The Hybrids (Chapter 10)

Chapter 10

Lamar

What the hell? My mind slows down as I try to process what just happened. I slowly walk back to the living room and try to wrap my head around the revelation. Sarah has a little brother. Her aunt is in danger. She left. She just . . . left. She’ll be back. She has to be. She wouldn’t leave her brother here . . . would she?

Thoughts race through my mind as I sit dumbfounded on the couch. Before another train of thought screams through my mind, I hear a whoosh fly past my ear. Startled, I look up. Shit! I think as Tito and Dylan are in an all-out war. I see Demitri run in from the kitchen to see what’s going on. Before I can react, I see domes of water come down around both of them.

“What are you two doing?” Demitri demand after dropping the domes.

With a huff and the demeanor of a two year old, Tito responds, “What am I doing!? He’s the one who attacked me! I was trying not to die and you are yelling at me for surviving! Well excuse me for . . . “ Before he can finish, a flicker of something flies from Dylan and Tito’s face freezes for a second before the ice melts. “What the hell is your problem?!”

I notice Marco had come into the room when he says, “Ok, I missed something.”

“Lamar, what’s going on?”

“Dylan is trying to kill Tito.”

“Why?” He responds. I ponder this and turn back to the scene in front of me. Demitri is pushing both of them away from each other.

“Dylan.” I say, but he barely affords me a glance, only slightly acknowledging my existence. “Why are you trying to kill Tito?”

He blinks a couple times and responds, “Because I have to.” In a gravelly voice.

I look at him, confused of why he feels a murderous need, when I notice his eyes. It finally dawns on me, “Dylan, what creatures did you get your abilities from?”

“I don’t know! Why?!” he’s days with barely contained anger while still glaring at Tito.

“Because your eyes are purple and you, a generally chill person, are attempting to kill Tito for absolutely no reason.”

When Demitri hears this it clicks for him. “Look at me, Dylan.” Demitri demands. When Dylan doesn’t move to do what Demitri asked, Demitri grabs his chin and turns his head towards him.

“Damn it.” He mutters while seeing the proof he needs staring back at him. He drops Dylan’s chin, ‘Dylan, go into the basement and stay there, I will be there soon.”

Dylan reluctantly turns around and stiffly starts to walk through the kitchen towards the stairs to go to the basement. When he just barely gets a couple steps, Tito pokes at the lion.

“Yea, that’s right asshole, go calm the fuck down!”

At this Dylan turns and charges at Tito. Noticing his eyes darken, I mentally grab the first item I can and throw it at his feet. As I watch this in my mind and then play out in real life, I realize what I threw. “Oh my god, Sarah is going to kill me” I think as I watch, stunned while the antique vase shatters at Dylan’s feet. I watch as Dylan falls on the glass and realize I have bigger problems for now.

I rush to Dylan and help him up off the floor, noticing the blood that’s dripping from him.

“I’m sorry man, I had to keep you from hurting Tito. You’d never forgive yourself.” He stands up tentatively and looks at me. I take a sigh of relief as his eyes are back to their normal ice blue. “Let’s get you down stairs, I’ll bring you a first aid kit and get you cleaned up.” With this, I hand him off to Marco and turn back to Tito.

Tito’s looking wide eyed between Dylan and I. “Hi, I’m Lamar, you need to go sit down on the couch and stop acting like a child.” At this, he snaps out of his stupor and gets riled up.

“Who are you to tell me what to do?! And I am not a child!”

I go to respond but before I can, Demitri steps in, “Go.” He says, allowing his creature to come out. This finally gets him to move. I watch as he goes and sits on the couch.

I turn back to Demitri and ask, “Can you go down and help Dylan? I’m sure he’s probably really confused right now and needs you more than me.” I mentally fly the first aid kit in from the bathroom and hover it in front of Demitri. With a small huff, he grabs the kit from the air and turns to go down the stairs to the basement.

With luck, Tito keeps his snide remarks to himself. With a small sigh of relief I turn around and look at the problem child. This is going to be a long day. I think as I watch him juggle balls of fire with an annoyed look on his face. I grab the balls of fire from the air above him and fly them to myself and start messing with them. He watches the balls fly towards me and watches me. Now that I have his attention I start attempting the impossible . . . reasoning with him.

“That’s a neat trick.” I say calmly to try and stop him from getting defensive. “When did you learn to do it?” With this I send them back to him.

As he catches the balls midair before they go past him, he looks skeptically at me. When I raise an eyebrow in question, he finally responds, “Which trick, I have many of them.”

With slight amusement, I say, “Let’s start with creating fire and go from there.”

“Oh that trick.” He says with a slight smile, “I’ve always been able to do that. Pretty cool huh?”

“Yea, not sure that’s the word I would use for it. Intriguing maybe but I suppose if I could make fire anytime I wanted it would be really cool. What do you mean you have always been able to do it?”

“Just what I said. Let’s just say I’ve been setting things on fire since I can remember. Since we are sharing, how about you . . . Lamar. When did you start moving things with a thought?”

“Ok, I’ll play. I got the ability when I was 19.”

“Whoa, dude, how old are you?”

“Dude?” I say in amusement. When he nods, clearly not understanding my amusement at his choice of words, I respond, “To answer your question, I’m 24.”

“You’re 24, and you’re still hanging around with responsible people. Man, when I turn 18 I am outta here. There is no way I am going to let adults rule my life.”

“Well, until then we need to come to an arrangement.”

All playfulness gone, he says warily, “What kind of arrangement?”

“How old are you?”

“Why?”

“Just answer the stupid question.”

“Fine. I’m 15.”

“You are 15 which means that you have three years in which you are going to have to be Sarah’s responsibility. There are a lot of things going down right now that have to do with why you can make fire. If I’m correct, you might even find out who you really are and maybe what you are. I won’t explain till we can figure out what’s going on with Dylan. Then we will all explain it to you and maybe get some much needed clarification.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The life you were born into and you better get ready to fight because that’s probably what it is going to come down to.”

As I finish my ominous warning, I feel a tickle at the back of my mind as I hear her voice. “Nice speech.” I instantly stiffen. Sarah