• Seven Years Later

    Tory


    I sighed; I hated working in this stupid diner. It wasn’t that I had to; it was that I wanted to help them out. My grandparents had taken me in with open arms saying, “we loved your mother very much and you look so much like her, we’ll love you too no matter who your parents were.”
    They were rich people from the west and they had catered for my every need, gave me clothes, fed me, bought me little luxury items that I didn’t need, sent me to school… Just loved me.
    School had been hard, picking up in my senior year without all the other years of experience. I had made friends but even to those closest to me I remained distant. I tried to forget the Agency, about Jamie, about Seth… about Noah, but I couldn’t. I didn’t forget; I just stored away the memories.
    Over seven years out of the agency, I had lived a normal life and I had changed, I had grown to six foot, my hair colour changed to a reddish ash brown, I had learnt to cover up my Australian accent that I’d gained around my grandparents, filled out into a woman and gained my power.
    It was by accident that I had discovered it, my cousins had been up and they were annoying the crap out of me. In an act of rage; and I had grown a really bad temper, I had nearly burnt off their heads with just a look. My Nan and Pa had been watching, they had told me that pyrokinesis was one of the rarest abilities someone could have; it also developed late in a person making it seem like they didn’t have any power. I had also found out that I could make a force field, it was explained to me that if two high level users had a child together, that that child will gain two powers.
    I had found out that my mother was a level seven healer and my father was a level eight excruciater. I had learnt a lot about my parents while living at the Kane household because at the agency, they hadn’t let me see their personal records.
    After my shift had finished, I was walking down the street, the streetlights flickered because they were cheap and no one looked after them. I was in my jeans and a red tank top; sneakers covered my feet instead of those dreadful black flats. There was an eerie feeling in the air tonight; it made my spine tingle in warning. Cars went past every now and then; some slowed down and it made the hair on the back of my neck raise.
    I tried to not make anything of it, just kept on walking without a care in the world.
    I could hear the sound of my sneakers hitting the pavement, car tyres rolling across the ground and the flicking buzz of the street lights. I kept my eyes forward, not looking in any other direction but my path in front of me.
    A car went past; the sound of rubber rolling on bitumen was like nails on a chalkboard to my ears. Rounding the corner, a main highway came into view and a central park that was between me and my home was on the other side of it.
    Sneakers hitting the ground, my breath going in and out, lights were flickering, tyres rolling and car breaks squeaking… brakes? Whoa, wait a minute.
    I looked around the street behind me, a few feet up was a car parked on the curb that wasn’t there before.
    My heart raced, a small amount of fear started to grow in my stomach and making me break out in a sweat. I turned back and continued walking down the street, pretending that I didn’t notice.
    Just keep walking, just keep walking, I thought. If I get the main street I’ll be fine.
    My ears were tuned to the car behind me, if it moved I would hear it. The car behind me moved, the sound of the tyres moving on the road was like someone screaming in my ears. It made my nerves go out of control. Then all of a sudden there was no sound at all, the car had stopped moving. My heart rate picked up, my breathing became faster and my legs moved into a power walk.
    Car doors clicked open and slammed shut, footsteps sounded on the ground like the rumbling of an earthquake.
    I instantly went into alert mode; eyes trained on my path, ears straining to hear the car and people behind me. The faster I walked the faster the footsteps behind me got.
    Almost there, I thought as my walking sped up, almost there, just a little…
    All sound stopped, it was like someone had turned on the mute button and there was no sound at all. No footsteps, no car tyres, no flickering of lights, music was gone, the clubs along the street were silent and worst of all, I couldn’t hear the people behind me. I panicked.
    I spun around suddenly, almost knocking someone over that was coming out a club. Their lips moved, swearing at me but I couldn’t hear it, I stared at them spellbound with wide eyes. Their shoulders raised and fell then they walked off, my gaze followed them as they walked up the street.
    Nothing. Nothing was there except a couple walking down the street. I took a breath; suddenly I could hear again. I was overreacting; frightened because I was walking down here so late at night. There wasn’t anything behind me.
    I smiled a sweet smile at the couple when they gave me a look; they took no notice and continued into the club.
    I'm just being silly, I thought as I turned back and bumped into someone.
    “I’m sorry,” I said looking up. A man stood in front of me.
    He had black everything on; boots, t-shirt, jeans, long coat and sunglasses. He was easily five inches taller than me…Wait, did he have sunglasses on? Oh my God, he did! I was becoming uneasy; no one wears sunglasses this late at night.
    “Sorry,” I mumbled again, intimidated this time.
    He head didn’t move an inch but I knew his eyes followed my every move, I shivered. Tingles ran up my spine, alarm tingles.
    “No problem, ma’am,” he said to me.
    “I–I have to go,” I said as I dashed around him and walked up the street again.
    I hated the fact that I was giving him my back. Maybe I was just overreacting again, maybe I wasn’t.
    No sound came from behind me; no one moved or even breathed. I glanced over my shoulder and froze. He was gone; the man I had bumped into was gone. He hadn’t even made a sound; I didn’t hear him walk away.
    Panic and fear bubbled up inside of me. Oh, s**t, oh, s**t, something’s wrong here. So very, very wrong. I walked faster up the street, hoping to get away from this nightmare but, of course, it didn’t work like that.
    There was movement to my left, I turned to look and an invisible force sent me flying through the air into a brick wall. My breath rushed out of me as my back sprouted aches. What the hell was that? I thought to myself. Looking forward, there was a man standing on the road dressed like the man I had bumped into but it wasn’t him; this man was shorter. He had a massive smirk on his face and that made me snap.
    I took a deep breath, calming myself in effort not to go into a psychotic rage, I’d promised that I wouldn’t let the fire get the better of me again.
    “What the hell, a*****e?!” I yelled as I got up, brushing away the dirt from my pants and examining the nice holes they now had. He did nothing but smirk at me. “Wipe off that freaking smirk off your face or I’ll do it for you,” I said with controlled tone.
    “You have no clue as to who I am, do you?” he said, his voice was rough and familiar.
    I paused, trying to remember where I knew him. Where had I heard his voice before?
    His laugh rumbled out of him, almost like if a dog was to laugh. I froze at that statement, animal sounding. Oh s**t.
    I tried not to show any emotions on my face, which I’d grown rather good at. “Why would I want to know a scum like you?”
    He glared at me, a NightDust guy stood in front of me and I was cracking sarcastic jokes at him! God, I was losing it.
    “We lost you back then, but this time it will be different. You have no one to help you,” he said with a smirk.
    I took the quickest glance up the street, nearly to the road. I smirked back at the guy. “Yeah? What makes you think this time will be any different? I have a friend that I'm meeting up with right now,” I said, trying to throw him.
    “Yeah, don’t think so, Hunny. Did you know you’re classified as dead by the Drake Agency?” I wasn’t surprised, they usually did that.
    “Really?” I asked, moving to the side a little.
    “Yeah, no one will even know that we’ve taken you,” he said. He used the plural again; that must mean that there was more.
    Something sidled up beside me and locked me in an iron death grip; I sucked in a breath because it hurt. I was becoming a pansy.
    “Don’t try anything, woman,” the guy that had my arm said. s**t, he was the one I bumped into just before! I gritted my teeth but didn’t do anything.
    “Bring her, Kane,” the animal guy said.
    The guy that had my arm in his grip, Kane, started to pull me towards the car down the street. I struggled and his grip tightened, I looked up to him and smiled a sweet as smile.
    “I don’t think so, Darling,” I said in a deadly tone.
    He looked at me with a shocked expression. One minute he was standing next to me and the next he was hitting the windshield of the nearest car from the force of my force field blast. With car alarms going off as a distraction, I took off up the street with my force field around me so they couldn’t get to me physically or mentally. I could hear feet running after me; the car alarms hadn’t worked as well as I thought it would. Damn.
    I kept running, ignoring the shouting from people around me and dodging people that suddenly walked into my path so they wouldn’t be hit. Something jumped at me from my left but was thrown onto the road; they were extremely stupid, that was one thing that hadn’t changed about them, they couldn’t get past the fact that I now had a power to use to my will.
    I smiled evilly to myself and pushed my legs faster, nearly to the road. I could still hear the footsteps running behind me, they weren’t going to give up unless they had me. I hit the main footpath and practically leapt into on coming traffic, running across the road; to anyone it would look like I was playing a deadly game. I was.
    People honked their car horns at me, some slammed on their breaks because they were afraid they were going to hit me and, ironically, I was the one trying to dodge them. Behind me, there was more yelling and more honking. I hit the medium strip and was on the other side of the road in a few seconds.
    I could faintly hear footsteps running after me. Good, I was losing them, I thought. In the park I’d be able to lose them completely and be on my way. I wasn’t paying attention as a dark shadowed woman stepped into my path and before I could stop, I collided with her, bringing down my shield at the last minute.
    We both fell to the ground but unlike a civilian, this one rolled us so she was on me. I looked at her this time and noticed the red tinge to her eyes, a NightDust woman.
    My eyes widened, NightDust women were a rare sight to see; the men tend to keep them hidden but no one knew why. Then my eyes narrowed.
    “Get. Off. b***h,” I said quietly.
    A smile worked her face. “If I'm a b***h then you’re a whore.”
    I glared at her and noticed the sound of footsteps coming closer. I threw up my force field but she didn’t move, she was still on me with that stupid smile on her face. s**t, she had some sort of weakening power. I decided to take the last resort.
    I sucked in a breath and screamed at the top of my lungs.