The Awakening

Chapter Twelve

I loosen my grip on the man's neck, letting him slip through my grasp, and onto the floor. I take a stumble back from his gasping, shivering body, and feel Emma grab my arm.
"Ella, we have to go," she whispers in my ear while pulling me into the smoke. My head spins, but my stone has stopped trying to take control on me, and now I am not sure what happened. Was it me who held that man to die, or was it the stone that turned me dark? I shake the thoughts from my head as Emma pulls me through the winding array of tunnels that are scattered throughout this maze. Emma seems to know where she was going, and I trust her, but then something comes to my mind.
"Emma! The safe, did you get what we needed?" I ask, starting to run low on endurance.
"Yes, and we were right about the room, that's where it was all along," she replies, also seemingly out of the air. I am just about to ask another question when there is a large bang that sings my hand and breaks me away from Emma's grasp. Without even thinking I whip around, and send a release of energy through the tunnel behind us. I knock over multiple guards while Emma spits fire out of her hand, fending off the others. While she defends I heal up my hand as quickly as I can before I hear another band along with a thud. I turn to see Emma on the ground, clutching her side, but the pile of blood under her is not a good sign.
"So much for being bulletproof," she tries to laugh, but it comes out as a gargled cry. I send another pulse, taking out another round of guards before turning back to Emma. When I get a closer look at the bullet, I realize it is not like before. It is made out of a material I have never seen before, unless... When Sophie got shot her armour should have kicked in before the bullet pierced her, but if the bullet is made out of the same thing, then it wouldn't matter if we were wearing armour or not, but if this is true, how did they get the stones armour? I go to heal her, but she pushes my hand away.
    "What are you doing?" I almost screamed at her in frustration.
    "Healing people drains our powers, and I can't have you turning on us right now. You said yourself levitating was like nothing, do that instead, I can handle it," she promises when she sees that I am about to ignore her. It is true if I heal her I may not have enough energy to fight and keep myself sane, but she looks like she is in so much pain.
    "Ugh fine, but I am healing you as soon as we are out of here, you understand?" I address her, and she nods. I lift my fingers up over her, and she floats in the air, clinging to her wound. I hate not being able to help her, it feels like such a waste if I have these powers, but can't use them for good because I don't want to use them for bad. Every couple seconds I send another pulse, sometimes hitting a pile of soldiers, and sometimes hitting noting. Emma still has to give me directions, and even though she is bleeding out, she doesn't make it seem like there is anything majorly wrong with her. Eventually, I can see two figures up ahead. I panic and am about to send another pulse until I recognize their voices.
    "Thank goodness you found her," Kate chimes.
    "What the hell were you thinking?" Jane scowls, punching me hard in the shoulder, almost causing me to drop Emma.
    "They knew we were there, and it was either going to be one of us or all of us. Besides, I needed to get their focus off of you," I reply, rubbing my shoulder with my free hand.
    "What happened to you?" Kate asks Emma.
    "A weird bullet, that's what happened," Emma coughs.
    "Well, we found the exit so let's get the hell out of here," Kate beamed, obviously excited to be getting out of here just like the rest of us. As we turn the corner, however, we are stopped by an army of guards that barricade the doors.
    "I think, I think I'm gonna sit this one out," Emma stutters, clearly surprised by the number of people surrounding the exit.
    "Well damn," Kae says, turning around to try to go back, only to find that we have been surrounded.
    "Well this is going to end badly," I grumble, shaking my head slowly.
    "Hand over the box," One of the guards boom so loudly is like the ground is shaking. Taking out an army was a lot easier when there were two more of us. That extra four hands would be really helpful right now.
    "No! You hand over the box!" Emma yells back. I smile under my mask as a few confused murmurs ripple through the crowd in front of us.
    "We- umm.... We don't have a box, you do!" The guard points his finger accusingly, but he still seems a bit disoriented.
    "I don't know what you're talking about," Emma shrugs, nodding to me. I can see a small box strung around her wait, but it just looks like a belt buckle. Realizing that she has a plan, I create a small bubble around it, trying my best not to make it too obvious of what I am doing. After I am done, I set her gently on the ground, still holding her up enough that she needs not to bear any weight on her wound.
    "Well if you excuse me, I think we are just gonna go now, obviously you don't have what we need, and we have the wrong secret facility," Jane continues, keeping up the confusion for guards.
    "Yeah, sorry to get you all worked for noting, I guess we will see you around?" I add, starting to make my way through the crowd on guards, and it seems to be working, well for a few seconds at least.
    "Wait! No! Stop them, don't let them get out!" The guard finally shouts when we are about halfway through, and we all sing in unison.
    "Men make everything so difficult don't they?" Emma says as guards start to grab at our arms. I can feel Emma smiling under her mask, and I nod at her as if to give an okay, and we both turn to face the guards around us. With a simple tap on the forehead, I send one of them off to sleep, and while Emma is close beside me, she is still too weak to stand on her own, so I am now down to only one hand. Even being all crippled, Emma is doing some serious damage, and if she can do that, well, I just have an idea.
    "You think you can make a wall of fire to get us out of here, just surround us in a dome, and we can walk right through," I tell Emma as she nails another fireball at a ground of guards who are barreling towards us at full tilt.
    "Yeah probably, but I might end up just burning the place down, I am still a little off while I have this bullet wedged in me, although you are being pretty badass fighting with only one hand," she tells me, and I laugh.
    "Thanks, but I don't think we have another choice. Hopefully that doesn't happen, but even so, I'm sure his place is painted with fire safety mechanisms.
    "Okay, if you say so," she shrugs, but before she does I stop her.
    "Just, try to be careful okay? I want to hurt as little people as possible," I warn her, and she nods. She knows I hate hurting people, and that is why I am surprised she didn't freak out when she saw me strangling him, but I don't even know if it was me. Again, I have to push these horrible thoughts from my mind. Just as the wall goes up, I feel a burn in my left arm followed by searing pain. The gunshot still rings in my ears, but it is too late anyway. They caught my wrong arm, Emma is fine to continue her magic, and soon enough we have run out into the open air. We leave the smoke-infused building behind us, and I levitate the girls one by one onto the mountain range. My arm still hurts, but Emma was right when she said we needed to save our powers. Once I get myself up the mountain I peer down below us to see many guards run out of the building.
    "I'm glad we left that entrance open or they all would have died in there. I don't think there is another exit," Kate says, sitting down next to me.
    "Ooh, Ella, they got you too, huh," Jane asks, taking my arm in her hands, and I laugh.
    "They got all of us with bullets, but their sucker-" I pull the strange bullet from my arm, and my armour immediately covers up my world, stopping the blood. I make Emma do the same, knowing it will be best for her if she does. She insists that she doesn't and eventually I convince her to allow me to do it by levitating the bullet out. She squirms a bit but stays silent, and once her suit covers up her would, the bleeding stops, and I can tell already that she feels a little more comfortable.
    "We need to get out of here, they are going to start searching soon," Kate warns us as we take a seat. I wish Sophie was here because I could really use a glass of water. Suddenly, Emma starts tapping on her map until she seems content. A blue and red dot are show on her up screen. The blue dot is moving closer to the red dot, and I think I understand what she is getting at, but she explains anyways.
    "We are the red dot, and the hovercraft that is coming to pick us up is the blue dot. This green dot is the extraction point, which is near the cave we took camp in." Emma pushes another button to reveal a green dot on her screen, and I am not impressed. Since we probably got scanned while we were escaping the base, so we decide that there is no point keeping our masks on. We turn them off and take deep breaths of fresh air, which actually just smells like campfire and chaos. Just as Emma said, a hovercraft is waiting for us outside the cave. I make her give me a quick high five before climbing into the small space they have provided for us. They give us a glass of water, finally, and a small bread roll, and tell us to go slow. I didn't realize how hungry I was and now that I do, it is hard to keep from stuffing the whole thing into my mouth at once. When we ask for more they tell us, no, but I make a promise to the girls that I will make a good meal when we get back to our dorms. After getting settled, I end up falling asleep on Emma's shoulder only to wake to a surprise I didn't see coming.