A Flare Of Hope (The Jaylior Series Book 1)

by Elodie Colt

“I… my… I…” I stumbled over the words. Shock must have made me incompetent to speak. The adrenaline in my body was running low, the pain was rushing back, and I could clearly feel the cold now making my limbs tremble.

  “Hey!” Sarah snapped, clicking her fingers in front of my face to get my attention. She grabbed me roughly by the shoulders, shaking me.

  “Focus! This is about life or death here, okay? I know you don’t understand anything, and it all seems like a brutal nightmare, but we need to get you out of here alive, do you understand? So, let’s try again… What’s your name?”

  She spoke in such a hurry, I struggled with following her instructions. I felt like a small child being quieted down by her mother. Shawna would be ashamed of me. I had to hold it together! “Hay… Haylie Bryceland.”

  Sarah smiled in response. “Good. Okay, listen to me, Haylie. As you probably realized by now, there are the good and the bad guys. We, the ones with the uniforms, are the good ones—”

  I interrupted her. “How do I know that? How can I trust you?”

  “You can’t, you just have to. But you already do trust me. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have saved me before, right?”

  This brought me back to the girl lying unconscious on the ground. “Hey, what happened to your wounds? You were knocked out cold.” I was positive the girl’s face had been covered in bloody scratches which had mysteriously vanished.

  “I’m a quick healer,” Sarah said impatiently. “So, my mission… no, our mission is to keep you alive at all costs. You don’t know what you are yet, and it will take some time to understand, but you are important. You are more important than you can imagine. Keeping you alive is everything that matters now.”

  “What are you talking about? I’m not important to anybody, I’m just…” I trailed off, desperately trying to find answers in Sarah’s eyes.

  “I can’t explain to you now, but I have to get you out of here somehow. I need you to stay close to me, okay? I’ll try to get your back. Fight only if you have to defend yourself, but don’t play the heroine. I’m glad you helped me back there, but there’s too much at stake. You’re not a trained fighter, yet. Stay with me and try to stay out of battle, do you understand me?”

  I could do nothing but nod, not understanding one word she’d said. A trained fighter yet?

  A thousand questions were currently running through my head making it difficult to pay attention to my surroundings. Maybe this was all a bad dream, and I would have to get myself killed to wake up? Hmm, I didn’t know if it was worth a try.

  Because if this was real—whatever was happening now—then this would be the last dream of my life.

  “Okay. So, here’s the plan,” Sarah said. “I have to get you to Jimmy. See the man over there fighting? The black one who’s faster than the others?” She pointed out a tall figure.

  I strained my eyes to see through the darkness. There was one man fighting against three at once. He was so fast, I couldn’t see more than a blur. The three opponents struggled with getting their hands on him.

  A laugh escaped me. I was sure my eyes were betraying me. “Fast? Are you kidding me?”

  “Yeah, maybe that was an understatement, but that is his ability. Whatever… I will hand you over to him.”

  I threw her an annoyed look. “Hand me over to him? What am I, a salt and pepper shaker?” No idea where the sudden humor came from—must have been the after effects of the craziest experience of my life.

  “Don’t be so sensitive. He can protect you better than I can. You’re not safe with me. Fighting is not my priority.”

  I didn’t grasp a word she was saying. Fighting was not her priority? She’d stabbed that man with a skill of a special agent from a secret government organization.

  “I assume we have to run?” I implied, accepting that my questions would go unanswered for now.

  “No, we’ll walk, taking as much time as we want. Of course, we’ll run!” Sarah snapped at me, the sarcasm audible.

  I didn’t have the energy to come up with a witty comment and shook my head. “I don’t know how fast I can go. I hurt my knee today, and the bastard nearly broke my knee cap. I can barely stand straight, let alone run.” I winced as I stretched my leg to prove my point.

  Sarah’s eyes softened immediately. “Oh, okay. Don’t worry, I’ll fix that. Just keep an eye open and tell me if someone’s coming our way, okay?”

  I stared at her in confusion. “What?”

  My comment went unnoticed, and Sarah positioned herself over my lap, resting both hands on my shoulders. I raised my brows in disbelief. Did she want to make out with me? I’d say it was really bad timing right now.

  At first, nothing happened, and I was already close to pushing her away, but then I felt a warm tingling running through my body as if I’d just put my toes into a warm bath. It got warmer and warmer and at one point so hot, it felt like flames were igniting my bones from within.

  “Try to hold it together, it’s over soon,” Sarah encouraged, eyes pressed shut in concentration.

  After a few more seconds, the burning slowly dissolved, and I let out a breath in relief. The pain in my leg was gone as was the bleeding wound on my head. Every other cut and bruise had vanished.

  “What… what did you do?” I exclaimed in awe inspecting my flawless skin. Apart from the dried blood covering my clothes, there wasn’t any trace left of the wounds covering my body only seconds ago.

  “I told you my priority wasn’t fighting,” was the only answer I received.

  Okay. So, there were people who could magically heal others, and people who could move as fast as a rocket. Oh, and not to forget, people who had access to weapons shooting lightning bolts.

  Hold it together, Haylie. There was certainly a simple explanation. I just had to get out of here somehow, and then everything would be cleared up.

  “We have to move,” Sarah urged in a hushed tone and took my hand again.

  I felt oddly trustful toward the girl, and it wasn’t just because of Sarah’s healing—God only knew how she’d done that. No, it was some sort of kindness she emanated. She somehow reminded me of Lauren.

  We got up and moved as quietly as possible through the trees keeping low all the time.

  “Sarah, what are you doing?” someone hissed nearby, and we both jumped frantically.

  “Cassie, shit, you nearly gave me a heart attack!” Sarah snapped back at the girl who had just materialized from behind the trees. Cassie must have realized we were trying to stay undercover and dropped low, too.

  Hang on, Cassie? Cassie was blonde, right? I was sure of it. I’d watched her fighting on top of the wooden house. Her long blonde hair had floated around her shoulders. But the Cassie in front of me wore a short black bob, and I doubted it was a wig. Were there two of them with the same name? Weird.

  “Sorry, so what’s going on?” Cassie whispered as we continued to sneak through the thicket in a low crouch.

  “Nice haircut,” Sarah snorted.

  I frowned. Well, her comment was certainly not directed at me. I reckoned I hadn’t imagined the drastic change of Cassie’s hair after all.

  “Thanks,” Cassie replied with a smile, sounding as if she was taking Sarah’s words truly to heart. Yeah, right now was the perfect moment to care about hair styles.

  “I have to get Hazelnut here to Jimmy.”

  Hazelnut? I doubted Sarah was talking about nuts as in food, so who the fuck was that? Cassie’s gaze finally drifted to me, maybe just realizing that Sarah wasn’t alone hiding in the bushes.

  “Hazelnut?” Cassie shared my confusion. It seemed I wasn’t the only one without a clue.

  “Yeah, look at her eyes,” Sarah mumbled, and Cassie did as she was told.

  When her eyes locked with mine, she overreacted the same way Sarah had. Well, not exactly the same—there were no tears of joy visible.

  “Oh, great, that’s exactly what we need,” Cassie spat in annoyance.

  “Oh, shut up, Ca
ssie. Why don’t you make yourself useful and help Jimmy and Ricky over there?” Sarah whisper-yelled.

  “Fine.” And with that, she disappeared into the shadows again.

  “She seems to like me,” I pointed out with heavy sarcasm. Not that I cared right now, but the thing with my eyes was slowly getting out of control.

  “She likes everyone, and everyone likes her just the same,” Sarah assured me with a wicked smile on her face.

  “So, what’s wrong with my eyes? Do they turn red like those of a vampire, or what?” I growled, and Sarah laughed in response.

  “No, that would be weird.” Yeah, of course, that would be weird. No weirdness in the current situation at all! “It’s a long story. Jimmy will explain everything to you. He wouldn’t want me to intervene. I can only tell you one thing… your eyes are rare, extremely rare. They tell us what you are. So, as soon as the enemy sees your eyes, they know what you are, too. But that doesn’t matter anymore, they already do know. They are here for you after all.”

  What I was? Sarah was kidding, right? I didn’t bother to argue at the moment—I wouldn’t get a satisfying answer anyway. Instead, I recalled something from a long time ago.

  The woman attacking Shawna had also said something about her eyes. What was it with them? And had Shawna’s killer had the same intentions as the ones who wanted to see me dead now?

  I brought my attention back to the fight in front of me. There were three people in uniforms fighting three without uniforms.

  “Are they the last ones left?” I whispered.

  “Yeah, seems like it,” Sarah mumbled back, carefully observing the area surrounding us.

  “What about the one with the bolts?” I wanted to know, and Sarah’s eyes flew back to me. “He was right behind us, right? He could still be hiding in the trees somewhere just waiting to strike at the right moment,” I wanted to inform Sarah in case she hadn’t taken the possibility into account.

  I could practically hear the wheels clicking in her head as she tried to comprehend my words. “You’re right, we can’t be sure, but there’s nothing I can do about it now. I can’t take him alone,” Sarah confessed, fear lacing her voice.

  My stomach made a three-sixty at seeing her anxiety. “We can’t bolt out there and leave it to chance.” I quickly racked my brain about what we could do about it. “Okay, it’s three against three now, right?” Sarah nodded. “Could two of you fight against the others? Maybe one of your people could sneak back to see if he’s still out there somewhere.”

  Sarah nodded eagerly giving me an assuring smile. It was funny that I was overtaking the role of getting Sarah’s attention back to our futile situation.

  “I think I know what we can do,” Sarah replied, and I was glad to have Sarah back in the game. “Ricky, I need you to listen to me carefully. Get over to Cassie and tell her to go in search for the Roe with the crazy weapon. He’s still out there somewhere waiting for his chance to get us all killed. Tell Cassie to sneak away. She’ll find him if he’s still out there.”

  I wiped a hand over my face in absolute confusion. Who the hell was she talking to? Did she go mental?

  I whipped my head to all sides looking for anyone near us who could have been the recipient of Sarah’s message, but there was no one. Ah, maybe they were communicating via ear pieces, but as soon as that thought entered my mind, Sarah managed to make me frown again.

  “Ricky is a Catcher. He has the ability to hear over miles,” she explained. “He heard me and will get the information to Cassie.” O… kay… My mental list of weird things happening seemed to have no end.

  “Why didn’t you send the one with the magical running skills?” At least, that would have been my choice.

  “Because Cassie has a talent for sneaking up, and Jimmy is one of the best fighters.”

  I looked back at the fight in front of me. One of the three remaining uniforms had just knocked one opponent to the ground with a skilled throw over his shoulder before taking off in Cassie’s direction. He quickly helped her with her opponent and turned to talk to her. That must have been Ricky with the extraordinary hearing range passing on Sarah’s message. Cassie nodded and vanished behind the trees. I could hear rustling coming from the woods as she dashed through the forest.

  “Is that Cassie?” Sarah nodded. “She’s fast,” I stated.

  “She is. Let’s wait a few seconds, and then we’ll run, okay?” I nodded in understanding, heart pounding in my chest as we waited for the perfect moment. Adrenaline rushed back through me as my body coiled.

  “Go!” Sarah shouted, and we both launched into action.

  As soon as we were in the open, a lightning bolt erupted from behind us, but it clearly failed its target as the light went upward into the sky fizzling out somewhere in the nothingness. I assumed Cassie was distracting him which was why his shot hadn’t hit its target.

  We finally reached our destination, and Sarah immediately shoved me behind a bush.

  “Stay here. I’ll help Jimmy. Wait until all of this is over, okay?” Sarah didn’t wait for my answer and bolted off to help her companions.

  Now it was again three against three. The man called Jimmy had short cropped black hair and black skin. Taking in his features, something tickled my memory, then I remembered—the man in the woods when I’d hurt my knee on the rooftops! He looked the same. Had he been the one watching me? Why? Had he anticipated the attack? Had he been the one to attack? No, he was one of the good guys—uniform and all…

  Sarah was currently fighting the two opponents surrounding Jimmy. Ricky was raining down punches on his enemy a few feet away. The odds were good for the black uniforms to win.

  But nobody saw the bolt coming.

  Except me.

  I followed its direction with my eyes. The bolt would either strike Ricky or his opponent—I couldn’t be sure from where I stood, but I was absolutely certain it would strike one of the two.

  Sarah had told me to stay put, but how could I just stand by and watch? Whoever those freaks were, they’d saved my life today. I couldn’t hide here on a children’s playground watching another one die in front of my eyes. So, I did the only thing I could think of.

  I rose from behind the bush and sprinted forward keeping a close eye on the lightning bullet. It would hit Ricky. Ricky wouldn’t see it coming as his body was facing the wrong direction, and he would never be able to react fast enough if I called out a warning.

  Without wasting another second, I slammed into Ricky taking him and his opponent off guard. The bolt sizzled above my head and caught Ricky’s opponent directly in the chest. We both toppled to the ground, and I watched the other guy flying backward with a smoking hole in his chest. Flames burst up, and his clothes were on fire an instant later. He didn’t even have time to shout—he was dead the second he was hit.

  “Shit!” Ricky yelled as he realized what just happened. He scrambled up and took me with him. “Are you okay?” he asked with concern.

  No, I was not okay. I’d seen more deaths today than an ordinary person would see in a lifetime. And whatever this weapon was, it was deadly.

  “Hey, are you still with me?” Ricky asked again when I didn’t answer immediately.

  “Yeah.” I shrugged him off.

  Ricky smiled sweetly at me. “Thank you. I guess you saved my life.”

  I finally was able to focus on him. “No need, really.” I smiled back at him.

  “A beautiful face with a beautiful heart. It’s about time we found someone like you.”

  His statement shocked me. I remembered his face. He was the one with the boyish features who had mumbled something to me I couldn’t remember anymore, shortly after I’d pushed the man away from me with the strength of Superman.

  I smiled back at him, but then his eyes flashed—just not in the way I was getting used to. It was a bluish reflection and lasted longer. I thought I saw a bolt reflecting.

  “Look out!” a male voice shouted from behind.

&nb
sp; But this time, my reaction came too late. I wouldn’t even have time to turn around to see death in the eye. Well, that was okay with me. I could just stay where I was, staring into the kind eyes of a young, handsome man I didn’t know. The bolt would ensure a quick death. There were worse ways to die.

  Ricky’s smile dropped, replaced by something else. Determination?

  He grabbed me roughly and pushed me out of the way so forcefully, I lost my footing and tumbled to the ground. Ricky didn’t even make a move to get out of the bolt’s way. Maybe he knew it was in vain.

  It hit him right in the chest.

  The impact was worse than before. The crashing sound was so loud, I was sure my eardrums would explode. I shielded my eyes from the blinding light, and when I opened them again, I saw Ricky drop down a few feet away.

  I needed a few seconds to breathe. What had just happened? My mind couldn’t catch up fast enough.

  He wasn’t set aflame like the last one. Maybe his uniform was fireproof, but it didn’t matter. He wasn’t moving.

  Hastily, I scrambled up but couldn't get it right the first two attempts, so I kept low and crawled frantically over to the motionless figure on the ground. His limbs were splayed out in all directions. Putting a hand on his chest, I felt a weak heart beating.

  “Ricky?” I rasped, the word barely making it over my lips.

  His eyelids fluttered, but he couldn’t lift them more than a slit. His frantic breaths came out in rasping sounds. No, I won’t go through this again. Fate wouldn’t hate me so much as to repeat the same torture on me.

  “Don’t talk, save your energy, I’ll get help!”

  I frantically searched for Sarah. She was already dashing toward us, her opponent lying motionless on the ground in a puddle of blood.

  Suddenly, Ricky grabbed my wrist, the effort making it tremble uncontrollably. “We… we need you,” Ricky croaked out so low I could barely make out the words.

  “It’s okay, Ricky, it’s okay. I’m here to help you. I’ll help you, I promise.” I didn’t know what it was exactly I promised him, but I hoped it would put his mind at ease. Sarah dropped to her knees on the other side of Ricky’s body, hands hovering over his form.