I tried not to get too cranky as I wiped the snow off my borrowed goggles for the thousandth time. Standing in the glaring white landscape I sighed and asked myself how I ended up in this situation. In front of me John had gone plunging on with Jenny and Kenneth. Shaking my head I shook off as much snow as I could and tried to catch up.
“You doing okay?” Wayne’s muffled voice called out from behind me and I managed to give him a thumbs up despite my arms being frozen. Letting out a chuckle, the large African took a few long strides and came up next to me. I envied his ease at navigating through the snow; and how unaffected he was.
“We are not too far off.” He shouted in order to be heard over the guiling wind. I gave him an impatient look, they had been saying that for the past few days, and yet all we saw was snow. I had little to no idea as to where we were, the only thing I knew was that we were far enough north that it was freezing cold. We had separated from the main group who were heading back to the nearest base north-west of the mountains. Whereas we had to head due north in order to reach a secret rendezvous point which I was pretty sure that we had missed already.
“I can’t see anything!” I shouted back, frustrated with the weather. John had only picked three more people aside from the two of us on this secret journey, trying to draw as little attention as possible. Jenny, who turned out to be his younger sister, both of them telekinetics, which I gathered was the general mutation of the de Silver. And very powerful as well, as I had seen John lift a huge boulder out of the way across a ravine.
There was also Kenneth, who I gathered to be some kind of protector of the two siblings. He appeared to be in his late forties, a surprisingly fragile Asian man and an ice elementalist, one of the rarest powers. I had seen him conjure an ice cylinder from thin air and spear a Felixia blanc in a matter of seconds.
Wayne was the joker of the group; he was the one who shielded the group from sight, whilst the red head (who I discovered was called Celine and is John’s fiancé) was the sensor. However his personality is a complete opposite to his power. Loud, cheerful and energetic; he was cheerful in almost every situation and overly friendly too.
Sometimes I wondered if this guy was born with some kind of emotional deficiency as a result of his power.
“We better catch up!” The happy hiker shouted and dragged me forward by my backpack strap. Groaning I tried to match his pace against the building blizzard towards the trio ahead. The wind was so strong that I struggled to stay on the ground.
“How much longer do we have to go on for?” I asked through my gritted teeth, finally caught up to John. It was difficult to gauge his reaction with only the bridge of his nose visible.
“It’s just up there.” He called out, voice muffled by the layers of fabric shielding his face. I grunted under my breath. This whole thing was getting ridiculous. My mind drifted as we surged onward to a certain fire elementalist. The thought of him being here and frozen into bits was enough to make me laugh, which quickly turned into a sigh, I missed him.
They should have arrived at the alleged campsite now, seeing as almost two weeks had gone by. I closed my eyes for a brief second and let myself remember his face. Then a particularly nasty wind snapped me out of my reverie. Just great. Life couldn’t get any better.
“I can see it!” Jenny shouted excitedly, it took me a few seconds to fully process the words properly through the wind. By then John, Jenny and Wayne had already broken into a run, although it was more of a walking pace due to the thick blanket of snow that covered the land. Quickly following them, I squinted into the distance trying to make out whatever that was our destination.
“Hurry, I can see the jet!” Kenneth exclaimed and I looked up, alarmed. No one ever said anything about flying. I thought airplanes were expensive, the fact that they are sending a plane to pick us up meant serious business.
“Quick, we need to clear the landing strip.” Kenneth said, waving us towards a spot that looked no different than the rest of the wilderness. With a wave of his hand the ice elementlist froze a thick layer of snow and John swiftly moved it to the side, revealing tarmac ground underneath.
Following their suit, I helped moved the ice off the stretch of that never-ending patch of ground. Wayne stood by the side while the four of us worked quickly as the sound of the engine became increasingly clear.
“How come no one told me about being picked up by a plane?” I asked, accusation seeping into my voice a little. There was no need to keep this information from me.
Kenneth gave me a furtive glance and I glared back at him. I didn’t come a few hundred miles with these people, alone just to be lied to the whole way and then to be treated like some kind of mole.
“We didn’t tell you because the less people know about the plan, the better.” John said, adjusting his goggles. “Information has a way of leaking out on its own nowadays.”
I nodded, understanding where his concern was coming from. Still, Kenneth had been treating me like I was a huge inconvenience the entire way and it was wearing down on me.
Shoving the last few bits of frozen snow off the tarmac, we cleared off to the side as the aircraft began to descend. At first I was confused by the small area of the landing strip but as the plane descended I realized that it was doing so vertically. This was some kind of a helicopter.
The current generated by the aircraft blade was creating a blizzard of snow that kept sweeping into us and Wayne had to put a hand on both Jenny and me to stop us from being blown backward. Eventually the aircraft landed safely on the tarmac and John rushed forward with us following closely behind.
As I approached I eyed up the plane; it was a model that I had never seen before. Sleek, streamlined and camouflaged. It resembled some kind of an enlarged bird in its design, with a beak-like front and relative proportion similar to those of an eagle. A side door opened from the top becoming and I could see the silhouette of a man behind it. The door descended to the tarmac forming a set of stairs and the man took a step out and came into view.
He looked to be about my father’s age, with dark brown hair that were greying a little, a stern face and bright blue eyes, not unlike my own. My father and grandmother have the same eyes too; they must be a family trait. His face softened slightly when he spotted John running across the tarmac and he gestured for all of us to get in.
Within minutes we were all ushered into the aircraft and I looked around this vastly different plane in awe. It had a completely different interior as well, probably because it was built for a different purpose. There was a very extensive pilot area that was only separated from the back by glass walls. The main part of the plane was lined with weaponries of all sorts, from guns to knifes to swords to medium size rifles.
There were rolls of collapsible plastic chairs attached to the wall below the weapons hanging on the wall, but right now sets of plush looking navy blue couches were scattered in the middle with a small coffee table in the middle. There were two pilots seated in the cockpit and the moment the door closed behind us we were off in the air again.
Removing his goggles and hat in one go John tugged down his scarf and collapsed onto the nearest couch, sighing in satisfaction against the soft cushioning. Jenny and Wayne did the same thing and settled on the couches nearby. Following their suit, I sat on the lone armchair in the room. Kenneth removed his outer garments too, but remained standing against a wall.
“Uncle Paul.” John started, addressing the middle-aged man. “You have no idea how glad I am to see you!”
The man, Paul shook his head at him, seemingly used to John’s behavior. I felt his glance flickered towards me and I sat up straighter, waiting to be addressed. Although we were supposed to bring news to the headquarters personally, I am sure that the other team must have already sent some kind of message out as soon as they arrived at the base.
“You must be Abigail.” Paul turned to me and said. I gave him a nod, trying to act composed. “Lynette will be waiting for us at the headquarters.”
I swallowed hard. Although I am not a fan of my grandmother, she is still my family and a very intimidating woman. And god knows what she would do to me now that she knew I had powers all along.
“Is the other team okay?” I asked the question that was foremost in my mind and Paul nodded, smiling a little. I gave Wayne a glare when I saw him smiling out of the corner of my eye; apparently everyone had seen Tom and me kissing that day at the camp but refrained from telling us that we were visible from where they were.
Talk about embarrassing.
“Your friends are fine.” Paul answered, “We are trying to find out about what happened to the Ganesh family guard as much as we can. But like POE Academy, Ganesh family is in a lockdown right now from the incident. It will take us a while to get in contact with them.”
I nodded; it seemed like every time a mystery unlocked itself, two others grew in its place. Now I know who had attacked us during the test, and that this same group attacked the Ganesh family guard. Was this a mere coincidence that I was caught in? Was I or someone in my group a target? Why did they attack groups with young POEs in training? Where did they take them?
I buried my face in my hands, suddenly feeling extremely tired. It had been a long journey so far, a journey that raised more questions than I could ever hope to find answers to. It also unearthed the truth about my lineage; I still couldn’t believe that Lynette never told anyone that she had Dad and Aunt Lydia. You have to be a special breed of proud to hide the existence of your children just because they don’t have powers.
“It’s alright.” Paul said as I lifted my head back up. “We are family no matter what.”
I smiled weakly at him. At this point I was slightly numb to the huge family that I had suddenly become part of. John and Jenny had tried to teach me a little bit of the family history and truth be told, we were a huge, massive sprawling tree that would take me years to remember. All I knew is that although our family history extend all the way back to the Old Age, it was this guy called Akram de Silver who really made the family great in the POE world back in the Dark Ages. Although we originated from France, this Akram guy actually grew up in the ruins of London and returned back to France later when he was a teenager. He was the main line of power and apparently Lynette was the one of the few direct descendents of him.
“You grandmother will explain everything to you when we arrive.” Paul said and I sighed. They probably won’t tell me where we are going either, safety purposes and all. I was probably going to be tested as well; just to be sure I was a hundred percent un-bugged and un-tempered with by other forces.
“We are there.” Jenny was shaking me gently and I blinked, slightly groggy from sleep and wasn’t sure of where I was. Standing up I realized that somehow I managed to fell asleep for the rest of the journey, which meant I had no idea how long we traveled for nor where we were likely to be.
“Come, we are getting off the plane.” John called out, standing by the plane door with Wayne bouncing out.
Standing up I was suddenly getting a little nervous. It had been two years plus since I last saw my family, two years since I got that letter from Lynette. Even longer since I last saw her as a young teenager. She probably had news of my parents and Dan as well.
“Come on.” Jenny nudged me; I nodded and started towards the door. My heart started pounding against my chest with each step I took towards the outside world. it was like a déjà vu back to the time when I got off the plane at POE Academy. At least then I knew where I had landed.
“Hello Abigail.” The moment I stepped off the plane, I could see Lynette waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs. She didn’t look any different than I last saw her, dressed impeccably in a beige business dress suite and an elegant updo. She had her arms opened towards me as if ready to engulf me into a hug.
“Welcome home.”
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Hey guys! sorry for this being a bit of a filler chapter, I tend to write these a lot but i didn't want to skip the entire journey towards her family for Abigail.
What do you think of her new family? Are they good? Evil? or a little bit of both? It's difficult to tell isn't it ;)
let me know what you think, remember to comment and vote!