Dateless and Deadly

Chapter 21

He flung another ball of energy at me, this time a bigger one and I easily deflected it. “Not bad,” I said, taunting him.

“Not bad?” he echoed clearly offended. “Okay Cass, you asked for it.” He raised his hands and seemed to draw the energy from the world around him, not just from himself. For a second, I swear I saw the grass and trees lean towards him like he was their sun but when I blinked, it had stopped. He released his energy ball and time seemed to move in slow motion. I reached my magic out and instead of blocking the energy, I combined mine with his. For a moment that really felt like years, we were joined, our magic combined until I started to apply pressure. I sent my magic through his and subtly changed it, turning it into something else, something harmless.

I blinked and was caught off guard by the multicolored, swirling lights that were surrounding me. After a few seconds, they sunk to the ground and disappeared. Harper just stared at me, his mouth open and his hands limp at his sides. “What the hell was that?”

I swallowed, shrugging. “I don’t really know,” I said not sure how to explain it. “I just sort of, put my magic where yours was and changed it into something that wouldn’t hurt me and that’s what came out.

He snapped his mouth shut and looked thoughtful for a second. “So,” he said after a bit, “let’s say that you tried that again but this time, you took my energy and changed it into something more harmful, could you redirect it at a different target?”

I frowned, thinking. “You want to know if I could take your energy and combine it with mine to create a more devastating strike?” I considered it. “Probably.”

“C’mon,” Harper said, jogging towards me and grabbing my hand, dragging me closer to the run-down buildings. “Let’s practice.”

For the next little while Harper and I created and manipulated energies and tried to combine them together before flinging them towards a new target. The hardest part was redirecting the energies. The most we ended up achieving was to simply move them slightly to the left of the original target.

Harper couldn’t create enough negative energy for a strike without first having a target to strike at and I was getting too tired to do much more than add a bit of my own energy before deflecting the blow that was always aimed originally at me. There was a patch of grass to my left that was decidedly crispy.

When a flash of lightning lit the sky, I jumped. I hadn’t realized but it had gotten really dark while we were practicing.

“We should probably go,” Harper said, glancing at the sky.

“Yeah,” I agreed as we began to walk towards the gate. For some reason I had a sense of foreboding and I was concentrating so much of my energy on the base, trying to feel if anything was wrong that I didn’t see the two guys heading towards us.

“Uh oh,” Harper said as he stopped walking and grabbed my arm to stop me too.

My attention snapped to the present and I felt panic rise in my chest as the two guys came closer. I couldn’t really make out any of their features from here but I could guess that they would be good-looking. They were both tall, over six feet, and walked with confidence. They were moving quickly and when the next flash of lightning came, I flinched worse than the first time. My heart was pounding with fear as I grabbed for any energy left inside of me, waiting for them to strike.

Nothing happened. They just got closer and closer and something in the way they walked was…familiar.

Another bolt of lightning lit the sky and this time I didn’t flinch as thunder followed immediately after. The lightning had given me a clear view of their faces and I let my shields drop as I groaned.

“Friends of yours?” Harper asked as he felt my shields go down.

“Probably not at the moment,” I mumbled as I recognized the thunder storm for what it was.

James, who was one of the guys striding towards us, was royally pissed off. Jack on the other hand, who was walking beside James, seemed to be in a good mood.

“You darlin’, are in so much trouble,” Jack’s cheerful voice rang out and I cringed, avoiding looking at James.

I couldn’t avoid him forever, especially not when he walked right up to me and gripped my arms painfully forcing me to look at him. “Ouch,” I said but he didn’t release his grip.

Harper settled a hand on James’ forearm applying pressure. “Dude, that’s my sister you’re manhandling.”

James didn’t bother looking at Harper. “And you put her in more danger than I ever would,” James growled addressing Harper but not taking his eyes off of me.

Harper let go of his arm and I could sense his feelings of guilt at James’ words. “Calypso checked it out. She said everything would be fine tonight.”

James shifted his head from side to side, his face going even darker. “Just knowing about the future can change it. You of all people should know that,” he growled again, gritting his teeth as he shot a glare at my brother before returning to me. “And you,” his voice was low and I could hear the anger in it, barely restrained. “You left without a single word to anyone and you left a good chunk of your own power behind to feed the shield. You put yourself into danger in order to have some fun with your brother and you didn’t even bother to leave a note.” James’ voice had gotten progressively louder and he took a deep breath to calm down. He let go of my arms only to grab onto my wrist and start dragging me towards the gate.

“You weren’t even at full strength tonight?” Harper called after us.

I turned back and just shrugged as I was dragged along. “I’ll talk to you later, Harper.”

We got outside the gate and James practically threw me in the front seat of his grandpa car. He got behind the wheel and took off, not waiting for Jack. The only other vehicle there was Harper’s. I guess Jack would be catching a ride with my brother.

I sighed as we made our way onto the main road.

This was going to be a long ride.