They Do Exist

They Do Exist (20)

We met up the others after we had finished our coffee.  I felt safe in Vance’s presence.  It was nice to know I had someone I could talk to besides Alana.

Alana was making Cooper help hold all our bags and telling him all her fun fashion adventures, while Cooper pretended to be interested and Vance and Will were talking about who was better at Ice Hockey.  Vance insisted he knew better since Ice hockey originated in the Winter Realm.

Gabe came up to me and handed me a bag.

I raised an eyebrow.  “You got me something?”

“It’s little.”

I pulled pride and prejudice out of the bag with a huge smile on my face.  “I love this book!”

Gabe smiled shyly.  “Yeah. I saw you reading it.  I didn’t know you liked to read.”

I smiled coyly.  “There’s a lot about me you don’t know.”

Suddenly a huge crash was overheard.  We turned around just as we were about to leave the city.

The sky erupted with blurs.  Arrows came crashing down to the ground, some covered in fire.  Others aimed at the harmless people wandering the streets.

“It’s an ambush!” Cooper yelled.  The crowd of people exploded, all running in different directions.  I was knocked over and almost trampled until I managed to crawl behind a building.

I looked at the sky to find people with face paint on floating in the air, their heavy wings keeping them upright.  They all cheered as the chaos began. 

I looked around frantically. Where did Gabe go? Or Alana or Vance? Where did anyone go???

I tried to find shelter.  I watched as some were knocked out of the air with ice picks.  I followed the stream of ice to find Vance fighting them off on the other side of the street. Alana was jumping up on rooftops aiming bows at the fairy’s wings, sending them hurtling to the ground with a wicked scream.

I found Cooper and Will going after the elves or fairies on the ground that had landed and were ransacking shops for goods.  It was all chaos, utter chaos.  People were screaming and running and flames burning and evil laughter.  I didn’t know where to run to or where to go.  Suddenly flaming arrows were coming around my feet.  I screamed.  One fairy dropped a gas tank, and another behind him aimed a flaming arrow.  My eyes got big; this was going to end badly.

Suddenly an earthen wall came up in front of me.  It shielded me from the explosion.  I looked to my left to see Gabe.  He moved his hands and the wall went down, and he made another movement and the surrounding vegetation came to life.  The vines shot out of the surrounding forest, grabbing ahold of the fairies and their wings.  They fell to the ground squirming.

I looked over at Gabe in awe.  “I didn’t know you could do that!” I yelled over the screaming.

He smirked.  “There’s a lot about me you don’t know.” He teased, repeating my earlier words.

*

Gabe teleported me to a far off clearing, away from the horror of the ambush.

“Can’t I help?”

“No.”  He ordered.

“Whatever you do, don’t use your powers, they will find out what you are Layla.  We can’t risk that.”

I felt so helpless.

Gabe disappeared and all I could see in the distance were the flames.  I prayed with everything inside me that no one would die.