Revealed (Keys To The Elements Story 1)

Chapter 14

I was walking to the forest surrounding Lost Lagoon when I saw a flash of someone's figure in front of me. Something quite odd was that there seemed to be snowflakes falling from the sky.

"Who's there?"

Coming out of the trees were Diego, Parker, Zoey, Zack, and... Steph? Well, that explained the snow.

"Looks like I found her," Steph sighed, looking at the others with obvious annoyance.

"Why are you here?" I asked, confused. How did they find me?

Zoey ran up to me and hugged me. "We were worried about you! I can't believe you would just take off like that!"

"Yeah, well, I needed to be on my own for a bit," I retorted, hugging her back. I had missed them, more than I wanted to admit.

Diego looked around. "But why did you come here?"

"I came after seeing Daisy. But someone's controlling her, and she said it's not The Cloaked."

Steph put up her hands. "Okay. I've heard enough. Can I go?"

"Why did we need Steph to come?" Parker wanted to know, frowning.

Steph glared at him, then turned towards Zoey. "I'll head back to school and tell Lord Julian you've found Clover."

Zoey nodded thankfully. "Thanks, Steph. We owe you one."

Steph nodded once more to me and walked away, following the trail.

"Isn't it a really long walk to go back to school?" I wondered.

"Well, Steph ran all the way to the cabin when she heard you left," shrugged Zoey. "She'll be fine."

She did?

For the first time since we regrouped, Diego spoke up. "Clover, we want to help you. Truly. You need to trust us."

"And I do!" I answered hurriedly.

"Leaving without us and not telling anyone where you were going is not trusting us."

My hands formed fists. "Well, I think you should trust me. You should know I would've been fine. I don't have to tell you anything. Before all this, we were strangers. So let me be!"

"Clover," Parker started.

"No! Don't 'Clover' me! I don't know what you guys want from me. I just want to find my sister... ugh! I mean cousin and then fix her. After that, we can go home and live our lives again."

"You realize you don't have a home to go back to, right?" Diego countered, his eyes narrowing.

Oh. Right. My temper was one of the things I definitely had to work on.

"Diego!" exclaimed Parker. Did he just call him by his first name?

Diego's face softened in realization. "I'm sorry. Why did I say that? I didn't mean it."

I looked away, my hair falling on my face, while Zoey crossed her arms in front of her. I noticed her facial features went from calm to alert in a matter of seconds.

"Guys... turn around," she said, her voice trembling a bit. I obeyed and stumbled at what I saw. The other side of the lake... was on fire.