shoulders shook as he struggled to regain control of himself. At last he asked quietly if I had a place to go. After admitting that I did not, he spoke with a faint voice. “I’ll bring you somewhere where you’ll definitely be safe then.”

Chapter Eight

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I didn’t start shaking again until I was past the statues and at the front door. As soon as the heavy doors swung open, I found that I was unable to stop. My previous fears – of that evil man, of the living dead girl, of being abandoned – seemed foolish. Those were the ridiculous nightmares of a child; this was the real world that I had to deal with. Those men had really intended to kill me.

While I was trying to regain control of myself, Cristina led me further into the unbelievably spacious main hall. We finally stopped beside a sofa. She motioned for me to sit, and then when I did, she slipped through another door. She returned shortly, this time with a drink in her hand. The look of concern on her face made me flinch and feel involuntarily guilty.

She forced a smile. “Here, drink this. It might help.”

Was it just uncontrollable trembling of my body, or did I really shake my head? I couldn’t really tell anymore.

I forced my voice. “N-No, I’m fine. I just…” I cut myself off before I could finish. I swallowed and took in a deep breath to soothe my frayed nerves. A little calmer, I spoke more firmly. “I’m fine.”

“But Jade, you’re shaking!” she protested.

“I’m fine!” I repeated, a bit harsher this time.

Cristina put a hand on her hips as she frowned down at me. “Stop pushing me away! Just because we haven’t known each other for very long doesn’t mean I can’t help you. Tell me the truth; you’re not okay!”

I shoved her away, standing with shaking legs. “I never asked for your help!”

“Jade…”

“Just leave me alone!”

She caught my arm when I tried to move past her. “You can barely stand on your own. Just sit back down and tell me what happened,” she commanded quietly; calmly, but firmly.

I wanted to argue further, but suddenly realized that I had no more arguments to give. I collapsed back into my seat, and let out a sigh as I began to explain as quickly and concisely as I could manage. “I got attacked by three strange men. A guy on a motorcycle saved me. He dropped me off here.”

“You were assaulted?!”

“Yeah. They jumped me outside of the school.”

Cristina looked quite shaken and very upset by the news. “Why? Did they think you had money on you? Were you alone?”

I started to shake my head, thought better of it, and shrugged instead. “I didn’t have any money… yes I was alone… but it had nothing to do with that. I was attacked because of my mark.”

The shuddering began once more. Now with it, I could feel Celcia rushing throughout my veins, frantic because of the turmoil of my emotions but unable to find an opponent to fight. Tears began to burn at my eyes. I closed them and took several short, forceful breaths.

It didn’t help.

“They… They called me an ‘it’.” I was talking again before I even realized it; words flowed easily from my mouth before I even had the time to process them. “I wasn’t even a person to them! They’d have killed me easily, and thought nothing of it. I… I…” Finally I broke down completely and gasped between sobs, “Oh my god… I… I really thought… th-that they… that they… w-were going to… that they were going to…!”

She sat down beside me on the couch and pulled me close. I sobbed into her shoulder, clinging to her best I could. “Cálmate. No hay lágrimas,” she murmured. “Todo irá bien.”

Despite her foreign words, which did nothing but confuse me, her tone soothing enough to calm me down a little, even if only for a split second. But not long after, another sob escaped me. My shuddering continued as more tears cascaded down my face. Still, she did not give up. When I heard Cristina voice again, it was melodic with song. This time, her words had and an immediate effect; the song -- the lullaby -- relaxed me immediately.

“Cierras ya tus ojitos.
Duermas sin temor.
Sueña con angelitos
parecidos a ti.

Y te agarrare tu mano.
Duermas sin temor.
Cuando tu despiertes,
yo estare aqui.

Y te agarrare tu mano.
Duermas sin temor.
Cuando tu despiertes,
yo estare aqui.”

At last I was able to regain control of myself. I stopped shaking and felt my breathing even out. I sniffled one last time before finally pulling away from Cristina’s embrace. “S-Sorry.”

She smiled reassuringly at me. “You don’t need to apologize. I’m just glad to help in any way that I can.”

I nodded. “What were you saying, anyways?”

“Hm? Oh, you mean the song? It’s an old lullaby that my mama used to sing to me when I was little. It always helped to calm me down.”

Before I could say anything else, I heard a voice, another unfamiliar one. “¡Cristina! ¿Dónde estás? ¡Cristina!”

“¡Estoy aquí, mamá!” Cristina called back quickly, glancing back at me. “That’s my mom. I’d better go talk to her. Do you mind waiting here for a minute?”

I shrugged.

She stood back up and slipped out the same door that she had returned through only moments earlier. After a moment of debating with myself, I rose as well and approached the door, standing beside it and listening to the conversation on the other side.

“Cristina, los vecinos están en estado de pánico total. Llamaron a Roger en el trabajo. Él me dijo que ellos dijeron que escucharon disparos y ... ¡y un explosión! ¿Qué está pasando?”

“Todo está bien, mamá. ¡En serio!” Cristina told her hurriedly. By her tone, I was able to tell that she was trying to reassure the frantic woman. “No tiene nada que ver con nosotros.”

“¡Pero dijeron que un muchacho extraño se detuvo en la casa inmediatamente después! Dijeron que él dejó una extraña chica detrás.” Her voice took on a stern note. “Cristina, contéstame con sinceridad.”

“S-Sí mamá.”

“¿Sabía usted permite que cualquier persona extraña a entrar en nuestra casa?”

Her voice shook as if uncertain. “N-No mamá.” She took a deep breath and then spoke again, this time with conviction. “No me he llevado ninguna chica extraña, o chicos, en la casa. Jade es mi amiga de la escuela. Ella es como Francine. Conoces Francine, ¿no? Jade es realmente no es diferente. Sólo que yo la conocí en la escuela hoy.”

The woman was still clearly upset, but her voice seemed a little calmer now. “¿Estás seguro de que todo está bien? No hay nada que debería preocuparme?”

“Sí mamá. No hay nada que usted necesita preocuparse.”

There was a long pause before the woman finally sighed. “Cristina, que me dijera si estaban en ningún tipo de problemas, ¿no es así? Si se va a quedar atrapado con el tipo equivocado de gente... si lo has hecho algo mal... nada de eso.”

“Sí mamá. Por supuesto.”

More silence, and then at last the sound of footsteps retreating back down the hall. “Sólo asegúrese de que me lo comunique de inmediato si algo malo le sucede nunca. ¡Nada en absoluto!”

“No te preocupes, lo haré.” Now at last Cristina returned to room I was in. If she was surprised to see me by the door, she did an excellent job of not showing it. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s fine. What were you two talking about? I couldn’t understand any of it.”

She looked uncomfortable “Well, yeah. I mean, it’s only logical that you wouldn’t be able to.” Seeing my confusion, she explained, “When my mom and I moved to America from Madrid, she had a really difficult time adjusting. The culture was just fine. It was the language that caused issues.” Cristina shrugged helplessly. “She studied with a language tutor for a little less than a year, so she knows a few simple words and phrases like ‘hello’, ‘my name is Cheryl’, ‘I am forty-six years old’, ‘how are you today’, ‘I am from Spain’, but she can’t handle anything harder because she gave up on learning English and fired the tutor. She said it was too complicated.”

“You seem pretty fluent though.”

“It’s easier for children to learn a new language than it is for adults. My mom and I moved here when I was pretty little, so I grew up hearing both languages. I mostly talk to other people in English, but since my mom only understands Spanish, I need to communicate with her in that way.”

That made sense. And it certainly explained why she would switch between the two languages subconsciously, as Lexie had said. Being completely fluent at multiple languages at such a young age – as well as being completely submerged in both cultures constantly for your entire life – must be very confusing.

I thought back to their conversation from before. “So what were you talking about?” I repeated, genuinely curious.

Cristina led me back to the couch and sat just after I did. “She was worried about the gunshots and the explosion. I assume you had something to do with that?”

“Kind of… The guy that rescued me was the one that caused the explosion. He used an Element of some sort; one that I didn’t recognize.” Not that I had seen very many examples of Elements as it was…

The blonde teenager puzzled over this. “Explosions, huh,” she mumbled, looking distracted. “That sounds like a Fyre ability. But you said it was a guy that rescued you, right? Definitely not a girl?”

I thought back to my escape, my rescue. “Definitely a guy,” I concluded.

Cristina thought about it for a moment longer, then shrugged. “I don’t know of any male Fyre users,” she admitted.

“I do.” The response had been automatic; I immediately regretted it, but could not take it back.

She looked surprised. “Really.? Wow. Do you think it could have been him?”

“No.” I shook my head quickly. “I’d have recognized him right away if it was the guy I knew. I didn’t recognize the guy that saved me at all.”

That was a total lie. I couldn’t place him, but he was familiar enough for me to know that I definitely knew him from somewhere. But where?

“Oh.” She seemed disappointed.

‘Besides,’ I added quietly to myself, just in my head. ‘Healing isn’t a Fyre ability, it’s a Guaritore.’ For some reason I didn’t feel like sharing this with her. No, ‘not feeling like it’ isn’t exact enough. My gut instinct told me to definitely not tell Cristina about Angelo’s powers.

I covered these thoughts with a frown. “It doesn’t matter now though. He’s probably long gone anyways.”

“True…” Cristina stood again. She did not face me, but from the angle I was at I could still see that her blue eyes were cloudy and distracted. She blinked suddenly, clearing the haze. Turning back towards me, she smiled. “Do you have somewhere that you’re staying? My mom could give you a ride if you want.”

I tensed slightly. “Yes. That’s okay, I’ll walk.”

Unlike Shane, Cristina immediately picked up on the lie. Her expression changed from pleasant to disbelieving. “Jade, you don’t actually have somewhere to go to, do you?”

“O-Of course I do!”

“Don’t lie. Why would you lie about something like that?”

“I-”

The sudden blare of the doorbell jolted me from my thoughts; in all honesty, it made me flinch. For a moment neither of us dared to move. We just continued staring at each other, as if daring the other to look away. Then the doorbell sounded again and Cristina broke my gaze. She walked back down the hallway, calling back over her shoulder, “Wait right here. I’ll just see who it is and then I’ll be right back.”

Translations from Spanish to English

__________________________


[Cristina comforting Jade:]

"Calm down. No tears. Everything will be fine."

[Cristina’s song:]

"You close your eyes now.
Sleep without fear.
He dreams of angels
like you.

And I'll grab your hand.
Sleep without fear.
When you wake up,
I'll be here.

And I'll grab your hand.
Sleep without fear.
When you wake up,
I'll be here."

[Cristina (C) speaks with her mom (M):]

(M) "Cristina! Where are you? Cristina!"

(C) "I'm here, mom!"

(M) "Cristina, the neighbors are in a state of panic. They called Roger at work. He told me they said they heard shots and ... and an explosion! What's going on?"

(C) "It's okay, mom. Seriously! It has nothing to do with us."

(M) "But they said a strange boy stopped by the house immediately afterwards! They said he left behind a strange girl. Cristina, answer me honestly."

(C) "Y-Yes mom."

(M) "Did you let any strange people into our house?"

(C) "N-No, mom. I have not brought any strange girl or boys in the house. Jade is my friend from school . She's like Francine. You know Francine, right? Jade is really no different. Only I just met her in school today."

(M) "Are you sure everything is okay? There is nothing I should worry about?"

(C) "Yes mom. There is nothing you need to worry about."

(M) "Cristina, you would tell me if you were in any trouble, wouldn't you? If you were to get caught with the wrong type of people... if you did something wrong... anything like that."

(C) "Yes mom. Of course."

(M) "Just make sure I know immediately if something bad happens. Anything at all!"

(C) "Don’t worry, I will."

Chapter Nine.

__________


I planned to sit there, impatiently waiting for Cristina to return. But the sound of a sudden shattering, paired with muffled shouts, had me bolting from my seat to the door. I tore it open and tumbled into the hall beyond. I rose hurriedly to my feet and rushed onwards, following the loud yells and crashes.

One of the statues had been decapitated. The other lay in various large chunks across a lawn frosted by Celcia. Smoke billowed up towards the sky, the result not of a fire, but of an Element.

My stomach twisted into a knot. I knew who must be here.

The two girls – one teenager and one woman – stood facing each other, the elder with her back to me. I was able to see Cristina’s infuriated expression. Her hands were tightened to fists. A symbol mirroring my own was clear upon her brow.

“What do you want?!” Cristina demanded, defensive.

“I came to find Jade,” her opponent admitted in a startlingly quiet voice.

“What do you want with her?!”

I stepped forward, eyes still focused on the crimson-haired woman. “Cristina, it’s fine,” I told her in a voice quiet enough to match the elder of the two.

Cristina looked incredulously at me. “Fine?! Jade, don’t you know what this woman has done?! The type of person she is?!”

I didn’t – not exactly – so I didn’t bother trying to pretend that I did. I stood across from the Aiere wielder now. Stared deep into her dark eyes. “…How did you find me?” I asked her at last.

“Flame told me I needed to look for you.”

“And how did he know where I was?”

“He didn’t. Or if he did, he didn’t tell me.” She sighed grumpily. “I had to find you all by myself. And you’re not the easiest person to find!”

“I’m not going back.”

DarkFyre sighed, exasperated. “Jade…”

“Don’t act like I’m being unreasonable!” I snapped. “You saw what happened. I’m not going back to live with your two again, and nothing you can say can change my mind!”

She looked away. “It… wouldn’t be with the two of us, actually.”

I blinked. “What do you mean?”

“Flame...” She trailed off, eyeing Cristina. Evidently she had seen the way that the younger girl had tensed slightly. DarkFyre’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Attack me again and I will smother you to death, princess!” she hissed. The smoke returned to her arms, twirling threateningly around her.

I glared at her, at both of them. “Stop it!”

Cristina just continued to glare, arms folded across her chest as she glared at DarkFyre. “I want her out of here,” she told me in an angry, tense sort of voice. “I want her out of my house.”

DarkFyre rolled her eyes. “It’s not your house, it’s your mother’s.”

“You know what I meant!”

I started forward, grabbing DarkFyre’s sleeve and pulling her towards the door. “Fine,” I growled, anger focused on DarkFyre, but my words directed towards Cristina. “We were just leaving anyways.”

DarkFyre didn’t even try to free herself. She simply followed me meekly out the door. Once we were past the statues, when we finally stood still, at the edge of that vast lawn, I released her arm and turned her forcibly around so that she had no choice but to look at me.

“Now then,” I began, watching how she fidgeted uncomfortably in place. “What’s this about Flame?”

Her eyes stayed focused, almost forcibly, to one side, making it obvious that she wouldn’t – couldn’t – look at me directly.

I repeated myself, more irritated than worried, “What’s going on?”

Now at last the dark irises swept over and met my gaze. Held it. There was something unfamiliar in her eyes; something that I had never expected to see in DarkFyre of all people. My stomach gave a sudden lurch at the abrupt sign of weakness, shown so suddenly as to throw me off guard. One of the tears broke free and ran down her face, leaving a dark trail due to her smearing makeup. At the end of its path, the tear dropped and was swiftly absorbed by her dark blouse.

“Jade, let’s…” she started to suggest, but her voice wavered. DarkFyre stopped. Took a deep breath as if to compose herself. Continued. “Can we go somewhere else to talk?”

* * *

I turned to face her with a pounding heart and palms slick with my own sweat. Thousands of scenarios rushed through my head, each worse than the ones before them. By now DarkFyre had managed to calm down, but I had become a panicking mess. I gathered my nerves and then asked in a quavering voice, “What’s wrong with Flame? What’s happened?”

DarkFyre kept her head ducked down. Her back was pressed against the gate that I had fallen asleep against so many hours before. It was the first location that had come to mind when she had mentioned wanted to talk elsewhere, though there were no teens on their way to class now. The gates were no longer open; they were shut tightly and locked absolutely; impenetrable.

I sat beside her and gave her a slight shake. “Hey, DarkFyre, I asked you a que-”

“I know that!” she snapped, bolting upwards and slapping my hand away. As I looked on in hurt and confusion, the woman sighed and looked away. Slumped back down. “Flame’s okay. Or at least, I assume he is.”

That next statement shattered my blossoming relief like a plate dropped from a clumsy waitress’ shaking hands. I blinked. Blinked again. Closed my eyes. Had to remember to breathe, to force air into my lungs. Struggled to keep my temper in check. Opened my eyes again. Took a deep breath. Held it. Let it out. Searched for the right words, and let them out, trying my hardest to keep calm. “What do you mean? Don’t you know for sure?”

Guilt swamped her features. “No, I don’t.”

“Why not?!”

“I haven’t seen him since you ran off.” Reaching into her phone, she pulled out a small device. After pressing a few buttons, she handed it over. “The last time I heard from him was when he texted me a little bit ago.” She tapped the small screen, which now had a small message written on it. “‘ppl aftr * aftr j ?f wl hlp fnd cnt go bck sry’,” she read aloud, just as my eyes ran over each strange word.

“What does-?”

DarkFyre cut me off, hurriedly translating. “‘The same people that were after me are after Jade now. I have a friend (one that you never got a chance to meet) that will help you to find her. I can’t help any more than this. I can’t come back.’” Her voice choked a little with the last part. “‘S-Sorry.’”

I stared incredulously at her. “What’s that supposed to mean? ‘I can’t come back.’”

She wiped at her eyes and left a smear of black beneath them, like a raccoon. “Remember how Flame said that he needed to leave? So that we’d be safe?”

“Yeah…”

“Well he did. Right after you left, he just suddenly ran off in the opposite direction. At first I thought that he had just gone back to the apartment.”

“He hadn’t?”

She shook her head. “If I had followed him, I’d probably have caught up. But I assumed that I knew where he was going, so I…” She choked on a sob, forced herself to continue. “When I got to the apartment, the tenant wouldn’t let me back in. She told me that the renter had just moved out. Had taken all his stuff with him apparently.”

“What?! Just like that?!”

“I know! I was stunned, shell-shocked even.”

“I would have been too.”

She nodded her approval, then continued. “So anyways, I turned to leave – because really, what else could I do? – but the tenant suddenly stopped me. She told me that the renter had left something for me.”

“Flame left something?” At her nod, I asked, “Well, what was it?”

“It turned out to be a single strip of paper with what seemed to be a random set of numbers written clumsily on it.”

“Numbers?”

“Yeah. I figured out that it was a phone number.”

“Flame’s?”

She shook her head. “No, it was slightly different. But it was his handwriting, so I figured that he must have just had the number changed. He used to do that every time we had to move locations.”

“Did you try calling the number?”

“Immediately. But all I ever got was the answering machine; it was some guy’s voice that I didn’t recognize. He was saying the same thing over and over again with a thick accent and foreign words – Italian, I think – but I couldn’t understand a word of it.”

“Then how did you know-?”

DarkFyre grinned proudly. “I’ve been dating Flame for several years now. Trust me, I’d recognize his texting style anywhere! He hates vowels – he told me that they’re too hard to find with his thumb – unless they’re absolutely necessary. ?f means literally, ‘mystery friend’. He always puts an asterisk to represent his name. Mine is the pound symbol.”

“Asterisk? Pound symbol?”

“The little star and the number sign.”

“Oh.”

“So yeah, there’s no doubt that the message was from him.”

I sat beside her and pulled my knees to my chest. “After you called and got the answering message, before you got the text, what did you do?”

“Just wandered around the town mostly.” She wrinkled her nose. “I ran into my annoying little sister and had to ditch her. Then a stupid dog decided to chase me around until I was able to convince it that I was not a chew toy. You now, the usual stuff.”

Although I didn’t know much about what was considered ‘usual’, I was fairly certain that what DarkFyre had just described was not it.

“And after that Flame texted you?” I asked, quickly cutting her off before she had a chance to explain exactly how she got the dog to back off.

She nodded solemnly. “Afterwards, I started asking around to see if I could find someone that had seen you. I was finally able to find some witnesses that had seen that crazy car chase that you got caught up in.” DarkFyre glanced sideways at me. “You were wearing a helmet the whole time, right?”

I nodded.

She seemed relieved. “Good. Riding without one is a horrible habit to pick up.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Worse than smoking?” I pointed out dryly.

“Ha ha, nice one, shortie,” DarkFyre sneered in a voice lacking amusement. Her usual composure was back at last; I was relieved. Her hand went to her pocked. Hesitated. Dropped back to the ground. She sighed, as if disappointed. “Dammit! I forgot, I dropped my pack of cigarettes earlier, when I was fighting Cristina.”

“Yeah speaking of… what the heck was that all about?!” I demanded.

DarkFyre rolled her eyes. “Calm down,” she snorted, slightly irked.

She put her middle and pointer finger together, as if holding a mock cigarette. Bringing these two fingers to her lips, she blew a ring of smoke that circled around me before blowing away on a breeze that brought my dark hair fluttering up around me for the briefest of seconds.

As I scowled, coughing a little at the pungent smoke that drifted past my face, DarkFyre continued coolly. “Like I said before, we don’t get along. At all.”

“Still, that’s no reason to attack her!”

A glint of anger flared through her eyes. DarkFyre dropped her hand back to her side and stood abruptly enough to make the gate rattle. Turning away from me, she stormed a few feet away. She paused there. Her back was to me, but I could still see that her shoulders were locked, tensed. After a moment of standing stiff and frozen like that, she finally let out an angry huff of air and turned suddenly to face me once more.

“Check your facts before you make sudden accusations,” she growled, glaring at me.

“What are you-?” I blinked. “Wait… A-Are you implying that she attacked you?!”

“I’m just saying what happened!” she snapped, evidently reading the disbelief on my face.

“But why would she-?”

DarkFyre crossed her arms and frowned slightly. “It’s not just that I don’t like her; she hates my guts too. She’s friends with my baby sister after all.”

“You mean Francine?”

She flinched at the name, but nodded.

More of Chapter Nine

_______________


I thought back to when DarkFyre had mentioned her before. “You said that she had a… Fyre element, didn’t you?”

“Yup. Remember when I was explaning about the different types each Element could be? And I mentioned that Fyre had both a ‘sunlight’ and a ‘fireworks’?”

“Yeah.”

“Well the second is her element. It’s really annoying, mainly because she has no control of it whatsoever.” She shrugged. “Although to be fair, that could have changed since I last saw her.”

“You mean a few minutes ago?”

DarkFyre looked startled. “Huh?”

“You said you ran into her earlier,” I explained. “when you were telling me what happened while you were wandering around the town.”

She relaxed slightly. “Oh right. I had forgotten all about that. Yeah, I saw her. We argued. I ditched her. But I didn’t really stick around to see how her abilities had improved. I couldn’t see her mark anymore, which was enough of an explanation for me.”

“So when you saw her, you guys argued?”

“Yup.” DarkFyre blew some of her bangs out of her face, revealing a small burn near her scalp. “I got this a few years ago. I didn’t want a repeat of that, obviously.”

I winced. “That looks painful.”

She shrugged nonchalantly, brushing her bangs back into place. “It did at first, but I’ve gotten used to it.” DarkFyre glanced back at the school. Her dark eyes seemed focused, as if she was looking for something in particular. But clearly she did not find it; after a moment she looked away and returned her gaze to mine. “I keep getting sidetracked, so just shut up and listen to what I have to say for once.”

Insulted, I glared at her. However, I held my tongue. There wasn’t any point in picking a fight with her now.

“Good. Now then, top priority has to be to find Flame.”

“Hold up a minute!” I protested, standing as well and walking over to her.

She frowned grumpily at me. “What is it now?”

I folded my arms across my chest. “I’m not helping.”

“What?! Why won’t you?!”

“Why should I?! After what he did…”

“Jade, he’s done so much for you! He helped you out of the gutters and taught you how to be a normal person. He helped explain the Elements to you. He protected you, mainly from me. You’d throw all of that away, for a stupid reason?!”

“He hit me!”

“You deserved it!”

We stood glaring at each other, both in each other’s faces. “…I’m not going with you,” I growled at last, turning away from her. “You can go find him on your own.”

“But Jade-!”

I pretended not to hear her and simply continued walking away.

“-what if he’s hurt?”

I froze. The scenarios that had previously plagued my mind came rushing back once more. I shuddered just the slightest bit.

DarkFyre picked up on the hesitation immediately, and was quick to pounce upon it, a cat catching sight of a mouse with a broken leg. “Jade, if he’s hurt you can’t just stand by; you owe him that much, after everything he’s done for you.”

I shook my head slowly. “I just don’t-”

“How would you be able to sleep at night, knowing that you could have been the one to save him? That by refusing to help me to find him, you practically sentenced him to die?”

“We don’t even know if he’s hurt!” I pointed out, shaking now.

“And if he is? What if you think he’s not, but he really is?”

“I-”

DarkFyre turned away from me, but I still saw her triumphant smirk. “Well if you want to be heartless, then go back to Cristina and spend the rest of your selfish days with her. As for me, I’m going to go find my boyfriend and make sure that he’s okay and not lying in some alleyway, cold, hungry, badly injured and very much alone.”

She only walked a few steps before I found myself hurrying to catch up with her.

Chapter Ten
_________

DarkFyre glanced back at me. Her triumphant smirk was almost unbearable. “So. Where do we start?”

“You’re the one that saw him last,” I grumbled. “You’d have a better idea than I would.”

“Right.” She frowned and looked around. “Um… Well, maybe he’s… or maybe…” She gestured helplessly around for a while, as if waving her arms actually meant something, then slowly lowered them and sighed. She scratched the back of her head sheepishly. “Actually, I really have no idea.”

I sighed. “And you’re expecting me to be able to know more about where he is more than you do?”

“Yes.”

I opened my mouth to say something else – a retort, a protest, a suggestion – but was interrupted by the sound of approaching voices. There were two of them, which was strange, because I expected to hear four. I expected to hear more than I did, because I knew those voices, and I expected them to be together. They had been when I had met them before.

I was moving before DarkFyre had a chance to even say a word. I rounded the corner, and there they were. “Terrance! Xeph!” I exclaimed.

They looked to me in surprise, but Terrance was the one to speak first. “Jade?” he asked, looking at first uncertain, then excited. “Jade, it is you! We were just looking for you!”

“You were?” I frowned, stopping in front of the duo. “What for?”

Terrance frowned as well. “What do you mean, what for? We went to talk to you after school got out, but you weren’t there. Shane said you had somewhere to be, but we had no idea where the hell that was!”

“Oh… right.”

Xeph looked at me curiously. “Were you looking for us, Jade?”

“No.” I paused, considered my search. Maybe this would make things quicker. “Actually… yeah, I was.” I glanced between the two boys as I asked, “Have either of you seen a man with blonde hair and blue eyes? He’s about this tall,” I motioned over my head, “and he was wearing a dark t-shirt and blue pant- I mean, jeans. He’s probably around twenty years old. His name is Flame.”

“Flame? What kind of name is that?” Xeph asked, dumbfounded.

“His name.” My gaze lingered on Terrance. I had noticed the way he had tensed at the name. “Do you… know him?” I ventured.

He looked sharply away. “…No.”

It looked like he did. Why would he lie? “Are you sure?” I asked, frowning.

“Yes.” The response was quick, almost bitter.

“But-”

“Guys, did you find her?”

I startled, looking to my right. Our eyes met, darkest blues to brilliant silvers. “Sh-Shane,” I stammered, surprised at seeing him again. “Hi.”

“Hi.” He looked back and forth between all of us. “Did they already tell you how we were looking for you?”

“Yeah.”

Shane smiled. “Good.” He glanced back, seemingly at the empty space behind him, and frowned suddenly. “Where the heck did Lexie get off to?” he mumbled to himself, looking concerned by her absence.

Xeph interrupted his thoughts, motioning to me. “Jade is looking for a friend of hers.”

Shane seemed surprised by that as well. He looked at me. “Really? Who?”

“His name is Flame.” I repeated my earlier description, finishing by questioning if he had seen him.

Shane looked surprised by the name. He smiled suddenly, startling me, and let out a bark of barely smothered laughter. “Flame, huh,” he muttered. His voice seemed nostalgic. “I hadn’t heard that name in years, and then all of a sudden it started popping up everywhere. How strange.”

“Wait… You know him?!”

Shane nodded once, solemnly.

The other two looked as shell-shocked as I felt.

Shane regarded our reactions with a strange blend of surprise and concern. His smile faded. He turned to glance at Terrance. “I told you that already, remember? That I knew him.”

There was a flicker of emotion at one corner of the pale teen’s mouth, but his dark sunglasses hid the twin sparks of anger that exploded suddenly in his eyes. He swallowed slowly, a swallow that was paired with a deep breath that brought his ribcage extended outwards as far as it could go. Then the muscles that tensed in his arms –muscles that I only noticed as soon as he had relaxed them – loosened. “…Yeah, you mentioned that you used to hang out with two Elemental kids,” he agreed at last. A frown now tugged his lips slightly downwards, “but you never mentioned their names.”

“Didn’t I?” The surprise and the concern lingered. “Oh. Well… The kids I used to hang out with, their names were Lorrel and Angelo.”

Now I was the one to frown. “Lorrel?” Who the heck was Lorrel?! The name was foreign to me.

Shane turned back towards me. “Lorrel is the name of the guy you were describing a little while ago.”

I blinked. “… You mean Flame?”

He laughed. “That’s what he goes by, yeah.” Seeing my confusion, he explained, “Flame is just his nickname.”

“Oh, so it’s like how Alexandria is Lexie?”

Shane nodded, a smile still lingering on his lips. “Yep. He always said that ‘Lorrel’ was too feminine-sounding.” Another chuckle. “He thought that Flame was much more manly.”

Terrance cut in, sounding impatient. “So? Have you seen him or not?”

He hesitated, which in itself as strange, before answering. “I… may have.”

I blinked. “You… You have?” I had not been expecting that. “Where?” I demanded.

Shane wouldn’t look at me for a moment. He was silent for a moment. When he finally spoke, he looked up at me with a cautious gaze. “…Who wants to know?”

Xeph frowned at him. “Jade does, obviously.”

Shane shook his head. Stared intently at me. “Who wants to know?” he asked again. His voice was quiet and calm, but slightly strained.

I caught on to his meaning almost immediately, only after a very brief delay. I considered my options. I could lie, of course. That might get me Flame’s location, but where would that leave me with Shane? Or with myself? The idea of lying about this made my stomach tense. And if I told the truth? Shane might withhold the information because of it. But really, what else could I do?

“DarkFyre. Gloria,” I told him, deciding that it was best to use both names. “His girlfriend.”

He nodded as if in approval, a faint smile to his lips, which he soon lost as his expression became solemn. “Then I can’t tell you,” he told me quietly, almost sadly.

“Hey!” protested Xeph. “You can’t just-!”

I shook my head, cutting him off. “No, it’s fine.” I had already suspected as much, as soon as Shane had asked me who wanted to know. Flame had disappeared without a trace; clearly he didn’t want to be found by anyone, least of all his girlfriend.

“No it’s not!”

I grimaced as the others turned towards the sudden voice. I turned slowly and kept my voice steady even as my eyes narrowed and I tensed. “DarkFyre, if he’s not going to tell us then he’s not going to tell us. Just drop it.”

She ignored me, choosing instead to storm over to our small group. Smoke snaked along her body, curling around her shoulder, down her back, across her waist, then blossoming outwards as if to form a hoop around her. With each step, the cloud grew thicker and darker.

Terrance and Xeph glanced sharply at one another, then stepped forward to stand in front of Shane. As if to protect him from attack.

DarkFyre immediately stopped, frowning at the two. “Move it,” she growled, clearly irritated.

“No,” Terrance growled back. His voice was determined, stern, and… familiar?

Clearly DarkFyre noticed as well. Her dark eyes widened with sudden surprise, then narrowed again. “So. You’re that twerp that Flame was telling me about.”

He seemed to tense, defensive. “So what if I am?” he demanded. Then after a moment’s pause, he asked cautiously, “What… What did Lorrel say about me?”

DarkFyre laughed that same laugh she usually did; equal part cruelly mocking and genuinely amused. “Why the hell would I tell you that?”

I looked curiously at her. “He knows Flame?”

“No,” Terrance snapped, just as DarkFyre sneered, “Duh!”

I scowled. “Which one of you is telling the truth?”

“Me!” both insisted.

“Gloria is,” Shane told me, so softly that I barely heard it.

Terrance looked at him in disbelief. “Shane!” he exclaimed, sounding hurt. “What the hell?!”

He shrugged nonchalantly, but when he spoke, his voice was tense and infuriated. “Flame was the best friend I ever had. I have no idea why you guys don’t get along. It’s none of my business. I know that. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to lie to Jade about him and you.”

“Shane, don’t you dare-!”

He rose his voice to a shout. “What the hell is wrong with you, Terrance?! What’s your problem with Lorrel?! What the hell did he even do to you?!”

“He-”

Shane didn’t listen. He just glared at Terrance, who still seemed dazed by the yelling. His voice was a growl. “It doesn’t matter how much you try to deny it. He’s still your brother!”

The words seemed to hang in the air for a moment, for Terrance and I both. Fragments of memories danced through my mind’s eye. I stumbled backwards, ducked my head and pressed both thumbs against my temples.

The world began to swim around me. I could see the light that pulsated from the mark on my face; barely though, because my eyes were squinted from pain. My vision blurred. Blurred, and then cleared.

Revealed… two boys. I knew them both. It was…

* * *

“Hurry up, slowpoke!”

He stares

at me

for a moment longer.

His golden eyes

are wide.

Questioning.

What are you doing in there,

he asks

without words.

I cannot answer.

I cannot move.

He leans down,

staring at me

with a child’s

curiosity.

“Lorrel!

Come on!

What’s taking so long?”

He withdraws suddenly,

fear in his eyes.

What did he see?

The boy

stand there

a second longer.

Then,

shaking

uncontrollably

he turns

and runs away.

I can still hear

the voices

as the world darkens

and the water suffocates.

“What was that all about?”

“…Nothing.”

“Hey, it was too something!

You gotta tell me what it was!”

“…No.”

“Why not?!”

“You’re too little, Terance.”

I…

I am too little as well.

Too little to be here.

Too little to be lost.

Too little to be alone.

Too little to be dying.

“No I’m not!”

You can tell

by his whine

that he really is

too little.

The boy

with the golden hair

doesn’t answer.

At first,

I think it’s because

he’s stubborn.

But then

I hear a faint voice.

And I know

that it’s because

they’re already gone

and I’m already dead.

* * *

Flame. He… He had been there, just before I met the Shadow Man. (Or was it afterwards? I couldn’t be sure.)

But I had no time to recover from the shock of the vision.

More of Chapter Ten
______________

“Shut up!” Terrance bellowed – well, truthfully it was more like he screeched it. In one fluid motion, he tore off one of his gloves and flung it to the side. The discarded white glove lay limp and motionless, but his hand did not. The hand tightened into a tight fist. He raised said fist, holding it in front of his face so that the back of his hand face d us.

His mark flared suddenly into view, radiating light that was startling similar to the color of the Shadow Man’s hair. I flinched at the sight of it.

The teen glared at Shane. His fist loosened, and he lashed out with his hand, as if to claw at the silver-haired boy. Shane jerked backwards to avoid the blow. His eyes were wide with shock, startled by the sudden attack.

A thin line of liquid congealed along Terrance’s arm, the arm which had the mark on the hand. Smoke, much lighter – practically invisible, and not quite as thick – as DarkFyre’s, blossomed from the water, along with a sharp hissing noise. Splotches of pinkish-red appeared along the lines of water. Terrance made a sort of choking noise in the back of his throat. He sounded like he was immense pain. The boy stumbled backwards, away from Shane, and then raised his unburned hand to remove his sunglasses. His pale eyes were narrowed with hate and pain.

“T-Terrance…” Shane stammered, sounding concerned. He started forward, as if he wanted to help his friend.

Terrance yelled again, this time without words. He closed his hand to a fist once more and punched forward, though his fist was too far from Shane to cause any damage. The steam hissed like a striking serpent, as it rose away from Terrance, spiraled around his body, and then charged at Shane.

There was a sudden gale of wind. It tore past me, hitting the steam head-on and forcing it higher into the air, until it faded away to nothing more than a gentle breeze.

I turned to find the source of the attack, and was surprised to see that the top of Xeph’s back glowed beneath his shirt. Despite not being able to see any symbol, nor any light, it was clear by the way that the air around him shimmered – as though something glowed without color – that the mark pulsed brightly upon his shoulder. He glared heatedly at Terrance, but no words were exchanged between the two.

There was no time for that.

A blur of crimson and brown – blurred together, because of such fast movement – streaked past my line of vision. Fur brushed past my arm, surprisingly warm to the touch, but gone in an instant. I gasped as I stumbled backwards, and looked on in horror as the creature charged towards Terrance, a feral snarl rumbling in its throat as it lunged for his. Its dark eyes were narrowed with ferocious hatred.

“How dare you?!” the beast snarled, in a surprisingly feminine voice. Light seeped past her glistening fangs; a green the color of the foliage I had seen when I had first woken up. “I’ll kill you! I’ll rip you limb from limb!”

“Get the hell off of me!” Terrance yelped, struggling frantically to avoid the snapping jaws. There was real fear in his eyes.

The fear had replaced any remaining anger. He seemed about to faint from his terror at any second, but fainting would cost him his life, so he continued to fight, though he was clearly losing the battle. Any second, the creature would hold true to her promise, and rip him apart with her strong jaws.

“Lexie!” Shane yelled. His voice was authoritative; but despite the strength radiating from his voice, there was also a slight hint of terror that I easily detected. “Lexie, get the hell off of him! It was just an accident!”

I started forward. (Though really, what good could I do?!)

DarkFyre grabbed me by the arm and pulled me backwards. I turned to her and tried to pull free. “Hey, stop it!” I protested. “Let go!”

“Flame would never forgive me if I let you get hurt,” DarkFyre hissed, her voice just as scared as Terrance and Shane’s.

“But I-!”

I glanced back, seeing that Shane was now standing beside Lexie. He wrapped both arms around her furry waist and pulled as hard as he could. She came loose almost immediately, turning and snapping at him. He caught her by the jaw, pinning it shut. But just barely.

While Shane struggled with Lexie, Terrance scrambled to his feet and ran to the side. There he stayed, wheezing from a mix of terror and relief.

“Let me go!” Lexie growled, forcing her words past her closed jaw, mirroring my earlier demands.

She struggled more, and managed to pull away from Shane. She opened and closed her mouth a few times, testing to make sure that her jaw was still alright, then snarled angrily at Shane. Her fur bristled, her muscles tense. Fury radiated from her.

“Stop it,” Shane snapped. The fear was gone from his voice. Now, only anger remained. “Turn back to your normal form. This fight isn’t worth it. Don’t make me hurt you; not for something like this!”

“He tried to hurt you!” Lexie protested. But even I could see that her anger was ebbing.

Shane walked slowly towards her. His anger vanished slowly, replaced with a calm that one would have to fake when talking to a frustratingly stubborn child. “Yes, he tried. But he didn’t hurt me. See?” He motioned to himself, then added, “I’m fine.”

His words finally seemed to reach the logic that had been smothered by her animalistic instinct to kill. She relaxed her tense muscles and closed her eyes, her breath still heavy, though she no longer panted. Shane put both hands on her shoulders. She leaned forward, resting her head against his chest as she fell slowly to her knees.

“Lexie…” he whispered, his voice both cautious and begging. “Please… turn back.”

The light that seeped past her fangs grew fainter and fainter, until finally it faded away completely. Her jaw shrank suddenly, and the fur along her body withdraw at a rapid pace. Within second, the Lexie I knew was sitting there, leaning against Shane, who now dropped his arms and embraced the girl.

A sharp pang of emotion that was unfamiliar to me flared. I shook it away, trying to focus on the scene before me.

Lexie looked up. There was a foreign emotion in her eyes. She seemed a little sad, but that wasn’t all there was to it. “Shane-” she started.

But before I could hear what it was that she was going to say, DarkFyre resumed dragging me backwards. We were around the corner before I had the chance to even protest.

Chapter Eleven
___________

Irritated by the unwanted escape, I kicked a rock and watched as it shot across the road and landed near a red thing that my mind soon classified as a fire hydrant.

I got to thinking about a few things. (Really, what else could I do? It wasn’t as though DarkFyre would let me go back there. I would have to wait for her to leave first. I had begun to realize that, as time went on, my recognition of foreign objects have begun to strengthen.

Wait no, that wasn’t quite right. It wasn’t the passing time that unlocked the memories that had been previously locked away. It was the people I had met. But they had said little to explain such confusing things to me; Flame being the exception. So how did talking to strangers – learning their names, experiencing their abilities, arguing with them – benefit my memory?

Also, why was it that all of these ‘strangers’ had had an Element of some sort? DarkFyre and Flame had made it sound as though Elemental users were rare, but I had met a startling total of seven, just since waking up! (Well, actually nine – I recalled with a shudder – if you counted the living dead girl and the shadow man.)

The sudden hand in front of my face startled me, and brought me crashing back to the present. I glanced uneasily at DarkFyre. “Wh-What?”

She frowned at me, one hand placed almost lazily on her hip, in what seemed to be an irritated manner. “Pay attention!” she scolded.

“I am paying attention!” I defended.

DarkFyre just looked at me disbelievingly. “Really.” She didn’t even bother to phrase it as a question.

I tensed. “Yes, really.”

The look of disbelief vanished, and was instead was replaced by a fake looking smile, as if she was trying to play nice. “Then would you mind answering my question?” she asked sweetly.

I swallowed, hesitating.

“Well?”

“I…” I looked away. “… Whatever.”

“Oh, so you weren’t listening after all.” The smile became genuine; a genuine smirk.

“Shut up!” My cheeks flamed.

DarkFyre chuckled, but her amusement didn’t last long. Her expression soon became grim. “What I asked, was if you had met those guys before.”

“Who? Terrance and Xeph and Shane?”

“Yeah. They seemed to know you.”

I was surprised that she had caught on to that. “Yeah, I ran into them after… well, you know…” I looked away uncomfortably. “I ran away.”

“Speaking of,” she frowned at me, “you really need to stop doing that?”

“Doing what?” I asked, confused. I glanced back at DarkFyre and saw that she was frowning disapprovingly at me.

“Running away from your problems.”

I flinched and looked away again. “I… I don’t run away from my problems…”

She stared at me.

“Well I don’t always run away.”

“You do often enough for it to be a problem. Didn’t I train you? Teach you how to defend yourself?”

I refused to look at her.

“Jade.” Her voice held an authoritative edge. “Look at me.”

I did so, but very reluctantly.

DarkFyre stared intently at me for a moment, then sighed as if disappointed. She shook her head sadly.

I bristled, defensive. “What?!”

“Flame was right. You’re just like a little kid.”

“He didn’t say it like that!” I protested, face flaming again. “He said that I reminded him of a kid that he knew!”

“I’m not talking about what he said when we first met you!” she snapped. “I’m talking about one of the things he said to me, after you left!”

At first, I wasn’t sure whether to feel betrayed that Flame had been talking behind my back, or honored that he cared enough about me to do so. I finally settled for feeling betrayed.

Apparently my reaction was clear in my expression. DarkFyre frowned at me. “Calm down. You don’t even know what he said about you.”

I didn’t respond.

She sighed. “Fine, I’ll tell you. I mean, if you’re going to be so insistent about it.”

“But I didn’t ask about-”

“Just shut up and listen!”

Feeling a sense of déjà vu, I did so reluctantly.

DarkFyre was quiet for a moment, as if she were reliving the memory as I stood there waiting. Right when I started to get a little impatient, she finally spoke. “He told me that you react to things like a little kid would.”

“No I don’t!”

“I said shut up!” She scowled. “Now I’ve lost my train of thought,” she complained bitterly, glaring at me.

I stared impatiently back at her as I waited for her to resume her story. I didn’t apologize for interrupting, nor did I promise not to do it again. I just stared intently at DarkFyre, practically glaring back at the irritated woman.

Finally she was able to gather her thoughts again. “…He said that you always seemed to run away from things that you didn’t know. Or at least, you tried to. You mentally ran away from speech, because of what some weird guy said to you. You felt the need to flee when you were submerged in darkness. And, of course, you literally ran away after Flame hit you.”

There was actually more instances than just that, but I decided that it was better to keep quiet for the time being.

“Those reactions point to a child that has been frightened by something,” she continued. “But you’re not a child. At least, not as young as you should be, to be having those reactions.”

“What do you mean?”

She frowned at me. “You’re a teenager, not a toddler. Duh.”

“No, I mean… what do you mean, that a child reacts that way?”

More hesitation. “Um… You’d want to talk to Flame about that, when we find him.”

“How come you can’t tell me?” I demanded, frustrated by the delay.

“Because Flame is the expert in this sort of thing.”

I blinked, surprised by the answer. “He is?”

She nodded, excited for the chance to be able to talk about something that she actually knew. “Even though Flame dropped out of high school as soon as he could, he’s always been interested in studying developmental psychology, specifically in the introductive phase. Which is weird, because psychology is a really intense field for a guy with very little education to be pursuing.”

“…Huh?”

She understood my confusion immediately. “Basically, he likes analyzing the way a child thinks,” she explained quickly.

“Oh. Why would he be interested in that?”

She shrugged nonchalantly, as she didn’t really care why. “Something to do with how he didn’t really have a good childhood. He told me once that he lives with a lot of guilt from something that happened to him when he was really young. He says that he wants to find something out, something that might have helped him back then.”

“What does he want to figure out?”

Another shrug. “I have no idea. He never told me.”

I found myself weirdly disappointed. “Oh.”

DarkFyre stretched, as if she had just woken from a long slumber. “You keep looking around this street,” she ordered as she walked past me. She spoke over her shoulder as she continued walking away from me. “I’ll check all of the usual spots.”

“Why didn’t we do that first?” I demanded.

She shrugged again. “I forgot.”

I glared at her retreating form until she had vanished around a corner, then sighed grumpily and returned to my search. The search involved a lot of walking and looking around for blonde hair. There wasn’t much else I could do. Flame wasn’t like a penny; I couldn’t look down at my feet and randomly stumble upon him.

I hadn’t been searching for very long when I noticed a familiar figure hurrying towards me. My eyes widened in surprise as I went to greet her. “Lexie! What are you doing here?”

She looked panicked. “I… I was just looking for Shane. Have you seen him?”

“I did a little while ago.”

“You have?! Where is he?!”

I flinched at her shout, but then frowned. “I saw him when you did. When you… attacked Terrance.”

She flinched at that. But how else could I have put it? That was what had happened. Recovering quickly, she demanded, “So you haven’t seen him since then?”

“N-No. Why?”

“Damn it!”

“Why?” I repeated.

“He left after I had calmed down. Said he had something to do. I was hoping that that meant he was going after you and Gloria. But if he didn’t, then where…?”

“Did something happen?” I interrupted, worried now.

Lexie stared at me for a moment, raising one hand and wiping away sweat from her forehead. She looked as though she had been running around frantically for quite some time now.

The teen hesitated, looking around to see if anyone else was around to eavesdrop on the conversation, then grabbed me by the arm and pulled me close. “Shane told me to stay with a certain friend of his while he went to look for you,” she confided, speaking in a whisper.

A friend? “Was… Was it Flame?”

Lexie seemed confused for a moment. “Flame?” she asked, confused by the name.

I thought back to what Shane had said. “… Was it Lorrel?”

She nodded solemnly. “Yeah. So we just kind of sat around and chatted for a while, but then…” she trailed off, looking frightened by the memory.

“But then what? Lexie, what happened?”

She swallowed and took a moment to answer. “This… guy showed up. At first I thought he was Shane. But he… he was different. His eyes…”

“They were dead?” I whispered hoarsely.

“Y-Yeah.” She looked curiously at me. “Do you know him?”

“We met, a long time ago. He’s a bad guy, right?”

Lexie nodded. “He… There was a sudden ambush of Shadows, like how Shane uses, and… and then he spoke to me in this velvet voice and he said to me… he said, ‘Tell the girl to go to where we first met.’ And I told him, ‘I don’t know where that is!’ And he just laughed at me. And I asked, ‘Who are you talking about?’ And he laughed some more and said, ‘The girl Flame was worried about.’”

“Flame was worried about me?” That was sweet of him.

“Jade, focus!”

I flinched. “I-I am! What happened next?”

The guy grabbed Flame by the arm and… while Flame struggled to get away from him, he… the guy… he and Flame disappeared into the Shadows.”

I stood silent for a moment, stunned. “So basically… Flame got… kidnapped?”

She nodded, looking worried. “Do you… Do you know what he was talking about when he said where you first met him?”

I nodded slowly. “Yeah… I think I do.”

“Then you should go there. We have no idea what he’ll do to Flame if you don’t.”

“Right.” I looked around, but saw that DarkFyre hadn’t returned yet. I turned to Lexie again. “If you see DarkFyre–”

“Who?”

Oh right, Lexie hadn’t been with the group from earlier. “She’s Flame’s – I mean Lorrel’s – girlfriend. Her name is Gloria. She has dark hair and dark eyes. She’ll be looking for me. Tell her I went back to the stream in the woods, a little bit past where I met her and Flame.”

“Again, who?”

“Just tell her. She’ll understand.”

“Okay. So is that where you’re going?”

I nodded grimly. “It’s where he told me to be.”

“If you’re sure.” Lexie stared at me for a moment. Looked like she wanted to say something, but decided against it. “…Good luck,” she told me at last, sullenly. Then she turned away, leaving me to my long trek back to the woods.

Chapter Twelve
___________

The lake was silent when I approached. The water was motionless, the roses were still crushed, from when I had lay on them. I looked around worriedly, but didn’t see the shadow man anywhere. I felt a brief rush of relief, followed shortly by anxiety. If the shadow man wasn’t here, Flame wasn’t either.

“So, she arrived at last.”

I flinched upon hearing the velvet voice. I recognized it immediately, recalling my nightmare. But then I also remembered Shane, and so I forced myself to stop trembling with fear. I turned slowly to face the man that had mysteriously appeared behind me. I wished for the best.

I saw him. The wish crashed and burned.

The shaking returned as I took in the appearance of the smirking man. His hair did not seem multicolored, just a bland grey. There were no specks of mint green in his stone eyes; they were dead, emotionless, despite the teasing smirk on his pale lips. His skin was even paler still. Pale as a corpse.

Despite the similarities, it was obvious that the man before me was the shadow man, not Shane.

I took a step backwards, away from the man of my nightmares.

His smirk dropped to a frown. “Aw, you don’t seem happy to see me,” he remarked, sounding genuinely hurt.”

I glared at him, pausing my retreat. “Why would I be?!” I snapped.

His grin returned. I saw now that he had been mocking me, and so I tensed. “I thought you wanted to find your friend. You knew I had him, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I did.” I continued to glare at him. “What the hell is this about?” I demanded. “Why did you want me to come here? Why did you kidnap Flame?”

He started on the first question, and worked calmly backwards. “I knew he was important to you. I’ve been looking for you for a long time. I wanted to–”

“I haven’t been moving around very fast, or very far,” I interrupted, frowning at him. “So you couldn’t have been looking very hard.”

One corner of his mouth twitched as he attempted to mask his irritation. “Don’t be a smart alec,” he growled.

I had no idea what that meant.

He watched as I puzzled over the unfamiliar term. “…We really have no reason to be fighting each other,” he said at last, speaking calmly. He stepped forward and reached towards me with one hand.

I pulled away, lashing out with a hand of my own, to keep him at bay. The mark on my face flashed brightly. “St-Stay back!” I yelped, panicked.

He stopped. His expression darkened. Bringing his hand up to his dead eyes, he glared at the Celcia that lingered on the pale flesh of his fingers. Slowly, he rose his glare to meet my gaze. “You really shouldn’t have done that,” he hissed.

Shadows raced towards him, swirling by his feet as he started towards me again. I was barely able to hide my old terror of the darkness, as it got closer and closer, as he got closer and closer. He seemed to sense the terror that I tried so hard to hide, and the smirk returned to his lips. “What’s wrong, Jade?” he asked in a voice that seemed almost to echo. “Are you scared? Are you going to run away from me?”

I didn’t answer, even though it was true. Every fiber of my being screamed at me to run away.

He grinned, reading the answer in my eyes. The shadow man raised a hand high above his head. Snapped his fingers loudly, the sound like a gunshot in the silent forest clearing. The Shadows responded immediately, swirling around him as if they were trying to form a pillar to pierce the water beside us. I watched the Shadows in alarm, but kept glancing at the shadow man, making sure that he hadn’t gotten any closer.

At his second snap, the Shadows swept away, revealing the form of an unconscious man. His tan face was contorted with pain, and his eyes were tightly shut.

“Flame!” I yelped, starting towards him.

The Shadows returned, swirling around him. I froze, terrified by the darkness before me. Flame lay motionless, as though he had not heard my shout. He shuddered as another spark of pain speared through him. Shadows licked at his face. Paralyzed him. Kept him trapped above the water.

The shadow man chuckled. “You seem upset to see him.”

I turned and glared at him. “Of course I am! Seeing him like this…”

“I didn’t say you shouldn’t be upset. I was just pointing out an interesting fact.” He snapped his fingers again, bringing up the Shadows so that they swallowed Flame’s form again.

I charged at him, anger taking over and smothering my fear, a fear that I probably should have listened to. I threw a punch at his head, but he easily phased into the Shadows and avoided the blow. My fist founded nothing but air.

He chuckled, appearing nearby. “Poor little Jade,” he mocked. “Is that really the best you can do? Pathetic.”

He was really starting to remind me of DarkFyre, though he was far worse than she could ever be. I let this irritation – the anger at him being anything like DarkFyre, at him acting like someone he wasn’t – fuel my strength. I attacked him once more, lashing out as quickly as I could in the hopes that one of my blows might actually land.

But, of course, he dodged every one of my attacks.

So. It was all down to my powers then.

I concentrated on the Celcia in my veins; already it had begun to form on my skin, brought out by the adrenaline that raced through me. The Shadows surrounding the shadow man squirmed, as if sensing the danger my Celcia brought.

I didn’t hesitate, not wanting to lose the chance. Letting out a shout – in the hopes of catching him off guard – I punched at him again. When he phased into the shadows, I forced the Celcia out past my fingertips. Sure enough, the blue material latched onto the Shadows, devouring them even as they froze into place.

The shadow man broke away from his Shadows before the Celcia could reach him as well. His dead eyes were wide, wide with confusion and alarm.

I grinned. “Not so tough now, without your Shadows,” I teased, feeling a bit confident now that I had the upper hand, “are you, Shadow Man?”

He arched a grey eyebrow, looking at me in amusement, rather than in anger, like how I had expected. A slight smile curled his lips. He stared at me for a moment, then asked in a voice no less teasing than mine had been, “Shadow Man?”

I flinched, feeling crimson heat rush to my face. “W-Well, I mean… it’s not like I know your name or a-anything,” I stammered.

He grinned. “I actually think I could get used to a name like that. It’s rather fitting. ‘The Shadow Man. The Man of Shadows.’” His grin widened, becoming warped. “’The Man of Nightmares. The Man of Chaos. The Man of Evil.’”

I shuddered, taking a step away from him. “N-No… just the Shadow Man.”

“If you insist. It was originally your nickname for me after all.” His mouth closed as he smirked. “Which is rather sweet of you, don’t you think?” he purred.

I flinched again, backing up once more as disbelief lit up my eyes. “Are you… trying to flirt with me?” I demanded, my blush deepening.

“Maybe. Do you want me to be?”

“I…”

“You are rather cute, you know.”

“H-Huh?!”

He looked surprised. “What, didn’t you know that?”

I was confused. “I… Wha…?”

“Well, you are.” He smiled in a softer way, reminding me of Shane and making my heart flutter. “You’re very cute, Jade.”

I stopped backing up. “I-”

I felt my throat suddenly constrict, as if to save as much air as it could. The Shadow Man’s icy hands had locked around my throat; I hadn’t even seen him move, so flustered had I been by his words.

He chuckled. “Oh Jade, you’re such a fool. You shouldn’t drop your guard like that. Only idiots let themselves get distracted by their opponent’s words. An enemy might say anything to distract you. It doesn’t mean they really mean it.”

While we had been arguing, smoke had begun to build up. I had assumed the smoke to be the Shadow Man’s doing, though thinking back, this was a ridiculous idea. Why would the shadow man have control of smoke?

I saw a flicker of concern in his expression, although his eyes remained dead. He continued to hold me up in the air by my throat, but he looked around, alarmed. The smoke grew steadily worse. I could no longer see the woods around us; all I could see was the shadow man standing before me.

“Get your creepy hands off of her!” Cristina yelled, bursting through the smoke.

Celcia shimmered around her as she aimed a kick at the Shadow Man. The attack missed; he vanished in a whirlwind of Shadows, reappearing a little ways away. But perhaps he had not been her focus; I fell to my knees as soon as the Shadow Man vanished, and Cristina looked relieved to see that.

She landed lightly; surprising, considering the force she put into her jump kick. Her usually clear blue eyes were almost darkened by her anger as soon as the relief had faded. She straightened from where she had landed. Leaned back into a fighting stance that was vaguely familiar to me, though I did not know why.

The shadow man looked almost amused. He didn’t seem at all taken aback by the sudden assault. “Celcia. How odd; you’re not in costume.”

Costume?

She flinched slightly, then narrowed her eyes. “We’re not in public, so I don’t need it.”

He grinned. “I suppose the smoke helps too, doesn’t it?”

Another flinch, followed by a curt nod.

“How did you manage to fill the area up with smoke so fast, anyways?” he asked calmly, nonchalant, as if asking a friend how they did on their history test.

Her response was cautious. “I used a smoke bomb.”

Even I could tell that she was lying, and I was on her side! The shadow man chuckled lightly. “Oh come now, Cristina. Surely you think higher of me than that!”

She tensed. “How the hell do you know my name?” she demanded, clearly startled by the fact.

He smirked. “I’ve known you for a long time, Cristina.”

“How?!”

“Simple. I knew your sister.”

Cristina flinched, blue eyes wide with shock. “Y-You what?!”

“I knew your sister,” he repeated.

I flashed back to his words from before. “Cristina!” I yelled, rising shakily to my feet. “Don’t listen to him! He’s just trying to distract-”

The Shadow Man continued as if he hadn’t even heard me. His voice was calm and soothing, though his words were harsh. I could see as each words stabbed at Cristina, making her stumble away from him. “Poor, sweet, little Candace. Such a pity that she died the way she did. And it was your fault, of course. What kind of sister lets her little sister die? You’re a horrible person, Cristina.”

I saw the very instant she shut down. The shock flickered across her face, and the pain and sadness bled into her wide eyes. She didn’t move; she seemed unable to. “C-Candi…” she whispered hoarsely, haunted by a memory unknown to me.

Her legs wobbled once, and then she fell to her knees. She remained there, shaking all over, violent jerks, as if she had had her finger jammed into an electricity socket. She dropped from her knees to her side. Lay there shaking uncontrollably. She was completely unresponsive. Completely vulnerable.

The Shadow Man phased into his Shadows in the time it took me to blink once. He reappeared directly behind Cristina, who did not seem to notice him. She was stuck in her own little world. Her shaking worsened.

“Cristina!” I yelled. “Watch out!”

She didn’t even look up. Her face was hidden behind her face now. A whimper escaped her.

Darkness swirled around the Shadow Man as he drew his hand back, in a tight fist. The grin was still a light on his face as he brought his fist down with bone-crushing speed and strength.

More of Chapter Twelve
_________________

The punch caught him off guard, and sent him reeling back. I saw bright droplets of crimson land among the Shadows. They seemed to eagerly swallow the blood. I tore my gaze away, and looked up at the assailant in both alarm and relief.

“Y-You…!” the Shadow Man gasped.

DarkFyre scowled at him. “You hurt my boyfriend!” she growled. Apparently Lexie had delivered my message like I had asked, and DarkFyre had connected the dots. “And you tried to kill Jade!”

“What do you care?!:”

“I don’t!”

“Then why–?”

The crimson-haired woman marched over to where her opponent had fallen. She grabbed him by the collar and forced him up into the air, even if only by an inch or so.

“I don’t like anyone screwing with my life,” she warned angrily. “So stay away from Flame, stay away from Jade, and stay away from Cristina too! Sure, I hate her guts. But she’s mine to hate and mine to hurt. Besides,” she added, glaring at the surprised man, “you’d have to be a real jackass to screw with someone’s emotions like that. How dare you bring up her sister?! Who gave you the right?!”

He got loose from her grip by phasing into the Shadows again, but then yelped in pain and reappeared as Celcia pierced the Shadows and smashed into his side. He turned, eyes wild with fury and pain, an animalistic snarl on his lips.

Cristina stood, fully recovered and shaking with a rage of her own. The remnants of tears still stained her cheeks. “Don’t tell me you knew Candace,” she murmured, her voice blank despite her apparent anger. “She’d never have hung around someone like you.”

He laughed. “That just shows how little you really know.”

Cristina lunged at him with an enraged shriek, but stopped when DarkFyre stood in her path. “What the hell are you doing?!” the blonde demanded incredulously. “Move it!”

“No.”

“Why not?!”

DarkFyre’s eyes burned with an anger that might possibly rival Cristina’s. “Because you’re not strong enough to take him on alone, and you know it.”

The Shadow Man chuckled. “She’s right. You don’t stand a chance.”

Cristina was breathing heavily as she continued to glare at DarkFyre and the shadow man both. “Then what do you suggest?” she growled, clearly impatient.

DarkFyre nodded in my direction, startling me. “Have you and Jade ever tried to use your powers at the same time?”

We looked at each other in surprise. “No,” Cristina confessed at last, glancing back at DarkFyre. “I haven’t even seen Jade use her powers. Ever.”

I continued to stare at Cristina, although she no longer faced me. “We both have Celcia… maybe we’d be able to do more damage, working together.”

She looked at me again, nodding. “It would make sense.”

I glanced to my right and – seeing the Shadows that swirled nearby – turned quickly back to Cristina and exclaimed, “He’s going to attack!”

Cristina tensed, the mark between her eyes reappearing once more and flashing a brilliant shade of blue that matched mine almost exactly. “Jade, use your Celcia on me!” she ordered.

“Y-You mean freeze you?” I asked, alarmed by the suggestion.

“Don’t question it, just do it!”

I hurriedly focus on my Celcia. The cold shivered through my veins and burst outwards, moving at impossibly speeds and freezing the air around Cristina. She both palms on the ice-like substance, drawing it into her and then expelling it outwards at the churning Shadows.

There was a shriek of alarm, shrill with agony, and then the Shadows shattered all around us.

Excellent! Very impressive.

Aaron-{{Everlast}}-Rebel Leader wrote: "Excellent! Very impressive."

Thank you very much! ^w^

You're welcome!:)

Chapter Thirteen
____________


“Is it…” I trailed off uncertainly. Swallowed. Tried again, and managed in a hoarse whisper, “Is it over?”

It certainly didn’t feel like it was over. My pulse still raced, my throat still dry. Celcia still shivered through my veins, as if preparing for another attack. I shivered involuntarily; an effect of the ice-like substance within me, or the last fragments of fear that had yet to fade?

But the Shadows had cleared away, and the Shadow Man was gone. The clearing was deathly quiet, the stream nearby motionless. The black roses were no longer the least bit frightening. Everything was going to be okay; it had to be, for there was no longer any danger.

So then, why did my gut tense? Why did the chills remain, even after the Celcia that burned in my veins became still?

It couldn’t be over. Not yet. Not this easily.

Exhaustion overcame me, and I fell to my knees. Or at the very least, I attempted to hit the ground. Cristina caught me just before my knees could touch the earth. She wrapped on arm around my waist; an awkward angle that left me dangling, as I tried to recover my balance.

“…Sorry,” I muttered, once I was safely back on my feet.

She didn’t say anything. Just glanced worriedly over to the side.

I follow her blue-eyed gaze and saw that DarkFyre had accomplished what I had not. She was kneeling beside Flame’s still form. Her back was to me, so I could not see her face. But her shoulders shook violently, as she ran her fingers through the blonde hair that rested in her lap.

I turned to Cristina, but she looked away and would not meet my inquiring stare. Shaking my head and letting out a sigh, I walked hesitantly over to the sitting woman. I squatted – and sat – beside her. I dared not lean forward, even though that would reveal her expression. Especially because that would reveal her expression. I didn’t think I could handle whatever sort of close-to-tears face she was making.

I looked instead at Flame. His face had a pale hue to it, despite the tan of his skin. Despite my overwhelming sense of guilt – (I should have gotten here sooner!) – and worry – (Was he going to be okay?) – I found myself flashing back to Terrance. And to Shane’s words.

When Flame was sick like this, cold and silent and pale-faced, I could see his resemblance to Terrance. Both had fair hair, shared the same noses and jaws… The main problem was that they had completely different eye colors from one another. But when Flame’s eyes were closed like this, it was impossible to tell that he wasn’t as blind as Terrance was. They were definitely brothers. They could have been twins.

Why did Terrance hate him?

Why did that hate seem so familiar?

Why did it hurt so much?

“He’s alive.”

DarkFyre’s sudden voice startled me. It was so emotional. Broken. It was so unlike her that I wouldn’t have believed that she had been the one to speak, has I not been sitting right next to her. I still would not look at her, still would not dare, but I managed to voice my confusion. “Huh?”

“He’s alive,” she repeated simply.

I frowned at the ground. “Of course he’s alive. He wasn’t planning on killing him. He just wanted to use Flame as a lure, that’s all.”

I could feel her dark eyes flicker towards me, and, despite my earlier caution, I turned as well and looked at her. DarkFyre’s gaze was frightened, tear-stained, haunted. “I know,” she told me quietly. Her voice caught slightly. “But… When I saw him… When I saw the Shadows, I… I remembered what he said before, and I… I just…!”

A sob tore free from her as she turned violently away from me. The outburst sounded painful, ripped out from her very soul

I looked on uncomfortably as her traumatized trembling become the shakes of a hysterically sobbing woman. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do, in a situation like this. I had no idea what to say.

She leaned over suddenly, away from Flame and towards me. Her hand caught me by the shoulders, her nails digging into my skin as she pulled me forcibly closer. Tightened her grip to where I could barely breathe. Continued to sob.

I blinked, taken aback and overwhelmingly confused. Was she… hugging me? What the heck?!

“Oh god, Jade!” she sobbed, still trembling, still clinging. “I really… I thought he really… What if I lost him?! What if he died… and… a-and I was left alone, all alone?! What would I do?! I… I couldn’t go on! Not… Not without…!”

Irritation flared through me. I had to really struggle to keep my voice calm. “You don’t have to know what you’d do without him. He’s fine now.”

She glared at the back of my head, though she still hugged me tightly. “And what if he hadn’t been okay?!” she demanded tearfully. “What if he really did die?!”

“Stop it!” I was losing patience, fast, and my voice escalating just as rapidly. “None of that matters now! Flame is okay! He’s going to be okay!”

DarkFyre finally broke the embrace, pulling away and staring at me.

I stared back, challengingly.

She said nothing.

Cristina’s voice interrupted our little stare-off. “Why isn’t he waking up?”

DarkFyre and I looked at each other. Blinked, and let the question sink in.

She was the first to turn back towards Flame. She reached out and gave him a gentle shake, asking in a wavering voice, “F-Flame…?” The dark haired woman shook him a bit harder, the panic bleeding into her voice. “Flame, wake up! You have to wake up!”

“There’s something wrong,” Cristina announced softly. Her brow was furrowed with more curiosity than worry. She stared intently at Flame’s motionless form, rather than DarkFyre’s panicked expression. “Maybe that guy did something to him? Used the Shadows to torture him, maybe for information….? Hmm…”

I stormed over and raised my hand swiftly, slapping her across the face with a resounding cracking noise.

Cristina stumbled backwards, hands flying to her face as if to feel the lingering red handprint. She gaped at me. “Wh-What the hell was that for?!” she demanded, stunned.

“Shut up,” I growled.

She blinked. “Wh-What…?”

“I said shut up!”

“…Why?”

I pointed at DarkFyre. My expression must have been livid, because at my motion, Cristina took another frightened step away from me. “She’s freaked out enough already,” I scolded the confused blonde. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, making things worse with your imaginary scenarios?!”

Cristina finally recovered from her shock. She frowned at me. “I’m not making things wors-”

“Oh my god!” DarkFyre shrieked, shaking Flame so hard now that his head crashing repeatedly against the forest floor. “Flame! Wake up! Wake up!”

I stared pointedly at Cristina, an expression on non-amusement clear on my face.

She winced. “S-Sorry…”

Ignoring her attempt at an apology – it wasn’t anywhere near good enough, considering the damage she had caused – I leaned down and tangled my fingers in DarkFyre’s crimson hair. Pulling as hard as I could, I yanked her roughly back up to her feet.

“Ow!” DarkFyre yelped, struggling to free herself. She glared at me through her tears. “Hey, what the hell was that for?!”

“You need to calm down,” I told her, still frowning.

She reached up and untangled my fingers from her hair. Her expression had already changed to a sulky one as she mumbled, “I’m calm. I’m totally calm.”

I rolled my eyes. “As if! You’re still shaking.”

DarkFyre glanced down at her shaking knees. Tensing a little, she managed to stop the movement. But as soon as she relaxed, the shaking started up once more. She growled a little, frustrated, and continued trying to stop her shaking. It was no longer a conscious movement.

I turned to face Cristina again. “We don’t have a place to stay anymore,” I confessed, my voice quiet, as though I were telling her a secret. In a way, I was. “Could we maybe…?”

“Stay with me?” Cristina supplied, sensing my intentions immediately.

I nodded.

Cristina glanced worriedly at DarkFyre. “Um… I’m not sure if that’s the best–”

DarkFyre stopped trying to stop her shaking. Her knees continued to quaver as she glared at Cristina, eyes burning like coals. “There is no way in hell I’m staying with her!” the crimson haired woman growled, her words vicious and bitter.

Cristina looked insulted. “It’s not like I want you to stay at my place,” she shot back indignantly. “You just don’t have another other choice–”

DarkFyre raised her voice. “I can find somewhere else to stay! I don’t need to relay on the likes of you!”

“Don’t yell at me!” Cristina yelled back.

“Stop it!” I ordered sharply. “Both of you!”

They both immediately stopped arguing. Turned to look at me, surprised by the outburst.

I turned towards Flame, approached the motionless form and knelt beside him. “… He needs medical help,” I announced quietly, after a long pause.

“But we don’t know what’s wrong with him!”

DarkFyre nodded in agreement, looking both worried about her boyfriend, and frustrated that she had to agree with Cristina.

I straightened again and turned to face the other two girls. “I might know someone who can help us figure out what’s wrong.”

“Who?!” both demanded.

“When I was attacked–”

“You mean when you came to my place?” Cristina asked, just as DarkFyre exclaimed, “When the hell were you attacked?!”

Oh right, she hadn’t been told the whole story. “In that text you got, Flame mentioned that the people that were after him had gone after me, didn’t he?”

She nodded slowly.

“Well they found me. A group of guys jumped me, right outside that gate that you and I met at later to talk about what had happened to Flame.”

“But you were okay, right?! You seemed fine to me, when I came to find you...”

“Well yeah, but only because I was rescued by–”

“Miss Perfect over there?” DarkFyre asked sarcastically.

“Hey!” Cristina protested, glaring at her.

I frowned at DarkFyre. “No, by some guy. He said his name was Angelo.” I looked between the two of them, hoping to see comprehension on either face. Receiving none, I elaborated, “Angelo Guaritore.”

“Like the Element?” DarkFyre asked, sounding surprised.

Cristina just shrugged. The name wasn’t familiar.

I sighed, disappointed. “Yeah, just like the Element. Remember, the family with the Element named it after themselves.”

DarkFyre was quiet.

“So you think this guy can help–” Cristina started.

“Wait.”

We both looked at DarkFyre, startled by the sudden order.

“What is it?” I asked, confused.

She said nothing at first, lost in her thoughts as she stared at the ground. After a while, she looked back up and met my inquiring gaze. “His name’s… Angelo?”

“Y-Yeah.”

“I wonder…” She trailed off, lost once more to her thoughts.

“Do you know him?” I asked, hoping to bring her back to reality.

DarkFyre shook her head slowly, but added in a faint voice, “I think… I think Flame knows him.”

I blinked. “Huh? He does?”

She finally recovered. Her lips curled downwards into a deep frown as she stared disapprovingly at me. “Don’t you remember? Flame mentioned the name when he was telling us about those kids that he used to be friends with. He said that ‘Angelo’ was the smart kid, while he and ‘Shane’ used to mess with his stuff.”

I remembered that now, as well as that Shane had said something similar, back when I had asked if he had seen Flame. “It must be the same guy.”

DarkFyre continued to frown at me. “Angelo is a pretty popular Italian name. It might not be the same–”

“Angelo might be a popular name, but I doubt there’s a lot of Angelo Guaritore,” I insisted.

“Flame wasn’t necessarily talking about a Guari–”

This time I was the one to frown at her. “He mentioned the Elemental name when he was talking about his friends. ‘Fyre, Shadow, and Guaritore’.”

She blinked. “Oh. That’s right.”

“… So you think this guy can help us?” Cristina finally managed to finish her question.

I nodded. “Hopefully.”

“Then we need to find him, as soon as we can!”

“Me and Jade could check around the town,” DarkFyre suggested, eager to help once the subject had changed from staying with Cristina to finding someone to help Flame.

I groaned.

She turned and glared at me. “What?!”

“We were just looking for Flame! I’m not spending hours trying to track down this guy as well.”

“Well you’re the only one that knows what he looks like!”

“No wait, Jade’s right,” Cristina hurriedly cut in.

Her input startled us both, but I was the one to ask uncertainly, “I… I am?”

She nodded, then motioned to Flame. “I can’t bring him back to my place all on my own. He’s a full grown man. It’ll be much easier to drag him if I had Jade’s help.”

Anger flared through DarkFyre’s expression. “How come he’s going to stay with you?!” she growled, stepping backwards and standing protectively in front of Flame. “He’s my boyfriend! He stays with me!”

Cristina arched an eyebrow. “You’re honestly planning on dragging him all around town while you look for Angelo?” she asked dryly. “His condition just keeps getting worse while he’s just lying there. Moving him in circles will be both needlessly difficult and dangerous for him.”

DarkFyre’s faced flamed crimson. Obviously she hadn’t thought her actions through. “W-Well… no, of course not. I just… uh…”

Ignoring her, Cristina turned and glanced at me again. “How about it, Jade? You’ll help me to bring him back to my place, won’t you?”

I nodded, relieved.

“I still don’t know what this Angelo guy looks like though!” DarkFyre protested.

I closed my eyes and pictured the guy that had saved me. “… He has blonde hair and tan skin, like Flame,” I recalled. “But his skin is a lot darker, and his hair is more golden. Flame’s hair is a lot paler, almost white. Just like his brother.”

DarkFyre nodded, committing the description to memory. “Right. Got it.” She turned to go.

“Wait!” I exclaimed.

DarkFyre stopped and turned back around.

“There’s more.”

She arched an eyebrow. “What is it?”

“His eyes were light hazel, with golden flecks. He has a black motorcycle. His mark is on his throat, and it glows pink when he uses his powers.”

DarkFyre snorted. “Pink? Seriously?”

I scowled at her.

She sighed. “Right. I’ll try to remember that.”

“Then you should probably get going,” Cristina told her. She still seemed tense.

DarkFyre scowled at her, but said nothing. She just turned away and began walking in silence.

A chill of unease rushed suddenly through me. My response was immediate. Instinctive. “DarkFyre, wait!” I exclaimed.

My shout must have shown how frightened I was, because DarkFyre stopped abruptly and turned to look at me, alarm clear in her dark eyes. “What?! What’s wrong?!” she demanded, looking badly shaken.

I struggled to find the right words. But there were no words for me to grasp at; I had no idea why I had called out. I just felt like I had to stop her from leaving for some reason. But why?

The fear had slowly drained from her expression. Now she just arched a dark eyebrow, the color an obvious contrast to her brightly colored hair.

At last I mumbled, “I-It’s nothing.”

She sighed, turning to leave again. “Think about what you’re going to say before you blurt out something,” she scolded. “We’re in a hurry, aren’t we?”

“Yeah…”

“Then just shut up. We’ll talk again later.”

She began to walk away again. And again, I stopped her. “Wait!”

DarkFyre stopped, shoulders immediately tensing. “What?!” she snapped. Irritation radiated from her in waves. Smoke curled around her legs. Beneath her shirt the dark glow of her mark pulsated faintly.

I stood in silence for a while, trying to gather my now frantically jumbled thoughts. “… Thank you,” I muttered at last.

I could see the confusion hit her like an blow to the stomach. She turned slightly, just barely glancing at me. She blinked. “Wh-What?”

“I wanted to thank you. Before you leave.” I smiled, even though my heart pounded like a caged beast struggling to burst out of its confinements. That wasn’t what had scared me, although it was something I had wanted to tell her. But how could I tell her what I had really been thinking about, when I wasn’t even entirely sure what that was?!

DarkFyre laughed shakily, turning away again. “Wh-What are you thanking me for? I didn’t do anything.”

“You took me in. You taught me to control my Element. You helped me to find things out about myself that I might’ve never known otherwise.”

“Flame helped you more than I did,” DarkFyre quickly reminded me. I could not see her face, but I noticed that her ears were almost the same color as her hair. She seemed flustered.

“You saved my life,” I reminded her.

DarkFyre turned to look at me once more. This time she just stared at me. Then, after a long pause, she began to chuckle. The laugh slowly got louder. Stronger. Brighter.

I flinched. “What’s so funny?!” I demanded, immediately defensive.

She didn’t answer. Just walked back over to me, reached out and ruffled my hair with one hand. “You’re a good kid, Jade,” she murmured. “Hold onto that. You’ll need that kind of goodness in this crazy, screwed up world.”

Before I could say anything to express my confusion, DarkFyre turned back around and ran off. She disappeared within seconds, vanishing into the foliage as though she were a phantom. As though she had never been there to begin with.

Important Note!
____________


I originally intended Chapter 13 to be the end of this first book. Looking back over the series, I see that there’s a lot of areas that need more details and such. I’m going to be adding a lot more chapters while revising.

Instead of posting these new chapters here, I’m going to work on designing a few outlines of the new chapters. Once I’ve finished the outlines, I’ll work on writing the actual chapters, tying them into what I already have written.

If anyone here is interested in reading my outlines, I will be only posting them on my Wordpress account. (The link is in the very first comment.)

Any advice you can give me about the chapters I have posted already will still help me a lot. Be sure to comment! :)