OUT OF THE FLAMES by Jina Mack
Chapter 1.
May 7, 2012.
"Tell me who you are now." Karen said gently. She was my handler. She was my protector. She was in charge of keeping me hidden and therefore alive.
"I am no longer the girl I used to be." I took one last look at the familiar reflection staring back at me before letting my eyes flutter closed. "I am Christine Marie Sterling not Julia Rae Kirk. I am 16 years old not 15, I was born on May 20, 1996. I am a ballet dancer not a rhythmic gymnast. I moved to Saskatoon from Sacramento not Kansas City. I hate having my dark brown hair shorter than my shoulders. I have blue eyes and a slightly pointed nose. I hate bananas, sugar-coated candies, science fiction novels and being called Christy or Christa. I love gingerale, diagonal stripes and anything purple. I am poised, graceful and independent. I love spontaneity. I have a mom, a dad, a brother named Jamie and a sister named Marisa. I have never been to Kansas, I never lived there and I definitely did not witness the execution of my parents preformed by the Russian Mob." I opened my eyes and looked at my reflection in the mirror. It was exactly as I had just described. My blonde hair was gone and replaced with long, dark brown hair that reached just about to my elbows. I now had bright blue eyes and to my surprise I had full red lips. The change was drastic and it fulfilled its purpose perfectly. The only thing that remained the same was the thin white line encircling my pupil. It was the mark of the Elite and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get rid of it.
But my point was that, if I could barely recognize myself, how would the Russian Mob?
"That is incredible, do you mind me asking how you do that?" Karen asked.
"My grandparents were apparently part of a big scandal in the US in 2017. Stuff happened." I shrugged my shoulders and walked away leaving Karen confused and rather unbelieving.
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August 28, 2012.
I smiled widely as I drove down the highway all by myself. I had gotten my drivers license two days ago and now I was free-ish. I let my thoughts drift to my parents. My real parents. My dead parents. I thought about the last words my dad ever said freely to me.
"Use your gift everyday, it's a muscle not a trick, but don't let anyone know what you can do." He had been telling me to practice using my telekinesis, an ability I inherited from him. A characteristic of all Elites. I absent-mindedly lifted all seven coins in my cup holder into the air. I practiced holding them still and spinning only one. I got bored of that and watched them float around in a little dance.
"Don't let anyone know what you can do." My father's words rang in my head.
So far I had only let them down once. I told Karen half of what I could do, I had told her that I was a shapeshifter, but it was her job to protect me and I knew that I had no other choice than to trust her. I had settled in with a new family, but it was still a bit weird. It was the safest place for me to be and it made them safer too. The mob was looking for me specifically and for a family of four, not for a family of five. Marisa and I had gotten quite close, but nothing would bring back my real parents, mainly my dad, who knew exactly what I was going through. He had been teaching me all the fine points of my gifts, how fast I could heal, how to change my image faster, and how to better control objects with my telekinesis. Now he was gone and I had to learn by myself.
As a tear rolled down my cheek I abruptly cut off my train of thoughts. Christine would not be crying. She had never lost anyone. She had no reason to cry. I have no reason to cry. I am happy because I have my driver's license.
I glanced out the window of my car as I drove by the new acreages going up by my house. There were only three houses built so far, the bungalow, the emo house-it had dark brown stucco with black roofing and black windows- and the weird looking house that was grey with a blue tin roof. I have no idea why they would choose blue, and really, that blue? It was the color of the sky, as long as you were in Candyland. Seriously, it was the color of the brightest blue bubblegum on earth. The worst part was I could see it from my house. In fact, it was kitty corner from my field, the very back corner of my field touched the corner of these colorblind people's yard. There should be a law about such things-thou shalt not use any permanent colors on thy house that shall be an eyesore to any of thy neighbors. If your're going to choose a bright color at least pick a good color, like purple.
As I turned off the highway and onto the grid road that went to my house I noticed a U-haul trailer parked in front of the blue-roofed house. I continued on my way home. I pulled into the driveway parked my car beside the house and ran inside, shopping bags in tow.
"I'm home!" I said in a sing song voice. I kicked off my shoes and ran up to my room. I dumped my bags on my bed and started pulling out my new clothes. I giggled as I saw all my new cute clothes, with lots of stripes and lots of purple. I folded them and put them all into the correct spot in my chest of drawers. I smiled at my newly updated wardrobe before turning on my heel and heading back downstairs. I walked into the kitchen and took a deep breath. Cookies.
"Oh Mari!" I called to my amazing sister Marisa, "What have you made me today?" I glided into the kitchen and stopped at her side, peering over her shoulder at the warm, cookies, fresh out of the oven.
"I made half and half cookies, half of each cookie is white with chocolate chips and the other side is chocolate with white chocolate chips. And they're not for you, they are for the new neighbors. You know, the ones in the lovely blue house." She shook her head at mention of the outrageous roof, obviously she didn't get it either.
"When are we going over?" I asked wanting to know when I got to eat one of those delicious-looking cookies.
"In one hour, once the rest get out of the oven." I sighed and went to the gamer room. I sat down at my Mac and opened up my Facebook page. I looked at all the posts before getting bored. I switched to Pinterest and got to work on my newest board of difficult lifts and ballet moves.
It took me at least an hour to post a picture or two of each lift. When I couldn't think of anymore moves I hopped back into the kitchen.
"Are you done yet Mar?" I hollered.
"Yes." Said a deep voice behind me. I jumped and spun only to find Marisa behind me not a seven foot tall hit man dressed in black.
"Don't do that. I thought you were..." I trailed off.
"Scared of a couple of mobsters? Christy is scared of fat, balding men in matching black suits with scary, little guns?" She said mocking me in a high pitched voice. I glared at her, half because she was mocking me and half because she used my hated nickname, Christy. My name was Christine. I allowed Christine, Chris, Stine or maybe even Tina, but not Christy or heaven forbid, Christa. I shuddered mentally at the though of someone calling me that horrible name.
"You moved 3000 miles so they wouldn't find us. They would never expect you to be in Canada, they probably think people up here live in igloos, heck I thought they did, but turns out I was wrong!" She said trying to comfort me, because she knew how much I missed Kansas.
"Whatever, lets find my Mom, Dad and Jamie so we can go eat cookies!" I smiled widely at the thought of the warm, gooey mess that would soon be melting in my mouth.
"Dad is outside with Jamie. Go find them, I'll find mom and tell the cops where we're going." Marisa ordered.
"Yes sir." I muttered on my way to the back door. I put on my flip flops and a thin summer jacket and trudged out into into the warm evening air. I immediately saw Dad and Jamie raking grass clippings across our large lawn and I walked over to them.
"Marisa baked cookies, so now we have to go to the new neighbors house and eat them." Jamie's eyes lit up at the mention of cookies.
"What kind of cookies?" He asked.
"Half and half cookies." I said smiling knowing they were his favorite.
"Ok, time to go. These leaves can rake themselves, I got me some cookies to eat!" Jamie called over his shoulder as he dashed off towards the house. Dad and I followed at a slightly slower pace. By the time we got inside Jamie had changed and was sitting on the steps patiently with a set of keys twirling around his fingers. I laughed to myself at the excitement in his eyes.
Five minutes later we were parked outside the blue-roofed house. We all piled out of the car, Mom, Dad, Jamie, Marisa and I. As we headed to the door I realized how big this house really was. Marisa proudly carried the cookies as she didn't trust Jamie to carry them and not eat them. We marched up to the front door and my dad rang the doorbell. We all jostled around trying to arrange ourselves so we could all fit on the doormat. I ended up being pushed in front and I was pleased that I would have the best view of whoever opened the door.
The door suddenly swung open and I was standing face to face with a boy probably relatively close to my age which was 16. He had russet- brown skin with blue eyes and fire engine red hair. He was obviously Latino as after a second glance I could see that he had dark brown roots an eighth of an inch long. A puzzled looked crossed his face as he took in the five of us standing on his porch.
"Hello." He smiled at us still slightly confused.
Marisa pushed her way to the front and held the cookies out in front of her. "Hi, we're your neighbors and we saw you moving in and so we made cookies to welcome you to the area." She beamed at him.
"That is so nice of you, please come in and I will go find my parents." He flashed us a breathtaking smile and welcomed us in before closing the door behind us and dashing up the stairs for a minute.
The most noticeable thing about this boy was not his bright red hair, but the way that he moved. He was probably the most graceful person I have ever seen, every step he took looked choreographed. Every movement was fluid and every motion had a purpose. I watched him from the corner of my eye as he floated up and then down the stairs a minute later.
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So, first chapter. I'm not that impressed but I know it will get better Hope you guys like it!
May 17-I added a ton of stuff and and now the whole book will work way better. But not it's slightly choppy. Sorry