The Beginning of The End

Chapter 8 - The Story

THE STORY

God, Carlie was pretty. The way her stormy grey eyes shone with contemplation, and the way a small smile made its way onto her lips, drove Luke crazy. It reminded him of someone he had lost not too long ago.

Jennie had been his responsibility. He was supposed to bring her back to Headquarters to save the world. Just like what he was doing with Carlie now.

Just last year, Janie was a freshman at the same high school Luke went to. He was also a freshman at the time, but the school was so big that they never saw each other. Luke had been part of the organization he was in today, Nova Citadel, for a few years then, and knew of potential attacks that could come at any point in time.

An organization called the Power Games invaded the school, demanding for a student named Jennie Hudson. Luke had known earlier that day that it was his job to protect her with his life, so he rescued her from the grasps of the Power Games and made it safely back to Headquarters that day.

She had saved the world that day, without knowing it. Just by surviving the attempted kidnapping and murder. She went down in history as a hero, while Luke was just known as the nameless part in Jennies' plan. The truth that barely anybody saw was that without Luke, Jennie would have been brought somewhere bad that day.

Nobody expected the next attempt to be so soon. As in the next week.

This time, since Jennie had been "mysteriously" taken out of school to go to Nova Citadels' Headquarters, the attack was at a quiet café in the front of the Headquarters. For what reason the Nova Citadel decided to have an open café right in front of their Headquarters is unknown, but they did.

Anyway, Jennie was sitting in the café, drinking hot cocoa with whipped cream and cinnamon, reading a book. Luke was in front of her, and Johnny was next to him. They were all laughing, enjoying each others' company, when all of a sudden, Jennie's face goes from laughing to serious to scared out of her mind. She started trembling and turned ghost pale.

Behind Luke and Johnny, were two men. Big men. They held guns against the two boys' heads and motioned for Jennie to come with them.

Luke had shook his head vigorously, telling her to not go. The Power Gamer behind Luke cocked the hammer in his gun as a warning. Jennie shot up and out of her seat, tears streaming down her face.

"Sorry," she had mouthed, giving in to the men that grabbed her roughly by the arms. They dragged her out the door, promising only that she was not going to be hurt.

Now, in the present, Carlie and Luke ran with their eyes wide open and their ears listening for the smallest noise. They couldn't afford anyone catching them.

Carlie muttered something under her breath. Luke asked her to repeat what she said.

"Nothing," she responded quickly.

Luke glanced down at her leg. "Is it your leg?"

"Nah." She grimaced, taking another stride. Putting pressure on it seemed to be making her in way more pain than she should be in. She was the savior of the world, after all, and she should be treated like royalty - even if she didn't know what power she had.

"You sure? That thing might not support your weight much longer. You've been on it too long."

"It's fine. We'll get out." She bit her lip.

He grunted. "Hopefully."

Their eyes met for moment. An odd moment. A long, odd moment. They both looked away awkwardly and focused back on running.

After about a minute of straight up running, they heard a shout echo down the hallway. Luke stopped short and held his arm out to stop Carlie.

"I heard it too. What do we do?" she whispered, slightly leaning into him for support. He didn't mind, he was just glad that she wasn't against his bad side.

"We just do what we have been doing. You pretend to be helping me down the hall, and I just look like a patient. Simple."

"Yeah, okay, simple." She snorted and put her arm around and an inch away from Luke's back. She was smart and had her bad leg closer to Luke than to the open hallway. Someone could see her stiff leg easier if it was out in the open.

A teenager ran down the hall, a clipboard in hand. His pursuers were a good fifteen feet behind him, some gasping for air. There were five in total, but none were fast enough to catch up to Noah.

One of the men almost trampled Carlie, but Luke pulled her out of the way just in time.

"Keep out of their way. Don't let them touch you with their ring finger. Understand?"

"Uh, what's different about their ring finger than from anything else about them?"

"They, uh, sort of have powers in their ring fingers that can be good or bad for the person they touch with it, depending on what they want for the victim."

Carlie turned pale. "Uh...uh..." she squeaked.

"What is it?"

"I...uh...nothing."

Luke started to question her, but suddenly an earth-shattering boom echoes around the builder. 

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Mwah ha ha HAAAAAA