The Hidden Gemstone

Chapter: 26

Alex's POV:

I didn't wait for Cody to return and patch up the wound on my leg; I grabbed a pair of scissors from the kit and began to cut through the pant leg of my jeans, just above the wound on my thigh. I winced when the blade touched the wound.

After badly cutting open my jeans, I examined the wound. The bullet hadn't gone that deep. Despite the bloody mess, I could see the silver end of it. I considered taking it out myself but then again, I knew nothing about bullets and surgeries. Besides, Emma could doctor my wounds much better than I could. Knowing myself, I might make it worse instead of fixing it.

Sighing, I began to clean the blood around the wound. I winced almost every second of the treatment, but there wasn't much I could do about it.

Their lack of ability to heal on their own was why I hated gunshot wounds. I didn't have any advantage over them by being supernatural unless the bullet was taken out. Until then, I would take as long as an average person to heal. Which was annoyingly long.

I thought painfully of the last time I'd been shot, but the bullet was supernatural and poisonous in that case. It melted as soon as it went into my body and started poisoning my blood. That's why at the end of it, there was no bullet to take out.

That was a tiny advantage compared to what I had to go through.

Once I cleaned the wound, I took the bandage out and wrapped it around the wound, pressing hard to prevent more bleeding. After that, I sighed and leaned back.

I had called Emma earlier and briefed her about the situation, keeping my voice urgent to prevent any upcoming lectures until she got here. She assured me that she would be here in no less than ten minutes.

With nothing else on my mind, my thoughts wandered back to the fight in the warehouse, looking for anxiety. And the moment I remembered that the man and woman were looking for River, the anxiety came running to me.

Finding me might have been a coincidence, but they knew they were close to River now. They knew what I looked like; they could ask around for me and eventually find out where I lived. They could find her in a matter of hours.

If I could warn River and Xander, maybe they could do something about it. I knew expecting effective self-defense from a thirteen and fourteen-year-old against two armed opponents was hoping for too much. I had seen how well the man and woman fought. They were fast, skilled, and strong, whereas the best weapon River and Xander had was Xander's guitar.

I doubted he would use that as a weapon though.

Still, if I warned them, they could at least find their way out of the house in case the man and woman did attack. I couldn't say anything about their strength, but both of them were certainly clever. With luck, they could outwit the man and woman.

My body itched to return home and stay at their guard, but even my instincts refused that idea. We only had three more days until the deadline Ryan gave us. If we didn't find the Charger until then, I could lose my powers.

With the desperation I fought for them last night, I was not letting anyone take my powers.

My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the door opening. I looked up to see Cody standing in the doorway. I tried to pretend that I hadn't heard his conversation with his brother in the hallway, but we both knew better; after that attack, my senses were too high on alert to miss anything from miles away.

"Your sister's here," Cody said, and as if on cue, Emma entered the room, looking flustered, her hand clasped around the handle of her briefcase. Her cheeks were red from the cold, and her coat was littered with snow. At the sight of me, she relaxed visibly, but panic dawned on her expression when she saw the bloody mess I was.