"Uno!" Acusio, my best friend, yelled, dropping his last card into the pile.
"Ugh, come on! I was so close! Mr. Sharp, are you cheating?"
"I assure you, Miss Fire, I did no such thing."
"Sure you didn't." I drawled, not believing him for a second. I mean, it's not in his nature to cheat, but seriously? We played around twenty rounds of Uno and I didn't win once!
"I didn't cheat! I swear! You can use your mind reading to make sure. Wait, oh yeah, you don't have any mind reading. So I guess there's no way to make sure!" Acusio rambled.
"Oh, shush." I told him, before standing up to check my phone. It had been dinging none stop with messages for the last three minutes.
"I'll get it!" Acusio yelled, dropping the stack of Uno cards he had been shuffling and went to go see who was texting me.
"It's your mom." He told me, looking through my texts. I didn't really mind, since Acusio and I had known each other forever and going through each other's private things never really bothered us.
"She's asking if I'm going to stay for dinner."
"Are you?" I asked him. He nodded. "Then tell her yes."
"Kay." Acusio said, then began typing into my phone.
"What time is it?" I asked him, flopping on to my bed and snuggling into my dark blue comforter. It had always been my favourite colour, since the day I learned how to talk.
"Almost seven." Acusio replied.
"We should get started on dinner, my mom said she wouldn't be home from work until later." I told Acusio, still wrapped up in my blanket.
It was still for a moment.
"Ummm, then shouldn't you get up?" He asked.
I shook my head, my eyes already shut. "Naw. Just tell Travis to do it. I'm tired."
"Okie then. I'll be right back." Acusio said, running out of my room to tell Travis to make dinner. In our family, everyone knew how to cook, so it didn't really matter who made it. My mom actually told me to make dinner today, but summer break just started and I was still worn out from exams. Being sixteen is hard work. Acusio is so lucky that his mom started homeschooling him at the start of high school. That reminds me . . . he never really told me why he started getting homeschooled. Whenever I asked, he would always avoid the question.
"Blaze!" I heard Travis call from downstairs, just as Acusio came barging back into my room. "What should I make for dinner?"
"Pasta, please!" I yelled back. I loved pasta. Italian food will be my undoing.
"Okay! Do you know when dad will be back from work?"
"Yeah, he said he'd be back at around eight."
"We'll save some leftovers for him. Wasn't it your turn to make dinner?"
"Ehhhh? What's that? I can't hear you!"
I heard Travis sigh. "You're making dinner tomorrow."
"Works for me! Now go, my dear brother, and make me my food."
I heard Travis' footsteps recede from the bottom of the stairs and into the kitchen. I turned to Acusio.
"So, how 'bout a FullMetal Alchemist marathon?"
Three FMA episodes later, Travis called us down for dinner.
"Coming!" I yelled, plugging my iPhone into it's charger and throwing my brown hair into a messy ponytail before going down the stairs with Acusio. There was a pot of pasta in the middle of the table, and a pile of plates beside it. Travis was already halfway through his pasta, the little fatso.
"Help yourself." Travis said through a mouthful of pasta. I slapped him upside the head.
"Ow!" He yelled, pasta flying out of his mouth. "What was that for?"
"For talking with your mouth full. You know mom would have done it."
Travis went back to eating his pasta. "Whatever."
I just sighed and poured myself a large helping of my favourite food, right when the doorbell rang.
"I'll get it." I called, setting down my plate and running to answer the door. I look through the small window and see that it's mom. Dad's car is just pulling up in the driveway, since their work hours are around the same. It's kind of strange: mom doesn't really need to work, since dad's business makes enough money for us to live comfortably, but she actually likes her job and chooses to work. I think she's crazy.
I open the door and grab moms keys from her hand, hanging it on the key hook.
"Thanks honey." Mom says, kissing my forehead lightly and going to sit on the table after washing her hands. "Who made dinner?"
"Me!" Travis yelled. "Is it good?"
Mom nodded, taking a bite. "Delicious. Your wife will love you."
"Thank you."
"Hey dad!" I cried, looking towards the door to where my dad was standing. He washed his hands, and joined us for dinner.
"Hi, sweet pea. Oh, and hi, Acusio. You staying overnight?"
Acusio looked over to me, uncertain. I knew that he only planned on staying for dinner, but I also knew that he wanted to stay over and that his mom or my parents wouldn't mind. I nodded vigorously, telling him to stay over. Summer was so boring without him. Besides, we need to continue our FMA marathon. I'm dying to find out what happens next.
"Sure." He finally replies. "If it's okay with you guys."
"Oh Acusio, you're always so polite, you know we don't mind when you stay over. You don't even have to ask, just tell us."
Acusio nodded, getting kind of awkward with the situation. "Thanks, Mrs. Fire."
All of us went back to eating. A few minutes later, we heard the sound of a window shattering. All heads turned towards the noise. Just as my dad got up to investigate, a guy dressed in black came around the corner, fast as a cheetah, and had a knife pressed to moms neck in no time.
"Mom!" I screamed, right when dad yelled "Amy!" Travis and Acusio just sorta sat there, white faced and wide eyed, taking in the situation in front of us.
"I'll be taking her, if you don't mind. I will also be putting a small bomb here on the floor. If any of you survive, you'll have to do certain things to get her back. If you don't, we'll kill her."
The guy in black handed mom over to another guy, who took her away, and set a bomb right on the dinner table.
"It'll activate when I'm out of range." The guy said, and ran away.
Right when he left, my dad was in action. He shoved all three of us out the door and told us to get in the car, handing the keys to Travis.
"What about you?" I asked, tears streaming down my face. My mother had just gotten kidnapped and there was nothing I could do. On top of that, there was a bomb inside my house that would destroy everything.
"I'll be fine." My dad said. "Just go!"
I felt someone grab my hand and pull me towards my dad's car. Travis had his license, but he didn't have a car yet, so he was stuck with driving either my mom's or my dad's. I looked up to see Acusio, pulling me away from my dad who had disappeared back inside our bombed house, and towards the back seat of the car. Travis was already in the driver's seat, a sullen expression on his face.
"Why isn't he coming with us?" I screamed, trying to free my hand from my best friend's grasp. He just held on tighter and closed the car door behind us, the car zooming forward and leaving my father behind.
"Why would you do that?!" I screamed. "Do you want our dad to die?"
Travis was crying now. He didn't make a sound, but I could see the tears streaming from his dark green eyes, with the brown tree standing silent in the middle.
"Blaze." Acusio started, his voice gentle. "Your dad needed to get something."
"What did he need to get?! WHAT COULD POSSIBLY BE MORE IMPORTANT THAN HIS OWN LIFE?!"
Acusio remained silent, and so did Travis. They were hiding something from me. But instead of choking it out of them, I broke down in tears. Acusio stayed silent, but he wrapped his arms around me and held me tight as I cried. A few minutes later, I felt the ground shake and looked through the back window, just to see the bomb blowing up our house and a large range around it. We were in that large range. I had just enough time to thanks god that we lived in a deserted place with no neighbours when the explosion caught up to the car and we were blown upside down. My head hit something hard, and everything went black.
⚡️
I woke up to pain.
My whole body felt like it had gone through a shredder, and to make it worse, I felt like there was something impaling my arm. I slowly opened my eyes, ignoring my protesting head ache, and blinked, bewildered, at the scene in front of me.
I was on the side of the road, lying on the ground about a mile away from the car, which was currently consumed by flames. There was a strange ringing sound in my ears that subdued the sounds around me.
My head was still a bit fuzzy, but I was alert enough to wonder if Travis and Acusio had made it out alive. I lifted my head slowly, and took mental stock of my body.
Turns out, my arm was impaled. A piece of glass from the car's window was imbedded into my left forearm, and blood was oozing from the wound. The rest of my body felt fine, probably a lot of scrapes and bruises, but nothing big. My only other huge injury was my head, which felt like a boulder had gone over it. I slowly took the piece of glass out of my arm, hissing in pain, and wrapped a piece of my shirt that I had cut off with a piece of jagged glass around it to stop the bleeding.
I slowly got up, ignoring my pounding head and looked around for Travis and Acusio. I spotted a figure lying in the ground a few feet away, and walked towards them, cradling my arm against my stomach.
I reached the figure, and bent down beside them, turning them over. It was Acusio. He was unconscious, a cut on the side of his head. I looked for any other injuries, but he seemed fine.
"Damn it." I hissed under my breath. I had no idea what to do. Do I stay with Acusio and hope for him to wake up? Or do I look for Travis, and hope he had his cell phone on him when we left the house?
I heard a moan a few ways off, and walked toward it. It was coming from around the same place I woke up in. I followed the moan until I reached a face under a pile of rubble.
"Travis?" I asked, my voice shaking as I thought if what condition he might be in. I didn't wait for an answer though, I just started moving the rubble the best I can with one arm. I was struggling to move a particularly heavy piece of metal, when a two muscular hands came out of nowhere and moved it out of the way with ease. I jumped in surprise and looked up to see a muscular man with tanned skin and dark brown hair and eyes. He looked really tough, but if you looked closer, you could see traces of kindness behind his hardened eyes.
"Who are you?" I asked him. He looked to be about twenty years old.
He didn't look up from moving pieces of the car off Travis, but he answered my question.
"I'm Alexander." He said. "But call me Xander. I'm part of the association of Levitas'. Our job is to protect young Levit's like you, who don't know what they are yet and\or need help to grow into their powers. This includes Levit's that have lost their parents before they can come to master their powers, have parents that don't know how to train them properly, or have parents that refuse to tell them anything about their powers in hopes that it will skip a generation and they can have a normal life, which is very rare."
I just stared at him. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
Xander sighed. "All you need to know right now is that we will be taking care of you now that your parents are . . . not here at the moment. I am Travis' protector, your protector is standing behind you right now, and Acusio's protector is carrying him to the car."
I whirled around to face a girl that was about Travis' age (a year older than me, seventeen), and looked like a descendant of Snow White. She had pale skin, black hair, and dark eyes. Her hair was even cropped short like Snow White's. She gave me a little wave, then looked my body up and down. When she saw my injuries, she took out a small first aid kit from her pack that she had over her shoulder and got to work right away.
"I'm Ash. Can you sit down over here please? It will be easier to tend to your injuries."
I shrugged and sat down. These people looked nice enough. And I guess I believed them on the protector thing, though I'm not really sure why. Maybe it was because of the intense look on Xander's face as he worked on getting Travis free from the fallen pieces of our car, like he really cared if Travis died. Maybe it was just because it felt like they were telling the truth. Either way, I trusted them. Xander got out his own first aid kit and began to bandage up Travis. Ash was muttering things like "we were too late", and "I was supposed to protect her".
As I sat there getting stitched up by Ash, I watched with a peaceful sort of detachedness as the third protector carried Acusio to a black van parked hastily on the side of the road, wondering of maybe, just maybe, we were going to be okay.