Resist

9

I waited longer than necessary, trying to prolong the moment, before I went to stand up. Jack jumped to his feet as soon as he realized what I was doing, offering me his hand to pull me up. I used it, praying silently that the pain really had gone. I was fine however.

I stood beside Jack, looking up at the glass windows. “No more flying,” I said, already missing it because I knew I must wait for my side to heal more fully.

“Just for a bit,” Jack reminded. There was a long pause, silence between us in that comfortable, no-need-for-words way. Then Jack asked, “Should you have Eden look at it? Just to make sure you didn’t do any more damage?”

“But we aren’t supposed to be out here,” I reminded him. “What will I tell her?”

“Er…” Jack began, “Eden knows I come out here sometimes.”

“Oh then I suppose I can go see her.” I wanted more information, why did she of all people know that he broke the rules in this way? But he had already done so much by bringing me here to fly and had let his guard down for me for the first time and I didn’t want to push it. Something told me that Jack was fragile; you didn’t pressure him for anything. The way he was so reserved about himself, it just made sense. You let him be.

Putting his hand on my back, he guided me towards the hall and together we returned to where we’d come from. At the door, I knocked and heard Eden’s voice yell a warm “Come in!”

I turned the large knob and stepped inside, leaving the door open behind me for Jack.

“Hey Eden, you’re going to kill me,” I began as she turned from her work at one of the tables, “But we were flying and-”

“We?” she questioned.

“Yah me and-” I turned around to motion to Jackson behind me but there was no one there. He had left. I tried to hide my disappointment as I looked back to Eden, finishing my explanation by correcting myself. “I went flying…”

I went to bed (injury-less according to Eden) that night wondering what I had done wrong. Why had Jack left? By the way he was talking, I thought he was going to come with me. But what also bothered me was that I had wanted him to come with me. Why had I wanted that? I barely knew him, only knew his name really. Why was I attached to this boy who was walled off like a prison?

Sicily gently slept in the bed beside me, completely oblivious to the storm of thoughts blowing through my mind. We switched off who got the single bed every night and I suddenly wished I had it right now as I got up, hoping to not disturb the blonde, and left the room. I didn’t know where I was going but there was no way I could sleep.

I wandered the halls, ending up sitting on a step in the stairwell as my mind wandered, finally ending up in its darkest place: remembering the day Xavier came to power.

Bang! My father came flying through the door, his eyes panicked and wide as he rushed to my side. “We  have to go, we have to go now!” He told me, pulling me to my feet by my arm from where I had been sitting with my brothers on the floor. Daven and Ivan watched in confusion as my father brought them to their feet too. “Go outside, start moving while I go get mom.”

“Dad, what’s going on?” I demanded in panic, grasping one of my twin brother’s hands in each of my own as they came to my side, scared.

“The queen has fallen,” he said, confirming my worst fear. I had heard adults speaking of this for days, how some evil man was going to take the crown from her. “It’s the beginning of the end.” I wasn’t even sure he had said it as he went into the next room, looking left and right for my mother in the small house we had on the outskirts of town. I watched him disappear from sight before turning.

I followed my father’s orders, going to the door and heading out into our small front garden. Immediately it was obvious that something was wrong, the street was crowded with people, a mob, scared out of their wits as they ran from some great evil. People took off and landed each moment, leaving the chaos of the ground for the air and vice versa.

Looking further down the street, I saw a crowd marching, flaming torches in hand. It was an army, purging the homes as they went past and pulling the residents from within, setting fire once they were done. It was a horrible site and I quickly turned my brothers from view, pulling them down the street behind me. We needed to distance ourselves from those people as much as possible. My brothers stumbled as I lead them along, my legs much longer as I was twelve and each of them six but I didn’t care, we had to get out of here. I risked a glance back, hoping to see my mother and father emerging from our home.

I stopped, in utter shock, as instead I saw a man from the army entering, wearing all black and carrying a long sword before him. Did I go back? What if they were still inside? I didn’t know if my parents had left the house yet, he could be catching them unawares.

“Essie, why are we stopped?” Daven asked, returning my attention to the youngsters as he used the nickname, the one that stuck with me for the rest of my life. 

I looked down at their scared faces, Ivan looking incredibly pale, and I made a decision, the most important of my life. “Keep going,” I told them. “We’re going to keep moving.” And we did.

Several times, I looked to the skies, hoping our escape could come from that direction but the air swarmed with people, friend or foe I did not know, and my brothers were too young to fly like that. All those people would only knock their small bodies out of the air, so on we ran, the safest escape from the harm that was befalling the city. 

Through the crowd we raced, weaving between the other fleeing people. We were all moving into the city, slowly becoming trapped by the taller city buildings although none of us realized it in this frenzy. All we cared about was escaping the men who had burned our homes.

As I turned a corner, intending to remove us from the busy street and move down a less crowded one, I felt Ivan’s hand slip from my grasp. I turned, seeing him sprawled on the ground having tripped over the curb.

“Ivan!” I yelled, taking a step back to him. But in that millisecond, people swarmed between us and I lost sight of my young brother. Keeping a firm hold on Daven, I shoved back into the crowd, desperately looking down for the short boy but to no avail.

“Ivan! Ivan!” I called, absolutely crazy with desperation. How could I lose him, how could I!

“Ivan!” Daven yelled suddenly, recognition in his voice as he spotted his brother somewhere among the mob. I felt a hand leaving mine for the second time.

“Daven no!” I screamed as he ran between two women, the path behind him covered by their long skirts billowing in the wind. “Daven!” I yelled again, shoving between the two, ignoring their yells of fright as they felt an aggressive contact. I didn’t care; all I wanted was my brothers. “Ivan! Daven!” I yelled desperation pushing me to the point of craze. “Ivan! Daven!”

“Essie?” a voice questioned and I spun, looking for the source. But that had been a women’s voice, not my brothers’…

“Essie, wake up!” the lady’s voice said again.

And suddenly I was being shaken awake, slumped against the wall in the stairwell. Nessa was before me, her hands on my shoulders and her eyes peering into mine, full of worry. “Essie, are you okay?” she asked.

I didn’t answer as I looked behind her, where Sicily stood, wearing the same look of concern. Her eyes blue eyes darted behind me and back. I turned, to figure out what she was looking at, and saw a crowd of people behind me on the landing of the dark stairwell. I suddenly became very aware of my sticky face, sweating from my nightmare of that horrid day. Will stood at the front of the group, Tucker and James slightly behind him as well as Brenton. And over Brenton’s broad shoulder was a face that I almost didn’t recognize due to its expression; one of great concern. It was Jackson.