Winter's Fury - Volume Two of The Saga of the Twelves (52 page)

Though Elena could not see
either of their faces, gladness filled her. She hoped the teenage
girls had finally made up and were going to be friends again. She
turned back toward Louis and Mikalah.

“
Well, I hope the grudge
between Kimberly and Hyun has been finally squashed.” She pointed
toward them over her shoulder.

Mikalah looked up at her,
glancing over where she had indicated.

Elena saw her sister’s
brow furl with concern as she looked at the older girls, surprise
filling her. There was no relief or happiness in the cast of her
face, as she had expected. Elena spun around to look back at the
girls.

In that instant, she
realized they were both crying, without control. This was not out
of joy or any sort of merriment she could see. Her first guess had
been completely wrong. She was dumbstruck.

They were in
pain.

She could see
that.

But in a kind of an agony
she was too young to understand. The feelings flowing from the
teenagers were too complicated. They were too intense with too many
layers for her to understand. She was unsure of what she should do.
Should she get up? Should she see what the matter was? Should she
call for her brother? Should she just ignore them and let them work
things out between them? What should she do? Would they even want
her around, someone as young and inexperienced as her?

It was all flashing
through her head when she saw him.

Her jaw dropped to the
floor.

Everything she had been
thinking the second before was gone.

She could feel Mikalah’s
weight shift the air mattress underneath her. Her sister gained her
feet.

Elena did not bother to
look back at her. Her gaze froze on the scene before
her.

He was walking toward the
older girls, slow as though he was in a trance. His hands were out
before him. His fingers splayed wide, as far as they could go. His
eyes riveted to the two girls as they embraced and held onto each
other.

Their clutch was
ferocious.

Elena could see he was
saying something - again and again - but he was too far away. He
was saying it under his breath. She could not hear his words. Yet,
somehow, she was certain he was repeating himself.

How did he get over there
so quick?
she asked herself. One second he
had been pondering his future with her and her sister. The next, he
had traversed half the distance between them and the
girls.

Oblivious to all else
around him, Louis continued step toward the sobbing young women. He
was still mouthing the words Elena could not hear.

To her astonishment, Louis
hands burst into flame, as if doused with gasoline. They had
ignited by an unseen spark.

Unable to control herself,
she stood. She dropped her toys on the ground before her. She was
about to shout out in alarm, but found she could not. Her voice
choked in her throat. Her fear had constricted her ability to make
sound.

Beside her, Elena could
just make out Mikalah’s face as it began to blur. She knew in the
next nanosecond that Mikalah was about to use her Gift. She was
about to run faster than the sound.

Yet, before Mikalah could
move a centimeter, Louis’ hands descended. A moment later, they
came to rest on Hyun’s back and Kimberly’s left knee. In an
instant, the flames spread everywhere, consuming, ruining. They
ravished the bodies of her newfound friends…

Louis was killing
them!

Half a heartbeat later,
Elena found her voice.

She screamed.

~~~~~~~<<<
ᴥ
>>>~~~~~~~

~ 30 ~

Healer

Day Four, Sunday, 5:05
pm…

Kimberly felt the golden
light as much as she saw it beneath her closed eyelids. It was warm
and soothing. It chased away the lingering chill, festering down in
the marrow of her bones, in its’ entirety. To her, this was what it
felt like to be a newborn baby, feeling safe and loved, protected
from the world.

Was it true? Was she
bundled in swaddling and hugged by the great mother, smothered in
her massive arms of warmth and affection?

The sense of it was
everywhere, overwhelming her unknowing heart and mind at the same
time. She felt nothing else and would have been content to sleep.
She could have abandoned herself to the notion she had not felt
this secure, this good, in longer than she cared to remember. But
the thought remained ghost-like, a phantom in her mind. She could
have yearned for the time lost, away from herself, floundering in
the reality of the life she had lived, and despaired.

She did not.

It was not a choice or an
option. It was incomprehensible. In that specific space and time,
her mind could not compute thoughts of that nature. They were alien
to her, foreign, ambiguous. They made no impact on her whatsoever.
They were concepts she did not have the capacity to recognize.
Right then, bathed in the golden light, she lacked the curiosity,
the will, the inspiration to try and understand why. She did not
care. She knew no better. She was an infant. She was
loved.

She basked in the glory of
the now, in the brilliance of righteous cleansing. She was joyous,
canonized, as she felt the decay and rot slough off her heart,
extinguish from her mind and dissipate from her soul. She breathed
in the golden heat and embraced its’ warmth. When she exhaled, she
knew she healed, somehow, some way - whether it was the past,
present or future. Whatever it may have been, whatever it was or
whatever it may bring, she could face it all with a brave heart and
a sound mind.

Although, she knew
fundamentally she had not changed, her past was not someone else’s.
It was no longer the center of her existence. It no longer defined
who she was, and that slight change in perspective was enough. It
was from this new vantage she could gaze - with her eyes wide open
– and see the path she must lead. There had been nothing as plain
as what she was seeing, right them. It had been years since she had
last laid eyes upon this particular trail of hers. It was a path
that would lead to her rediscovery, taking back what the pounding
on the floor of that apartment had destroyed. It was the first
step, before she took her first step. It was crucial. Just the
ability to know the right direction was a thousand-fold improvement
from where she had been only moments before. She could walk and
talk and finally, know her actions for her own, know they were
hers. They were not someone else’s. They were not thrust upon her.
They did not force her to temper herself to the tune of other’s
mood, or pleasure, just so she could just make it through the day.
She saw herself - Kimberly Madison.

And finally, she could
see.

She realized, as if she
drank from the Elixir of Astonishment itself, just how important
she was.

Kimberly opened her eyes,
and through the dark, straight strands of Hyun’s hair, she saw
Louis bent over them. She felt his small hand on her knee.
Unknowing, she blinked away the detritus about her eyes as if she
had been asleep for an entire night.

She felt Hyun stir in a
similar fashion. She watched as the other girl pulled herself up.
Their eyes locked, a questioning expression etching both of their
faces.

Hyun turned and glanced
back at Louis, who had removed his hands from them, stepping back a
pace and a half. His eyes were frenetic. His mouth formed a perfect
“O”.

Had he thought he’d done
something wrong? Did he think he was bound for some sort of
punishment?

Then Kimberly’s ears
filled with the sound of the thumping, running feet of the rest of
their companions. Everyone was rushing toward them, eyes wild and
bodies tense with fright.

“
What’s going on!”
exclaimed Joaquin - the first of the group to arrive. He had run
from the lower level. His chest was heaving as he looked at the
three of them. “C’mon, tell me, I felt something… something I have
never felt before. What happened?”

Louis took another step
away. “I… I don’t know…”

Elena came up behind him
and put a hand on his shoulder, reassuring the boy, who was
nerve-wracked.

“
Louis’s hands were on
fire. He touched Kimberly and Hyun. And for a second, it looked
like he was setting them on fire too, but that did not happen. I
mean, they did not catch fire or even burn. They just… just… well,
um… they began to glow,” said Mikalah, answering Joaquin’s question
as if she were on autopilot. Her eyes never deviated from
Louis.

“
What do you mean, ‘they
glowed’?” asked Anthony, who had joined them a moment after Joaquin
had arrived.

“
She means just that,
Tony. They glowed like light bulbs,” interrupted Elena.

Mikalah, lost for words,
scrutinized Louis as if she wanted to memorize every feature he
possessed. She could not look away.

“
The fire from Louis hands
went into them. They glowed with it! It was so beautiful! I cannot
describe it, but you all have to believe me when I say it was
wonderful!”

The other members of the
Fist and the Twelve exchanged worried looks. They were not sure of
what to make of the girls explanations. Without speaking, they
wondered if their brief respite was at an end.

As if electrocuted, Hyun
jolted in wild abandon, rocking Kimberly where she sat.

The girl jumped to her
feet from a kneeling position. There was a savage expression on her
visage. She pulled at her shirt, threatening to tear it. Then, just
as abrupt, she stopped. She peered at the rest of them. Her eyes
wide with shock. She stood there completely still.

The silence grew, the
entire group poised, waited.

“
Anthony can you help me
with my shirt?” she asked.

It sounded loud in the
midst of such a profound stillness about them; more than one of the
group jumped, startled by the sound alone.

Anthony’s mouth gaped. He
had not expected Hyun to ask such a thing from him. He turned to
glance at Sophie, who was standing beside him.

She did not even look at
him. Rather, she grabbed him by elbow and nudged him in Hyun’s
direction. Her pretty face pinched by a curious scowl.

At first, Hyun watched the
exchange between the two without realizing the import of her
request. When it hit her, she clarified what she meant. “I just
need help taking off the bandages. I didn’t mean to embarrass
you.”

Jason and Andrew sniffed
an “oh come on!” as if they had rehearsed it.

Anthony’s face softened
with the comprehension of her words. Yet immediately thereafter,
his look filled with a different type of concern. “Why would you
want to do that, Hyun? It could reopen the wounds or expose you to
infection. It doesn’t sound like a good idea.”

“
Would you just help me,
please,” the girl insisted.

Kimberly smirked on the
inside.

Once this chick gets
something in her head, it’s like pulling teeth to get her to change
her mind.

“
Anthony, go ahead,” urged
Joaquin. “I don’t think it matters.” As usual, he did not divulge
more, raising even more questions than answers.

Glances that grew with
unease exchanged.

Though Kimberly knew
something profound had happened to her. She was still in the
dark.

Hyun had realized
something on her own.

Joaquin had felt it
too.

Both the notions failed to
explain it to the rest of them.

“
What are you saying?”
asked Anthony, but Joaquin just motioned for him to proceed, still
staring at Hyun with a partial look of excitement.

“
Just help her, Anthony,”
pleaded Sophie, anxious, kneading her hands at her
waist.

“
Ok,” he said, He came up
to Hyun, his face a mask of foreboding. “Don’t say I didn’t warn
you.”

She looked up at him with
a warm smile. “No worries.” She edged closer toward him, pulling
her shirt up and revealing the tight bindings he and Sophie had put
on earlier in the day.

Kimberly sat up to get a
better look at the scene before her.

The others closed in as
well, watching as Anthony unhinged the small metal clamps holding
the Ace bandage in place.

He put them on a nearby
table. Then he began to unwind the elastic wraps from the girl’s
body. He re-rolled it as he went, and made quick work of the task.
In less than a minute, he had the entire bandage rolled. Hyun’s
back exposed to the air.

Around the straps of her
bra, Kimberly could see the three puncture wounds. They were still
covered by large square Band-Aids stained dark with dried
blood.

She could see the concern
on Anthony's face. He stared at the condition of the bandages with
hawk-like scrutiny, making sure they looked as they should. Redder
blood would have meant the wound were still open and
oozing.