by Jade Sánchez
She said she felt like she had been slapped, even before she knew she got slapped.
Odd isn’t it?
Chapter Twelve So close to home
Now that we knew about the reward hanging over our heads we had to be extra careful.
That meant we couldn’t get help from anyone because you never know who listens to the alerts, or however else they are spreading the news.
Anyway, after we finished running away from that woman with the camera, we hid behind a church. If we walked for about another hour we’d make it home!
Tess leaned up against the church to catch her breath. “We’re so close to making it home, Maddy!” she cried as she closed her eyes. “I can seeit now.”
After we took a ten minute break, we began walking again. Trying not to look suspicious, we didn’t look into any cars to see if they were staring at us.
After about half an hour, I began to see some city’s lights reflecting through the clouds. We were close to Boise! Tess and I joined hands and started running.
Once we got into the city, we knew we were about ten minutes away from home. After all, Tess and I were next door neighbors.
We walked, and fantasized about what we would do when we got home. “First of all, I need to brush my hair and teeth; then get into some different clothes,” Tess said. We were wearing the same clothes as when we got arrested. Tess was wearing a polka-dot tee shirt and jeans. I was wearing a yellow top, green jacket and orange pants. Wasn’t I colorful?
When we reached the five minute mark I began to panic. What if our parents turn us in to the cops for the reward? I shook that thought from my head. Our parents wouldn’t do that.
As soon as we were close enough to see Tess’s house, we saw a horrible sight.
Chapter Thirteen Tug-of-war
There were cops at our doorstep. We traveled all the way here just to find the cops at our door!
We quickly jumped behind a tree as to not be detected. Tess sighed, and spoke, “Like I said before, I’m giving in.”
I looked at her; the look on her face was serious. I couldn’t let her do this. We hadn’t come all this way just to give in. I was so mad at her I could just slap her. So that’s what I did. I looked her in the eyes and gave her a good slap across the face.
“What the heck was that for?” Tess cried. “We’ve gone through so much and have traveled so far to get back home;I’m not letting you give up now.”
She looked at me with a sudden ‘lightbulb turning on brain’ expression on her face, as I looked right back at her. She nodded; I’d finally managed to slap some sense into her.
We needed a plan.
I turned to Tess.
She always had a plan, and today’s the day that we needed her plan the most.
Well, besides that time not long ago when we were being held captive in that cage.
Tess thought about it for a minute. Then she pointed over to the forested area beyond her house. I then remembered that when we were little we dug little passageways underground to get us places unseen.
We quietly snuck over to the bush where we hid one of the passages to get us into my backyard. Tess lifted the bushes and nudged me in first. When she was getting in, she started to scream “Maddy! Help! Someone has hold of my foot!” I grabbed her arms and pulled as hard as I could.
It was like a game of tug-of-war against me and one of those blasted cops, and Tess was unfortunately the rope.
“Pull-l-l-l!” Tess yelled as I pulled.
“I’m trying!” I yelled back in reply.
She pulled one of her arms away from my grip, and with a quick flip of her wrist, shot a bit of fire from her hand, and directly at the cop on the other end. Startled, and now on fire, he released his grip on Tess, and we all fell backwards.
We didn’t have time to waste.
While the cop was trying to untangle himself from a tree root sticking out of the ground near the entrance of the hole we were struggling in, Tess and I continued through the underground passageway, and quickly ended up in a different section of her backyard. Going unnoticed, we then dashed over to another hidden passageway that led into my backyard.
This time Tess went in first, and after I took a quick look around to make sure we weren’t being followed, I jumped into the passageway, and traveled into my backyard.
Strangely, my house wasn’t surrounded by cops. We cautiously went inside. Finally! We were safe.
We ran upstairs and headed straight to my room, changed clothes, and went into the bathroom to wash up. Not long afterwards, we went downstairs.
You’ll never guess who we saw.
Chapter Fourteen House Arrest
It was Penny! She was standing at the foot of my stairs, arms raised to the side yet completely still.
I ran down to the bottom and hugged her. “I thought you were dead!” I cried as I hugged her.
“I am dead.” She said.
“What? No, you’re right here.”
“I’m using a bit of magic to be here today. I don’t know how I did it, it’s weird.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m here to tell you, it’s not safe. You think it’s over, but really it’s just begun. These next few days will be the worst and weirdest days of your life. But you’re going to live through it, I know you will. I have to go now. Goodbye.”
She then disappeared.
I didn’t like the sound of that at all.
We went into the living room just as cops burst through the front door. “Get them!” they yelled as they charged at us. We split up, Tess went one way and disappeared around the corner of the stairway, and I went another way.
I had to defend myself. I created two water balls at once, and threw them at the charging cops. I repeated that process quickly, and when they were all on the floor flopping around like fish out of water, I dropped to my knees on the floor, exhausted from all the energy I used to thrust out the water.
I let in a deep breath. It can’t be this easy, there has to be some twist, I thought to myself. I was right, and all of a sudden I felt someone grab me from behind and start to handcuff me.
“Don’t even bother trying anything funny. These are magic-proof cuffs.”
I recognized that voice.
It was Carson.
“Hey buddy, long time no see!” I said.
He chuckled. “Not a pleasure to see you again Miss Webber,” he replied.
Someone’s Mr. Grumpy Face today.
All of a sudden I heard Tess yelling, “Let me go, this isn’t right!”
She was right about this not being right. Does that even make sense?
One of the men said “We can do this the hard way, or we can do this the easy way. Your choice; I suggest the easy way. The easy way is you keep your mouth shut and listen to what I’m about to say. Ok. So you’re going back to Washington D.C. whether you like it or not. I promise you that you’re not going to get dissected. We just want to take some tests. So if we just work together…”
Tess interrupted “Not interested.” She set her hair on fire, a classic Tess move. Though, this time there was something different; something more. The fire was twice the size it usually was.
“How are you doing that? We put you in magic-proof hand cuffs!” he yelled.
“Well you didn’t put me in a magic-proof helmet!” she yelled back.
“It’s supposed to turn off all magic!” he cried.
“Well then, it sucks at its job,” she replied. She set her hands on fire next, melting the handcuffs and her red cast. She was going all out rage.
And trust me; you don’t want to feel Tess’s fury.
Chapter Fifteen Counter Attack
Tess was going insane. Not her regular, just being herself crazy either. She was going nuts.
“I DON’T WANT TO EVER GO BACK THERE AGAIN! TWO OF MY FRIENDS, AND PROBABLY INNOCENT HUNDREDS OF OTHER CHILDREN HAVE BEEN MURDERED THERE!” she yelled, stomping towards the men.
&nb
sp; “AND DON’T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON WANTING TO MAKE A DEAL BECAUSE IT WON’T END PRETTY, AND I’M PRETTY SURE YOU WOULDN’T WANT TO BE ROASTED ALIVE” she continued shouting.
They came charging at her full speed, but she blasted fire at them, knocking them backwards and into a china cabinet that came crashing down onto them, knocking them out cold – wait - Hot. Trapped underneath the burning cabinet they were ‘China’ toast.
Another man came running through the front door and headed right for us. Tess threw a flame at his head, but he barely dodged it, singing the tip of his hair and catching his hat on fire.
He quickly threw his hat off.
The man pulled out what looked like a gun, and shot Tess with a beam of light. Her powers went off and she fainted.
“What did you shoot her with?” I asked nervously, while messing with my handcuffs.
“It’s agun that the lab made. If you have magic, it cancels out the powers you are using at the moment, and makes you faint. Plus another little twist.” He said looking rather smug.
“What other twist?”
“Well, since it’s a magic gun, it shrinks its subject down to marble size.”
“How did you even make that? How is that even possible?”
“Has anything that’s happened around you this week ‘seem’ possible?”
That was a good question. The answer was simply - no.
I looked down at Tess as she was already shrinking. I looked back at the man with no hat and asked him, “What’s your name?”
“My name is Zeke,” he replied as he continued to pull something from out of his jacket pocket. It was a little plastic jar, about 2 inches by 1 inch, and it was circular.
I looked down at Tess again. She got remarkably small! She was about 1 inch tall now, though not getting any smaller. “How did you even manage that?” I asked while still fussing with my handcuffs.
Abruptly, he made a grab for her.
I couldn’t let him.
Still able to use my water powers, I slipped free from my handcuffs (they really suck at their job!), kicked him in the shins, and threw a big gush of water at him. Letting go of the shrink ray, he grabbed at his shins and fell to the ground gasping for air, drowning from the water engulfed around his head.
I picked Tess up off the floor and slipped her into my jacket pocket. While he was still struggling for his life, I grabbed his shrink gun thingy. I was not going to let him do the same thing to me.
I quickly looked the gun over, saw a ‘size’ dial on it and turned it from ‘tiny’ to ‘normal.’ I laid Tess back on the floor, aimed the gun towards her, and pulled the trigger. She grew back to normal size in a matter of a few seconds and woke up.
She grabbed the gun from me, set her hands on fire and melted the gun. She then found a red cube on the floor near Zeke; kind of like the one that I saw in Penny’s jar.
She then crushed the cube, and ‘poof’ it disappeared. It was a good feeling watching her crush that thing.
Zeke managed to get to his feet and said, “Carson, Rodger - get the uniforms.”
Those names were way too familiar. They came out into the open with some kind of wired uniforms.
Still livid, Tess asked, “What are those?”
“Those are high-tech uniforms that were tested on Monachi, and they cancel out powers,” Zeke answered.
I looked back at the uniforms. Each one seemed like a one piece suit with footies; except with built in gloves and turtle neck.
“So? You can’t make us get into them,” I said. I thought I was starting to sound like Tess. I’m supposed to be the nice one, so I made a mental note to stop doing that.
“Oh, can’t we?” they said.
Setting her hands on fire, Tess remarked, “Here’s a tip; never threaten a girl who can set you on fire.” She shot flames the size of basketballs at Zeke knocking him over once again. She turned to Carson and Rodger. “You don’t even know how long I’ve wanted to do that,” she pronounced.
She displayed a huge, creepy killer-like smile, winked, and blew her fists out.
She grabbed my arm and said, “It’s time to run.”
I nodded.
She let go of me as we headed out the back door.
Apparently, they saw this coming.
Chapter Sixteen Falling Apart
We ran straight into a net.
One part of the net went up as we began to be lifted off the ground. I looked up, though I really didn’t need to, figuring we were strapped to a helicopter.
Tess started scratching at the sides of the net. She tried to set her hands on fire, but there was no spark. “It must be magic proof.” I said.
Tess sat still, an impossible thing to do. She looked as if all the emotion had been drained out of her system. “Are you ok?” I asked her.
She looked at me and said, “This whole week hasn’t been ok - so far” She was right. This has been one messed up week.
Tess looked up and smiled, and suddenly her emotion returned, saying “But look on the bright side; we have butt-kicking powers!”
I smiled back. Even if I thought that my powers were not as butt-kicking as hers, they were awesome nonetheless.
Tess looked down, which was a scary thing to do. “This is so cool. We are on a helicopter, but not in it. It’s like going on a rollercoaster without any seat belts.” It was a good metaphor.
It may be scary, but it is really fun. Tess stood up, but fell back down. “Ok, so we might not be able to stand, but you have to admit, its way better than being in the back of a van,” I told her.
She nodded. “This is so much better, and faster than the van too.”
We were both tired. It may sound weird (or reasonable) but we were dead tired. We were tired from walking and fighting. Surprisingly, we fell asleep in this awkward circumstance.
I woke up on my bed, sweating. It had all been a dream. Suddenly, the room started spinning, and I floated up. Tess was there, in the air floating around. The room kept spinning faster and faster…
I woke up in the net. It was a dream, but I wish it had been real, except for the spinning part. Tess was still fast asleep. I looked at her, still so calm. She was crazy, but hey, what’s wrong with that?
I looked down; we were somewhere in the mountains. I needed a plan; some way to get out of this net. Even if we fall out of the net, we’d be free and we might live by some rare chance.
I developed a plan. When Tess wakes up, she could slip her hand through the ropes and set the net on fire. But that might not work; I don’t know what this net is capable of.
I looked down at the mountains; they were dark blue with green splotches,with some lakes here and there.
Tess woke up screaming. “Tess, what’s wrong?” I asked.
“I had a dream. The worst dream ever,” she said.
“What was it about? Tell me the whole dream!”
She sighed. “We were back at the jail. It wasn’t really a dream. It was a flash back. I heard Penny screaming, and saw Briana get hit by a car. I thought; why couldn’t I have done something earlier to save them?”
I was concerned about Tess. She didn’t seem like she was doing too well.
“A little bit of a weird dream, don’t you think?” she said, chuckling. Even though she was laughing, she couldn’t hold back the tears.
Even though I was afraid to get the answer, I asked, “How are you?”
Usually she would say ‘Fine.’ She said, “I would say I’m fine, but what’s the point of lying? I feel broken, confused, ready to give up, pathetic, bitter, crushed and most of all, I feel like I’m just going to fall apart at any moment.”
I looked at her. “You aren’t broken. I’m confused too; anyone would be in this situation. Don’t give up on me, we can get through this. You aren’t pathetic, you’re amazing! You are not bitter, not now, not ever. If you fall apart I’ll be right at your side ready to put you back together.”
Tess hugged me and wiped her tears. “Thanks
for that, I know we can get through this.”
Tess smiled. “Wanna hear a story? May not be the happiest story, but it’s something.”
I nodded. “Sure why not?”
Tess cleared her throat.
“One night, a girl and a boy were sitting in a car; there was a long silence as both of them stayed quiet for a long time. Then the girl gave him a note of paper. Before the boy read it, he said in an embarrassing tone that he wanted to dump her. Suddenly, a speeding car hit their car. The girl died, but the boy survived. When he read the piece of paper that she gave him, he started crying because she wrote ‘If you leave me, I’ll die.’”
I stared down. It was a sad story. I shook it out of my head.
“Where do you think we’re going?” Tess asked with a yawn.
It was late, the moon was out and the stars were twinkling above.
Tess looked up at the night sky. She loved astronomy. We had an astronomy dome in our class a week ago. Sadly, I was sick the day we did it and I missed out. Tess pointed out two constellations in the sky that appeared to be the most noticeable.
“You know there’s a story to go with those constellations. Wanna hear it? I promise it’s not that sad,” she said, key word being that.
It meant it was kind of sad, but I nodded yes anyway.
“A long time ago, Zeus, the Greek god of the sky and ruler of Olympian gods, came to Earth and fell in love with a mortal woman named Callisto and together they had a son named Arcas. Zeus’ Goddess wife Hera got upset and demanded punishment. So he turned the mortal woman into a bear. Her child grew up, and one day went into the woods to hunt. He saw a bear and, not knowing it was his mother, aimed to kill it. Zeus, seeing this grabbed both the bear and the young man and threw them up into the starry night. Zeus wanted to honor them so he put them in the sky as the constellations Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, or most commonly known as the Big Dipper and Little Dipper.
I smiled. It was a good story. I looked up and saw that Tess had fallen asleep. I thought, ‘How quick was that?’
I closed my eyes and fell asleep just as fast.
