Word Count: 2 637
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:
What happens next I almost lose sight of considering all the confusion. There's a long pause first, one so thick that an elephant could sit in it, then the crowd roars. It's a pure wail of fear. I struggle to grasp onto why they would be reacting this way when it hits me, literally ... well almost.
A ball of fire burns through the air with a direct course for the area in front of my chest ... where the man is standing. Without thinking, I launch my wounded hand out to pull him out of the way, hating the squelching sensation of our genetics mixing and Kai does the same, leaving the two of us in his place.
We realise that this was a silly move (putting ourselves square in front of a ball of fire) when heat is moments away from searing our skin. Our hands whip out in front of us in an attempt to save most of ourselves from damage, but a blue glow erupts from our palms, forming a two second curtain of frosty-protection.
Wow!
"What just happened!?" Kai gasps, staring at his hands like they just shot ice from their cores.
Oh wait they did ... we did!
We aren't given a single moment longer to marvel over what we've done, because another loud roar sounding strangely familiar to a war cry erupts over the stadium.
What could be a hundred people dressed in mismatched items of clothing run into our midst. Some have bubbling spheres of water and earth spinning in their hands as they yell. Others hold up guns and staffs that strike fear into me faster than when I see my mother angry. The Watchers hardly waste a second to react to the chaos, lifting their weapons and hands to stand up to the disturbance. At first I considered the fact that we're being attacked by one single division, but I definitely see all powers at work here.
I notice two egg-like items thrown into the air and then they hit the stands exploding in a cloud of smoke over the audience.
The man we pushed out of the way almost tries to look angry at us for intervening, but his discomfort simmers down uncomfortably. I glance at the other Pukkas, now having left their position backed up against the outskirts of the stadium as the unnamed strangers try to man-handle them. A girl rushes to me, air dancing by her left palm and a large knife in the other. If it weren't for the orange-red hair on her head and the mischief-loving expression on her face I would have freaked out.
"Stitch?" I gasp, as she drops the wind-ball and grabs onto my hand, rushing me off.
"The one and only!" she says with an unnerving smile on her face. "Fancy seeing you around here," she says, still pulling me after her.
"Wait," I cut in. "Where are you taking me?"
"To safety ... unless you'd rather die, because that could easily be arranged," she responds, trudging off and slicing, different sized gashes into otherwise distracted Watchers who are already facing off with others.
"Wait," I plead, digging my heels into the sand and looking back to where I was stood next to Kai who hasn't moved a muscle as someone tries to convince him to come along.
I rip my arm out of Stitch's grasp and run back to him, not without a string of profanities blistering over her mouth first.
"What are you doing we need to go!" I urge, gesturing back to Stitch who's back to half-stabbing a few people as she waits for me to return with an unbelievably annoyed expression on her face.
I can tell he was already settled on the idea of dying today, but he soon allows the boy who tried to get him to move to do exactly that. I run along with them, headed back to Stitch who seems to have gathered quite a bit of attention as she squares off with three Watchers at once. She throws one onto his back fiercely, feeds her foot to another, all while keeping a relatively steady eye on me.
"Any day now guys, I could do with some help here!" she yells.
As I run with my two companions, Kai and I are harshly knocked to the side by hulks of men who plop their weight onto us with dizzying fury. I lose track of what goes on around me when the beast on top of me grabs my full attention.
His hair is so greasy I wonder if he made it that way thinking it looks good and though the whites of his eyes stare down at me, their blemished by spots of barf-green. For the moment all I can think of is how his breath is way too warm on my skin. It makes me uncomfortable.
"Uh uh ... you're not going anywhere until we know what's going on with you two my sweet," he says with a glint of arrogance in his expression as I struggle to fight him off of me.
He has his forearm to my throat and my fingers curl around it, trying to loosen the pressure. The gap in my neck is getting smaller and I can hardly lift my chest. I launch my scalp in an attempt to head-butt him, but he pulls away with a self-serving smirk on his face.
"Don't get cheeky with me darling," he croons and my throat closes further as he exerts more pressure on me, flattening my trachea.
He smacks the butt of his pistol against my skull, forcing my eyes shut and a pain that chills and burns all at once erupts down my face. I manage to prise my eyes fast enough to spot him readying himself to hit me again, (what would surely be the knock out shot in his bid to subdue me and keep me hostage), but he's thrown off of me in a hurry. Thank goodness.
Kai gifts him a relentless string of mean looking kicks to the spine and I wonder if he'll stop until the pause finally arrives. The man is left arching his back and then Kai stands over me and gives me a hand as the boy smuggling us out of here deals the man a few more blows.
"Do you want a little more one on one with the floor there or are you coming?" he teases, a boyish smile on his face.
His innocent smile betrays the severity of his actions and I shouldn't have laughed, but I can't help it in my slightly disorientated state. I don't allow him to help me up however and instead push myself back to my feet all on my own.
"Glad to see you're back to your senses!" I respond and then take a huge breath of exhaustion, referring to his reluctance to cease his opportunity to survive.
When Mystery Boy, Kai and I all get back to Stitch she's surrounded by five flattened bodies.
"Alright, we good? We need to leave before they get reinforcements," she explains.
"Yeah ... but where's my mom and Ian?" I ask, panting, rubbing the side of my bruised scalp and ignoring the very slight complaint my right shoulder and neck have from being sat on by a manatee.
"You'll see them soon enough when we're out of danger, they're someone else's target. You're my target. I only worry about you," she explains pulling me after her and running out towards a side exit along with tens of other like-minded feet. "Hey uh, Javelin ... if you're going to stick with us until we get to our mark, I'm gonna need you to make sure that Kai's still got it. I don't need dead weight," she teases.
The man I now know to be Javelin responds with a sarcastic laugh, throwing a quick elbow in Kai's direction which he dodges with relative ease.
"I believe we'll be just fine thank you," he responds, clapping a shoulder on Kai's back.
After a few minutes of scuffling down stairs crowded by following Pukkas and (agents? is that what they are?), because Javelin suggested avoiding the elevator at all costs, we finally hit pavement.
"We just need to get to that bridge over there and then we'll be safe," he says pointing at a structure in the distance which I can hardly see, because of all the screaming people.
We duck into a gap in the long string of capital pods on Mackenzie Str. The passageway is a lot wider than I feel comfortable with, but our heavy panting and buzzed expressions make it clear that we are indeed in need of a pause.
"So you've got powers now?" Stitch asks with a grin, all of us crouched behind a dumpster.
Kai looks to me as if giving me permission to answer for the two of us and I oblige.
"I guess so. I didn't think it was possible, I mean I ... I've always been a Retrograde. I've always had red blood, but now that's changed. I just, I don't know," I stammer, excited and fearful all at once.
"That's okay ... don't worry about all of that now," she says putting the blade down and clasping her hands around my own. "I need you guys to try something for me okay? It's not hard."
"This really isn't the time-" Javelin starts, but he's cut off by a sharp shushing noise, which leaves a sour look on his face.
I nod my head slowly, ignoring the sting in my right hand and I glance up at Kai for a moment. His stare is so hard on me and it stabs me with curiosity, excitement and something I can't quite discern as he mimics what Stitch is doing to my hands.
"Just close your eyes and think of something that makes you happy or scared or angry," she says putting more weight around my hands.
I close my eyes and try to do as I'm told. It's difficult to pick any one emotion from the three, considering I'm so jumpy I can barely keep myself still. I focus harder and pick. Happiness. That can't be too difficult right now, this feeling in my chest ... it's happiness isn't it? I think about how lucky I am not to be faced with death anymore. My mom and Ian will be okay ... all the other Pukkas, they're going to be rescued too. I can't help feeling happy about that.
My lids flutter open when coolness thrums and pulses through my veins. It pools in my hands, a pretty glistening ball of blue and white twinkling in my grasp.
"That's it ... you guys are quick studies." Stitch urges, dropping her hands from my own and looking at Kai.
My lips fall open and my hands begin to tremble; I lose concentration, but an object rests in my hands now.
"Ice?" Javelin observes. "That's new."
I'm shocked to find Kai's fingers in my palms. I ignore the soft caress and he picks up the object, studying it, comparing it with his own which is similar to mine in size.
"This is cool and all, but we should really get going now," Javelin notes.
We all nod our heads in acknowledgement and then we're back on again. We dash through the streets, past more screaming civilians and through thick, smoke bomb generated mist as we sneak past a sea of Watchers. I believe back-up has arrived.
The bridge comes into view before long. It's a beautiful structure, thick with force and forged by necessity. It towers far over our heads, creating a path for busses to pass over the fast-flowing river with no disturbances. There are a couple of trees, but they're few and far between making us particularly vulnerable to any onlookers.
We run as quietly as we can until we're right under it and find another pair of people waiting for us there. Upon closer examination I realise that it's Neave and Wes. Neave runs up to me, pastel-green hair flying with the movement as soon as she sees me, almost tripping over a stray rock and wrapping her arms tightly around my shoulders.
"You know you could've told me what was going on with you ... I never would've pushed you to show me powers that you didn't have. I would've understood," she mutters into my ears, squeezing me tighter than tight.
"I'm sorry," I respond, but she scoffs at me.
"I bet you are!"
"How are you here?"
"My dad told me to go meet someone somewhere in the capital the day you were taken. When they explained what they were trying to do I just knew I had to help. Like me, they don't care about what may be different about people like you on the inside. We're all human after all and if we forget that, then we aren't fit to call ourselves remotely human. We're no better than the evil we're trying to fix," she explains, her hands hanging from my arms and giving me a painfully meaningful look.
A nervous smile graces my lips and I pull her back into me.
"Where's Akani?" Stitch asks them, but a pair sprinting over to us develops soon after.
The expression on her face after that is something of a "thank goodness."
"We're here!" Akani half-yells running to us with Ian by his side and Stitch heaves a sigh.
"And the others?" she adds looking to Neave expectantly. "There's supposed to be two more people here."
"Uh ... they didn't make it. Blake's Kara went silent," she says and if it weren't for the slight lift of her wrist showing off a thin little band I wouldn't have a clue what that is.
Stitch looks grim, but nods her head anyway.
"Okay, you can come out of stealth now," she says, pressing onto a similar device on her wrist.
Kai and I look at each other in perplexity, but she doesn't allow our confusion to last long when a jet materialises out of thin air, flickering into existence. Javelin is the first on the craft and we all follow, trying to keep our surprise at bay. I'm at the back of the line which moves slowly aboard the jet and then the door seals itself shut quietly behind me.
"Okay, nice job guys, Stitch says to what I assume to be the team. Take your seats and strap in, we need to get ourselves in the sky soon. Once we're airborne we'll have to deactivate all your chips otherwise they'll be able to track us, but we'll install new ones, stronger ones that won't leave you vulnerable to any cyber-attacks either," she explains, walking further into the craft.
'I won't be able to access those chips,' Aspen notes.
"That's okay. Thanks for everything, but I'm satisfied with the stay you had in my brain if that's okay with you."
'Oh Suki, so eager to rid yourself of me,' she teases.
I look around myself; it's mostly fancy-looking, nude leather seats and the very front of the craft, where I assume Javelin is seated. A girl walks out of there only a second later and Stitch freezes when she sees her. Heck I freeze when I see her. Shock and frustration drip onto Stitch's expression, while I have a hard time changing anything on mine.
That's my sister. It's Aspen!
"What are you doing here Fay?" she asks. "Your instructions specifically said for you not to come here."
"That's exactly why I came," she quips, arms crossed in front of her with a syringe-gun in hand.
That's definitely her voice.
A/N
Can I get a, "family dramaaaaa"
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