Young Heroes

The Plane Crash

"GET THE REST OF THEM OUT OF HERE!" Nathan screamed to me, passing a little girl to me, and trying to cover his mouth to stop inhaling so much smoke. The little girl was blonde with little pigtails, and she had her eyes glued shut, tears streaming down her face, and her tiny arms wrapping tight around my neck.
"OPEN YOUR EYES, LOVE. ITS GONNA TO BE OKAY, YOUR MOM IS RIGHT OVER HERE." I shouted over the wind, as the plane continued plummeting at a fast rate.
I handed the little girl to Riley, who then handed her over to the mother. They were the last two on the plane.
"GO!" Riley shouted at them. The mother looked at us each quickly with a mixture of gratitude, confusion, and pure terror in her eyes. And with that she deployed the parachute and was off of the plane with her daughter.
"OK LETS GO! RILEY THERE SHOULD BE AN EXTRA PARACHUTE IN THE COMPARTMENT!" I shouted to Riley.
He opened the compartment and searched for a little bit, before he looked back at me slowly, with a expression that made my stomach drop.
"Wait...NO!" I shouted. I glanced out the window in a panic, and we were probably within a few thousand feet from the ground.
"COME HERE WE'LL SHARE ONE! OR NATHAN TELEPORT HIM!" I said turning desperately to Nathan.
"I STILL CANT CONTROL MY POWERS, AND WE CANT SHARE ONE! HES TOO BIG!" He replied, his eyes becoming glazed over, not breaking eye contact with Riley.
"NO, NO, COME ON. COME WITH US!" I shouted, turning back to Riley, my voice breaking.
"I CANT." He said, sadly, over the wind. He glanced past me to Nathan, with a sad look in his eyes as he held onto whatever he could so he didn't get sucked out of the plane.
I felt Nathan grab me around the waist and I kicked and screamed, trying to get free. Everything slowed down as he forced me out of the plane, and I never broke eye contact with on my my closest friends. What were going to tell the others? What were we going to tell Alysa...
  Tears streamed down my face as I watched the plane inch closer and closer to the ground, until he was gone.
"Ashlyn..."
"ASHLYN!"

I gasped awake, and immediately wished I was still unconscious.  
  Everything hurt. My ears were ringing loudly, and every noise seemed to drown inside my head. Everything throbbed and I yelled out in pain and looked down to see my leather pants torn at the thigh and running down my calf. There was a huge laceration and a big piece of scrap metal sticking out of my leg. I squinted through the smoke, but it was so thick and dark I couldn't see anything a foot in front of me. I could both hear and smell the raging fires around though.
"ASHLYN!"
I refocused when I heard someone calling me again. Well a couple people.
"Over here..." I whispered. I coughed raggedly. My lungs would be filled with thick smoke. There's no way they'd be able to hear me.
I looked around me, and looked down to see a pretty good size of concrete next to my leg.
I picked it up and slammed it repeatedly against the wall behind me with the rest of the strength I had.
All the noise around me started dying out again when I saw Alysa, Nathan, and Sophia run towards me. I shut my eyes. I was so tired.

"It takes longer for me to heal internal injuries. Some I can't heal, but this, I definitely can, easy. She inhaled a lot of smoke, and you got it good, so keep that oxygen mask on." I heard Alysa when I woke up. My eyes fluttered open, and everything didn't hurt like the last time I woke up.
Alysa was standing next to me, typing away on her iPad, Nathan and Joe were sitting in a nearby bed with an oxygen tank, and the rest were still the same as before. Resting and unconscious.
I grabbed my water cup and drank some, the cool liquid sliding almost painfully down my dry throat.
"Hey, you blacked out for a little bit there." Alysa said with her usual doctor tone. I managed a smile, and set my water down.
  "What in the hell happened?" Joe asked, trying to sound gentle. I think.
  I gave talking another try. My voice was gravelly and ugly, but at least I could say words.
  "After I helped out here with Alysa, I decided to go check the surveillance cameras. See if they caught anything on those guys, but it was really weird. Every single camera went static once the robots came into view...except the last one. They wanted me to see it." I grunted as Alysa cleaned my laceration. She had cut off the entire leg of my pants so that there was only a little material at the top of my thigh, basically making them shorts.
  It looked worse with everything around it clean and you could see it clearly. It ran all the way from my mid thigh, to my calf, and it was a deep, angry, red color. The large piece of metal was still buried in my thigh, and Alysa had wrapped cloth all around the base.
  "What was the last one?" Joe asked, bringing my attention back.
  I sighed. "It was the control room. It showed him walking in, setting a little brown box on that end table by the couch, and then leaving slowly. I turned around and grabbed the box and it had another message on it...they know what we're doing...they know and I have no idea how—" I trailed off. I paused in thought, and something in my head just clicked. "Wait..."
My mind flashed back to that first mission, when the bozo held my arms behind my back and I broke his nose with my head. He held me so close that maybe I didn't see what he was actually doing.
I yanked my shirt over my head, so I was just in my sports bra, and Nathan turned around awkwardly.
"Hell yeah." Joe said with a smirk.
"Dude!" Nathan shouted, grabbing his arm and turning him around.
I searched every inch of my shirt and couldn't find anything. I turned it inside out and didn't see anything, until the smallest black dot caught my eye. Underneath my tag, was a small listening device. I smirked and tapped the boys shoulders.
"What is that?" Alysa asked, stopping what she was doing and standing up to look. Nathan took it out of my hand and inspected it, before crushing it to dust between his fingers.
"And they heard everything because you never take that thing off." Joe said, putting everything together. I nodded and bit my lip. So it was my fault.
"Ok, I need to numb her leg so I can take the scrap metal out. Someone hold her hand."
I took Joes hand before anyone could say anything. She injected a needle right into the lacerated flesh and I crushed Joes hand, squeezing my eyes shut.
"ASHLYN OH MY GOD NOT SO HARD IT HURTS!" Joe yelled in shock, as I kept digging my nails in his hand.
"Why do you think I grabbed your hand?" I replied with difficulty as the pain washed over me.
"Ok I think we're good." Alysa said with apologetic eyes. I let go of his hand and he had red marks from my nails in his hand.
"Great. Thanks." He muttered moodily.
"Alysa you better buy me new pants that was my favorite pair." I said.
She looked at me. "Your whole closet has literally a million of the exact same pair. You buy these in bulk, quit whining." She said, going back to her work.
About an hour later, she had the cut stitched and cleaned, and now her healing power was working it's magic.
I decided to take a shower because I had soot and rubble all over me. Nice thing was that Alysa's magic healing bubble thing was waterproof.
I finished showering and got to thinking about my flashback from earlier and I sighed. I opened my closet and picked out a loose pair of shorts for my leg and another tank top with pocket knives. Alysa was right. My whole closet was pretty much black leather combat pants, and black tank tops with pocket knives.
I set my clothes down on the bed and looked up and the cork board above my bed caught my eye. It was filled with pictures of all of us. Just happy memories.
One picture caught my eye and I gently pulled it off.
It was a picture of me, Alysa, Riley, Rianna, and Sophia. I remember that day. We were supposed to be having a girls day, but Alysa really wanted me to invite Riley because she liked him.
We were all standing in a line, our arms wrapped around each other's shoulders, with big smiles because we were laughing. It was such a happy day, but now all it brought me was a heavy feeling.
I took a deep breath and put the picture back up, shaking off the guilt. I promised myself I would block out those memories as best I could. It was just too hard.
I got dressed and went back out to the infirmary where everyone had finally woken up.
I limped inside on one crutch and and sat down on one of the beds.
"WHAT?!" Rianna shrieked suddenly, making everyone jump. I turned to see Alysa talking to Rianna and Rianna looked horrified.
"HOW LONG?" Rianna asked.
"I don't know, Rianna, maybe a few weeks? A month?" Alysa explained. She rolled her eyes. "You can survive a month without sex, Rianna."
"THATS EASY FOR YOU TO SAY. YOU'VE LASTED YOUR WHOLE LIFE WITHOUT SEX." Rianna retorted. In another corner of the room, Carson choked on his was water, spilling it all over the floor from laughing. I started laughing with everyone else as Alysa kept her head low, looking at her iPad, the smallest smile visible past her bright red cheeks.