Rattle 5.0

Chapter 6

        Flames POV
I sit, coiled, in the ring of fire I have created. Sparks bounce of my scales, and small embers glow with a kind of softness that reminds me so much of what safety might feel like. Smoke filters through my nostrils, but for some reason the small sting doesn't bother me.

        Rascal materializes outside the wall of fire. "There you are! I was looking all over for you. Bob said to get you. They found us again."

        The fire goes out, leaving me cold and empty. Do the others feel like this when they use their powers? The fire feels like... Home?

        Rascal waves away the remaining smoke with his tail. "Ugh, no wonder the Hunters found us. They probably saw this smoke. Come on, we have to run, thanks to you." I role my eyes. Surely there wasn't that much smoke. Still, I hurry after him.

        We return to camp, and all eyes snap to me. "Sorry..." I mumble. "It's fine, at least you're safe." Emerald and Bob say at the same time.

       "Jinx!" Rascal calls cheerfully. "Finally, I don't have to listen to our leader's voice!" Bob shakes his head, but adheres to the law of the jinx.

        Thea flashes her fangs. "Lovely. Now, perhaps we could take into account, I don't know, maybe the deadly humans trying to kill us?" Bob nods in a privileged manner, and Emerald chokes back a laugh.

         "Bob, Emerald," I say, "There. Now, where are we running now?"

         "West," Bob says, and takes off, the rest of us on his tail. A bullet ricochets off the ground, mere inches from Bob's head. He abruptly stops, an ability I'm certain comes with his superpower. He spins around, only to be greeted by a boot stomping down just short of his face. The Hunters have us surrounded.

       Bob spits venom in the Hunter's face. "Run!" He shouts. "What about you?" I cry over dramatically. "Forget about me, just go!" Bob says,  turning a beautiful shade of brown as he sends one Hunter flying into a tree.

         Even Rascal hesitates, but at once, we come to a decision. Probably not the right decision, but we lost sight of wrong and right a long time ago.

          Is it cowardly to leave a friend to die, or selfless because it hurts more to lose that friend than to lose yourself? I would like to think that the second is true, if only to convince myself I deserve to play the hero. Running is what we do best, but we have always done so as a team. The Hunters don't chase us.

Bob's POV
I'm shoved into a glass box that is peppered with greasy fingerprints and claw like gouges. The room looks like it used to be white, but the dried blood and mud caking the walls makes it difficult to tell. The light is the only thing in the room that really stands out, and, unlike the rest of the room, it is bright, obnoxiously so. I find myself subconsciously turning white to blend into the table.

I feel an almost familiar presence in my head. It's... greasy, if that makes sense, and although it feels like something I've only felt in the presence of one being, I know it isn't them. The sixth is dead. Wait, that means this is...

"You guessed it. Leader of the Hunters." A balding human with pale skin and a necklace of bones steps into the room. "And you, my friend, have a very interesting brain."

"You killed them." I say flatly. "That's the only way you could have these powers. You killed them."

"Speak up, would you? I can't hear you all the way down there." I'm not that far below him, and I know this human is only trying to make it hurt more than it already does.

"YOU KILLED THEM." I shout, feeling my scales turn blood red. The scales beneath my eyes turn blue. "YOU KILLED THEM AND STOLE THEIR POWERS AND IT WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO BE YOU AND WE WERE SUPPOSED TO WIN AND NOW YOU CAN READ MINDS, JUST LIKE THEY COULD."

The human grins, revealing teeth that are a very unnatural shade of white. Humans aren't supposed to look clean, they are supposed to look dirty, so you can't mistake them for anything other than the animals that they are.

"My name is Keith, so you can stop calling me 'human'." The human- er, Kieth, says. "And you, my friend, are willing to do anything to survive."

I almost deny it, before I realize Flame isn't here to give me that sad look she always gives me when I say something cruel. "I'm listening." I say, silently apologizing to Flame. If she didn't want this to happen, she should have just stayed the innocent runt for me to protect.

Keith flashes me that same sickening grin. "Good."

A/N Seriously I'm at the mountain right now and I'm pretty bored, so I thought I'd update. It's short, but it's something. I actually went back and spaced out the paragraphs. It's nice writing with no pressure, because I set the bar pretty low when I started this so there's no pressure lol. Looking back at the older chapters and cringing so hard.