Struck

Trained

Haden stood in the middle of the crowd, facing a girl his height, with thick, wavy black hair and tan skin. Her Hispanic descent was confirmed by her accent. The way she rolled her r's and accented hier d's seemed to make every boy grin even as she yelled at Haden.

I stepped out between them as steam began coming out of Haden's ears. I had to resist the urge to laugh at the irony of the situation, instead grabbing Haden's arm before he could swing it at her.

"Cut it out," I said, giving a disappointed look at Haden who ignored me, pushing my hand away.

"Michelle--," Haden began, just to be cut off by me.

"I said cut it out!" The sky darkened just a little bit, reacting to my anger. Everyone took a cautious step back, looking around them in fear. I rolled my eyes, but secretly enjoyed the surprised reaction I'd caused. I had to resist the urge to send lightening streaking across the sky just to be able to see that beautiful blue again. I managed to keep myself at bay by playing with a loose thread on the side of my pants.

"Lightening?" Michelle guessed, smiling as she looked me over with approval. "I'm impressed," she said, taking a step towards me. She ran a hand through her hair and looked down at me with beautiful green eyes. The crowd began whispering to one-another frowning and pointing at me every now and then.

"Thanks," I muttered, uncomfortable with the attention I was drawing to myself. "What did you survive?" I asked in a desperate attempt to get everyone's eyes off me.

"Earthquake," Michelle stated, shrugging her narrow shoulders. "Earth is not as fun to play with as lightening, but it helps in a fight or falling."

"But if you're falling from somewhere high up you aren't around the ground, wouldn't it be harder?"

"It comes from inside. We don't create things, we just let them out. That's the amazing part about being a survivor, it's all you and you can feel it build up inside and flow out. You're in total control." She smiled at me, her eyes dancing with a flaming interest.

"She doesn't--." Haden began.

"She can talk for herself," I snapped at Haden. I turned away from the two of them, facing the crowd. "Wow, there are a lot of you..." I muttered to myself, gulping. There's something new I found out about myself, crowds scared me to death.

I heard shuffling beside me, then Michelle's voice, "Alright, nothing to see here. Shoo flies, fly away." As the crowd began to disperse, going their own ways, Michelle turned and faced me. "So, you're the newbie, huh?"

I was aware of Haden still standing a few feet away, watching Michelle's every move.

"Not new enough to think you haven't done anything wrong. So what'd you do? Kill a man? Kill a woman? Kill a child?" I crossed my arms over my chest and raised my eyebrows at her.

"What?" she asked, giving me a confused look; then she laughed a long high-pitched laugh. I frowned looking at Haden briefly to see if I'd said something funny, but he just rolled his eyes. "Haden isn't mad at me because I killed anyone," she said, looking amused.

I did my best not to show my embarrassment, instead raising my eyebrow at him, "You're right, how could I think that? You look like you'd lose a fight to a pregnant fly."

Michelle's laughter died down. "Hey, pregnant things are always more violent," she said with a wink.

"What did you do, then?

She shot a quick look at Haden, before speaking. "We had some issues in the past," Michelle said. "One not worth retelling, because it's history; and we're both big enough people to move on." With that, she turned around walking onto a different street out of my sight.