The third hour
"Is this alarm getting annoying to anyone else?" Pax asked.
"Meh," Trixie replied. "Can't be more annoying than babies crying all night."
Pax and I sat in silence, not knowing what to say. This ten-year-old has been through more than most adults.
"So can you tell me about the bad guys we are fighting now?" Trixie asked, well, begged would be a better word.
"Why not," I said. "We got nothing better to do."
"So what are they like? Is the main guy super scary? What about his right-hand man? Is he scary too? Do they have special powers? Have they captured you and you've escaped?" she fired off the questions in about five seconds. I don't think she even breathed.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa kid," Pax said with a laugh. "Slow your roll, but to answer one question that you haven't asked, most of your questions are going to be for Bri; she's gotten almost all the action."
"Ok! So Bri, who is the head, man?"
"So, his name is Bill, and to answer your second question, yes, he is scary, but not too scary because he looks like he is in his late seventies."
"Great, so we are fighting old guys," she said which, made me laugh. "So who is his right-hand man?"
"Well, we think he is Mark, but we are not entirely sure," I answered.
"What is Mark like?"
"Well, when he isn't irritated, he looks like your friendly Italian grandpa," I started.
"You think he looks like an Italian grandpa?" Pax asked me while trying to contain his laughter.
"Well yeah, don't you?"
"No," he said, still kind of laughing.
"Anyways," I continued to Trixie."He looks like an Italian grandpa, but when he gets mad or frustrated, he looks like Grumpy Cat."
"Grumpy Cat!" Pax exclaimed and broke into a fit of laughter, which started to cause us to swivel in the road.
"Pax! Pay attention!" I cried as I grabbed hold of the steering wheel to steady us.
"Sorry," he said, still laughing to himself, and then mumbled, "Grumpy Cat," while shaking his head.
"Anyways," I said again to Trixie. "After that near-death experience, what other questions do you have?"
"Well, what are we trying to do? Like, can you tell me all that's happened before you met me?"
"Sure," I said and cracked my knuckles to get started. "Well, first I was born-"
"I mean the important stuff."
"Oh, right," and I started again. "First, my best friend, Miranda, was kidnapped when I was nine. Then we skip like seven years-"
"Whoa, you can't just do that," Trixie said, stopping me. "What happened to Miranda?"
"Let me get there," I replied, and continued.
"So we skip seven years, and I figure out that I can do this," and I showed her how I could light my hand on fire.
"Oh my gosh," she exclaimed. "That's so much cooler than my superpower."
"Eh, it's okay- wait. Your superpower?" I asked.
"Yeah, watch," she said and then disappeared.
"You can turn invisible and you didn't tell us?!" I shouted in shock.
Her head appeared, which was kind of creepy. "Sorry?"
"Wow, that's insane."
"Eh, yours is cooler," she said with a shrug (at least I think she shrugged. I still couldn't see her shoulders). "Continue your story."
"Okay," I said and continued. "So I figured out I could do that, and my ex-boyfriend," I stopped and made a face. "Accidentally found out about it, and reported me to the police. I passed out and woke up in this cell, which I then escaped, then ran into more guards, busted out some ninja moves, not really, and jumped out of a wall. After that, I started a forest fire, then a squirrel attacked my face, and I met Pax. Speaking of him, now it's your turn to narrate. Go!"
"Okay, so I found Briana on the side of the road by my school, and she looks beat up like the squirrel won their fight," Pax started off.
"Hey!" I complained. "I'm right here you know."
"Anyways," he continued and winked at me. What was that supposed to mean? "So I found her, she spent the night at my house, blah blah blah. We went to school the next morning, which is where things got interesting. Some of the guards came to my school looking for Bri, but I convinced them that she wasn't here. Oh, my superpower is controlling other people. So-"
"Whoa, that's so cool!" Trixie exclaimed. "I wish I had your superpower too!"
"Yeah, it's alright," Pax continued. "So after that, we left the school and went back to my house, which then my parents came home. Bri and I then figured out that my dad wasn't a surgeon, but instead one of Bri's guards at this secret prison, and-"
I gasped. "Plot twist!"
"Oh, my gosh," Pax said as he rolled his eyes. "See what I have to deal with Trixie," which caused me to laugh and her to giggle.
"As I was saying," Pax said with a playful glare in my direction. "He then called Mark, so when we were trying to leave, all of their secret police force was outside my house. Since we are awesome, we escaped in this car, mainly because Bri likes to make stuff explode."
"Wow! That's super cool! Do you think you can explode stuff for me?" Trixie asked me.
"Sure," I said with a laugh. "If there is a time I need to."
"Good, because there is a guy that looks like Grumpy Cat, so maybe it's Mark," she said casually.
"What!?" I screeched, and I whipped my head around to look out the back window, and sure enough, Mark was driving another police car behind us. "Crap, he just made this so much more difficult."
"Now you can explode stuff for me!" Trixie exclaimed excitedly.
"Alright, Pax, please don't make sudden turns or stops okay?"
"Bri, what are you going to do?" Pax asked me nervously.
"Uh, stuff," I said I I rolled down the window.
"No, no, no, I won't let you do that!"
"Come on, Pax, this is the only way. They are gaining on us!"
Pax clenched his jaw. "Be careful," is all he said.
"Thanks," I replied and climbed out the window.
I made my way to the roof of the car, being careful to not get whipped off of it since we were going a hundred miles per hour. I got to the top of the roof to face Mark in the car behind us. The man in the passenger seat rolled down his window, took out a megaphone, and shouted through it.
"Pull over and no one gets hurt."
"What did he say?" Trixie shouted at me through her window.
"He said 'pull over and no one gets hurt," I shouted back.
"He's right; if we pull over then he won't get hurt. Show him what it's like to mess with us!" With that, she pulled her head back into the car. That is some spunky ten year old.
I turned my attention back to Mark's upcoming car. I took aim, and fired, literally.
It hit perfectly. My fireball went smack dab into their windshield, and their whole car was covered in flames, but when all the flames were extinguished, the car was still running, and Mark looks angrier than ever.
I tried to shoot more at them, thinking that one might not have been enough, but nope. The car kept coming.
I slid back into the car.
"Their car is a machine," I explained to Pax.
"They learned from their mistakes last time and got a bombproof car."
"How else are we going to get them off our tail?" Trixie asked.
"Oh no," Pax said, looking straight ahead.
"What?" I asked, and then I saw it. Up ahead of us the road started to curve between the mountains, allowing the perfect opportunity for us to get shoved off the cliff we were about to be driving next to.
"Crab cakes," I muttered.