Me, Myself, and Her

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Five: Death By A Thousand Cuts

They arrived at the mall in record time and hurried through the front doors. Lucky for them, they were still unlocked. When they got to the balcony, they saw four men in all black holding guns up to a spot.

"That's gotta be where Dustin is!" Annie pointed at where the men were.

They all gathered up a few feet behind El, who was at the edge with her hand out. The car on display was suddenly alive, the lights on and the horn honking. All the men turned towards it, guns still drawn, but just stood in confusion.

The men started to look up, seeing El there with a most determined look on her face. She pushed her hand forward and the car tumbled towards them, taking them all out in one swoop. It ended up across the food court, them scattered on the floor between where the car started and where it ended up.

The others ran up behind El to lean against the railing and look down at where Dustin was hiding. Surprisingly, he wasn't alone. Steve, his coworker Robin, and Lucas's sister Erica were all with him.

With a smile on her face, Annie led the group over to the escalators and moved the stanchions out of the way so they could run down. When they got to the lower level, the others were coming around a corner.

"Steve!" Annie cried, pushing her legs even faster to meet her brother in a bone-crushing hug. He held her off the ground for a second, glad to see his sister alive in front of him.

When he set her down and pulled away, he went right past the tears on her face and to the bruise on her neck. Annie, on the other hand, couldn't stop looking at his face.

"What the hell happened?" Annie asked, gently touching the swollen eye and busted lip.

Steve shook his head. "Who cares about me, who in the hell did this to you?" His own hand went up to barely touch the bruise on Annie's neck. "The person who hurt my baby sister is about to wish they were never born."

Painful memories were drudged to the surface and Annie shook her head. "It's too long of a story right now, we have some catching up to do," she said.

"Lucas?" Annie turned to see Erica coming up to him. Steve turned, too, but kept a protective arm around Annie's shoulders.

He was very lost, and to be honest, so was Annie. "What are you doing here?" he asked.

"Ask them, it's their fault," she answered, pointing at Dustin, Steve, and Robin.

Steve immediately nodded. "True, yeah. Totally true. It's absolutely our fault."

"I don't understand what happened to that car," came Robin's comment. Annie felt bad, she was in for a hell of a story.

Dustin explained. "El has superpowers," he said, pointing to the girl in question.

"I'm sorry?"

"Superpowers, she threw it with her mind. C'mon, catch up," Steve said, earning a nudge in the ribs from Annie.

"That's El?" Erica asked, having heard of her somehow.

"Who's El?" Robin asked, still very confused.

Nancy jumped in. "I'm sorry, who are you?" She had a hand gesturing at Robin and Annie realized she and Johnathan hadn't come to the mall, let alone Scoops Ahoy, yet.

"I'm Robin. I work with Steve," she explained. Annie figured the matching uniforms should've given it away.

"She cracked the top secret code," Dustin explained. But that didn't explain jack shit.