Into the Flames

Chapter 24

“No you’re not,” asked Jenna. She couldn’t hide her shocked expression.

            All three of them laughed, as if they were sharing some joke. “Excuse me, I’m sorry,” he said, still smiling. “Half brother.”

            “My parents died in an airplane accident,” said Jenna. “I don’t have any siblings. My aunt and uncle told me that themselves.”

            “Your aunt and uncle are so drunk all the time, they can’t even tell themselves anything,” he said. “They obviously failed to tell you a lot of things. First off, our existence. Your mother was a Guardian who married our father, a mortal man, who soon left her when she got impregnated with you. Don’t blame him. And then he met my mother, who was a Timor. Your Council of Guardians exiled your mother because of that. Then, she left you with your alcoholic relatives while she went and killed herself. Your mother was a disgrace.”

            “My parents died in a plane accident,” Jenna repeated. Her eyes were wide. Although she didn’t want to believe it, something just told her that he was not lying.

            “Our dad left you and your mom for the better and your mom left you because she was selfish,” said Justin, his voice raising.

            “Don’t you dare talk about my mom like that,” said Jenna, body shaking.

            “Jenna, why are you defending a woman you never knew?” asked the girl sitting next to Justin. Her long black hair, so alike to Jenna’s, was tied back with a pink bow. She had her arms crossed, pink bow lips curled up at the edges. Her long eyelashes fluttered as she blinked cold, brown eyes watching Jenna as if she was a strange specimen. She wore a flower-patterned dress, seemingly unaffected by the cold air around her bare arms.

“Who the hell are you?” asked Jenna, suddenly feeling tired. She struggled to get to her knees.

            “Your sister,” she said with a sweet smile. “Jenna, Justin, and Jessica Aterius. What a wonderful sounding trio.”

            “Bullshit,” Jenna spat out. “We aren’t family.”

            “You can’t choose family,” said Justin nonchalantly, adjusting a heavy ring on his finger.

            “Oh, how long I’ve been waiting to see you like this,” said Jessica with a cruel smile. “I’ve been waiting for so long. I sent a Seeker, a Timor, even Amber, and I couldn’t get you alone. But at last, I knew you would go check your friends after Wizard Norton blurted out whatever he said.” Jenna cursed under her breath; Wizard Norton was never offering help.

            “Let me guess,” said Jenna. “You sent us the invitation.”

            “Bingo,” said Jessica.

            “And you’re going to kill me tonight, aren’t you.”

            “You’re really good at this, you know that?” asked Justin.

            “Why don’t you just do it now? It would be a lot easier.”

            “It’s not that simple, Jenna. You see, we need you. We’re going to unite the Timors and Guardians together.”

            “And how will you do that?”

            “We’re going to change all the Guardians into Timors.”

            “And why do you need me for that?”

            “You’re the strongest Guardian bloodline existing. If we can change you, we can change any of them. We can unite the Timors and Guardians and unite our family,” said Justin coaxingly. “Together, we can build a new era. But we can’t do it without you.”

            “You aren’t uniting us, you’re eradicating us. This isn’t the dawn of a new era, this is the dawn of a genocide,” said Jenna defiantly. She was shaking inside; the idea of it scared her.

            “You’ll agree with us, sooner or later,” said Jessica. They all walked away, leaving Jenna alone.

            She sat there the whole day, unmoving. She tried to call out for Chris, Luke, or Jack, but her voice refuse to carry through the humid air and stonewalls. She even tried to switch into the energy dimension, but she was either too weak to, or something was preventing her. She yelled until her throat was sore, and by then she was going crazy in her mind as ideas of death chased each other around. She glanced out of the window; from the small view, she could tell that it was nighttime. She heard footsteps coming closer to her cell; she quickly closed her eyes and slowed her breathing down, acting like she was asleep. She was woken up by rough shakes, seeing Duke’s face right in front of hers. Once a face that comforted her, it now disgusted her.

            “Where did they go?” she asked immediately.

            “If I were you, I would be more worried about myself.”

            “What do you want?” she asked distastefully.

            “I want to know how you feel. I was a little bit worried that you would be overwhelmed by the new information you received earlier, but seeing how well you processed the fact that you were a Guardian, I figured you would be fine. I mean, as soon as Dylan told you that you almost eagerly left us for dead.”

            “Bullshit,” she spat out, ignoring his other comments. “You couldn’t give a rat’s piss about how I feel. Stop lying and just cut to the chase.”

            “I knew you would understand,” he said with a complacent grin. “You were never one to beat around the bush. You’re coming with me.”

            She was too weak to protest, but still did her best to slow her progress down. She refused to get up, trying to resist against Duke. In the end, he roughly grabbed her arm and pulled her up after he unlocked the shackles around her feet from the wall. She was pushed out of the cell and up the stairs. Jenna deliberately fell to the ground and tripped on nothing, trying to slow down her impending fate. “Where are they?” she asked, a hint of desperation heard in her voice. “Where’d you take them?”

            “You’ll be joining them soon,” he said, pushing her harder. She tripped up the stairs and squinted, blinded by the fluorescent lights coming from the light bulbs. After the dim lighting in the mildew jail cell, she was momentarily blinded. He led her through a long, empty hall. Jenna’s feet felt like they were covered with cement blocks. The air up here was no better than down there. Portraits seemed to look down at her condescendingly through their frames, and a cold draft blew through it. Duke’s heels clicked against the wooden floor and Jenna’s chains rattled and echoed. He pushed a wooden door open and shoved Jenna to the ground, causing her to bite the inside of her cheek and fill her mouth with blood, before going to stand on the left of the chairs. The door closed with a thud. She looked up and first saw Luke, Chris, and Jack all standing side by side next to each other, hands tied behind their back with their feet unbound. One person was each standing behind him; Jenna saw the sandy haired boy standing behind Luke. A feeling of relief washed over her when she saw that they were okay. She looked up; the room looked like what once was a living room, but was cleared of all furniture instead of two large chairs, mounted on a higher level than the rest of them. The skin of a slain bear was laid under their feet, the face snarling at Jenna’s direction. Justin and Jessica were sitting in each of the chairs, smiling at her as they watched her struggle to her feet. Duke stood on the side behind the chairs, lingering in the shadows.

            Suddenly, the doors exploded open, and a small figure darted in, followed by a wolf. It darted in and skid to a stop next to Jessica. It was a girl; her tan, brown skin was shining from a light sheen of sweat. Her hair was wild and messy, unkempt and curly. She couldn’t have been more than fifteen years old. She turned and grinned at Jenna; her incisors were sharp and pointed, like a canine. Her amber eyes had flecks of gold and contained the same hint of savagery as the wolf that came and sat by her, teeth exposed as it growled. “We have company coming,” she said, not moving her eyes away from Jenna. Jenna stared back, unblinking.