I Am Not the Last Airbender {ON HOLD}

Chapter Twenty-Two

“What are you doing here?” Macco hissed, his hand already on the hilt of his sword.  I could tell Macco was about to blow up.  This was the guy who had followed us across the sea.  This was the guy who had tried to drown me.  This was the guy who gave Macco his scar.

This was the guy about to be turned into a popsicle.

“Here to finish the job?” I asked him as menacingly as I could muster.  I held my hand over my open water canteen, daring him to even move.

The scoundrel raised his hands in surrender.  “I’m just here to help.”

Then, I was on my feet, my finger in his face, “Help?  If I remember correctly, last time you said that you tried to drown me, and then BURN HALF MY FRIEND’S FACE OFF!”  I was angry.  Actually, scratch that.  I was livid, almost to the point of tears.  There was no way I would ever trust the words of a firebender ever again.

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking--” he stuttered.

“How dare you!” I screeched in a sound louder than I thought my voice capable of.  “You-you snake!  How could you have the audacity to come back here, begging for mercy--”

“Well, I never actually begged for--”

“--and then try and trick us again with the SAME WORDS YOU USED THE FIRST TIME!”  With each of the last words, I jabbed my finger (nails all untrimmed, as I had forgot my scissors at home) into his chest, harder every time.

“Audacity,” Macco mumbled in my direction, “good one.”

“Thanks,” I replied stonily, still staring daggers into Jaacob.  He messed with the wrong girl.

Then, Jaacob began reaching for the knife at his belt.  In lightening speed, a wall of water smacked him straight in the face, throwing him to the ground.  He was drenched, and then proceeded to cough up water.

I laughed.  “You’re going to regret trying to pick a fight with the Avatar’s daughter.  I’ve been practicing since we last met.”  Even if the practicing part wasn’t entirely true (What?  I was lazy.), instilling a little fear into this creeps bones would hurt.

“I,” he coughed, then cleared his throat.  Oh, he looked so pitiful sitting there on the ground.  “I wasn’t going to try and--”

But as if possessed, I instinctively yanked my arm, and the water that had splashed all over the ground rose and formed a swirling, wet, rope.  Before I could even blink, it was around Jaacob’s neck, choking him.  I felt a hardness settle in behind my eyes, and the rope clenched tighter, his face turning red, hands clawing at his throat.

“Jay--Jalia!”  Macco cried, standing up and shaking my shoulders.  I was immovable.  “Stop it!”  He ran over to Jaacob’s side and tried to pry the watery noose from his air pipe with little success.  It wasn’t solid, afterall.

“Jalia, look at me!  Let him go; he’s not worth it!”  It was like my brain didn’t register what he was saying.  He was just in my way.  The job was almost done.  Macco was making things difficult….He looked me in the eye.  “Jalia,” his voice almost a whisper, “you’re scaring me.”

And my world melted to the ground, along with the rope around Jaacob’s neck.  He took a huge gaping breath, and began almost hyperventilating.  I fell to my knees, my hands shaking.  I felt insane; I felt uncontrollable.  And it was a horrible feeling.  Just moments before I had been the angriest I had ever been, my rage growing within me with each second of my rants and screams.  Then, at the peak of it all, I had exploded and acted on impulse.  Macco almost hadn’t been able to stop me from….going through with it.

I felt nauseated.  I had almost succeeded in taking away a life.  No being should have that kind of power: to hold a life in their hands.

Macco then took a moment to abandon Jaacob’s side and came to kneel beside me.  He peered at my now tear-stained face.  I couldn’t tell if the look on his face was sympathy or fear.  Now my whole body was shaking with sobs.  What had I just done?  Who had I just become?

“Jay?” he asked quietly.  He reached out to touch my shoulder, but I jerked away.  “It’s just me, just Macco,” he said soothingly, as if speaking to a skittish child.

Then, he ignored my walls and wrapped his arms around me.  I leaned into him, my body collapsing in his embrace.  He just held me, giving me the comforting, “shhh,” that I needed.

Through the tears, thick in my voice, I croaked out the words, “How can you stand me?  I’m a monster.”

Macco didn’t answer, he just held me tighter, his body heat warming to the bone.  But my heart still felt cold.