When It Breaks

| THREE |

Barely two hours into the journey, Lucy and I get lost. The driver dropped us off at the edge of the next town, saying he could not go on any further.

We enter the town, looking for a place where we can buy a map. Reaching a dead end, we try to find our way but are unable to retrace our steps.

There are no cars around, and we still haven't bought the map.

All I can see are bushes and lakes.

"Lake," I think aloud. "Yes, lake!"

Lucy turns to me with an annoyed look as I disrupt her route reading. "What about a lake?"

Her voice is, annoyed but I am too excited about my analysis to be bothered.

"On our way coming up, the first lake was moving from up to down but this lake is going the opposite way.

Also, the first lake is a little warmer since it is closer to civilization. If we walk back in the opposite direction from this lake, we can find the first one," I explain, then release a breath I didn't know I was holding.

Science and geography always get me excited.

Lucy blinks.

"You noticed all that? I didn't notice anything but stupid overgrown trees, shrubs, and some annoying lakes," Lucy whines, and I chuckle.

We begin to retrace our steps, following the direction of the current.

While crossing a lake, my hoodie falls off as I am jumping over slabs of stones. Before I can rush to cover my face, Lucy sees the marks on my neck.

"Woah, you love promises, huh?" She teases while jumping behind me.

On reaching the other side, I hurriedly pull it back on after securing my black hair around my face. "It's nothing."

"Suits you, though. I have a few of my own too. Most came from the promises I made to my sister. It's certainly not as much as yours, but…" she trails off, ending the statement on seeing my lack of interest.

We fall into a comfortable silence which I don't mind as it helps me get my thoughts together.

Soon, we reach the end of the trail, which leads us back to the first lake. We take a different path from the previous one. This time, it leads us to civilization.

It didn't take long to find a store.

"Thank you," I say, receiving the map from the shop owner, and my eyes scan through the map. Mage town seems easy to locate.

"Can I see?" Lucy requests, and I hand her the map.

"Wow, this looks tough," she exclaims, staring at the map with wide eyes.

"No, it doesn't," I state, moving over to see what has got her so surprised. What I see gets me surprised too.

"But, it was just…" I let the words linger, unable to make sense of everything. It almost seems like the map changed to a more complex pattern than before.

"Just what?" Lucy asks with a raised brow.

"Nothing," I conclude, shaking my head, still unable to understand what just happened.

"Come on, we have a long way to go," Lucy says and walks ahead of me.

I follow her but can't shake off the abnormality of what happened with the map.

We walk for some time as no cars can pass through that area due to the narrowness of the road. The town seems to have few cars.

It's a lot more difficult to travel on foot than it would have been if we had a car.

We reach a clearing, and Lucy decides that she can't go anymore.

"Fine, we can find a hotel to rest for the night. We will move tomorrow."

From where we are, I begin to mark a trail as we find the hotel, so we know where to continue the next day.

We arrive at a small gas station that appears to be abandoned. Lucy goes in first, needing to use their restroom before we continue the journey.

After waiting for ten minutes, I decide to go in and see what has kept her for so long.

Entering the convenience store, I see a scared Lucy tied to the ground with a masked man pointing a gun at her.

She tries to tell him that she has no money to give him, but he wouldn't listen.

Her scared eyes meet mine, and I signal her to keep him occupied as I look for something to hit him with.

Spotting a fire extinguisher by the side of a small shelf, I shuffle over to it and pick it up, only for the shelf to fall over.

It looks like the extinguisher was holding it up. The crash snaps the man's gaze to me.

"One wrong move and I will scatter her brain cells all over the floor," he warns, his fiery blue eyes showing me the gravity of his statement.

Pleading would do us no good at the moment, and neither would try to fight him.

In Wilson, a few selected students are taught a few tricks. I would call them survival tricks, but they are more than that. However, it would leave him writhing in pain.

I didn't want to have to result in this, but at this moment, I didn't have much of a choice.

Looking straight into his eyes, I drop the fire extinguisher and raise both my hands.

"I will give you all the money I have, just… don't hurt her."

With my eyes still on him, I put my hand into my bag and locate my pins case. I knew it would come in handy someday.

Popping the lid open, I pull out three pins, along with some cash, while avoiding the ends of the pin, which contains a deadly poison.

"Drop the money on the floor and step back," he instructs, with his gun still pointing at Lucy's head.

Stooping to the ground, I place the money on the floor. On getting up, I lock eyes with his wrist and toss the pin to the pressure point inside his arm close to his wrist.

It lodges itself deep into his skin. He yells, dropping the gun as his entire arm becomes paralysed.

At this moment, he would be feeling a searing pain in that arm, yet won't be able to move it.

The second pin is embedded into his ankle, causing him to fall to the ground.

"Fuck!" He yells, gasping, and I sigh.

I really didn't want to do this.

After a class, a few students and I were so interested in the whole concept of pressure points and acupuncture that Mrs. Marley had to teach us everything about them, especially how to use them to our advantage.

Perks of being in a school that pays no mind to the general curriculum.

"Let's go, Lucy."

Lucy doesn't move and continues to stare between the man in shock and me. I sigh again. "Anytime today would be fine, Lucy."

That snaps her out of it, and she hurries over to me. Just then, I see the man throw a knife at Lucy with his good arm, and I lunge at her, throwing her out of harm's way.

He pulls out another knife, and I throw another pin towards his neck, this time, directly at his pulse, killing him in seconds.

No blood. No mess. A clean kill.

Suddenly, I feel a familiar tingling sensation on my arm. I pull the hoodie up just in time to see a tattoo disappear.

(•)

Thank you for reading.