Fantasy

35 - Jessica

Aaron Shaw, the child of the enemy leader, and Levina Worldd, the punk, loner, freak who was raised by her deranged, bloodthirsty brother, are coming with us! Mark my words; this is a horrible idea! We can't trust Aaron... and Levina, well, she's just a psychopath. I mean seriously, you can tell just by looking at her haircut how weird she is. I don't hesitate to voice my concerns about Aaron and Levina to Abby. "Are you kidding? We can't trust them, least of all Aaron. How do we know he isn't a spy for his dad?"

"I'm not, honest," Aaron protests.

"Jessica, they're our friends," Abby says to me in that childish way of hers. Wow, she's so dumb it's unbelievable.

"Yeah, Riley and all those other people were our friends, too," I remind her. Someone has to.

"Look," Levina says, "If you don't trust us, we won't come."

"No, you can come," Abby replies, "I trust you." What is wrong with her? Does she have a death wish?

"Jessica," Levina says, addressing me, "Standing here arguing isn't going to help anything." As much as I hate to admit it, she's right, but I still don't trust Aaron. I refuse to touch him or to even be the one standing next to him as we walk.

After about a half an hour Aaron says, "Jessica, I really am on your side," to me. I pretend I don't hear him; after all, I don't believe him, so he might as well not have said it at all.

"Jessica, you are being ridiculous. I understand that you might not trust us and you have a right to be wary, but that doesn't mean you should be rude," Levina snaps. Before I can give her what for, someone pounces down from a tree branch and pins Levina to the ground. She screams and we all instinctively jump back. It's a woman in her late twenties that I assume to be an RA agent. She pulls out a dagger and aims for Levina's heart, but there is no time to help her because Charlie, the agent that drove Abby and me to the airport the first time, also drops from a tree along with another woman. Abby looks like a pitiful, helpless animal as the other woman agent advances on her. A man falls from the trees in front of Aaron, and behind me I hear another agent drops to the ground.

Whipping around, I zap him with some lightning. In my peripheral vision I see Charlie roll his eyes as the guy lands flat on his back, gasping for air. I turn back towards Charlie. Whoosh, he shoots a giant wave of flame in my direction. Luckily, I hit him with water before the fire even reaches me. Charlie tries to take me off guard by using my own magic against me. A wave of water pours from his hands and rushes towards me. Quickly, I hold up my hands and send a pulse of white-hot air at the water, hoping to vaporize it. As I do so I turn my head just in time to see the agent I shocked earlier on his feet preparing to stab me with a knife. He's only two or three feet away, but I'm about to zap him again when Aaron comes out of nowhere and thrusts both his palms forward. A clap of thunder echoes through the trees as the man is pushed back by a small hurricane of winds. Aaron even goes as far as to move his hurricane towards Charlie. It's not strong enough to blow him off his feet, but the winds pick up the rest of the water my heat wave didn't evaporate. When Aaron finally stops the storm, I shoot a giant lightning bolt at Charlie and then scowl at Aaron. Does he think I'm helpless?

"Aaron, I was fine on my own," I snap at him. His eyebrows shoot up. "I had everything under control. I didn't need help, and I definitely didn't need your help, of all people. Why did you take over my fight?"

"I...I..." he stutters, obviously surprised by my reaction. At that moment, a sizable ball of ice pelts Aaron in the head. Looking over, I see that the man who originally attacked Aaron is the assailant. Why on Earth was Aaron trying to save me when he couldn't even fight off his own enemy? What a dummy. Meanwhile, Charlie climbs to his feet again. I see a blur of color to my left as Levina and Abby fight as a team, and then I taste metal and am sent flying backwards.

"How do you like it?" Charlie growls, standing over me. I groan. He grabs my arm and pulls me to my feet, then presses a knife to my throat. To make matters worse, Aaron comes up behind Charlie and presses two flaming hands into his back. He howls and drops the knife. I create some fireballs and launch them at Charlie until he loses consciousness.

"Aaron! I had it under control!" I scream at him, and then to get my point across, I shove him back a little.

"I was just trying to help; you looked like you needed it!" he retorts.

We are interrupted by Levina shouting, "Aaron, look out!" One of the woman agents is running towards us wielding a mace, yes, a mace! Where the heck did she get a mace from?! Aaron runs one way and I run the other. Unfortunately, the agent follows me instead of him, but fortunately I ran towards Abby and Levina, so it's three against one. Well, two, counting the agent Abby and Levina are currently being attacked by.

"I'll take the mace. You and Jessica finish off the other woman; don't worry, she's pretty winded already," Levina mutters to us. As she walks forward, Abby and I turn towards the other woman. Abby is pretty much deadweight, so it's really just me fighting her. Since it worked before, I blow flames at the woman, but she blasts back jets of water that douse the flames. I'm about to vaporize the waves when Abby speaks up.

"Wait!" She surprises me more than anything, so I hesitate. In that moment, she sticks her hands up and the water turns to ice. Adding more frozen water of her own she creates a wall that's traveling towards the woman. The agent and I both realize what Abby's doing at the same time, but by then it's too late. Abby's already boxed the agent in an ice prison. We both stare at it for a few seconds, waiting for the girl to break out, but it seems secure. With that taken care of, we join Levina. The woman has been disarmed, but she's rushing towards Levina with the intent to kill. Abby starts an ice wall, but it isn't tall enough by the time the agent reaches it. She just hops over it and reaches Levina. Levina isn't helpless, though; that much I'll admit. She kicks the girl in the stomach and then delivers a solid blow to her temple. The lady falls to her knees and Levina takes her chance and kicks her in the temple. Her eyes roll back in her head and she collapses.

"Is she dead?" I call. Levina turns around to face us, shaking her head.

"No, just incapacitated." She wipes her forehead with the back of her hand. "They all are. We should get going."

"Yeah," Abby agrees.

"Is everyone alright?" Levina asks as she makes her way over to us. We both nod. "Where's Aaron?"