Wishful Deviltry

Chapter Twenty One

Karis couldn't help but think about the look on Titanium's face when he walked in on Kaleb and her kissing in the training room. He looked devastated, like someone just slapped him in the face for no reason. Although he never really asked her to be his girlfriend, she knew she was in the wrong. At first she did like Titanium, his incredible looks, his sarcastic personality, his over protectiveness for her, but when they kissed she always felt like something was missing, like her heart wasn't in it. When she kissed Kaleb, it was like putting down the last puzzle piece that made the puzzle complete and beautiful. When she's around Kaleb her heart felt like it wanted to beat out of her chest and attach itself to Kaleb's heart so they can beat as one. No words could explain how she felt about Kaleb, but she knew that when she was with him it just felt right.
    As she and Kaleb walked up to Kenny's door, Jessica swung the door open before they had a chance to knock.
"What took y'all so long? It's hard enough keeping Dillon from going on a killing spree. Wait, where's Titanium?"
    Karis walked past Jessica and stood in the middle of the room while Kaleb slipped past everybody to his room.
    "Does Kaleb have a busted lip?" Ethereal asked with an amused look on her face.
    "Yeah, Titanium had a few words with him. You know how that goes." Karis looked around at everybody, but she didn't see Titanium.
    Kaleb walked back into the room and stood by Karis. She could smell Scope mouth wash on him as he spoke. "There's no telling where that idiot is."
    "Maybe he went to check on Taren. Sahari will tell Titanium the cold hard truth when she will tell others the possible truth." Kenny said, not taking his eyes off his computer screen.
    "What? Are ye saying that Sahari only told Jessica what I would want to hear about me sister?" Dillon snapped.
    "Geez Dillon. Stop jumping to conclusions, you Irish sap, your sister is still breathing right now isn't she?   That should be all that matters." Ethereal spurted out. "If you are so worried about her you can go wait in the healing room while we go do this mission."
    "Okay, remind me again when you became part of our team?  You might have crashed our party, but I don't recall anybody asking you to join our team."  Jessica retorted.
    Ethereal leaned against the wall as she glared at Jessica.  "Well, you can either let me on the team or I could hunt down Mr. Carson and let him know about certain plans being made behind his back.  It is your decision, do you really want your little mission blown."
    "No way! I'm going to get these bastards that hurt me sister and make them wish they never messed with this Irish fella!" Dillon exclaimed. "We need to start planning this mission."
    "Fine Ethereal, you can be in our group, but you'll never be part of our team.  So just stay the hell away from me."  Jessica warned.
    "My pleasure!"  Ethereal grinned.  "Now where is Titanium?"
    "He might have got caught by Mr. Carson. If that's the case he's probably trying to keep him from finding out about Taren." Jessica inquired.
    "Let's give him a little bit longer. If he doesn't show up in the next fifteen minutes or so, we'll send Jessica after him."  Said Kenny.
    "Why me?"  Jessica questioned.
    Kenny looked over his shoulder and grinned at Jessica. "Because, we all know that Mr. Carson can only tolerate your ADHD for a few minutes, so if Titanium is stuck talking to him, who else other than you could get Titanium away from him faster? Hmmmm?"
Jessica shook her finger at Kenny as she processed in her mind what he just said about her, then in defeat dropped her hand and shrugged her shoulders. "You got a point there, Kenny. I just can't figure out if that's a good quality or a bad quality."
    "Definitely good." Kenny said with a wink, and then turned his attention back towards his computer screen.
    "Well, Titanium better hurry up, you guys are boring me." Ethereal said as she picked at her finger nails.
    Jessica opened her mouth to tell Ethereal where she could go when Titanium finally walked through the door. He glanced at Karis with a look of satisfaction and for a second she thought she saw him nod his head like he was answering a question to himself.
    Ethereal noticed Titanium's silent stare towards Karis, so she broke the silence. "Where have you been, we need to know what we are planning to do next before the whole school catches wind of what happened to Taren and want a piece of the action."
    Titanium turned his attention to Ethereal as he walked to the opposite side of the room from Karis and sat in a chair. "Sorry guys, I ran into Mrs. Lawson and she was asking me a bunch of questions about why she saw lights on in the training room, so I had to come up with something clever to keep her from confronting Mr. Carson about it."
    Kaleb scrunched his eyebrows in confusion. "How did she see that the lights were on when there's no windows in the training room?"
    Titanium glared at Kaleb for a minute before he answered. "Mrs. Lawson is the sight teacher. She can see through walls, dumbass."
    "Oh, Okay, I see how it is now. Please continue with you so called story." Kaleb said in a mocking voice.
    Titanium stood up and gave Kaleb a hard look. "You calling me a liar, Punk! Because the only liars I see here are the two in front of me."
    "What the hell are you talking about? We have nothing to lie about." Kaleb said.
    "Really. Then what's that around Karis's neck? I know she didn't have that necklace on yesterday." Titanium turned his attention to Karis. "Is that what came in the package you were waiting for, because a regular necklace doesn't do what that one can do?"
    Karis sighed as she glanced up at the ceiling, afraid to look Titanium directly in the eyes. "Yes.  I'm sorry guys. I was going to tell y'all when we all got together. I got it tonight before we went to the party but I didn't want to spoil the fun for everybody. I didn't lie.... I just wanted to wait, I'm sorry."
    "Your little secret might have cost Taren her life." Titanium said.
    Karis looked at Titanium like he had just stabbed her in the heart. She could feel the burning behind her eyes as tears started blurring her vision. "I can assure y'all that was not my intentions, but if you want to blame me for Taren getting hurt, you're too late, I already blame myself." A tear escaped the corner of her eye, but she refused to cry in front of Titanium because he was deliberately trying to hurt her.
    "That is it! Titanium, I don't care how big you are.  That was low even for you." Kaleb said angrily through clenched teeth as he pushed himself off the wall and walked towards Titanium.
    Karis jumped in between the two boys before they reached each other and glared at Titanium. "This has got to stop! Now I'm getting sick and tired of this macho crap." Karis snapped. "I have the package they want so we need to figure out a plan to get our parents back or I'll do it myself, do I make myself clear!"
    Kaleb relaxed his body and walked back to lean against the wall. "You're right, we need to get our parents back."
    Karis turned her attention towards Titanium, who was still glaring at Kaleb. "Titanium? Do I make myself clear?" Karis repeated.
    Titanium looked down at Karis and softened his expression with a fake smile. "Crystal."
    Ethereal clapped her hands together making a loud popping sound that startled Karis and made her jump before she turned around to give Ethereal a dirty look. Ethereal gave Karis a pleasurable grin as she walked over to Titanium and leaned against his shoulder. "Good, now that we settled that what's the plan?"
    "Since we're coming out with the truth and all, I guess y'all should know that I also got the maker skills tonight." Karis said, trying to read everybody's face expressions. When no one said anything she continued. "That's what I used to get Taren's bleeding to stop. I just wanted y'all to know so there are no more secrets."
    Jessica ran up and gave Karis a hug. "That's awesome, Karis, not only did you get your powers, but you actually saved Taren's life or she would've bled to death out there. Girl, that takes courage. Now the only one who needs to get powers is Kaleb here. I know, I know, it sucks to be the baby of the group, but don't worry, Kaleb, you'll grow into your powers soon enough." Jessica giggled.
    "Wait a minute, Kaleb doesn't have any powers?"  Ethereal asked with a confused look on her face.  "Then how is he...."
    "It's a long story and we don't have time to explain it right now."  Karis interrupted.  Kaleb looked at her, waiting to see if she was going to say anything about his newly found force power, but she kept silent for a moment before she started talking about the plan. "Okay team, it's time for me to text these guys and see what time they want to meet at the train station." Karis said as she pulled the phone out of her back pocket and pressed the button to turn it on. The touch screen lit up into action. Karis stared at the screen for a moment before she raised her head to see everybody staring at her. A tear escaped her eye and fell in a long, wet stream down her cheek.  "I'm scared." She whispered.
    Titanium started to walk towards her, but quickly stopped when he saw Kaleb rush to her side and pulled her into his arms. Titanium grinded his teeth with jealously until he felt Ethereal slightly squeeze his arm.  He quickly pushed the emotion away and looked down at her. Ethereal flashed him a toothy smile as he relaxed his tense muscles and leaned back against the wall. "Look Karis, all we really need to do is set up a meeting with these people. The rest we can plan out together. You don't even have to talk to these guys. Just text them and see what they text back.  We can go from there."
    Karis lifted her head off Kaleb's chest and looked over at Titanium. For once she was happy to see Ethereal by his side with her arm laced through his. Even though Titanium barely acknowledged her next to him, Karis hoped that he would give her a chance. Karis pushed the thought out of her head and focused on the screen on the phone. "Your right Titanium. We need a meeting time and then we can plan our mission." Karis typed in the words 'GAME ON!!' in all capital letters on the phone and pressed send.