I found myself hiding behind the filthy blinds. I knew it was a stupid place to hide, but I had just panicked. Getting my little sister hidden in the drop ceiling took every spare moment I had. I tried to lift myself up there to join her, but at the last minute, my strength just wouldn’t allow it.
So, there I stood. Trying not to breath in any of the thick dust that coated every single freaking slat on those blinds. Ignoring the skittering feet I could hear as the men got closer.
I could hear them talking with their drunken slurring, their too-loud voices, their bragging and joking as if this was just some fun game of hide and seek and not a terrifying game of life or death.
My mind was on a loop of hoping my little sister knew well enough to stay completely still. Totally quiet. If those men found her, it would all be over. I would never allow them to hurt her, I’d fight to my dying breath.
The door crashed open and I jumped, tears springing to my eyes. I was so exhausted, so ready for this to be over. I took in shallow breaths, willing them to go away. Wishing that I had the power to change things. Wishing I had the power to fight them, to escape, to become invisible. ANything to change our fate.
We’d been running for weeks already and honestly, I was starting to feel like giving up. Grieving our grandmother and being on the run… it wasn’t for the weak and I wasn’t sure I was strong enough anymore. It was hard enough to take care of a six-year-old anyway, without having to run for our lives and find some weird fairie ring that was hidden in the forest.
My fingers found the crumpled map in my pocket. I felt the edges of the paper, reassuring myself that I still had it.
I heard something banging and peeked out from behind the blinds. The men were standing in the middle of the room. One of them was jabbing at the ceiling with a long stick.
I held my breath… my mind whirling with an energy I didn’t think I had.
No no no no I thought. They can’t find her. They will kill her… or worse. I felt the energy building. A white-hot, almost yellow halo of energy surrounded me, my vision going dark.
Shit. I could NOT have one of my spells. Not now. If I blacked out, they’d find me and then they’d find my baby sister. Tears welled up even as I felt the energy swirling down my body. It was too late.
I screamed silently, my mind taking the anguish and wrapping it up in the pulsing, twisting energy. I watched as one of the men poked at the ceiling again, laughing as he heard my sister cry out.
“Well, well, what have we here?” He slammed the stick upwards and I saw everything as if it was in slow motion. The ceiling tiles crashing, my sister’s screams as she fell right down into their arms.
My screams became real. Loud. Shattering the energy, letting it burst outward. Everything seemed to stop. The men with their arms outstretched, reaching out to catch my sister. To take her. To hurt her.
“NO!” I screamed with everything in me. I took all of the pian of the last weeks, all of the focus I had left and I pushed my energy at them. I visualized it forming into balls of fire and pain and shot it at those men.
Everything slowed even further.
I watched as the fire shot towards them like I’d fired an actual weapon. The men all turned, slowly, watching in horror as the pulsing white-hot fire slammed into them, knocking them all on their asses, slamming them all backward so hard that the drywall cracked where they hit. One man flew through the window somewhere out into the darkness.
I wasn’t thinking, I didn’t even try. I just raced forward, snatching my sister out of the air and ran out the door. I could feel the map in my pocket, but I didn’t even need it anymore. I could feel it talking to me.
I didn’t take the time to figure out how crazy that sounded. I just ran. My sister curled up against me, clinging to my neck in complete silence. She knew something had changed. Even at six years old, she knew it was time to run. To find the place our grandmother had sent us.
It was time to go. A new world, a new place or time surely couldn't be any worse than where we were right now.
This is my freewrite thanks to @mariannewest and is a peek into a YA series that I'm working towards publishing this winter.
Look for MY free book Taste of Darkness
