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Chapter 14 - New Recruits

Miles let out fast, jagged, and heavy breaths, his heartbeat probably well into the two hundreds. The new kids were watching them from afar, eyes wide with a terror that perfectly summed up Miles' feelings. Caspar and Lancaster were talking to each other, not saying a word. Captain R was just standing around, not doing anything. Lilly was staring over at Miles.

"You're bleeding," Lilly said gingerly to Miles.

Miles looked down to see that she was correct, blood had stained his T-Shirt. His arms were covered with scratches. He opened his mouth to reply, but then closed it. He was too tired to talk.

Lilly shuffled over to Miles and placed her hand on his arm, sending a tingle through him. When she lifted her hand back up, Miles was surprised to see that the cuts he had received were all mended. The blood was still soaked in his shirt, but the pain was gone.

"Woah," breathed Miles, "how did you do that?"

Lilly smiled warmly. "Magic," she said.

Miles raised his eyebrows, but said nothing.

"You saved me," she continued.

Miles laughed a little. "I didn't really—"

"Do anything? You took out two ugly creatures and saved four people. I'd say you did something extraordinary."

"I guess I went full on knight in shining armor," said Miles jokingly.

Lilly took his hand. "You sure did. I guess making friends with ghosts isn't the only thing you're good at."

Caspar came up to him and slapped him on the back.

"Brilliant plan, mate," he said. "I believed in you the whole time."

Miles stood up to talk to him, and Lilly did the same.

"All I did was use my weird power thing," Miles said. "You were the one that ninja'd that guy."

Caspar rolled his eyes. "Yeah, whatever, Miles. It was your idea to help them blokes, and I'm not letting you modest your way out of that one."

Lancaster walked over to them. "Is that true, Miles?"

"Well—"

"It sure is," said both Caspar and Lilly in unison.

Lancaster nodded at him. "Thank you, son."

Captain R walked up casually and said, "Still think he should be punished for being out of bed."

"Yes, definitely," replied Lancaster, and Captain R walked away, satisfied.

Miles looked over to Lancaster in questioning, and the man simply winked at him.

"Doc, what happened?" Caspar asked the question that had been on Miles' mind. "What was that?"

"Well, I went to go get these two," Lancaster motioned to the two new kids. "Owen and Quinn. I went alone, because I figured Necron hadn't found out about them yet. I was wrong. Owen here was good, but they had a man assigned to scout out Quinn. He followed me back here to Oregon. About halfway here, I realized we were being followed, and I tried to shake him off to no avail. He kept following, but I figured we'd lose him in the forest. We did, and we made a run for it, running through the trees like there was no tomorrow."

Lancaster paused, taking a breath, and looked apologetically at Owen, the short boy and Quinn, the tall girl.

"Well, you all know how thick and deep the forest beyond here is, so eventually we got tired and had to stop. We didn't hear anything, so we thought he'd hopefully lost us and given up. We sat down at the trunk of a tree to rest for awhile. When we were almost certain that the threat was long gone, I began explaining to Owen and Quinn what I explained to Miles and Lilly about the academy and Necron and all that stuff. I tried to catch them up on classes as best I could, seeing as they only missed one day. After several minutes, we continued through the forest. We had been walking for a few minutes when we heard sounds again and started to pick up the pace. We got back here, and that's when they caught up to us. I guess this place isn't as safe as I thought," Lancaster hung his head toward the ground, probably wishing there was more he could do.