Fight With Fire

4

I walk into the lunch room towards the table with the other elites. A small girl with an iae on the back of her leg showing her as having the Aerdell of memory moves from her place to give me a seat. I take the seat looking across to see the twins staring back at me. Both sporting hesitant grins. I sigh impatiently, "One of you spit it out."

James nudges Josh who responds, "Heard you decked a guy today. Any chance I-" James nudges him again harder, "Any chance we can help finish the job?"

A laugh escapes me at their enthusiasm to beat someone up. I put my finger to my chin and look towards the sky, "I was going to send Finn but..."

They both jump out their seat, Josh glaring at a smirking Finn and James looking around the room, "Where is he?"

I laugh again surprising people at the table over. All of them surprised to see someone they fear laughing. "I'm going to give him the opportunity to come to me. Give him a chance to redeem himself."

The both gawk at me. "Who are you and what you done with Ella?" James shakes his head disapprovingly.

I turn to the twins talking a bit more seriously. "He's hiding something and he's too smart to let me figure it out. Maybe he'll tell me if he trusts me." I smile at the twins across from me as Finn tunes into the conversation.

"Sounds just like Ella. Always has ulterior motives." Finn shakes his head disapprovingly as he says this.

I lean towards the twins pretending to tell them a secret, "Has he finally found out I'm using him too?"

The twins erupt in laughter while Finn pretends to be hurt.

"What's so funny?" Penelope sits down right next to me smiling like we're best friends.

"Well I was just talking about how your Aerdell is growth but you still act like a 5-year-old." I get up from the table before I see her reaction. "I have some business with a little friend of mine who split some ink on me this morning."

I turn and walk to a table I had spotted earlier with both Adrian and Gwen sitting next to each other. Conversations around me stop while they wait to see where I'm walking. Usually I send one of the twins to fetch someone for me so everyone knows this is important.

I sit right between Gwen and Adrian. "Hey guys. How's your day going?" I use the same fake cheerful voice I used when I first talked to Gwen. I can't help the satisfaction that creeps into my smile from looking at the state of Adrian's face. His lip is swelling and there's a gash across his right eyebrow. They both turn away from me. "Okay I see how this is going to go."

I look behind me unsurprised to see both the twins standing at the ready to step in. What surprises me is to see Finn standing with them. I take in a breath of frustration and grab Gwen's wrist. I let it go easily when she pulls away.

"Cooperating would be better considering we have company." I gesture to boys behind me. Gwen's eyes widen and hands me her wrist under the edge of the table turning to block anyone else's view.

Adrian tries to stop her. "You don't owe her anything."

I turn to him again. "It's funny because it sounds like you're asking me to hit you again. Wait, no, that's not right." I speak louder this time. "I think you're asking one of them to hit you." Josh immediately steps in front of his brother making Adrian flinch. I turn back to Gwen pulling her sleeve back to see she hasn't bothered drawing over her iae again.

My facade breaks at my surprise. "I-" I swallow and try again. "Why would you hide having telekinesis?"

"I don't owe you an explanation. I didn't even need to show you." She quickly pulls her sleeve back down over her iae.

I straighten getting my bearings back. "So I'm just going to assume that there's no good reason to keep this a secret. I'm sure my friends over there would love to ask about how your Aerdell works."

"Fine." I see the muscle in her jaw tense as she turns away from me. "I hear things."

"I'm hearing things too. But nothing interesting." I stretch my legs under the table trying to keep them from going stiff.

"Just stop with the attitude. You're getting what you want, are you not?" Adrian interjects.

I sigh and gesture for her to continue.

"I hear things. Calling out to me. It's very minor because I have no practice with my power." Her voice thickens. "Everyone will think I'm crazy if they learn about the voices. I'm assuming it's a Drell so if my Aerdell becomes more powerful then there will be more voices. Then I'll actually go crazy."

My stomach does a flip. What if this happens to me? My Aerdell could have a horrible Drell that I don't know about yet. It could be even worse than Gwen's. As much as I hate relying on someone else, it just confirms how much I'll need Finn.

That's when it hits me.

I give her a sarcastic look of pity. "Oh poor little Gwen who can't handle her Aerdell." I start speaking louder and get up from the table grabbing everyone's attention. "I don't like it when people lie to me Gwen. You see, I put a lot of trust in people. In humanity." I take a few steps away from the table. "But I'm going to go easy on you. I'm going to be nice. Because I'm a nice person." I give her a big grin then. I grab a hand behind me pulling it toward the table feeling my legs finally fill with energy. "You lied about your Aerdell. That's not very good Gwen." I shake my head slowly. "So I can't trust you with it."

I push Finn's hand to Gwen. She lets out a scream of protest but the twins are holding her down. Adrian leaps up but Josh pushes him down easily using his superhuman strength. I watch Finn's arm. When I had first met him there had been a small iae. I had watched it grow as I pushed his hand on person after person. His iae now covers his whole arm like a black sleeve. Once the sleeve has grown a little more than the size of Gwen's iae when I push Finn's hand away and drop it behind me.

Gwen falls back out of the twins' grasp and Adrian leaps up toward her. In his struggle with Josh his shirt had ridden up. When he bent over Gwen, I watched the back of his shirt come up even more showing the tiniest sliver of black. I smile in satisfaction at knowing my instinct about his iae was right.