Chapter 4
Even though I'd been in La Push for nearly a week, the sight of the forest had yet dulled in its beauty. Driving through the remote road in a car was one thing, but riding on a motorcycle through the tall trees was a completely different experience. With one arm around Jacob, the other reached for the treetops as though if I extended it enough then I might just touch them. Jacob had glanced over his shoulder a few times to check out my excitement and each time I sent him a small laugh, one that fell genuinely from my lips. Not forced or choreographed to make anybody happy, but because the feeling was absolutely authentic of expressing how I truly felt.
For the first time since coming to La Push, I felt an ounce of true happiness. I'm grateful for Emily, but this moment was different, it felt like pure joy. Motorbikes were always something I loved wholeheartedly. It was an activity my father and I used to do together on our land to pass the time on the weekend, thus the piece of machinery held a special place in my heart. So to be on the back of one and surrounded by the stunning forestry was simply a moment I needed. It reminded me of home, but it was still a new experience. Jacob steered the bike off the road and rode around the side of little red house, before parking the motorcycle in a garage. Reluctant to accept that the ride was over, I slowly swung my leg off the bike and took my helmet off.
"That was amazing!" I explained, turning to him with a grin, "But next time, I drive!" He laughed and shook his head.
"No way! I don't want to die" He playfully retorted. I scoffed, shoving his helmet against his chest jokingly.
"Get out of 'ere! I'm faster than you, so I'll just beat you to the bike. Then you'll have no choice" I concluded with a shrug. Jacob placed the helmet on his workbench and shook his head.
"I'm stronger than you, I'll just push you aside." My eyes practically rolled into the back of my head.
"Oh, please! Just because you're packing a bit of muscle, now you think..." I wasn't able to finish my sentence at the sight of his brows lifting and the smile on his lips pull exceptionally wider.
"Oh, so you've noticed, have you?" Jacob teased.
"Shut up!" He laughed at my sheepish expression.
"Come on, let's get some food." Jacob entered the red house through a back door, and headed straight for the kitchen, offering me food and drinks.
"Jake, you home?" A deep voice called out from another room. I turned my head and watched as a man in a flannel shirt entered the room, pushing his wheelchair effortlessly. His skin was the same russet colour as Jacob's and hair just as long as Jacob, which was pulled into a messy ponytail. The older man's eyes instantly met mine with interest before turning to his son's with curiosity. Jacob's head lifted from the inside of the fridge.
"Yeah, dad. This is Kira. Kira this is my dad, Billy Black" Jacob introduced, before continuing to pull another container from the fridge.
"Hello." I approached the man and extended my hand. His hand gently enclosed around mine and shook it. His skin wasn't as warm as Sam and Embry's had been, though.
"Leave the casserole, Jake. Its dinner," Billy scolded, "Sorry, Kira. It's lovely to meet you. This one doesn't bring home many girls." I smiled and looked over at Jacob, who closed the fridge door with an unamused expression and I sensed a hint of embarrassment.
"Thanks, dad."
"What? Can't lie," Billy shrugged, relaxing into his chair. "I'm all about keepin' it real."
"Can't break the ice any other way?" Jacob groaned, pulling a bag of chips out of the pantry.
"Hey, it was the first thing that I thought of" Billy justified nonchalantly, lifting his shoulders into a shrug.
"Awesome, thanks, cool, so we'll be in the garage" Jacob nodded at his dad and looked back at me. I nodded, as well.
"You're staying with the Uleys, aren't you?" Billy asked me softly, just as I turned to follow Jacob out of the home. I stopped to turn my attention back to the man in the wheelchair and nodded. There was something in his eyes that I couldn't quite detect and when I peered into his emotions, he was intrigued; nothing out of the ordinary or strange. But I did wonder where his intrigue was coming from or why he cared. As far as I knew, Jacob and Sam weren't connected. He didn't talk much about Sam Uley or Emily.
"Yeah, I am" I responded. He nodded back.
"Okay, dad, we'll be in the garage" Jacob called, opening the door for me and signalling me over to him. I threw Billy a wave over my shoulder and followed Jacob back to his garage. Jacob caught me up with his project car and then got to business, often pulling me into the job to contribute. On the other side of the garage, sat two dirt bikes almost pulled apart to their skeletons and around the bikes were the dissected parts neatly arranged on rags.
"Do those bikes belong to you?" I asked him, my thumb jabbing in the direction of the set up. Jacob glanced over the bikes, a strange emotion running into his eyes in the process and he nodded. There was a hopeful look in his eyes, and I realised there was more to that story than what he was about to tell me.
"Sort of, my friend and I are rebuilding them." The word 'friend' seemed to roll off his tongue distastefully, as though he wish he were calling the friend something else. It became very obvious that there was much more to that story.
"Cool."
Jacob and I worked on the engine of his car and then ended up discussing the expected outcome of the two dirt bikes over pizza. Jacob shared only the information about what he wanted to do with them without the good information about whom he was working on the project with. Before we knew it the sun had set and there was a soft pink string of light stretched across the sky. When the pink faded and turned black we decided it was best I get home.
"I'll just walk home" I suggested and in my mind began thinking of taking a route through the forest.
"No way! I'll give you a ride."
"I'll give you a ride" I retorted playfully. He narrowed his eyes with thought before shaking his head again. Jacob pushed his bike to the front door and we popped back inside so I could say goodbye to Billy. When we got outside I raced for the bike and turned on my heel swiftly by the handlebars. Jacob approached me with an amused expression.
"Maybe, you are faster" He mumbled.
"I'll just wait for you to get your helmet" I grinned, wrapping my hand around the grip of the handlebars and swung my leg over the seat. A sense of familiarity filled me as memories of Australia flooded me, being on the back of one of these were so comfortable for me that it came back like muscle memory.
"No way, get off" He shook his head. I narrowed my eyes at him and settled into the seat with a frown.
"Fine, but I'll start it up for you first" I told him. He nodded and rolled his eyes, with a smile. I lifted my leg and flicked the kickstand out with my toes. I wasn't really wearing the best shoes for kicking the starter, but I managed it in two kicks, which was good enough. I pulled it back in place with my foot and settled back onto the seat of the bike.
"Jump on, buddy." He shook his head and pulled the helmet over my head. I fixed it up and watched as he slid onto the seat behind me. His arm reached over my shoulder to flip a switch, turning the headlight on.
"Let's go" He said and swung his leg around, wrapping his arms around my waist awkwardly. I grinned mischievously as he cleared his throat, signalling that he was ready.
"Hold on" I warned.
I slowly pulled out onto the empty road, playing with the clutch and brakes to get familiar with them quickly. I felt his arms loosen slightly and grinned. Bad move, buddy. Once I turned onto the road I opened the throttle, kicking the bike into second and laughing at the sound of his surprise. His arms wrapped tightly around my torso, trying to rebalance himself. Jacob directed me to Emily's place and we very quickly made it there. In no time I had pulled into the driveway and shut the engine off. He literally jumped off the back of the bike and sent me wide grin. I swung my leg off of the bike and smiled widely as I pulled my helmet off.
"Next time you want to drive, I'll take a second bike for myself. I thought I was going come off like three times! There was nothing to hold onto" He teased.
"I wasn't going that fast" I said, playfully pushing him. Oh, the truth in that.
"I beg to differ" He chuckled, with a light shake of his head, taking back the helmet that I extended towards him.
"Whatever," I said, "Hey, thanks for today, it was fun. We should do it again." A gleeful smile was evident on his face, as he flashed his white teeth for me.
"Totally" He agreed with a nod.
"See ya, Jake, thanks for the ride, again" I smiled, giving him a quick hug before walking up the porch to the back door. I threw him back a wave as he sat back down on his bike and started it effortlessly. I heard the engine roar to life and then watched him ride off before entering the house.
If there was anything that was becoming constant, in my stay in La Push, it was the aromatic smell that wafted into my nostrils whenever I entered the house. That night in particular, the sweet smell of chocolate muffins raced into my senses and made my stomach grumble with hunger (or excitement). My feet instantly carried me towards the kitchen where Emily was at the sink cleaning dishes and a tray of muffins sat on the kitchen island, cooling off from the oven.
"You're going to make me fat" I warned Emily, my eyes hungrily staring the muffins down. She glanced over her shoulder at me and laughed.
"I did tell your mum that I'd keep you fed, if anything," She teased, her smile playfully as was the glint in her eyes. I had wondered what my mother had told Emily and what on earth Emily was smoking when she decided to look after me. Surely my mother was compensating her. There was little chance that anybody would do this task without benefiting from it somehow. Regardless, of how my mother persuaded Emily to be my guardian, I was definitely benefiting from all of Emily's amazing cooking. "You can have one." I did not need to be offered twice.
"You're a blessing!" I tried to take a small bite, despite the muffin still being hot.
"How did things go with Jacob?" She asked.
"Good, we just hung out in his garage, worked on his car. Nothing exciting" I assured her.
"Do you like him?" Emily asked bluntly. I was slightly taken back, because I hadn't really expected Emily to be so straightforward.
"Not in that way. Just friends." She nodded and carried on with the washing of the dishes, but I got the inkling she didn't believe me. We made small talk while I ate my muffin and once I'd finished I'd gone up to the room to get ready for bed. After showering and completing the rest of my night routine, I slipped into bed and flicked through a booklet we got in History that we had to do reading on. Just as I flipped past the first page did my phone start to ring next to me. The name sprung a smile to my lips.
"Hello" I called into the phone.
"Hey, how you going over there?" Will's voice graced my ears.
"It's alright, everyone is really nice, but I'm missing home a bit."
"I bet you are, but I have just the thing to fix that!" I sat up slightly straighter and frowned.
"What's going on, Will?" My brain started formulating suggestions, which only built the anticipation of his response.
"I've convinced Mum and Dad to let me come up and see you in La Pull." He informed me. It felt like the excitement in the pit of my stomach imploded and fireworks went off around me. I let out a laugh.
"Please tell me that was a joke."
"What was?" He asked, sounding genuinely confused by my response.
"La Pull" I repeated
"Oh, shit! La Push, right?" He corrected himself.
"Wow," I laughed. "But, seriously, I'm so happy right now! How on earth did you convince them?" I wondered. His parents had always been pretty tough on him to do well in school and he was definitely a better student than I was. Naturally, he was smarter and often helped me with my classes. But he was one of those kids that didn't have to study too hard because he understood the information and by understanding the content he remembered it for the tests. I hate him too.
"You don't want to know," He chuckled, "I said a lot of shit."
"I believe you. Are you coming soon?" I laughed.
"It's a surprise, but, yeah soon." We talked for a little longer before he had to get ready for early morning football practice.
I had attempted to get back into reading my History booklet, but the sound of stones bouncing of the window in the room dragged me away from my schoolwork again. I let out a sigh, having an idea of who was outside of my window. I heaved my legs off of the bed, cursing Embry for dragging me away from my comfortable position on the bed, and made my way to the window. I opened the window without saying a word and walked back to the bed. Sure enough, he was standing in my room a moment later dressed in shorts and a shirt. I swear these blokes never got cold.
"Now, what do I owe such a pleasure?" I asked, crossing my arms over my chest.
"How was Jake's?" He made his way to the desk chair and plonked himself in it. His tone was a little too serious for my liking, which irked me slightly.
"Hi, Embry, how are you? I'm great, thank you for asking. Jacob's place? Oh, yes, it was a time, had a blast. How was your day?" I rambled back sarcastically, throwing him a glare. He sent me a deadpanned expression and leant back in the chair.
"What did you do?" He asked, narrowing his eyes in curiosity.
"Things I can't say out loud" I teased. His eyes widened and he sat up abruptly. I broke my serious expression and rolled my eyes at his gullible response.
"Shit" He mumbled, letting out a sigh of relief and relaxing.
"We worked on his car and ate pizza. Literally that's it. Doing just what mates do... chill" I explained with a careless shrug and sat down on the bed opposite of him. There was something in eyes that showed that he was relieved, but why? All these questions about Jacob were making me suspicious and confused. I didn't understand why Embry made such a big deal of me befriending Jacob.
"Did you meet Bella?" He asked gingerly.
"No, who is she?" I asked curiously.
"She's a friend of Jake's, a bit clingy but you can't blame her after what happened to her with her boyfriend." Naturally his vague response prompted me to ask more nosy questions, but his answers were disheartening to hear. I suppose I could sort of relate to her, in that we both recently separating with our significant others. But I had to give her the cake for the way hers ended. Devastating to hear, none the less, and my heart went out to her.
"Just whatever you do, don't let Jake hear you talk about her in the wrong way. He is very protective of her because of those feelings" Embry warned.
"Thanks for the heads up."
"Hey, what made you upset at lunch today?" Embry asked, his brows pulling together with concern. "It wasn't Paul, was it?" I shrugged.
"Yeah, sort of. I just didn't like his cocky attitude" I lied. There was something very off-putting about hearing his relationship with Hilary or rather how he spoke about the relationship. Embry narrowed his eyes at me, but didn't grill me any further. Instead, he stood up and pulled his ringing phone out of his pocket. Embry frowned before turning away to answer it. I pushed my hair behind my ear, managing to just catch the words the person on the receiver was saying into Embry's ear.
"Go home, Embry. Emily asked you not to sneak into her room." Sam's voice scolded Embry. My brows lifted in surprise. Had he seen Embry climb the window?
"I know, I'm sorry," He mumbled, "I'll see you tomorrow." The conversation ended just as quickly as it started. Embry turned back to me with a glum expression.
"My mum asked me to come home. She thought I was with Jared." Now, who is the liar?
"No worries, I'll see you soon." He raised his hand in a farewell and climbed back out of the window.
I'd spent the following day, in the room completing school work sent by my Australian teachers. My mother had phoned me for a brief six minutes and thirty-seven seconds (yes, I noted the time) to make sure I was still alive, I wasn't being a thorn in Emily's backside and that I was doing my work. As per usual, the conversation had left me irritated and angry, which carried on in the following day.
Friday was the same average day at school, except I had avoided Paul. I spoke to Embry because we had classes together, but there was something wrong. It was as though I had an itch on my back that I couldn't reach and the agitation of the itch kept piling on top of itself. In particular, the day at school escalated that feeling and the anger in my stomach gradually worsened. When I had stopped to think about why I was feeling this way I assumed it was because of the average day I had experienced the day before, but I wondered why it was causing this much of an affect on me.
I hadn't spoken much to Emily and Sam that night at dinner. In fact, I stayed in the room trying to focus on school work and only went downstairs for the fifteen minutes that it took to eat dinner, offer Emily a hand with the cleaning up (to which she declined) and went back to the room. But the feeling of frustration and irritation was still not subsiding as the night progressed. I found it extremely difficult to focus on the words on the paper and ended up having a shower and sliding into bed early, hoping that sleep would soothe these weird feelings.
My eyes snapped open suddenly. From my position, I could feel my clothes sticking slightly to some parts on my body from a thin layer of sweat. Usually, this would bother me, but tonight I felt unbothered by it and instead robotically got out of bed. It felt like a blink of an eye but the next thing I knew I was standing at the window, dressed in my black clothing and opening the window. Instinctively, I climbed out of the window and leapt from the windowpane. A tiny thud could be heard as I made contact with the ground before I was running through the woods expertly, as if I had been running through the maze of trees since I could walk.
Suddenly my body stopped and my knees buckled from a sharp pain that pushed into my mind and quickly travelled through my gut. The pain, that had found its way to my gut, had begun as a small insignificant pulsing sensation, but gradually was increasing in its strength. I struggled to move from my kneeling position on the ground, as the pain took over my body, running through my veins and paralysing my limbs. A hot flush coursed through my veins, hitting every nerve and making my skin feel as though it was on fire. It got so bad that I felt as though I was seconds from exploding. As this hot flush took over my body, my eyes had changed colour, darkening to a bright orange, which had been a visual expression of the newfound power that was taking over my body.
My hands suddenly extended as my body instinctively acted to release the power that had blossomed from within me. Much to my surprise, flames burst from the tips of my fingers and licked their way up the trunk of the tree closest to me. The flames rushed up the length of the trunk and consumed the lower branches in fire before leaping to the leaves that lived on the branches. The fire jumped onto the next branch and then the next, constantly searching for uncharted territory while it flickered and crackled loudly, releasing clouds of smoke into the dark sky. Unbeknown to myself, the smoke alerted the creatures in the forest, deterring the small animals away and drawing a certain large animal towards the phenomenon. I tried to stand up when the sound of a howl entered my ears, as my mind registered the howl as threatening. Slowly I stood onto my two feet and tried to step forward, but my knees buckled again forcing me back to the ground.
From behind me I heard the sound of breaking twigs and ruffling of the shrubs. My head turned to the sounds and my eyes landed on three wolves, but my mind didn't recognise the creatures, as it should have. Instead, I saw three targets. My body swivelled and my hand stretched out to them, as my body intuitively released this new power. I aimed at the wolf in the middle, as it was closer to me, stalking quietly. But at the sight of my flames, it jumped off to the side and circled my body along with the two other wolves. Another sharp pain in my body pulsated throughout me, causing a strained yell to leave my lips. The pain subsided a few moments after it crashed through me and instantly I felt a sense of power replace it. As though it had taken over, there was no pain or discomfort in my body. I stood up with ease and rolled my shoulders back.
A wolf bolted in my direction, and my arm lifted, releasing more flames from my fingertips. The wolf jumped away and stepped back to maintain its distance. I spun on my heels as another wolf tried to advance towards me, but when my arm lifted it retreated back. The wolf on my left attempted to do the same thing and I twisted my body so that I was facing it with my outstretched hand. Just as it jumped to the side, a flame left my fingers and hit its hindquarters as it attempted to escape. It whimpered and limped away. All the while, I felt nothing. It was as though I was operating on autopilot or sitting in the backseat of my mind while someone (or rather something) else controlled my very actions.
Suddenly, a wolf managed to pin me from behind, pushing me forward and buckling my knees. I landed flat on the ground, but quickly twisted my body and grasped its front legs. It felt like shivers ran through my body, but rather than going away the shivers ran straight to my hands and made them heat up. The wolf growled viciously but then the growling turned to whimpering and I let go. The wolf staggered backwards, attempting to get as far away from me as it could.
Suddenly I was attacked from behind again. I fell to the ground landing on my stomach with a grunt of effort. My eyes turned over my shoulder to see the jet black wolf snarling. I flipped onto my back, with the intentions of reaffirming control over the situation. The large creature snapped it's angry jaw in front of me, as I ducked my head to maintain the shadowing of my hood. My shoulders suddenly stung at the feeling of the wolf press his claws into my skin, and it penetrated through the material of my top and the skin beneath it. With a snarl I threw a fireball into his face, causing him to jolt back and allowing me to kick him away from me.
I turned to the grey wolf snarling behind me. I stood up slowly and let my hands fall to my sides, as fireballs grew in my palms gradually building in strength and heat. The wolf looked like it wanted to coward out, but a conflicting spark of strength pushed through the sliver of fear that pushed into his eyes. It charged at me forcefully and purposely. But I wouldn't give him the chance to reach me before my arm swung back and catapulted the fireballs at the wolf. The strong force that was pushing through my mind felt a sense of accomplishment when the fireball hit its target. The wolf took the fireball to his chest and was thrown onto its back.
Another fireball grew in the palm of my hand, stronger than ever and hotter than the flames that appeared before it. My mind pushed me towards the wolf, stalking it like a predator would. His eyes spotted me and widened with a flicker of fear. Just as the instinct pushed me to throw the ball of fire, did I stop and shake my head clear of the thought. For a split second, my soul forced through the new power and I regained a moment of consciousness. I halted in my path and stared down at the fireball and then back up at the wolf that quickly found its footing. I shook my head once again and pushed the fireball into the damp earth, extinguishing the flame from making contact with the wolf. He seemed confused for a second, seeing as every ball of fire I'd created before that had been made with the intentions to hurt the wolves. But not this one. I pushed my foot to take a step back and another one until I turned my body around and blacked out.
My eyes opened quickly and for a second I forgot where I was. My mind was fuzzy and confused. My surroundings felt foreign and, in that moment, had I been asked to recall my own name, I wouldn't have been able to answer. Just as quickly as it was all forgotten, did it all come rushing back to me. The odd dream felt burned into my brain and each moment was vividly pressed into my thoughts. The feeling of the power overtaking my body was one that I hadn't felt in a very long time, in fact only once before when my empathic power came to me. That had been an awful and tiring day as everyone's emotions overwhelmed my entire being and resulted in me falling into a slumber for twenty-four hours, so that my mind could recover. Yet, this one had acted much differently than my empathic power had. While my first power was passive, the consequences of its blossoming was inflicted onto myself. But this new power inflicted itself onto other beings, presumably causing pain to the creatures in my dream.
Loud voices could suddenly be heard from the dining room downstairs, as well as heavy footsteps and muffled voices from the kitchen. These noises brought me back to the present and it was then that I felt the dampness of my sleepwear that had seeped into my sheets. I scrunched my nose with disgust as I pushed the covers off my overheating body and hauled my legs off the side of the bed. The first thought in my mind was to shower the sweat from my body as the discomfort of my clothes sticking to my back and limbs became more intolerable. I stripped the sheets from my bed and carried them in my arms as I left the bedroom.
I hugged the sheets to my chest as I descended the stairs, only to stop at the bottom to stare at the sight in front of me with confusion. Sitting around the dining table were the Sam, Paul, Jared and Embry. Each male sat shirtless and shoeless with burn marks littered over their skin accompanied with pained expressions on their faces.
"What the hell happened to you guys?" I asked, frowning at the state of the guys. I dropped the sheets at the foot of the staircase and wondered my way closer towards them, approaching Embry first and glancing over his injuries with curiosity. A large patch of scorched skin stretched over his chest, reaching both of his pectorals and around the waist of his torso. It managed to stop just above his belly button, but the expanse of the burn confused me. How does someone burn themself like that? Emily rushed into the room with a wet towel in her hand.
"I'll explain later," She muttered. "Embry's chest is pretty bad, he needs to get under cool water for ten minutes. Can you help him?" From across the table Paul's attention seemed captured.
"He can stand in the shower on his own" Paul grumbled roughly. Sam sent Paul a glare. I looked over to Emily for clarity.
"I'm fine" Embry grumbled and stood up from his seat slowly, before making his way towards the staircase.
"Maybe I should keep my eye on him" I suggested, my eyes watching Embry's weak footing. Emily nodded, her attention on treating a burn running along the side of Sam's face.
"He'll be okay for the minute, first get a towel for Paul's shoulder and wet it under cool water. Don't make it too cold." I nodded and sped into the laundry, finding a towel and following Emily's instructions. Once the towel was drenched, I wrung it out and gently laid it over the burn on Paul's shoulder. He hardly winced as his eyes trained forward, narrowed in annoyance. I made sure that the towel rested over his shoulder before rushing back up the stairs to check on Embry, who stood under cold water in the shower wearing only his shorts. I stayed with him until his ten minutes was up and helped him out of the shower and collected a pair of Sam's shorts for him to change into. Shortly after his cool shower, he re-joined the others at the dining table. I'd retrieved another cold towel to rest on another one of Embry's burns on his forearm before letting out a sigh and reassessing the sight of the boys in pain.
"Why haven't we healed yet?" Paul asked, his voice hissing between his clenched jaw.
"These aren't normal burns" Sam muttered, his tone low and just as annoyed. When I turned to look at him properly I realised his burns were littered not only along the side of his face but also around his chin, another expanding over his neck, forearms and legs. It seemed like Sam coped the brunt of the force.
"Clearly! I can't sit comfortably. It got my lower back and ass!" Jared complained, shifting in his chair with a frown.
"It was weird though. At the end these, it could have killed me...it looked like it was about to set that huge flame onto me. But then it stopped and just walked away..." Embry added, his mind deep in thought.
"Must you talk now?" Emily muttered, her tone laced with sternness that shut the boys up from their raving. I trained my attention on the towel that rested on Paul's shoulder and thought of changing it. I approached him slowly and carefully lifted it from his skin, noticing him wince as the wound had bonded slightly to the towel.
"Sorry" I muttered. His eyes lifted to meet mine and there was a glimmer of something there, which stopped me in my track.
"My ass hurts!" Jared whined loudly, breaking the trance between Paul and myself. I cleared my throat lightly and glanced over at Jared, who was expressing a lot of discomfort as he shifted in his seat.
"I hope you're cleaning yourself 'cause I ain't touching your ass wound" I said, hoping to lighten the mood a bit.
"You especially" Jared teased, throwing a wink my way. I rolled my eyes and begun to make my way to the laundry to clean the Paul's towel.
"Nah, I'd prefer to clean Embry's ass" I grinned. Embry blushed and shook his head, as distracted himself with his wounds; meanwhile I heard a growl leave Paul's lips. I threw the towel in the sink, where others lay waiting to be cleaned and sanitised. Emily had me disinfect some of the other cuts and scrapes on Paul while she tended to Jared.
"What caused these burns anyway?" I asked.
"We were working on a car and I made a mistake, causing a mini explosion to go off. We were all standing a little too close to it when it happened" Sam answered gruffly. I refrained from showing any expression of disbelief and instead nodded.
"Wow. Looks a bit bigger than a mini explosion" I muttered, my eyes narrowing on a cut on Paul's chest.
"Yeah" He agreed uneasily.
"Kira, you can go back to sleep now. I can take care of the rest of them. Thank you for your help" Emily instructed me.
"I haven't finished with Paul yet and Embry—"
"That wasn't a suggestion. Please go to bed." Emily's tone was firmer this time as she stood up and turned to look at me straight. I frowned, this being the first time I'd heard Emily be stern with me.
"It'll only take me a few more minutes—"
"No arguing, Kira. Up to bed." I opened my mouth to oppose Emily again, but I felt Paul press his hand into my hip.
"Go to bed, Kira" Paul suggested, his tone gentle. But it still annoyed me that he was siding with Emily, rather than myself. With a huff I dropped the gauze onto the table and stepped around Paul, walking rather harshly back to the bedroom. I closed the door behind me harshly and let out a grunt of annoyance. For some reason, I was a lot more bothered by Emily sending me to bed than I should have been. It felt like she had insulted me and embarrassed me in front of the others and I could feel the blood in my veins boiling. This soon escalated to my heart thudding that little bit harder against my ribcage before my breathing picked up into short panting.
Suddenly I felt my body heat up, as if I'd walked next to a heater, and I became aware of the thin layer of sweat that lined my skin. I moved my eyes away from staring out of the window and realised that there was a strange orange glow in the room, as though a light was shining dimly from a corner of the room. Only when I started looking around did my sight fall onto my palm, where a glowing ball of fire hovered in my palm. I gasped and jumped back, initially thinking I was on fire before I realised that I started it. The fire remained hovering in my palm and I stared at it in wonder, thinking that it should feel like my hand was on fire, but it didn't. While my body temperature felt warmer than usual, the ball of flames felt comfortable resting in the palm of hand.
I frowned and poked the flame, watching as the orange the small fire licked my fingers hardly leaving a trace of any burns or heat. It continued to flicker in my palm as I brushed my entire other hand through it. My eyes seemed wide at this point as I realised that the dream was not a dream, but a memory. The boys sitting downstairs with the burn marks that Emily and I had just been treating were not caused by an explosion at the fault of Sam, but myself. It was I who put those pained expressions on their faces and red burn marks to litter over their skin. The thought made me gasp and clap my hand over my mouth. My eyes fell back onto the flame in my palm and suddenly all that could fill my mind was how to put it out. My eyes darted around the room until I thought of the shower.
I poked my head out of my door and scurried across the hallway to the bathroom, where I quickly closed the door and opened the facets for the shower. I hardly gave it a chance to set a comfortable temperature before I stuck my hand under the spray of water, watching as the flames were put out in a small huff of smoke. I realised that that rush of power I'd felt in the dream—or rather memory—had been exactly that, a power. I'd received a new power.
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So what do we think of Kira's new abilities?