Kinetic

Chapter 14: The Divide

     "I'm guessing you lot didn't just walk here, now did ye'?" Epoch asked.
     We each looked around at each other waiting for someone to say something until Harry butted in,
     "Well, we drove up here."
     He raised his beat-up tree branch which still had the leaves on it towards Epoch and approached him.  The gesture would have been menacing if Harry had been using literally any other object as a weapon.  When he was within arms reach of Epoch, he held the branch up to his chest and said,
     "Now why don't you tell us how you got here."
     He squinted at Epoch, studying him.  The mud had dried on Harry's clothes now giving him a filthy appearance, and his glasses were splotched with dirt.  Still, he stood there as though if he wanted to, he could take on the Scotsman with ease.  Epoch just smiled at him and with a confident grin said,
     "You know, mate.  If you're gonna threaten a pyro kinite, ya best not do it with somethin' flammable."
     Epoch reached out to touch the branch with a single finger.  After a light tap on the tip of Harry's weapon, the entire length of it burst into flames.  Harry shrieked and dropped the branch, jumping back with a scare.  Epoch let out another hardy laugh and said,
     "Now if you kids are done foolin' around, let's get out of here before Cece's Kraanti sniff ye out."
     He walked past Harry or rather I should say, through Harry, since he easily bumped him to the ground as he approached Lilah and me.  Harry fell into the mud again, but this time, he just sat there pouting.  Epoch came up to me and said,
     "By the way, mate.  I can tell you have no idea what yer doin'. Yer stance was all sloppy."
     "Well aren't you a charmer." I hissed back snarkily.  He just smiled and continued past me as well.  When he got to Lilah, he looked down at her and held out his hand.  From where I was standing, I could see the veins along his forearms.  This guy could be deadly if he wanted to, but other than setting a tree branch on fire and making Harry scream, he hadn't seemed like much of a threat.  Lilah shook his hand and he said with his white grin,
     "Ye might not remember me, but I was there during the invasion of the Carolan tribe."
     "You know the Carolan tribe?" She yelled in excitement.
     "Aye," He said, "I'm a Carolian myself. I was about a year older than you when Saul invaded us."
     "No way." She said, "I never thought I'd meet another one of my people!"
     She leaped at him with a massive hug, and he returned it.  He patted her on the back and said,
     "Don' worry now, Lilah.  You're almost home, yer mum's been looking for ye for a long time now."
     Tears were welling up in her eyes.  I could tell this was a massive moment for her.  Just the night before, she had finally told me about her past, so I knew how significant finding her people was.  They talked excitedly behind me while I trudged on over to help Harry up.  I was still tired from trying to concentrate on Axiom and I hadn't slept much the night before either.  I gave him my hand and he took it.  I leaned my body weight back to pull him up, and I tried to help him brush off the new coat of mud.  He grabbed the front of my grey jacket and wiped his lenses clean on them.  He then put them on and adjusted them so he could see.
     "You okay?" I asked him.
     "Aside from being everyone's punching bag?" He said with his arms folded, "Just dandy."
     Lilah's voice was getting higher and higher as she continued talking to Epoch.  I turned to see if I could understand what they were saying, but the tales they recounted were chock-full of kinite jargon I could barely understand.  Epoch leaned against the ancient wooden barn while he discussed the last decade with Lilah.  He was like a classic "cool guy" straight from an old movie, he had a chill manner about him and walked with a distinct swagger.  Seeing Lilah get so excited around him made me feel uneasy.  It was like a well in my gut, a feeling that I couldn't quite describe.  I didn't really like it that much, but there was little I could do about it.
     "I'm sorry about how today's gone for you," I said to Harry.
     "What are you sorry about?" Harry asked me, "You've been good to me, you let me come along on your adventure and you've been vouching for me.  It's those two I'm angry about."
     Harry pointed a dirt-stained finger at Lilah and her new friend.
     "What's wrong with them?" I asked.
     "First off," Harry said, "We don't even know if we can trust this guy is and she's basically already flirting with him.  And second off, she's been treating me like trash the entire time I've known her, yelling at me and using me for demonstrations.  I don't even understand what her deal is! If I hadn't been there to run over Charlotte yesterday, she'd probably be six feet under while this Maddock guy dances on her grave."
     Hearing Harry say that brought a wave of anger up in me.  I could almost feel a vein popping in my head from the pressure inside me, and if I didn't control myself, I would have blown up.  I told him angrily,
     "Don't talk about her like that!"
     "Oh my God," Harry said, "You've known this girl for like a day and you're already choosing her over me?"
     "I'm not choosing her over you!"
     "Yes, you are!" He shouted, "You've seen how she treats me, and you know I'm right! Maybe you're too blinded by your little love-crush to see it, but it's there."
     "Well nobody asked you to come along!" I shouted even louder. "If being here is so bad, then just leave!"
     "What the hell is wrong with you!" He screamed, "I thought we were in this together, man! We're best friends! You're supposed to have my back because God knows I've had yours!  I didn't have to jump in and take that beating from Derek, I didn't have to come back to save you from Charlotte, and I didn't have to come along on this- whatever the hell this is- with you! I did it because we're friends and that's what friends do."
     I turned away from Harry and uttered under my breath,
     "Well then maybe that's it for us, then."
     "REALLY!" He yelled, "Just like that, you're gonna throw years of friendship out the window? I've taken beatings for you! I've stuck my neck out time and again!"  He threw a finger at me and shouted even louder, "You've never done ANYTHING for me! you've always been in your own little world complaining about how hard your life is and whatnot, but let me tell you this.  The reason nobody likes you is because you're a pathetic, self-centered asshole, who never does anything for anyone else, and only cares about himself. So I'm through with all this shit!"
     Harry stomped away towards the cornfield and shouted back at me,
     "Go away and have fun with your little Jedi friends, go play cops and robbers with ninjas and supervillains, but me, I'm done putting up with you! Goodbye, Jacob."
   He stormed off and disappeared into the tall faded-green stalks of corn.  For a minute I could still hear his body moving through the ears, then silence.  The only other sound I heard was the slamming of the car door and the Mini Cooper engine starting, and that was the last I heard of Harry.
     Various emotions were raised in me.  Anger, fear, pity, sadness, and ultimately regret.  Moments after watching my best friend walk away, I thought to myself,
     "What have I done?"
     I'd thrown away everything I had ever cared about, my mom, my best friend, my life.  All for what? For some strange world with strange powers that I knew nothing about?  This entire past day, I'd been complaining about how I'd never wanted any of this, but the truth was that I didn't know what I wanted.  I was so scared and confused by everything, I couldn't even understand my own thoughts anymore.  Unsure of what else to do, I collapsed to my knees and stared down at the ground.  Sitting there with my knees in the mud where Harry had been, I tried to contemplate everything that had happened and its meaning from the moment I gained my powers to the present.  Curiously, throughout this entire ordeal, I never once stopped to think about the people around me.  It was always "I have to survive" or "I can't handle this life," I didn't care what anyone else around me was going through.
     Lilah tapped me on the shoulder and I turned around to look at her.
     "You alright?" she asked me.
     "No.  Harry just left, and its all my fault."

***

With Harry gone, I figured the only thing I could do now was go with Epoch and Lilah.  Epoch had led us out of the cornfield and onto the side of the road, where there was a jacked-up black pickup truck parked.  The vehicle was massive.  Its wheels came up to my hips and there was a thin platform beside each door to make it easier to climb inside.  The bed of the truck had a blue canvas covering over the top of it, and inside were boxes with stamps labeled:
     "Produce item"
     I walked over to the side door but found that there were only two seats inside the car.  Epoch had already climbed in the driver's seat and told me as he saw me climbing in,
     "What do you think yer doin', mate! give the seat to the lady."
     My face became hot and I felt a blush rise up in my cheeks.
     "Oh. uh, right." I said as I climbed down.
     Right as I came down from the truck, Lilah hopped in happily beside Epoch.
     "I'll sit in the back," I said.
     "O.k," Lilah replied without looking down.
     I closed the passenger door and walked around towards the back of the truck.  Before I even climbed into the bed of the vehicle, it started slowly inching away.  I reached for it and tried to climb in, but it moved away faster and faster.
     "Hey!" I shouted, "Wait up! I'm not in yet!"
     The vehicle kept on going and speeding up.  I was now running after the car with my arms outstretched towards the bed.  Before long, I had broken into a sprint and was racing towards the car, but it was building distance between us.  The electric feeling came upon me again and the adrenaline started to pump through my body.  Good. I thought I can use this.  Focusing as hard as I could, I pushed my arms down towards the ground as if I were hauling myself out of a swimming pool, and as I did that, I shot off the ground like a bullet.     As it turns out, I wildly underestimated just how powerful kinite abilities are because that tiny little action threw me several feet into the air above the truck.  The ground got further and further away and I saw the truck get smaller and smaller.  By now I was hanging ten feet over the truck and waving my arms uncontrollably through the air.  The fall began and I hurdled back towards the earth.  Luckily, I hadn't gone too high, but I figured the fall would still hurt like hell.  I was right.
     I ripped a hole through the canvas, and luckily it helped break my fall.  I still ended up crashing hard into the metal bed of the truck with a loud clang.  I groaned as I rolled onto my back and looked up through the hole.  At least I was on the truck now.  Pain pulsed through my body, but by now I was getting used to it.  It didn't hurt nearly as much as the thought of almost being left behind.  Was this how Harry felt?

     The stunt I pulled earlier had taxed heavily on my body.  I performed that feat without accessing Axiom first, so I was in the same position as when I flipped Charlotte's truck.  That wasn't what was on my mind though.  The feeling I had felt earlier when I saw Lilah and Epoch talking was starting to make more sense to me.  Jealousy.  That was it.  I got onto my hands and knees and looked through the back window of the truck.  Lilah and Epoch were laughing and sharing stories, meanwhile, I was sitting there in the bed alone.  They hadn't so much as looked back since the trip started, and now I was starting to wonder about my place in all this.  I sadly leaned back against the window and stared at the road behind us.  The sun had climbed high into the afternoon and clouds were beginning to form, shielding the world from its joyful rays and replacing them with a gray gloom. Virginia Beach was miles away and so was my best friend.  I had no idea where we were going or why we were going there, all I knew was that I felt black on the inside.  It was like my soul had been tainted- stained by what I had done to Harry.  I wished I could have taken my words back, I wished I could have understood Harry better, but it was too late now.  Harry was gone and it was all my fault.
     "Stupid, stupid, stupid!" I yelled at myself as I hit my head repeatedly with an open palm.  I'd never hated myself more in my life.  I despised the person I had become.  Harry was right, I was a selfish asshole who never did anything for anyone else.  I didn't care about him or how he felt, I had just been focusing on these stupid powers and this girl I had a crush on.  I climbed away from the window and took a seat beneath the hole in the canvas behind one of the wooden boxes.  Thunder crashed above me, and the clouds grew darker and darker.  I looked upwards to the sky and watched as the sky began to weep.  the rain was sharp like pins and needles falling from the heavens, but I deserved it.  Each droplet splashed down on me, dampening my clothes, my hair, and my skin bringing more regret and agony with it.  I sat there and took in the pounding from the rain.  The loud claps of thunder and lightning shook the world around me, and the wind howled like a wolf at the full moon.  The sky was almost black now, and the rain had doubled in power, pattering mercilessly on the canvas and my skin.  I was drenched completely in the water now, my clothes had become dark and heavy, and my wet hair hung down in my face.  While I sat there sadly contemplating everything, a thought came over me.  It was almost like a revelation.  I thought to myself,
     "What would Harry say?"
     And of course, the answer was,
     "Quit feeling sorry for yourself! You screwed up, but you just have to accept that and keep going forward."  With this thought in mind, I picked up my head and looked up to the sky.  The cold raindrops crashed down on my face and trickled down my cheeks and neck.  I stared intensely at the dark sky and shouted through the clouds,
    "I'm sorry, Harry!"
     I looked down at my soaked clothes and felt the water dripping down my body like sweat.  Tears began to form in my eyes and joined the rain in further dampening my body.  There I sat, completely alone.  In an act of selfishness, I'd pushed my friend away, and meanwhile, Lilah, the girl I had just shared that amazing conversation in the cornfield with, was already replacing me with this new guy.  As if my world wasn't already broken, I was now having to deal with being cast aside and coming to terms with my own selfishness.  For a short while, I thought I'd had a family, but in an instant, it had all disappeared.  I turned my head to look through the window at Lilah and Epoch.  They chatted happily with one another, completely unaware of me being back here.  I exhaled a long sigh and pulled my knees in towards my chest, hugging them against my body.  I thought I had been lonely before, but this was true loneliness.  With nothing better to do, I closed my eyes and took my mind off the subject, focusing once again on Axiom...

And this time it worked.