Enjoy
Chapter 17
“Come on! I’m sick of this! Show me how to shoot or kill something!” I paused as a thought crossed my mind. I smiled to myself. “Or maybe I could learn how to fly; I haven’t even tried them out yet!”
“No”
“No?” I glared at Ben. “That’s it? Not even an attempt at compromise? You suck.”
His smile was cruel. “I know. I live to make your life a living hell.”
I crossed my arms and tapped my foot. “I’m sure you do. I’m tempted to ask for a new mentor.”
“Go ahead. Tony’s at school, Greg is locked up in his room working on a new game project and Jason is scouting out some people for the Masters. So really, if you wanted Gigi to train you, I’ll be happy to let her try.” He gave a smug smile, knowing she couldn’t possibly help me learn powers to which she had no possession of herself.
“Jerk,” I retorted.
“Oh quit sweet-talking me,” he said before walking away and grabbing his dagger off the floor as he passed. Putting only a few feet between us, he whirled around to face me. Then he lifted his dagger up to his eye level, a movement he’d been doing repeatedly for the last half hour.
“Again,” he demanded. Just as I would’ve protested, he gave me a warning glare. “We’ve been through this, Crys. It’s no use teaching you to attack if you can’t even defend yourself. We both know the first thing you’d want to do is fight something, but if it happened to take you off guard, you’d be dead then. Even you can understand that.”
As much as I hated to admit it, he was right. “Again?” I asked, not wanting to acknowledge to him he had a point. His short hair moved slightly as he gave a short nod.
Without a moment’s hesitation, I clasped my hands together. My entire focus, and gaze, went to my palms, where I mentally pictured a bubble. At first only a soft pink glow escaped my hands, and then, just like every other time, a minuscule pink opaque sphere appeared out of thin air in between the flat of my hands. And grew bigger by the second.
What started as a gem for a ring became as big as a tennis ball. Then, as if waiting for my command, it stopped enlarging. Carefully placing it in one palm, I moved it as high as my chin, and then at arm’s length.
Narrowing my eyes at the sphere for a fraction of a second, I dropped my hand. Only, the orb remained in mid-air. It didn’t float, didn’t move. It stayed put, as if my gaze had suspended it on a wall.
At that moment, in one swift movement, I raised my right arm – completely outstretched - from beside me upwards, passing the palm of my hand inches from the orb. At the passing of my hand, the orb lost its round form to stretch itself out. It became flat, no longer opaque as it lengthened to follow the direction of my hand. When I’d finished the movement, forming an arc around me, the flattened sphere had performed most of the arc as had my hand.
In one spasm, the sphere lengthened once more, only this time to follow the shape of the arc. I watched as it stretched out all around me, its membrane thinning down in the process. Once done, I was cocooned in one big pink bubble from the ground to over my head, with a good two feet of moving space around.
Immediately my attention was drawn to Ben. His dagger in hand, he threw it straight at my protective bubble. This was the difficult part. It was easy to create protection, but for it to last up against a direct attack was difficult; your focus had to be total to keep it from giving in. So far, every time Ben had thrown his dagger, it at pierced through the bubble, falling just short of reaching me. So I braced myself and-
The dagger bounced back. Ben and I stared, incredulously, as the clang of the dagger’s fall to the ground echoed throughout the gym. My bubble had actually come out of this unscathed?!
I did a victory dance.
And then Ben threw another dagger at the bubble during my moment of distraction. It pierced the bubble, continued its route, and got through the other side as well, embedding itself in the storage closet’s door at the far end.
Dismayed, I watched as my pink bubble lost its color, slowly turning transparent until nothing could be seen. And nothing would, because it was gone. Destroyed.
My face turned red, my heartbeat drumming in my ears. “Why the heck did you do that for?” I spun to face Ben.
“You succeeded in stopping my attack. We are done for the day; it was of no use anymore.” He said it nonchalantly.
“I don’t care if it had a use of it or not! It was my bubble and I wanted to keep it!” I hissed. “Everyone loves bubbles, so why couldn’t you just leave my fucking bubble alone!”
His eyebrows shot up at my use of foul language, but he otherwise remained impassive.
“I will decide when it is of no more use, got that?!” I practically screeched at him, turning away to leave the room. He didn’t add anything else. He didn’t need to.
* * *
I found myself going into my bedroom, grabbing a pillow and screaming into it. I was so angry with him; I could have beaten him to a pulp! Yet I didn’t even know why, and that was what bothered me the most. I’d gotten furious over a bubble. A bubble! It’s not like I couldn’t make more; I knew how.
And that’s when I started thinking. Bad thing. Thinking always got me upset, for some unknown reason. This time proved to be no different.
I came to realize that I hadn’t been angry about the bubble. Well, not really anyways. It was the loss of everything that bothered me. Things were constantly being taken away from me, and although I’d taken the decision to not wallow in grief or anything, it was always at the forefront of my mind. My home, my parents, it was something nobody could easily live through the loss of. I couldn’t fool myself into thinking otherwise, no matter how much I despised my parents and them me.
Getting up and off my bed, I searched through my room for my IPod. I’d only been living here a day, but somehow, it felt right. I’d been spending all of my time here for the past weeks, and even before that I’d known this house like the back of my hand. My only issue would be getting used to living with people instead of just me and Abby. Even she had adapted well, loving the fact of having five other pairs of hands to pat her regularly.
Finding my IPod, I plugged it to my stereo system by the window, turning it on to listen to Lady Gaga’s newest hit. Then I laid back down on my bed, thinking of Ben. I’m gonna have to apologize to him. He’d done nothing wrong; I’d been the one to overreact.
Thinking of ways to say I was sorry, I fell asleep.
* * *
A knocking sound at my door awoke me. Groggily, I got out of bed and went to it. Ben stood there, his small eyes scanning me up and down. He probably didn’t expect me to have an afternoon nap.
“Someone’s here to see you,” he stated.
I frowned. “Who? I wasn’t expecting anyone.”
He shrugged. “Only said his name was Jimmy.”
“Jimmy?” I thought for a second. “Oh my God, Jimmy’s here?” I asked excitedly before moving passed Ben and down the hallway. About to reach the stairs, a thought crossed my mind and I paused. “I’m sorry for earlier,” I said, not turning around to look at him.
“It’s okay, we all have our bad days.”
I nodded, more to myself, and continued on my way. Reaching the entryway, I found no one. “Where is he?” I asked Ben, who was coming up behind me.
He motioned towards the door, and I quickly moved to open it. There on the front porch stood Jimmy and Tony, both looking at each other in a weird way. Then Jimmy turned to me, a smile spreading over his handsome face. He spread his arms out and I jumped to him for a hug. He squeezed me, lifting me off the ground a little in the process. I laughed and then he put me back down.
He’d changed a lot since the last time I’d seen him; he was almost a foot taller, probably near 6 feet 5, the extra weight he’d carried for a long time was gone, replaced by some new found muscles, and the shoulder length hair had been cut and stylized to give him short hair with a small Mohawk, although still with lots of hair. Thankfully though, he’d kept his hair the same black that it naturally was. It brought out the beautiful purple-blue in his eyes. The makeover had done him some good; he was devastatingly handsome.
“What are you doing here? Don’t get me wrong, it’s good to see you!” I exclaimed.
His smile vanished. “I got a phone call from Sir Nicolas the other day. I’m so sorry Crissy.”
Guess he knows about my parents.
“Crissy?” Tony repeated curiously.
I giggled. “It’s the name he gave me years ago. Oh, sorry, I didn’t introduce you.” I pointed towards Tony. “This is Tony and that’s Ben.” I pointed my thumb toward the figure behind me. “And this,” I looked at both guys, “is Jimmy.
All three nodded, silently acknowledging each other. I rolled my eyes. Men.
“How do you two know each other?” Tony inquired.
"Well...we’re sort of related,” I replied.
“Sort of?” Ben interjected.
“Yeah. Nana thought that this house would be too big for just her and one baby, so she took in some kids from time to time. Chloe was the girl that stayed the longest in this house; she thought of Nana as her own mother and Nana her own daughter. Mother never considered her a sister though; she even hated Nana because she thought she preferred Chloe. Anyways, she got pregnant really young and had her baby here.” I gestured Jimmy with my head. “He’s just a year older, so when Chloe lived here or when she’d drop by, we’d play together. We’ve known each other all our lives.”
“Yeah, too bad my folks had to move away again. It sucks being in the States, I don’t like it much there,” Jimmy said with a sad look.
“How are they?”
“Doing well, mostly. They’re gone on some Embassy trip to Mexico, or you know they would’ve come too. They were devastated when they found out.”
“And they just let you come here all by yourself?” Ben stated curiously.
He nodded. “My dad is pretty high up in the military and my mom did some international studies after they got married. I’ve been traveling since I was ten. Coming here is the least of their worries,” he smirked as he spoke. Then he turned to me. “How about we go visit the big oak? Haven’t been there in a while.”
“Sure,” I said just as a cold wind came up to us. “I’ll just go get my jacket first.” I moved to go back in, but Ben blocked the way. “Geez. Would you mind going back inside now? We don’t need a mommy and daddy to watch over us. We’re big kids now.”
Ben laughed and moved back into the house while Tony muttered something about me not being big but a small fry. Going back inside, I noticed that Jimmy wasn't following us. “Don’t you want to come in?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I’m fine.”
I eyed him sceptically. “Are you sure? It’s pretty cold outside. You should come in.”
Again, he shook his head. “Look, your boyfriend doesn’t seem to like me much, so I’ll just wait for you here.”
“Tony is-isn’t my boyfriend,” I stuttered.
“Yet he’s the first one you thought of even though I didn’t say his name.” His smile was all knowing.
I didn’t respond, knowing he would catch me at my every word. Instead I went back inside and grabbed my jacket from the closet. “I’ll be back in a while,” I said to Ben and Tony, who looked at me curiously, noting the slight redness to my face. Not giving them time to speak, I walked out the door.
I really appreciate it!