by Mandy Rosko
"You're a paranormal," Jack said, and it wasn't a question. Cindy was right.
"Don't look at me like that, Jack," Jessica said, and she looked away from him, as if embarrassed. Or ashamed. Jack remembered how ashamed Cindy had been when she'd confessed what she was to him, so he wanted to be delicate about this.
"Does Ethan know?"
"He's my brother. Of course he knows. Can we get out of here already?"
Fuck. Jack put his good arm around Cindy's waist and started moving toward the door. The three of them made it up the stairs quickly, and then Jack realized that his right knee was hurting more than he initially thought.
He pushed past it. He wasn't about to let any pain show.
"Wait," Jack said, pulling Cindy back to his room. Jessica followed them.
"What the hell are you doing?" she demanded.
Jack took his phone, but only so he could erase the messages on it before ditching it later on. His computer though...
He looked at Cindy. "Can you overheat it?"
"What do you mean?" Cindy asked.
"I've got pictures of us on the hard drive. Old emails, that sort of thing. You need to burn it. If we're getting out of here then it'll be easier for us to slip by if they think we're traveling separately."
Cindy's eyes widened, but then she looked at his computer, and Jack watched, fascinated as she held out her hand, and her skin brightened, right before the smell of burning metal and plastic hit the air. The machine started to smoke next, but it didn't actually catch fire.
"Don't want to burn the house down around us," Cindy explained, and winced at Jack.
He opened one of his drawers, moved around several articles of clothing, and then yanked out his emergency envelope, and his wallet. He was going to have to leave his truck behind. He didn't want anyone searching for it on the road.
"I know you didn't do it," Jack finally said, the words coming out of his mouth easier than he thought they would.
"My car's parked out back," Jessica said. "I'll drive you out of here. I'll drop you off wherever you want me to, and you're going to be on your own after that."
The way she had trouble meeting Jack’s eyes when she said that...fuck, she was really struggling with this.
He wasn't going to accuse her of anything. She didn't even have to be doing this. She didn't owe him a thing, and she was putting herself in danger just by being here, never mind offering him and Cindy a lift in her car.
He wanted to turn down the offer, but because Cindy was with him, he didn't.
"We don't have far to go. There's a storage unit about twenty minutes away. Drop us off there and I'll take care of the rest," he said, and the three of them quickly got out of the house and into the back seat of Jessica's car, just as the sound of sirens in the distance became noticeable. He and Cindy ducked their head low in the back as Jessica drove them out of there.
Chapter Sixteen
"Jesus Christ, Cindy, what happened to you?"
Cindy coughed as she looked up at the door. She must've dozed off somehow, though she wasn't sure how that had happened, considering the pain.
Jamie stood in the doorway, and one second later he was down on his knees helping her up.
She was already pushing against him. She tried to fight him off, but he caught her wrists before she could hit him. "Don't touch me. Don't touch me!" Cindy yelled, crying out her words as the pain in her womb intensified.
Jamie didn't yell at her or shake her. He just continued to hold onto her, restraining her. It didn't hurt, but she couldn't stop herself from panicking.
"Cindy, Cindy, look at me. Breathe and look at me," Jamie said. "I'm not going to hurt you, okay? Fuck, you're bleeding. You need a doctor."
Bleeding? Cindy looked down and she only noticed the thick and wet sensation between her legs just as her eyes landed on the bright patch of blood that soaked her jeans.
Cindy wailed, and she all but collapsed against Jamie's chest.
Jamie held her. Petting her hair and rocking her. "I got you. You're okay now. Cindy, who did this to you?"
She told him. She told him how Stacy and Stephanie had attacked her, and the despair that washed over Jamie's eyes told her well enough that he didn't condone this. She wasn't sure why she thought he'd been apart of it. Her panic had taken over her mind, she supposed.
"I'll get you to a doctor," Jamie said, and with almost no effort at all, he lifted her into his arms. She never thought he was so strong. He wasn't exactly bursting with muscles.
She still struggled. "No. Put me down."
Jamie was already out the door and quickly rushing down the stairs with her. "Don't be stubborn, seriously. You need a doctor. They won't know what we are so long as you can keep your fire away."
Considering how hard Cindy had tried to free herself from that room, and how much she'd wanted to fight back against Stephanie and Stacy with no success at all, Cindy didn't think keeping her fire away was going to be an issue.
Stress, it seemed, wasn't always helpful when she wanted to control her powers.
Jamie was the only one of the two of them who might get a few odd looks. His dishwasher blond hair was littered with patches of white, and it was naturally spiky, thanks to the electric currents rushing through his skin. The small hairs on Cindy's arms were standing straight up just from touching him.
Cindy finally managed to get Jamie to stop before he could get to his beat up old jeep, and she explained why Stacy had attacked her as she had.
"I need to get to Jack. Jamie, please, I need to get to him and stop them. They'll kill him."
Jamie's face went whiter than the patches of hair on his head. "Jesus Christ, Cindy, a hunter? You can't even worry about that right now. You said you're pregnant. You're bleeding. You need to see a doctor."
"Jamie, look at me. The baby's gone," Cindy said, and she immediately let out a few choked sobs before she could compose herself. By telling him this, she was taking the same risk she took with her roommates, worried that he would react the same way they did.
"Jamie, please, please," she begged.
Jamie let out a hard breath. "All right," he said, and he put her in the passenger side of the jeep before he climbed into the driver's side and turned on the ignition. "I'll take you right to the house, but if there looks like any trouble then you're staying in the jeep, and I'm calling an ambulance and the cops when we get there."
That was more than what Cindy could've hoped for. Calling for an ambulance was one thing, but involving the police was something else entirely. He was risking his own freedom by doing that, especially if either Stephanie or Stacy was still around and decided to out him for what he was.
Cindy gave him the directions and he drove quickly. The sun was just setting, turning the sky into a mix of purples, pinks, and even a bright, flickering orange.
She didn't understand that the flickering orange was actually coming from Jack's house until they turned the corner and drove over the hill.
Cindy gasped at the sight. There were already red fire trucks at the scene, trying to stop the blazing inferno. It looked like the fire was just eating the house alive like a cruel predator.
"Jesus Christ. Hey! Cindy!" Jamie cried, but Cindy was out of the jeep before he could stop her.
She wasn't fast enough to outrun him, however, and he grabbed onto her, wrapping his arms around her middle and holding on tight while Cindy completely lost her mind. She screamed for Jack. She could smell burning hair and flesh even with the scent of burning fuel and wood. People were dying in there, or already dead.
Stephanie and Stacy had killed Jack.
Jamie continued to hold her, tried to get her to calm down, but even when she stopped screaming and struggling, she was still sobbing loudly. Jamie was speaking to her, but it took her brain a while to figure out what he was saying.
"We have to get out of here. I'm sorry, but we have to go," Jamie said, and only then did Cindy notice that she was drawing a lot attention.
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Of the many fire fighters and police officers who were already at the scene, there were one or two of them who were able to take their eyes away from the blazing fire to get a look at the woman who was screaming, and the man with strange hair who was holding her.
Two men in blue uniforms signaled to their friends and started jogging over.
"Shit," Jamie said. "Shit, Cindy, we have to get out of here right now."
The men coming weren't collectors, and they weren't hunters, but even regular police officers were required to turn in any paranormals that they found. They might even think she was responsible for the fire when they found out she was a pyro, although letting them know what she was so they could take her away for experimentation – and quite possibly death - suddenly didn’t seem so bad. She wouldn't have to run anymore, at least.
"Just leave me alone," Cindy said.
"Are you crazy?" Jamie hissed, tugging on her body, but Cindy was dead weight now, and she didn't want to move. She slumped down to knees and wasn't about to get up. She wanted to curl into a ball and just stop existing.
Her baby was dead and so was Jack. Let the worst of it come.
"You there! Hey! Take your hands off of the girl," said one of the men in blue. He held his hand out to Jamie, and he kept his other hand on his gun, but he didn't draw it. The same went for his partner.
Jamie's hands were no longer on Cindy. They were up in the air as he'd been ordered..
"She's a friend of mine. I'm not hurting her," Jamie said.
"Yeah, well, just back up anyway. She clearly doesn't want you touching her," the second officer said..
"Get out of here, Jamie," Cindy said, staying on her knees, gripping the grass in her fingers. The green blades were slowly browning, and then turning black as smoke wafted from the burning grass between her fingers.
"Cindy," Jamie said, a clear warning in his voice, and she wondered if he could see the tiny fire she was trying to start.
"I said stop talking to her!" The officer snapped. "Miss? Are you all right? Do you know the people who lived here?"
She looked up into the face of the police officer. "Is anyone alive? Did anyone make it out?"
Both men looked at each other, and then at her. There was pity in their eyes, and the sort of awkward confusion on their faces that came when someone didn't know how to tell another person bad news.
The fires inside of her roared to life, reaching out higher and hotter than even the fire that had killed Jack and his family.
She very nearly burned the two cops, who jumped back and away from her.
"What the fuck!" one of them screamed.
The guns game out.
Before they could even aim, Jamie lifted his hands towards them, bolts of lightning shooting out of his fingers and striking the two officers in the chest.
Their eyes widened and teeth clenched together as the electricity ran through their bodies. Their knees buckled and then they went down. Cindy watched the entire thing with a feeling of being very far away.
Then Jamie was in front of her again, kneeling down, his face inches from hers. "Cindy, I'm sorry, okay, but I know you don't want to do this. You don't want to die. So I'm getting you out of here before more cops see us, all right?"
He was asking for her permission, but he didn't wait for her to give an answer before he shocked her too. It was the strangest, most painful thing she'd ever felt in her life. She was paralyzed and in pain, but then everything was black, and she was only vaguely aware of being hoisted into Jamie's arms as he started to run away with her, back to his vehicle. That was all she knew.
Chapter Seventeen
When they made it to the storage facility, everything was surprisingly quiet. There was barely any security either, aside from a single man sitting inside of a rectangular box made of metal and glass. Jack passed him a card, and the guy checked it out before he pressed a button and opened the chain link fence for them to enter.
It was all so damned easy that it made Cindy nervous.
"You sure this is where you want to go?" Jessica asked.
Cindy looked at the woman, trying her hardest not to be jealous of her and what she and Jack had shared in the past. At least it hadn't been enough for her to spill her secret to him until just a few minutes ago.
"I've got a motorcycle and some more cash in my shed," Jack explained. "I also know a guy who can get Cindy and me some new IDs. We can get a car later."
Cindy was stunned. "Why would you need to have those things tucked away?"
Jack shrugged. "In case of an emergency."
It seemed like as good of an excuse as anything else, so she was going to go along with it. Jack no longer wanted to see her hauled off by the collectors, and if Cindy was reading this right, he also still had feelings for her.
She was going to trust her gut on this one, even though it was rumbling and twisting in pain from all the stress of their hasty escape.
Jack opened the door when Jessica stopped the car, and Cindy was stunned, and warmed, when he reached for her hand and helped her out of the car, as if she was some delicate treasure he needed to care for.
A little delicate, maybe, but people didn't want her because she was a treasure. This almost felt like it had when they were together in the beginning.
Jack looked at her and smiled softly, and despite how messed up everything was, it was a bright smile. He seemed so happy that her hand was in his, and love swelled up inside of her. She squeezed his hand tightly, and any jealousy she'd had for what he and Jessica might've had completely vanished, even when he leaned down to the driver's side to speak with her.
"You sure you're going to be okay?" he asked.
Jessica wasn't looking at him, though, in fact she shushed him as she stared at the radio, then turned it up.
Cindy could hear the monotone voices of the newscasters, but from her place behind Jack she couldn't exactly hear what was being said.
Jack and Jessica, however, both went pale in the face. Jessica more so, and she leaned on the steering wheel and let out a long, pained sigh.
"What? What just happened?" Cindy asked.
Jessica punched the steering wheel. Then punched it again.
Jack was the one who answered her. "One of the men she knocked out must've woken up. She's listed as a possible paranormal now. The collectors aren't just after us anymore. They want her brought in for questioning."
Cindy's entire body froze up, and she looked down at the woman who helped her and Jack to escape. "What do we do?"
Jessica was having trouble looking at the both of them. "It's dangerous to be traveling together. I'll try and get out of town on my own."
"You're going to have to ditch your car, and soon," Jack said.
Jessica was reaching into her glove compartment and pulling out several papers. She even had a Taser, though Cindy wasn't sure what she would need it for, considering her natural powers. She put it all into her purse.
"I know," Jessica said. "Hopefully our friendly guard up front doesn't listen to the news."
"Doesn't seem like the type," Jack said. "I'm pretty sure I saw him playing video games when we pulled up."
Jessica was still pale in the face, but she nodded and shrugged. "Maybe."
"Wait one second," Jack said, and then he let go of Cindy's hand, pulled out a set of keys and hurried to unlock his storage unit. He was still cradling his injured arm and mostly using his good arm to lift up the metal sliding door that opened like a garage, but thankfully they were able to confirm on the ride here that it wasn't broken. That was a good thing. Cindy knew how hard it was being on the run when in need of medical attention.
It only took Jack ten seconds to find what he was looking for and then come back out.
It was an old brown shoe box, but when he opened it up, there were stacks of hundred dollar bills inside. Cindy's eyes widened. "Do you not believe in banks?"
"You should be glad that I don't," Jack said, and then he pulled out some of
the bound stacks and handed them to Jessica.
She looked up at him and then waved them away. "You're not the only one who has an escape plan," she said.
"Take them anyway, just in case you can't get to yours. I doubt you're keeping your money in that car."
Jessica's lips thinned, and then she reached out and took the money.
"It's about five grand," Jack said. "We'll be fine without it."
Cindy noted how Jack didn't tell Jessica exactly where they were going, despite offering her so much money.
"Thank you," Jessica said. "I should try and find my brother. Ethan always knew this was going to happen. He's going to want to help."
"Really? He won't turn you in?" Cindy asked.
Jessica shook her head. "We're the only family we've got. He won't turn me in. He might not even get a notice that I'm wanted for questioning, considering we're related. Head Office will have to know that he's been helping to hide me, or at least they'll suspect it."
"You said he's chasing down a paranormal right now, right? That means he's in the city. You should stay away from there. Do you have a meeting place?"
"Her brother's chasing a paranormal in the city?" Cindy asked, and though there had to be a lot of paranormals in the city, a tingling sensation spidered up her spine.
"Someone with electric powers. Apparently he's been causing problems, but if I call him then he should drop it and come to help me out."
"No, don't call him," Jack said. "If you're suspected of being a paranormal then his calls are going to be monitored for a while, at least until Head Office is sure that you're not going to run to him. They'll probably wait a few days before telling him what happened."
Even though Cindy owed Jessica her life, she couldn't help but latch onto that one piece of information about the electric paranormal that Jessica's hunter brother was chasing after. "Wait a minute, Jamie is a paranormal who controls electricity. I told you that, Jack!"
Jack looked right at her, his brows raised high. "Yeah but...what are the odds it's the same guy? There's lots of other paranormals with powers similar to each other."
