s*t*a*r*s/J*A*D*E*S
“Good night sweet girl, it was a pleasure to have known you” - JMG
Jo pulls out the grappling crossbow that Finch had packed. “You know, I’m starting to love Finch.”
“Jo is falling for a man,” says Emma with a quirk in her voice. “We don’t have much time,” says a serious Emma, taking her hand away from the train.
Jo sees the look in Emma’s eyes, knowing she’d seen something, “How bad is it?” asks a concerned Jo Wheaton.
“We have ten minutes,” says Emma grabbing the rope that Jo has anchored to the still shaking train. The fire from two compartments over is spreading quickly. Emma clambered up the side of the train, just as some rescue workers finally made it to the scene. “Maybe less,” says Emma ominously.
“Merde,” says Jo. Looks back at the workers, thinking that now they couldn’t use their powers at all either, not like mind reading or seeing the future is going to help. “Double merde.”
Two Sides
1.18.05
You hide in the daylight
In plain sight
No one knows
You truly dwell in the night
A hunter
A killer
Taker of life
Dawn comes around
Every day
Your two sides
Night and Day
You are the healer
The protector
Two sides of the same tarnished coin
Ying
Yang
Life
Death
Your bipolar swing
Keeps the world on its toes
You dance around it all
Unscathed by the knife
How do you manage it
To hide in the daylight
In plain sight?
s*t*a*r*s/J*A*D*E*S
Another explosion rocks the remainder of the train, sending the car that Sam and Daisy are in falling forward. They can see the front of the car is gone, the opening revealing bright sunlight and the abyss of the now collapsed bridge.
“We are so screwed,” says Daisy softly. A silent prayer comes to her, and Daisy tries to remember the last time that she’d prayed. She was angry at herself for not calling Peggy, her grandmother, more often, angry that she’d never fallen in love, angry at the world, but right now, she didn’t have time for that.
Sam adjusts her grip, her broken leg throbbing madly, covered in blood, not all of it hers, dirt, and things she doesn’t even want to mention. “I cannot die here.”
“Don’t look like we got much of a choice, now do we?” asks Daisy in a dead pan tone.
“You need to get out of here,” says Sam. “Can you try, Daisy?”
“I don’t want to leave you.”
Sam smiles ruefully. “I’d rather one of us lives than both of us die.”
s*t*a*r*s/J*A*D*E*S
Jo tightens the climbing rig, not thinking about anything but finding Sam, if she is alive. Emma can’t tell, her visions are a jumble of images. Looking up at Emma, who is holding the anchor end of the rope, Emma says, “You save your ass first, Jo, understand me?”
Jo smirks but Emma is having none of it, grabbing her, pulling her close, “Promise me.”
“I swear,” says Jo quietly looking away from Emma’s imploring eyes, then looks back at her, seeing how serious Emma is.
Emma locks eyes with her oldest friend, pulling her closer and kissing her quickly. “Go get Sam, but you come first.”
Jo swallows hard, nodding and pushing off to see if she can venture into one of the not burning compartments of the train that seem to be about to go over the edge. The helicopters of the new crews are hovering above, or Jo would have ShadowWalked into the train, but it doesn’t mean she’ll be able to do that with Sam. So they’ve opted to do things the old fashioned way.
s*t*a*r*s/J*A*D*E*S
Sydney materializes next to her mother. “So, Logan is my uncle?” she asks. They are the farthest from the group in the attic that is explaining everything. “I can’t believe that we have a holographic 3-D family tree floating up there.”
Shelby snorts.
“Snorting is a Wheaton trait,” says Sydney. Shelby swings her arm around Sydney and kisses the top of her head. “Someone is going to die, Mom, I can feel it.”
Shelby nods solemnly. “Yes, I know and I don’t think it matters what we do, it’s going to happen.”
“Can I port Dad somewhere safe?” whispers Sydney.
Amy is explaining how Susan’s ultimate goal was to force certain bloodlines to cross over time, making a stronger DarkHeart line, or as she is calling it now, Iesous line.
“No, sweetheart, we let this come out the way it’s going to come out. If we mess with it then something worse will happen. Ask him to go away, we can both ask him, but he’ll stay, he’ll fight,” says Shelby.
“What if he dies?”
“Then I don’t know, Syd, I just don’t know.”
“And he failed once before,” says Dathan loudly. “In Lindsey Wheaton, a distant cousin who has as much Iesous blood as any of you, but her shell, her soul was too old; she repelled it.”
“And Jo took her soul or consciousness into herself until we split it,” says Natalie. “What that did only make him stronger. Jo didn’t have eternal blood yet and he wasn’t able to latch on and takeover Jo.”
“Great,” grumbles Tegan. “We had a 90 pound weakling and we gave him the steroids to be a 500 pound monster, wonderful.”
“The question of the day is this: how do we put down King Kong?” asks Abby. “And I mean put him down for good.”
“We’ll work on that, you guys go to the safe spots. When Jo and Emma get back we’ll come back here and finish off a plan,” says Natalie.
“No, we go to Haven Island, that’s where this little shin dig ends,” says Rylee. “No more sitting around. We go to HIA, we face him, we take him down. We kill him.”
“So that’s where we’ll be, tomorrow, 11 A.M.,” says Jayden. “Sydney, can you do the honors?”
Sydney nods. “Come on ladies and gents, the Sydney express is online and ready to divide.”
s*t*a*r*s
One more blast rocks the train, sending Jo slamming into the side of the hull, holding on for dear life. Emma is yelling at her but Jo sees a glimmer of someone inside.
“Sam!” yells Jo. The woman turns, it isn’t Sam, and she’s frantically waving at Jo. The train is now resting precariously on its’ back wheels. Jo kicks back, her boot driving into the window, splintering it. The woman covers her face from the spraying glass. Kicking a few more times, Jo is able to get a hole big enough for the girl to crawl through. “Come on,” orders Jo, her voice deeper than usual for some reason.
“My friend is hurt and she got pinned under the door between the compartments, help me,” says Daisy. Jo contemplates going in, remembering Emma’s words, closing her eyes and telling Emma with her mind to drop another line. A moment later the rope falls right next to her, unable to see Emma Jo moves into the compartment.
Jo climbs over the seats, turning away from the mangled bodies, concentrating on the people who are alive. Seeing the hand of the woman that is pinned under the massive door, she gasps, “Sam.”
“You know her?” asks Daisy. “You’re Spencer’s mom…” Before Daisy can say anything else, the train rocks hard, and skids down another two feet closer to the edge, knocking them both backwards. Jo grabs on to a seat for dear life, slamming her side into it. The blinding white pain explodes through her and Jo doesn’t remember pain feeling quite this bad.
Jo, you have two minutes, get the fuck out of there,” calls Emma into Jo’s mind.
“Go, get out of here,” says Jo shoving Daisy towards the window. “Up that rope, just kick away and hold on, go!”
“I’m not leaving her,” says Daisy angrily.
Emma haul her up! calls Jo through their mind link.
“You are, and you will, save yourself!” says Jo pushing the girl towards the window again. “I’d knock you out and tie you to the rope myself, but I don’t have time! Now do as I say!”
Daisy shakes her head, but then takes a tentative step towards the window, finally listening and reluctantly leaving Jo with Sam.
Jo bends, grabbing the edge of the door and tries to lift it. It’s wedged and bent, lodged into place. Damn it, she’s not giving up. She reaches out and finds Amy’s power, welcoming its feel inside of her. She starts to wiggle the door and as she does, the train shifts again, sending her crashing off her feet and onto her ass.
s*t*a*r*s/J*A*D*E*S
Amy and Tegan are teleported to her loft. The work crew that has been working day and night to renovate has been called off. Amy quickly used the bag of spelled dust to protect the loft. She didn’t believe in this stuff sometimes, yet, she felt better once it was done. A mixture of salt and red brick, and some other things that Natalie and Jayden wouldn’t say what it was.
“Mom, I’m freaked out. I don’t like being separated from everyone,” says Tegan. “But the loft looks nice, the color pallet is perfect for this room.”
Amy tries not to laugh but she does. “Where on earth did you pick up the comic timing?”
“Dad, I think,” says Tegan. “Two bedroom?”
“Three,” says a voice from the door. Tegan turns and sees her father at the door. “Hope you don’t mind, Amy, I heard about the train and had a bad feeling.”
Amy shakes her head. “No, Lark – I mean, Dylan, come in.”
He eases into the room, his hair cropped shorter than usual, and a scruff of beard on his chin. He closes the door and Tegan hugs him hard. He hugs her back and looks over Tegan’s shoulder and gives Amy a smile.
Amy texts Natalie to tell her they are safe and that Dylan has made an appearance.
“I’m going to take the liberty and order food, okay, Amy?” asks Dylan.
Amy nods and heads to the kitchen, what there is of it. She feels the soft tug of Jo’s synching power connecting to her. It’s familiar and she tries to hold onto that feeling. “Oh.”
“Mom?” says Tegan in a worried voice.
“It’s nothing,” says Amy.
Tegan rushes over to her and sees how pale Amy is. “Sure, sure, nothing, huh? Lying is not your strong suit. Tell me?”
“Jo’s borrowing my power, that’s all.”
“Where is she?” asks Dylan, tucking his phone back into his pocket. “I heard on the news about the train wreck, is that where she is?”
“At the train accident, yes. She went, we think Sam is there and Daisy.”
Dylan nods sadly. “Stay here, I’ll be right back.” He leaves the loft and is back in a few minutes carrying a laptop. He boots up the computer and then using his phone as an internet hub, he is online in an instant. It takes him a few moments and he finds a live feed of the train wreck.
“Thank you,” whispers Amy feeling the tears threatening.
“Hey, she’s my friend too, Amy.” Dylan gives her a reassuring smile.
She smiles wryly and Tegan sits down to watch the news footage. “Most civil words I’ve heard you two exchange in two years,” says Tegan. She then looks at her parents, first to Amy, then to Dylan. “Sorry.”
Dylan shrugs. “Eh, you’re right. Sometimes folks get along better when they aren’t together all the time.”
Amy shakes her head, pulls up a dusty chair and sits down to watch what is going on with her friends, hoping and praying for the best.
s*t*a*r*s/J*A*D*E*S
Mario and Rylee are teleported to their new beach home by Sydney Doyle. Rylee heads outside and starts to spread the multi colored dust that will help hide them from any GPS that the other Sydney can produce or any other person finding spell that they can cast.
When she is done, she texts Sydney, who will try to teleport to the house, if she bounces back then the powder works, the text comes back you’re gone to me, stay safe, xoxo Syd.
“Rylee, all good?” asks Mario.
“Yeah, Dad, we’re safe. For now. Do we have cable in this place?”
“In the living room,” says Mario. Rylee shuffles off the living room, her ribs aching from the blows that someone had dealt to Spencer.
“How are you feeling?” asks Mario as they find a channel that is playing the devastation of the train accident.
“Ribs hurt and I’m worried that Spencer hasn’t contacted me again,” says Rylee. “I am so worried, I miss her.”
Mario pulls her down to the couch and hugs her lightly.
“If I know anything, and I’ve been around those Wheaton girls for years, Jo in particular, nothing will stop her from coming home to you. You do need to do something though; you need to tell us this plan.”
“I will, when Jo is safe.”
Mario nods. His eyes riveted to the screen as he watches the camera zoom in on Emma, who is, thankfully, out of harm’s way. For now.