Finally Heroes

Chapter Twelve

             For all of us, it was instantaneous. We blinked, and it was like nothing changed. There just was some sort of bolt of lightning, but that didn't really make any difference for us. The most prominent tell something else had happened came in the fact that my joints felt stiff as a board. With some difficulty, Carlos stood and turned to face me, his expression just as confused as mine. There was no way we all could just suddenly feel this way, something had to have happened.

It seemed to hit the six of us all at once. We all looked to each other with wide-eyed expressions, realizing that just moments ago, we must have been stone statues. Everything was too instantaneous to send us to sleep, not to mention that Audrey likely would have had to be here to cast a spell like that. It almost didn't register with me at first, and as the rest of my friends took off toward the castle, I remained glued in place, as though I'd forgotten how to walk. It took Carlos coming over and moving me forward a little to get me to follow them.

"You okay?" he asked quietly, trying not to catch the attention of everyone else in the group.

"Yeah, just... trying to wrap my head around the fact we were stone just a couple of minutes ago. That's not exactly something they warn you about going into the rest of your life." That made Carlos laugh a little, lightening the slightly tense air.

"I guess since the spell broke, Mal somehow defeated Audrey." It was only now that I looked around and noticed Mal wasn't with the rest of us. Piece by piece, the conversation we'd had with her before this came back to me, and I started to feel that pain in my chest come back.

"I can't believe Mal's really going to close of the Isle," I muttered. "Those kids deserve to come over first. Even the ones that are the evilest, they can be changed. They're not as set in their ways as their parents. They shouldn't be trapped there."

Carlos didn't say anything for a while, and when I looked over at him, he had this smirk on his face.

"What?" I laughed a little as I asked, unsure of what he was about to say.

"I think you've changed a lot more than you realized."

Though that statement made me roll my eyes, he had a point. Back when I lived on the Isle, I understood that generally, it was every man for themselves. At first, I'd found protection within Mal's group, but over time, it blossomed into friendship, the first ones I'd ever been part of in my life. I started caring less about protecting and preserving myself, and more about my friends. And ever since we'd come to Auradon, everything got put into perspective, and I began to care for all the kids on the Isle. Having been in their shoes before, I knew they deserved so much better.

I guess I just never noticed as the change happened.

Once we reached Auradon Prep, all of us immediately made a mad dash for Audrey's room. Uma and Harry were already in the room, the former pacing back and forth while the latter was slumped down on a sofa. Mal sat on a chair next to the bed, where Audrey had fallen into a deep sleep.

How ironic.

Carlos, Ben, and Jay stayed in the corner, while Evie and I quietly approached the bedside. Mal barely glanced up, clearly still unsure of how to approach us after what happened before we turned to stone—still so weird to think about—but in all honesty, I knew I wasn't mad anymore.

"She's slipping away," Evie whispered, her eyes moving to Audrey's face again. Mal still didn't speak for a moment, and I could see the wheels turning in her brain.