Sentinel

Chapter 8: Normal

Just as I arrived at our apartment Hana was walking out the door.

"Oh hey, Skylar. How was your breakfast date?" She was wearing one of her more fancy dresses and had put some light curls in her black hair.

I chose to ignore her use of the word 'date'. "Good. Where are you off to?"

"I'm going to need you to expand on 'good'. But not right now. Josh's parents came with the rest of his stuff so I'm going to go hang out with them for a bit and then they are going to take us out to lunch." She waved her hands excitedly.

Josh's parents were cool people and Hana got along with them well. And they were also loaded and liked to spend money on their son and his girlfriend.

"Nice," I said, trying to hide the fact that I was a little disappointed to be home alone again. "Have fun."

"Thanks. I'll see you later," she said and then headed down the stairs as I went inside.

Normally I would have liked the alone time but I had worked myself up in the car thinking about how I was going to save Ronan. I felt like I needed to take action but had no clue what to do. So instead I tried to keep myself busy by cleaning up the apartment.

We'd only been here a week but we had dishes piled up and the floor needed to be vacuumed. I blasted music while I cleaned and two hours later the place was spotless. And I was without a distraction.

So I called my mom to talk and partially to check if Benji kept his promise. By her excited "Hi, honey!" I could tell that he did.

It was nice to hear her chatter on and on about random things. Benji was already getting contacted by different colleges to play basketball, dad was stressed because the school was trying to squeeze too many kids into his class, and she was finally finishing the quilt she started at the beginning of summer.

By the time I got off the phone another hour had passed. My eyes wandered the room for something to do. Inspiration hit me and went to my room. I walked straight to my bed and reach underneath to get my sword. Instantly I felt a surge of energy. Let's see how strong I really am.

Using my free hand I grabbed the frame under my full-size bed and lifted it with ease. A smile grew across my face. I set the bed back down and looked for my next test. My eyes landed on my wooden dresser. It was only a head shorter than me and stuff full of clothes. I walked over to it and placed my hand on the side. I gave it a push but it didn't move. Using more force, I pushed again and managed to scoot it a few inches.

Yep, I'm definitely stronger. But I already knew that. What I really wanted to test was my speed but I couldn't do that inside the apartment and I didn't have the guts to run around outside with my sword in broad daylight.

I looked down at the saber. The gold shined on the hilt, making it look badass. I stepped into the middle of the room and freed the blade from the sheath. I thrust it forward, attacking an invisible enemy. I attacked again, swinging the blade down. I started to go for a sideswipe but my sword hit the bedside lamp on the drawback and toppled it onto the bed.

"Shit!" I rushed over to see if I broke it. Luckily, it was still in one piece. I laughed quietly to myself as I put the lamp back on the nightstand. That was enough sword practice for one day.

I returned my sword back to its hiding spot beneath my bed. My stomach growled, telling me it was lunchtime, so I headed to the kitchen.

I was making myself a quesadilla for lunch when Hana came back.

"You're back earlier than I thought," I said happily.

"Yeah, I didn't want to get roped into helping unpack." She frowned. "Nothing attacked you while I was gone did it?"