Isolation | E LEHNSHERR

CHAPTER TWO

"And what do you think you'd understand? I'm a boy, no I'm a man. You can't take me and throw me away."
-I'm Still Here, John Rzeznik

They'd been on the airplane for almost an hour, and Rory was absolutely bored. There wasn't anything to do, as they'd taken and put her books with the rest of the luggage. That annoyed her, but also the fact that she was sitting next to Erik. The plane they were in had three seats per row, and Scarlett had been quick to grab the window sea, leaving Rory to the middle seat.

To be completely honest, she prefered having Erik near her rather than Charles, as the shorter man still scared her. She wanted nothing more than to have one of their silent conversations with Scarlett, to talk about what was happening, but she was afraid that if she opened her mind to Scarlett, then she'd be unable to keep Charles from entering her mind. And, really, that's what she was afraid of.
   
Scarlett was fast asleep, which left Rory bored. To be honest, she was sleepy too, but she wasn't sure if she trusted the plane to fall asleep on it. As far as she knew, it could fall or explode, or quite frankly, anything. Anything was possible.

Erik must've picked up on her tenseness, because he looked over, and smiled.

"Don't worry. The plane is safe, and even if it's not, I'll be able to save us."

"No offense," Rory responded slowly, "but how would you even keep me safe?"

"I have my powers."

Rory narrowed her eyes at the man. "What kind of powers?"

Erik lowered his voice into a whisper. "The power to control metal."

Rory found her eyes widening. "Any metal?" That seemed really powerful, and actaully kind of cool.

Erik nodded his head solemnly, and Rory almost laughed at how weird he looked. However, she stopped herself, as she didn't want these two men to think that she was comfortable around them until she could be sure she trusted them.

"You never told me and Charles what you can do," Erik pointed out.

"No, no I didn't," Rory responded with a wink.

Erik's blue eyes narrrowed. "What, you're just not going to tell me? That's hardly fair, is it? I just told you my ability."

Rolling her eyes, Rory smiled faintly. "The difference there is that you told me because you wanted to. Perhaps I don't want to tell you my abilities." Then she turned away from the man.

"We can't help you if you don't tell us anything," Erik's voice said, calmly.
   
Rory found herself looking back at the man, even though she didn't particularly want to. To be completely honest, she didn't even really want to be here, on this plane, but Scarlett did, so she was going to have to put up with Erik and Charles, and anyone else.
   
Sighing, Rory started to explain her powers to Erik. "As you could tell back at the house, I'm able to create and manipulate fire. But, I also can control the shadows, although I basically use that to travel, as it allows me to sort of teleport from one shadow to another. And then I have my mental block."

The older man looked interested at that, but Rory wasn't going to try to explain it. She didn't want Charles to find out, and try to poke holes in her mental wall; she wasn't going to allow it.

Speaking of her mental wall, she felt a familiar tapping at it, and she looked over on her other side to see that Scarlett was awake. The brown haired girl was looking at her suggestively, and so Rory sighed, and warily let down her wall.

Don't worry, Scarlett's voice reassured, I think I'm blocking our conversation so Charles can't hear us.

What you want? Rory asked, calmly.