"Um.... Charlotte." I called her as we started to back away. The girls looked at us as if we were a meal. They started to shake feverishly as they got closer to us.
"Yeah," she said breathlessly, fear lacing her voice. The girls came closer to us.
"Run!" We ran out of the washroom and shut it only to have a group of teachers spot us and ran towards us with white board rulers and one with a metallic tray in hand. We ran immediately to the Janitor's closet as it was the closest. I locked the door and we backed away from the door when we heard banging. "We can't fight them all." I said as I ran my fingers through my hair. I was sure there were about fifty people out there and the door would not hold.
"We should try."Charlotte said as she got a mop and tried to break the mop end off. I took it from her and broke the end with my knee.
"We're still not fighting. I'm calling Henry, you should call Jasper." I told her as I pulled out my phone.
"Hello." I heard Henry say breathlessly. The noises in the background sounded like they were fighting.
"Henry where are you?"
"I'm in the basketball court trying to avoid getting killed. Where are you?"
"In the Janitor's closet with Charlotte. People are trying to murder us too. Do you know where Jasper is?" It took him time to answer which worried me.
"No. I ....I need help. These guys are too many and I don't think I have better chance in running." He said and I ended the call. I started to look around. How were we going to get out of this closet? I watched as Charlotte ended the call and I asked her,
"Where's Jasper?"
"In the music room but he's going to need help." We heard someone scream outside the door and Charlotte jumped, then all of a sudden an axe appeared as the door was being broken down. "Who owns an axe in school?" Charlotte asked incredulously.
" I don't know but we have to get out of here." I looked up. There were obviously air vents that could allow us to go anywhere we're needed. Charlotte followed my gaze to look up and we quickly took a ladder, placed it under the air vents and Charlotte climbed up first. The door had been broken down by the time Charlotte was in and I was trying to get in. I threw the screwdriver to them and it hit someone as we entered the air vents. They were slightly dusty so I couldn't use it completely to sniff us out until we had to separate. I pointed my cousin into the right direction after sneezing continuously.
I tried my best not to sneeze as I continued to crawl in the darkness of the vents. I could sometimes stop at one and watch as people crazily searched for us. I wondered how we were going to get out of school in one piece. I finally found the air vent that led me to outside the school and I could smell Henry. He was bleeding terribly and I started to get anxious as I crawled faster. When I reached the outside, I was blocked by the cover of the air vent. I knew I couldn't get it off without a screw driver so I punched it continuously. My right hand started to bleed as the air entered my bruised knuckles but I continued until the thing got bent and it fell over. I could feel my shoulder starting to bleed again as I had applied to much force in punching.
I ran to the basketball court to find Henry trying to fight twelve guys, some even taller and more muscular than he was. He had blood all over his face and he kept on clutching his abdomen in pain. My fist connected with the first boy's jaw and he stumbled away. I shook my fist as it ached in pain and now some of the boys turned to me.
I carried one and threw him away as I continued to punch and kick the others. It wasn't long before Henry and I managed to defeat them all and we left them to foam on themselves. We ran to a nearby bush knowing it would be a refuge for at least five minutes before someone found us. Mrs. Shapen spotted us in a bush and with one punch she was down, foaming at her mouth.
"Is this like some type of apocalypse?" Henry asked as I quickly licked my knuckles. They needed to heal quickly if I was going to continue fighting.
"It looks like it. I just never expected it to be like this or this early. Did you watch the news?" And he shook his head and I started to help his nose to stop bleeding. " Trent Overunder and Mary Caperman were hypnotized and mind controlled by the tiger warrior and the fox. They told everyone in Swellview that the mayor put a bounty on us. I still don't understand how they could control a large amount of people like that through just watching the news." I pulled of my hoodie and felt the cold hit me as I tried to wipe blood off his face.
" You could clean it." He said.
"No." When he saw I wasn't going to clean his wounds with my tongue he asked,
"Do I look bad with a broken nose?" He asked as I finished wiping his face and tied the blood filled hoodie around my waist.
"No," I said as I opened Charlotte's scarf and he motioned he wanted to help me. "I think you look cute." He grinned at me while tying the scarf around my shoulder. I wished I could have cleaned my shoulder but there was no time. I took out my phone with my other hand and called Charlotte. Worry started to kick in when she didn't pick up after I called her twice.
"What's wrong?"
"Charlotte isn't picking up her phone." I said as I put it back in my pocket.
"Then let's go for her. Is she with Jasper?" Henry asked worriedly as a chair flew out of a window. People were becoming crazy. We both ducked as the chair fell a metre away from us.
"I hope she is. But we can't start searching for them. We'll get murdered. Let's go to your house. It's nearer and it should be empty by now." Henry sighed as he nodded and we started to run in the bushes. "House keys?"
"Are in my locker but we have an extra hidden on the porch." He said and I nodded. We reached the parking lot. People were aimlessly walking around, others fighting for no apparent reason. This was all my fault, I told myself but I tried to not let the guilt get to me. We hid near dumpsters away from sight. We found a homeless guy who wasn't being hypnotized and mind controlled and I was grateful for it. We had reached Henry's house but a few people were surrounding it. "What now?" Henry asked.
"Is your bedroom window open?"
"No."I groaned. We were going to have to fight our way in.
"Okay, we are going to sprint all the way to your front door and I'll try to ward people off as you get the key and open the door. Is that okay with you?"
"As long as you don't get hurt again."He said worriedly and I sighed.
"I'll heal, okay? I'm more worried about you." I said as I looked at his broken nose. After a minute of checking out surroundings, we sprinted towards the door. People didn't notice us at first but after taking a good look they started to run after us but by then we were already at the door. I punched and kicked the first person who came my way and felt my knuckles ache more. It didn't take long for Henry to get the key and opened the door in which I ran inside. Someone grabbed him by the shoulder and punched him in the face but he punched him back and the man fell. He ran inside and locked the door.
People were banging at our door. Henry did something with his watch and it flashed a red light over the door. We heard people scream in pain outside and I gave him a questioning look.
"Schwoz did this for me the other day. I put a forcefield on the door so every time someone touches it, they burn."
"Nice." I commented as I walked to the kitchen. "C'mon I need to clean you up now for good." He followed me to the kitchen but that was before he pulled out his phone and tried to call probably Charlotte and Jasper.
"They aren't picking up." He said as he sat on one of the high stool chairs. I got out the bandages, the alcohol, bundles of cotton and pain killers if he needed any. I knew this was going to hurt. I stood in front of him as it was easier now that he was now at my height. I dabbed the cotton in the alcohol.
"You better grip onto something. This is going to hurt." There was nothing around him to grip so I placed his hands on my waist as I stood between his legs.
"No." He said as he took them off.
"I heal." I said nonchalantly but he shook his head.
"Just because you heal doesn't mean I like seeing you get hurt. What if I hurt you?" He said as he looked straight at me.
"I doubt you will." I said but I knew he might cause me more bruises. Henry sighed, clearly not liking this idea. He slowly placed his hands on either side of my waist. Once I wiped his nose with alcohol he winced as he gripped onto me. I still had to put his nose back in place which I knew would cause him a lot of pain. "Are you ready?" He nodded and I carefully placed my hand on his nose before putting it back and he gripped onto me, trying not to scream and I tried not to wince.
"And that wasn't painful at all." He said sarcastically but I tried to hide the pain he had caused me.
"Take off your shirt. You got hurt there too." I watched as Henry removed his shirt and tried not to smile. I had never seen him shirtless but I was going to act cool about it. Henry now watched me as I took more cotton and dabbed alcohol in it. He winced again as I wiped it, then I searched for a cream to put on his bruised ribs. I sighed when I was done and Henry grabbed my arm from where he sat and I was in between his legs again.
"You know this is not how I imagined you seeing me shirtless for the first time."I didn't look into his eyes. Of course Henry had to say that. Weren't we being chased by an angry mob like twenty minutes ago?
"Henry." I said quietly. We had huge problems on our hands and he was on the verge of making me fall into his trap.
"Summers." He said with such a low voice that I looked up at him for a second before immediately looking away. Who knew that this boy would have this effect on me? He was making me slowly forget what had just happened as he brought me as closer as he could. I looked down not wanting to look at his chest but he removed one hand from my waist and with his thumb he lifted my chin to look at him as he leaned over to kiss me.....
We both heard something fall upstairs and that was enough to snap me out of his trance and run up. Henry followed me wearing his shirt and I stopped by his bedroom door. Someone was inside. We slowly opened the door only for someone to throw a punch at me and I ducked. When I looked up, I felt relieved.
"Jasper! Don't you just go punching every time you hear a sound!" I scolded him but instead he came up to me and hugged me, his brown curls brushing my cheek.
"You're okay." He whispered and hugged me tighter. I hugged him back for his sake, because I only accepted hugs from Henry. He let me go and went to hug Henry.
"Charlotte I was so worried." I told her as we started to walk back down. "Why didn't you pick up the phone to at least tell me you're okay?"
"There are so many people on the streets. I didn't want to be heard." She said and I nodded as I went to clean up the used cotton.
"Who else is hurt?" I asked between Charlotte and Jasper. "Everyone should at least be patched up before we move again."
"Yourself." Henry said and I sighed. My knuckles were actually healing. And I hated alcohol on me. It burned and there was no use for it if I could heal. Why wouldn't these people understand that I healed? I pulled Jasper's right arm and he winced. His stitches from the other day were open again.
"I can't stitch you up but there's blood on your shirt. Let me check it out." I said as I looked at his back.
"This isn't going to make you avoid me cleaning that wound on your shoulder." Charlotte said and the boys gave her sounds of agreement. I snarled at all of them as I sat on the high counter and Jasper removed his shirt. He had a slightly large cut on his back and I watched as his back contracted every time I put alcohol. I cleaned up the mess and watched as everyone started to eye me.
"No! I will scratch you." I said as I jumped off the counter and faced them. They sighed after taking my threats seriously. We all walked to sit on the couch in silence. My mind was swarming with questions and ideas and it was giving me a headache.
"What are we going to do now?" Jasper asked the question that we were probably all asking ourselves.
"We need to find a way to head to the Man Cave without being killed."Charlotte said quietly and I nodded.
"Has anyone tried calling Ray?" Henry asks and as a coincidence his phone starts to ring and he immediately picked it up.
"Kid, is that you?" We hear Ray whisper and we all got closer to Henry to hear what Ray had to say.
"Yeah it's me."
"Are you okay?"
"Now, yes. Where are you?"
"City Hall, hiding in a document closet. The people have gone crazy."
"Yeah, why aren't you leaving? You're indestructible."
"They burned down the Man Van and I can't run all the way there from here."
"We're also stuck in my house."
"Call Schwoz." Immediately he said those words I turned to my whiz watch to call Schwoz. It took him seconds to pick up as we saw his hologram.
"Help us, we're going to die." Jasper blurted out and Charlotte swat his arm.
"That's one way to put it." I said as I glared at Jasper.
"Don't worry, I'm working on it. Expect something in your chimney in the next fifteen minutes."
"Fifteen?" Charlotte asked.
"Anything can happen in fifteen minutes."Henry added.
"We can die."Jasper added and I shushed them all.
"Okay, we got it." I ended the call and they all looked at me like I was crazy. "We only die if we let ourselves die. Man up." I told them. "We are going to make sure everywhere is closed. I don't know what we're going to do about Henry's window since you melted the lock with lasers which I presume you stole from the Man Cave."I told Jasper and he smiled at me sheepishly.
So that's what we did for the next five minutes. We checked that all the windows were locked and closed all the curtains and blinds. We came back to the living room, sighing but soon heard scratching and banging at a kitchen window. The kitchen window at the sink had no curtains or blinds so we could see Piper clearly, her eyes looking back at us dilated and angry. Our appearance at the window seemed to anger her more and her right hand started to bleed the more she hit the glass.
"Could you unhypnotize her or something?" Henry asked worriedly.
"I can but she'll see my green eyes at the end. I could change to Tigress but I left my gum at school." I said as I backed away from the mirror when I saw Mr. and Mrs. Hart join their daughter. Henry ran upstairs despite my question of what he was going to do. He came back with a tube of orange and black gum and I didn't have time to ask him how he had an extra in his room. I quickly popped one in my mouth.
I blew a bubble and closed my eyes due to the bright light that appears when I change into my superhero uniform. I faced the Hart family and turned my eyes and started to chant the Bemba words I always said, just backwards. They stopped hitting the window and I continued giving them my full concentration. Their eyes soon became normal and they dropped to the ground.
Henry ran to the back door and opened it quickly leading to the backyard as we rushed to check on his family. "Mom, Dad,Piper are you guys okay?" Henry asked as he knelt on the ground. They all nodded but they were weak. I helped Mr. Hart to stand while Henry and Jasper helped Mrs. Hart and Charlotte helped Piper into the house. We laid them on the couch and I could see that Piper was totally freaked out.
"Why were you guys and Roxy on the news?" I had almost forgotten I was Tigress now. "Where's Roxy? When did Swellview start putting up bounties? Why was I angry? Why am I bleeding? What....."
"Okay, that's enough questions. I promise I'll answer them but now I can't stay here." Henry told his family.
"What do you mean by that?" Henry's mother asked quickly and that's when we decided to back out to the kitchen. I took a glass, poured water inside and drank it quickly. Loud noises were made in the chimney and I ran to it. A small cube dropped into my hands.
"What's that?" Mr. Hart asked.
"This cube is a way that Captain Man, Kid Danger and I can ensure your son, Miss Page, Mr. Dunlop and Miss Summers will be safe. They can't stay here. You've seen how the tiger warrior has messed up the city." I watched as Piper froze at the mention of the tiger warrior.
"Why are they targeting them?" Mrs. Hart.
"That's what we're going to figure out."I told her as they said their doubtful goodbyes and we walked up to Henry's room. Once we reached there, I pressed the blue button on top and a holographic door appeared.
"This is a very cool." Jasper said excitedly, trying to cheer the rest of us but failing. After telling us goodbye, Jasper walked in and Charlotte turned to me.
"What about our moms?"
"Oh, I'm not going now. " I said and Henry looked at me with shock.
"You can't go out there again!" Henry said with slight anger.
"I have to. I need to make sure my family and Jasper's mother is safe." Henry groaned and said,
"I'm going with you then." I looked straight into his eyes to figure out what he was trying, what he was thinking. I could see he was determined, and there's no way I could tell him no.
"Fine." After telling us goodbye, Charlotte walked through the door and I turned off the device. I watched as Henry transformed to Kid Danger then walked towards Henry's window and opened it.
We were yet going back to the dangerous city of Swellview that was now falling apart. I started to wonder what we will find there.