When the Stars Align

Bloodbath

"Nova!" I heard Will scream followed by Jase's.

I felt Will pulling my head into his lap and I looked up. I could see the blurry outline of his face. Will took my hand in his. I closed my eyes but held tightly onto the gun. A sticky, warm liquid ran down the side of my face that I knew was blood. I could feel my breathing shallow and there was a lot of pain, but I was still alive. Of course, no one else in the room knew this.

"Take the little brother, maybe we can still use him, kill the Étoile," the girl ordered to the other Obscurités.

Thank god Will was still holding my hand for what I was about to do. I couldn't see it, but I knew it was going to work when I felt a fiery aura glowing off of him. I heard a gun go off and heard Will's body hit the floor. For a second I got worried that it had killed him but I felt his hand tighten on mine. I squeezed his hand back and bolted upright, my gun in hand. I shot two of the Obscurités before they turned to me. Will moved slower but he sat up and together, we shot three more. Only the girl was left. She tried to make a run for it but I shot her before she could make it out the door.

"I thought you were dead," Jase said crying.

I ran to him and untied his ropes. My head was throbbing.

"As did I," Will said with a hand to his head. Both of our bullet wounds were bleeding. "What the hell?"

"Bullets run on firepower, that's how they're able to shoot out of the gun, so since I can control fire, I was able to slow the bullet down. It only went skin-deep, it didn't actually go through the skull. When you were holding my hand, somehow I was able to extend my power to you for that time period, although I'll warn you that we both have a bullet lodged inside our heads now," I replied.

"Well how do we get it out? Because my head is killing me," he said.

"We'll have to get a doctor to dig it out, but we need to take care of these Obscurités first," I said.

"Agreed," Jase said, standing up.

"No, you're going to floor zero," I argued.

"No, I'm going to fight," he said.

"No, you're not," I replied.

"Look, we can go on about this forever, but you two are barely functional with a bullet stuck inside your skulls so you need me to keep you straight. Besides, even if you send me to floor zero, I'll sneak back up here by myself which makes me more likely to get caught again," he argued.

"Look who's just as stubborn as his sister," Will chimed in.

I sighed. "Just stay close to us, okay?"

He nodded and picked up a gun from one of the dead Obscurités.

"Don't touch that," I said moving towards him.

"Chill, okay? I didn't go to all of those training classes for nothing," he replied.

Will chuckled. "Let's go."

We moved towards the doorway and into the hallway. Josh, Avery, Max and about a dozen other Etoiles were having a shoot-off with about 30 Obscurités. Corpses littered the ground, more of them Etoiles than Obscurités. I put one hand on top of the gun and another to pull the trigger. It hit an Obscurité and exploded on impact, killing about four other Obscurités around him. I did that about three more times and the rest were killed by other Etoiles. It was a bloodbath.