The Untouchables

For You

"No, this can't be happening." I whispered, falling to my knees.

"He's...gone?" Someone said behind me.

"How could you let something like that just happen?" I asked in disbelief.

"Believe me, Raven and I tried, but they somehow managed to flood our room completely and her vines ended up suffocating her. It was either let them take him away or let her die." Kairi sobbed, still holding Raven's head in her lap.

"Well, it looks like you did a great job at saving her." I retorted, crossing my arms and looking up towards the night sky.

The stars still seemed to flicker brightly through the clouds that dotted the skies. It felt so out of place, like the weather didn't match what I was currently feeling.

On a whim, I stood up, walking towards where the thicket of trees met the open area surrounding TAU. I didn't know where I was going, but I continued to walk, the feeling of numbness taking over me as realization began to dawn on me that Raven was dead and Wraith kidnapped. 

Falling to my knees, I put my hands on my face, my tears warming my cold hands wherever they touched. I barely noticed the wind blowing me or the chills that sent me shivering, all I could feel was the numbness of losing two people.

'Why do bad things always have to happen to good people? They didn't deserve any of this.'  I thought, pulling my hands away from my face and staring ahead as my eyes began to focus on a cluster of yellow daffodils nearby.

Snap.   A branch broke somewhere off in the distance.

Rubbing the tears away, I began to turn, calling out, "Leave me alone."

"I'm afraid I can't do that." 

Turning my head slightly, I could see Dillion's figure leaning up against a tree, his arms crossed over his chest. His hair seemed to be drooping more than usual from being weighed down with water and his eyes scrutinizing my face, which I thought was stupid since he could already read my thoughts, but I didn't bring attention to it since he probably already heard it anyways. 

"Did Maggie send you?" I asked softly, moving my hair off of my face to prevent it from sticking to my skin uncomfortably.

"Well, yes and no," He began. "You know, she's just as distressed as you are about Wraith. She might not have known him as long as you did, but she knew him long enough for it to hurt her..." Dillion trailed off, his fingers twiddling together and fumbling with the sleeves of his shirt. 

I frowned. 'He's right, I can't just run off when Maggie needs comfort too...what kind of friend am I, forgetting my own friend's feelings for my own.' I thought, sitting up a little straighter.

'A bad one.' I heard Dillion say in my mind.

'Really? Right now?' I rolled my eyes, walking towards him. "Okay, I'm ready to go back now...thanks for talking to me." I mumbled.

Dillion walked up to me, putting his arm on my shoulder and squeezing it gently. "Any time you need me, I'm in the bunk below you. Just try not to snore too loudly the next time we get to slee-" He trailed off, looking in the distance.

"What now?" I asked, following his gaze. In the pitch black of the night it was hard to see anything with the trees shielding the light from the moon. 

"Light...do that thing you did with your eyes when we got away from the Government the last time." Dillion spoke under his breath, taking a few steps closer as if trying to focus his abilities to hone in on something. 

"You mean that infrared vision thing?"

"Yes. just do it." He hissed.

"Okay, okay, I'm doing it." I replied, blinking twice until my world was washed in color. Bringing my gaze back in the direction to where Dillion had been gazing in before, I could faintly make out the heat signatures of two people.

"What do you see?" Dillion whispered. 

"I see two people off in the distance running away...but they're slow, almost as if they're struggling with something." I said, squinting my eyes to see better. "Wait, I see something else with them. There's another heat signature with them, but it's even fainter despite the fact that the other two seem to be carrying it..." I looked at Dillion with a horrified look in my eyes. Even though I could only see him in infrared, I could tell by his body expression that he had read my mind already.

"We need to go after him, Dillion." I said, blinking twice to return my vision back to normal. 

He looked like he wanted to protest at first, but then gave a sigh, closing his eyes for a second before opening them again. "Okay, I just relayed the information to someone, they should be on their way over right now." He explained, grabbing my arm and running in the direction of where I last saw the intruders. 

Silence broke between the two of us as we continued to run, the only sounds being the leaves crunching underneath our feet as we hastily made our way towards the figures I saw earlier. Looking at Dillion's back as he ran slightly ahead of me, I noticed how his hair moved in the wind despite being short.

Out of nowhere, I felt a hard tug just ahead of us, reaching out to pull at Dillion's arm just in time for him to stop him. Squeezing his arm slightly, I nodded my head in the direction of where I felt the tug.

"Step out of the shadows now or you'll regret it." I heard a gun cock behind me as a male spoke.

Turning around slowly, Dillion and I faced the intruders that I had seen just a few moments ago. The one carrying two pistols was dressed in a long sleeve shirt and shorts, freckles and a short beard decorating his face. His big hair swayed slightly in the wind as he held his ground, his stance strong and steady.

The other person, although the same height as the one with the pistols, had a weird glint in his blue eyes that immediately made me feel that he was not one to be trusted. A scar ran along his jawline, just barely visible in the shadows of the trees in the moonlight. A passenger bag was strapped across his chest, a magic staff settled in one of his hands as he studied Dillion and I with caution.

In between the two men lay Wraith, his head lolled to the side as if he were unconscious. In the moonlight, I could just barely make out light cuts and scrapes, his hair clinging to his forehead as it dripped, still damp from being in water.

"Has anyone been alerted of our presence?" The man with the staff asked, his gaze cold as our eyes locked, my attention shifting away from Wraith.

"No. Only we know." I lied, my fists clenched tightly at my sides. I could feel my body heating up as emotions poured over me.

"And how will we know that you're telling the truth?" The man with the pistols asked, waving the pistol that was pointed towards me up and down as he talked.

"Damian, let's have some faith in our new friends." The other man spoke, his fingers tapping at the magic staff almost mindlessly.

"Sorry, Zeke." Damian apologized, not taking his eyes off of Dillion and I.

"Wait a minute," I interrupted, the puzzle pieces clicking together and making sense all of a sudden. "If your name is Zeke...are you Ezekiel?" I asked, recalling a previous conversation Luciana had with the Elementals when we first introduced each other.

Ezekiel chuckled. "You've figured me out already, Hallows, haven't you?"

I gulped, not only startled by the fact that he knew my last name. Shock ran through my body as a realization hit me.

Ezekiel's abilities were over cold things, the exact opposite of my own heat abilities.