In My Hands

Chapter Nineteen-XVIIII

Chapter 19

“Alana. Get up already. We’ve gotta go, like now.” Alix cuts through my sleep.

“I don’t wanna,” I whine like a small child not wanting to do their chores.

“Too bad. We have to go, unless you would like to be stabbed.” Alix says trying to get me up. I contemplate the stabbing or sleeping longer, but realize I’d rather be awake.

“How much longer until we get there?” I ask while watching Alix running around trying to pick stuff up.

“Well, about three or four days I think.”

“Super.” I reply. Hiking was never my thing. My mom tried it once with me when I was younger, and I absolutely hated it. I promised myself I would never go again, but I guess I broke that promise.

I walked around trying to wake myself up, but to no avail. I was just going to be tired for the day. 

“You ready?” Alix asks walking towards me.

“I think so,” I say stretching still attempting to wake up. I could really use some coffee or an energy drink right now, but there obviously wasn’t a convenient store around right now, so I was out of luck. Alix walks ahead of me into the woods and I follow closely behind, not wanting to get lost. 

“So did you get any sleep last night?” Alix asks.

“Well yeah I guess. I woke up around the middle of the night. Bad dream I guess.” I reply jumping of a thick tree root protruding out of the ground.

“Really? Guess that’s why I couldn’t wake you up this morning.” Alix says. 

“Yeah, but it’s weird. I usually don’t dream.” I inquire. I usually didn’t. This was the first time in a long time that I have. I wasn’t really sure what triggered it, but I definitely dreamed something last night.

“Maybe, it was just something that shocked you so you dreamt about it?” Alix suggests unsure about it.

“I don’t know. I mean I’ve had lots of shocking things done to me lately, this is no different.” I reply.

“Good point...what exactly was your dream about?” Alix asks.

“Well, I saw Sakura, and she was sort of just laying there. She screamed, the got up and tried to throw a knife at me, sort of like Pierce earlier. I saw Pierce grab it before it could hit me though. He said that once he could get control over Sakura again, he would come back for me.” I explain to him as best as I could.

“Weird.” Alix says quietly.

“Yeah, tell me about it.” I reply sarcastically. We walk a little bit further before Alix says something else about my odd dream.

“I think I know why you had your dream last night.” Alix states. I look at him wondering how he could possibly know what caused my dream. “Whoever gave us our powers, altered this girl’s brain. She works with Pierce. She can send images and messages through thought. Like telepathy, except more complicated then that.”

“So you think that Pierce got her to send that to me last night, that way they would hope that I would just pass it off as dream?” I ask a little confused.

“Yeah, seems that way. I mean it was at night you were asleep, so that could be very easily set up.” Alix says still walking ahead of me. I ponder the thought and decided it could very well be legit. 

“So, have you ever met her?” I ask, curious to know what she’s like.

“Yea. I have. Just once though. Her name is Mira. She’s like Sakura, under the Hebiaan government’s control. Hebiaans are us, people with powers. Just like you and me, except there’s a ton more different kinds of us that you haven’t met yet. We pretty much formed our own government a long time ago, because some of us thought that we shouldn’t have to abide by the rules of ‘regular people’. They gave her to Pierce. He’s sort of high ranking in the government and so he gets all of the special Hebiaans that are around. That’s why they are trying so hard to get you.” Alix explains.

“How do they find us though?” I ask, confused on that part.

“Well, around our age is when our powers come in, so they come find us and bring us into their ‘government facility’ and test us, seeing if we are ‘special’ enough for he higher officials to use. Most of us go into hiding, unless we are in favor of the government. That’s another reason we were all in that obnoxious cave.” Alix explains answering my question.

“Sounds like a fun life.” I say sarcastically.

“Of course it is. Can’t you tell? People coming after you every five seconds makes the perfect life.” Alix says laughing. I laugh to, because that’s all that my life was right now pretty much. Running, hiding, trying to stop a war from happening. The usual 16 year old life. Not.

“So.” I start, “When we do get to this Hebiaan place, we’ll be up against a bunch of people like us.” I state.

“Well, more like me. You are the only one out of anyone right now that’s known to have Alpha Stigma. With that you can take out anyone. Well, pretty much anyone. There’s some out there known to have a force field type power. It’ll be hard to get past them, of course, but anyone who doesn’t have that, you’ve got a 95% chance of beating them.” Alix explains.

“Alix, I barely know how to use my power. How do you expect me to aim and get a good shot? Especially when there’s more then I can handle around.” I say.

“Well, you’re just gonna have to wing it, I guess.” Alix says.

“There’s nothing we can do?” I ask. I didn’t want to let anyone down trying to use my power. I didn’t want to hurt anyone who doesn’t need to be either.

“Nope. We need to keep going. Only stopping for things that we absolutely need. I’ve seen you use the Stigma. You’re good at it and I know it. You’re gonna be fine.” Alix says trying to reassure me. I put a smile on my face to hide the nervousness on the inside.

“Thanks,” I say looking at him with the cheesy smile plastered on my face.

“Anytime.” He says back still looking ahead.

“So,” I say trying to make conversation, “what does Mira look like?”

“Well, she’s really tan, she’s got violet eyes almost like yours except a little brighter. Oh, and she has purple hair too. With blonde streaks her and there. Why do you want to know?” He asks.

“Just to when I see her, I can get her too.” I reply. I didn’t want anyone left that I knew of in the facility with about of power crazy freaks. 

“Okay. Then when you see her, she’ll have a gold locket with silver trimmings around her wrist. No one knows why she wears it, or why she wears it on her wrist either.” Alix says that way it would give me a hint of who she was when we got there.

“Does it have a picture or something in it?” I ask. That would be reasonable, to keep a picture of your family or friends in the locket for the memories.

“Nope. It’s completely empty. Someone took it from her and checked while they held me there.” Alix says.

“Hm. I’m not really sure then.” It seemed weird to wear an empty locket. Even more so, since it was around her wrist.

“So, do all of the government Hebiaans look the same?” I ask curious to know.

“Well, depends. They dress according to what power they have and whether it’s a higher and more rare power, or whether it’s a common, but useful one.” Alix says, answering somewhere around my tenth question in the last hour.

“Hm.” I say thinking about it. It seemed like a very organized system, for a very stupid government. They had a good chance of winning the fight. 

“Alana,” Alix says, breaking me from my thoughts, “you do know we are doing this more for the welfare of the United States, rather than Sakura?”

“Uh…yeah,” I say lying through my teeth. For me, it was all for Sakura. I wouldn’t let her go.