Children of the Stars

Chapter Twenty Four

Nacht walked over and gently lifted one of Kitch's hands, looking at her blackened fingers.

"Can you even feel anything in your hands?" The German girl asked, her frown darkening her eyes. Kitch pulled back her hand and shrugged.

"What's it to you?" Same old Kitch, I thought. Sassy, snappy and gruff.

"Good to see you still have some fire in you to make you a Fire," I chuckled. Then I frowned at her in concern as she leaned heavily against me, her eyelids fluttering shut a bit. My hand rested over hers and I could feel that her hands were hard, so cold they made mine ache, and waxy feeling. Frostbite.

"Help me stand her up," Nacht grunted, reaching down and throwing one of Kitch's arms around her shoulders. "We have to get her to the infirmary and warm her up before she loses her fingers."

"I'm fine," she mumbled, trying to fight off Nacht not very effectively. I took her other arm and together, the Pisces girl and I dragged her into the school. She tried to walk but mostly her feet dragged down the tile floors. The hallway leading to the infirmary was chaos. People were shouting, some were crying, and the confusion was so thick in the air that we could taste it. Seeing a familiar face, I called out.

"Skylark!" My roommate turned and when her eyes landed on Kitch, her hands flew to her mouth. "What happened here?"

"A Leo attacked a Capricorn and then went on a rampage," she replied, her eyes still on Kitch. "Is she—?"

"She'll be fine. Go tell Emma, I'm sure she'll want to know that her best friend is back and safe." Skylark nodded and gave Kitch a gentle squeeze on the arm before shouldering her way through the chaotic halls.

Nacht detached herself from Kitch and motioned to me to follow her. "I'll clear a path, you follow through with Kitch." I nodded my head, frowning as the Pisces tried to shove a few people away without much success. How is she going to make a space big enough for me to bring Kitch through without hurting anyone?

Almost like she had the same question, the dark haired girl paused and her body seemed to relax. She turned her face towards me and her speckled eyes gleamed. She shot a smirk at me and then a spark of blue appeared from the space between her eyes, growing and expanding into two lines of blue fire which shot out on either side of her. This caused a reaction in the crowd. There were yelps and squeaks of fear and people rapidly scrabbled out of the way.

"Thanks," I called to her. Kitch and I stumbled along the newly blazed path until the doors to the infirmary were in sight. Just as I was about to pull Kitch through, the sound of sobbing distracted me. I turned my head and Nacht let out a frustrated hiss, mumbling something about the size of the Sagittarius attention span. My eyes found the pale eyed, dark haired Libra girl that I had last seen right before I went after the Scorpio boy, sitting on the bench beside the doors and seemingly very distressed.

"What's wrong?" I asked warily, almost afraid to know. Those large ice blue eyes, so pale and yet so full of warm emotion, met mine through tear-clumped black eyelashes.

"It's my fault," she cried out. As she locked eyes with me, I felt something wrap around my brain. An immeasurable sadness beyond belief settled onto my shoulder, my brain, my chest. "I didn't mean to do it!"

Instantly, I burst into tears. Half of me was confused as to why, but the other half just wanted to cry it out with her. "I know," I sobbed with her, wrapping my free arm around her and pulling her close. She wrapped thin arms around me and we held each other while we sobbed.

"I-I'm Charlie," the pale girl mumbled, fixing her blue eyes on me. The invisible chain wrapped around my brain yanked harder. "I don't really have any friends."