Young Writers Society

I just got word that two of the Four to Stand chapters are missing!! Sorry about that! But I'm going to post them now and anyone who missed them before can read them!

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Chapter Eighteen

“I don’t know about you guys, but I’m not too fond of this idea,” Landon told the others on Tuesday night, when they were all grouped together at Ness’s house.

“I’m not, either,” Max said quickly, dragging a paintbrush across the walls of Ness’s bedroom.

That night, they were painting two of her boring, white walls a dramatic red. That was the only thing that Cassandra left up to Ness to decide, but she ended up choosing the palate anyway. “It’s an artistic touch,” Cassandra told her daughter when they went to pick out colors. “Two red, two white…perfect. It’s going to look great.” Ness trusted her mother’s creative eye and went along with the color scheme. At the moment, she didn’t like it too much.

“Yeah, I’m starting to think that the red is a bit much myself,” she muttered, carefully trying to keep the paint off the wall that was going to stay white. “And we should have gotten some of that blue tape that you always see them use on Trading Spaces so that I don’t have to try so hard to keep the paint away from the crack—”

“I was talking about going to the house on Westchester Drive, actually,” Landon said, a playful smile creeping onto his lips.

As soon as he finished his sentence, a giant clap of thunder shook the house. Ness flinched, looking out the window. Quite a storm had been brewing for the majority of the day, and now it was coming down hard.

“Oh. Hm, well, neither am I. Looking forward to it, I mean.” Ness stepped back from the wall. “Well, she did say that it was going to dry a different color…here, compare it to the sample…”

“Anyway, ignoring Ness…I think we should just ditch the attempt and tell God to forget it…that way, when Friday comes, we get off easy—no injury or death risked,” Jonas said.

“I’ve been thinking about that,” Max piped up, his voice unusually confident. “Do we really want to give all this up? I mean…these powers—well, one out of three for each of us, anyway—have kind of become a way of life, you know?”

The other three fell silent, considering what Max was saying.

“So…what, you want us to risk our lives every day just to be able to keep our powers?” Landon asked.

“No…not exactly,” Max explained. “I’m just saying…it’s going to be weird to be normal people. Which one of us actually knows what it’s like to be normal?”

Again, silence fell. “He has a point there,” Ness said after a few moments. “And if you really think about it…do you know how much God has done for us?”

“Now that I know for a fact that He exists…that raises another point,” Landon said.

“Yeah, but risking our lives to save the world is, like…I don’t know…”

A quick flash of lightening and a boom of thunder cut off Jonas’s fading voice. The lights flickered and went out, leaving the four suspended in complete darkness.

“Perfect. The one time I actually feel like painting my room and the electricity goes out.” Ness attempted to move across the room, but tripped over something and fell into the corner of her desk. “Ouch!” she muttered. “Damn desk.”

“Hold on, let me get the lights…”

Landon snapped his fingers and the lamp next to Ness’s bed turned on.

“I don’t know how long that’s going to last,” he said as he walked around the room, touching all the light bulbs. They each charged up, emitting bright, yellow light.

“I hope that no one else comes back and wonder why we’re the only house with electricity,” Jonas mentioned, his voice amused.

“No, Claire’s gone until at least nine, and Mum, Cliff, and Charlie…hmm, well, they should be getting back soon. Keep a lookout over there.” She lifted up her shirt a little bit and examined the place where she’d run into the desk. “Ew, that thing really took a chunk out of me.” There was a big gash right above her hip.

“Let me see,” Landon said, looking up from one of the light bulbs and walking over to her. He put his hand over it, examining the wound.

A soft silver glow appeared underneath his palm, spreading out over Ness’s hip. The light soaked into the cut, washing through it and closing the wound. It took away any trace of a gash from her body.

“What did you do?” Ness asked, running her hand over the now-unmarked skin. Her violet eyes were wide as she looked into the gray of Landon’s.

“I have no idea,” he replied, looking at his hand.

“Looks like you can heal,” Max said, looking at Ness’s hip. “I mean, it only makes sense…you’re the only one that hasn’t shown a third power yet.”

Landon smiled, still looking at his hand. “Hey, that’s pretty cool.”

“It doesn’t even hurt,” Ness told him, marveling over his newfound power.

“I’ve been wondering when something else was going to show up,” Landon admitted. “You guys each had three powers. I thought I got gypped or something.”

It took a few moments for them to stop thinking about Landon’s ability; as they did so, the storm continued to rage outside.

“Remember the last time it stormed like this?” Max asked, looking out the window.

“Friday,” Ness and Landon said in unison.

“That’s when Bloody Guy attacked us for the first time,” Jonas remembered.

“R.I.P.!” the other three yelled together, and they all burst out laughing. It was something Ness started later on Monday after Max had gotten rid of his supernatural stalker.

“I’m glad that’s over with,” he said, blue eyes relieved. “I’m never going to have to worry about him coming after me in the middle of school again.”

“Getting back on that subject,” Ness said, pulling her red hair off her neck with a white scrunchie, “what are we going to do about the Candle?”

“If you think about it,” Landon brought up, “God asked us to do this thing for one week. He gave us a choice to do it forever…he didn’t force us. You would think that we could be decent enough to just go and get the Candle for him, since we’re going to bail out in the end.”

“Yeah, but—” Max began, but Ness cut him off.

“You’re right,” she said. “I mean, it’s God after all. How many people can actually say that they got a chance to pay God back for all the good that He’s done?”

“And in the end…we’ll know that we actually helped to save the world,” Landon said. “Sounds like a plan to me.”

“Yeah, it’s a good idea, but—”

“I think so, too,” Ness said, cutting Max off. The three of them then turned their eyes to Jonas.

Jonas sighed. “Alright, fine. We’ll get the stupid Candle for Him.”

“We just have to change the plan,” Max told them. “Remember what Camael said about the other one—”

“That was weak, anyway,” Landon said, dipping his paintbrush into a can and dragging it across the wall. “I thought about it a lot last night.”

“Who died and made you the leader?” Jonas asked, gold eyes flashing. “You always make the plans.”

“I’ve never heard you initiate them,” Ness mumbled.

Jonas glared, but his face softened after a few moments. “Alright…point taken.”

“Ness, your mom’s home,” Max announced from the window. Landon blinked and all the light he created went out with a small electrical sound.

“I hope she didn’t see the lights,” Ness said, worried, joining Max at the window. The rest of the neighborhood was still in the dark; rain was pounding on the windows.

“Can’t you turn it off or something?” Jonas asked, trying to grope his way to the window through the darkness.

“Hey, I like rain,” Max told him defensively, turning back to look out at the storm. “When do you think we should try and get the Candle?” he asked.

“Well, we could try and do it tomorrow night,” Jonas suggested. “Skip school on Thursday…that would be nice…”

“I second that,” Max said. “We’re supposed to have Mass, anyway.”

“Max,” Ness said, shaking her head. “You work for God and you’d say something like that?”

Max shrugged. “Hey, saving the world comes first, right?”

“Alright…” Landon said, considering this. “I mean, it seems like the best thing to do…it’ll give us more time, especially if we don’t get the Candle. We’ll still have two more days to try.”

“Any objections?” Jonas asked. No one said anything against the matter.

“I might miss something important in Calc or European History—” Ness began.

“It’s okay,” Max said sarcastically, “even smart people can miss a day of school once in awhile.”

Ness paused for a moment, then rolled her eyes and said, “Fine.”

“I guess that’s what we’re going to do, then.” Landon’s gray eyes were intense as he spoke.

“Awesome,” Jonas said, “I’ll pick you up at eight o’clock.”