Half and half

chapter 4

Chapter 4

He gauged my expression. Okay, this guy was definitely nuts. Wasn’t the school supposed to make sure they didn’t admit any psychiatric kids? I looked him up and down, “uh-huh.” He sighed and continued, “Well obviously, these angels have minds of their own. And they aren’t perfect. They are disloyal. They disobey orders. And they get tossed out of heaven. Those who commit the worst sins are starcked. So we can hunt them down. By the way, my name’s Dimitri.” He stopped. “uh-huh.” I repeated. “Dylan, this is serious!” he snapped. I slowly started backing away from him. He grumbled something that rhymed with mango. He sighed like he was tired of doing this and said, “if you don’t believe me, I’ll show you. It helps closing your eyes. And please turn your head the other way when you puke.” He leapt forward faster than I thought possible and grabbed my wrist. I jerked back instinctively and his grip loosened but something weird was going on. The world had started spinning in a thousand different directions. I saw parks, people’s faces, and a thousand different colors. I was slipping from the Dimitri’s grip. I heard him curse before I slipped out of his grip entirely. I tumbled through the sky, spinning in circles, everything giving nauseating turns. Suddenly, there was a loud thump and black spots made my vision swim. When my sight cleared, I was laying in an unfamiliar park, which was weird because I knew every park in the vicinity. I looked around me and saw a couple of kids gaping openly at me. I stood up and brushed leaves from my clothes and hair. I gave them an apologetic smile and started walking north. Something was weird. The sun was high up in the sky when it was supposed to be night. I glanced at my watch. It was cracked. I cursed. I had walked for about half an hour, getting nowhere by the way, when suddenly, there was a whoosh and something tackled me from behind. I sprawled forward, my forehead banging against the ground. I groaned and tried to squirm myself from underneath the body. “Ow!” I heard an indignant tone say next to my ear, “Don’t elbow me!” I squirmed harder, because I knew that voice, “well, don’t attack me.” I replied. “Wait. Stop squirming!” he rolled off me and I sucked a breath into my lungs. “You’re solid.” Dimitri complained. I huffed, “I’ll take that as a compliment.” Dimitri rolled to his feet with surprising agility and held out his hand. I ignored it and staggered to my feet. “Where the hell am I?” I demanded. “I don’t know. You let go about halfway so we’re probably in Italy.” He replied casually.  I froze. “Whaaat?” I asked. “Come on,” Dimitri grumbled, “I was taking you to the Principia.” I frowned but before I could complain, something whacked me on the back of my head, sending me crashing against a surprised Dimitri. I sent us both to the ground, a third person on top of me. I face-planted on the grass while the rest of my body was on top of Dimitri. The third person completely sprawled on top of me. “Urgh.” I mumbled, my voice muffled with the pounds of grass that had entered my mouth. The person on top of me rolled away and I gasped for breath. “Please stop doing that.” I complained, rolling away from Dimitri.  Dimitri leapt to his feet faster than a normal person could possibly see. When he stopped becoming a blur, I saw he had materialized behind a slim girl and was holding a dagger to her neck. I yelped and scrambled away. The girl just rolled her eyes, “Jeez Dimitri, you were going to gut your own sis?” he stepped back, his dagger disappearing into the back pocket of his jeans. “What are you doing here Thaila?” he asked irritably. Meanwhile, I was studying the girl dusting herself. She had shoulder length blond hair and pale skin. Her eyes shone like emeralds. She was wearing a pastel-colored knee length dress. She looked at me, “sorry.” She said. “No prob.” I replied, getting to my feet. “What are you doing here?” Dimitri asked again. The girl-Thaila-shrugged and said, “I was shadowing to the Principia when I felt the strong presence of two powerful hunters. I knew that only you and I radiate that level of power so I knew you were here. But I wanted to investigate the other one.” She looked me up and down. “Urgh.” Dimitri complained, “You delayed us. Now I’ll have to wait ‘till tomorrow to show him around our center and convince him we’re not mad.” She rolled her eyes, “what are you doing here anyway? If you wanted to show him the Principia, why didn’t you take him straight there? Are we in Italy?” she added. “Of course I tried to take him to Principia,” Dimitri drawled, “he slipped and landed here. Now if you’ll excuse us, I’ll unfreeze time in the graveyard.” Thaila scoffed, “I’ll take him. You hardly know what to do with him.” I looked from one to another like I was watching a tennis match. What the hell was going on? How the hell had I ended up in Italy? And angels? Whaaat? Before I could voice my questions, the girl said, “don’t try to get rid of my grip. I don’t want to drop you in the middle of the Atlantic.” I couldn’t tell if she was joking. I decided to play it safe, so when she gripped my wrist, I didn’t pull back. The last thing I saw was Thaila’s smile before everything started spinning.

After everything stopped being upside-down I found myself standing not three centimeters away from Thaila. She blushed and I stepped back awkwardly. Unfortunately, I had landed close to Ethan too. I bumped into him and he toppled backward, still in the looking-behind position he had been when frozen. He landed on the ground and I sighed. It took Thaila and me exactly 23 minutes to pick him back up. Hey, frozen statues were heavy. I took a step back with my arms open in case he fell again. He stayed standing. “Jeez, that guy’s heavy.” Thaila complained, pointing at Ethan. I huffed, “tell me about it. Suddenly Thaila’s hair started whipping up. Even mine looked like a miniature tornado. A roar sounded on my ears the suddenly, Ethan flew twenty feet backwards and crashed to the ground the same time a figure clad in black fell from the sky. I blinked in surprise at the sight of a muttering Dimitri getting up and dusting his black outfit. “Do you know how long it took us to stand him again?” Thaila was furious, “what are you doing here?” Dimitri laughed, “Thaila dear, you’re a girl. You’re not very strong. And he,” he pointed at me, “hasn’t discovered his powers. Of course you couldn’t lift a frozen statue. But me... well, it soo hard.” He said, imitating Thaila’s  voice with surprising accuracy. He strutted toward Ethan. When he came upon him, he rolled his eyes and leaning down, he grabbed both of Ethan’s arms. The muscles of his arms rippled under his shirt and suddenly, Ethan was standing. My mouth gaped open, “how the hell did you do that?” Dimitri walked toward me and held out his arms as if he was saying “I’m innocent.” He gestured at me to do the same. I held up my arms. I placed my palms against his. We looked at each other, Dimitri still on his shades and at the same time, we pushed. If I had done this kind of effort against a boy at school, I would’ve sent him flying, but Dimitri didn’t even move an inch. I strained to push him backward, but he didn’t move- and he wasn’t even pushing back. I growled and pushed harder. Dimitri laughed and turned to Thaila, “he’s strong, I’ll give you that.” He commented. Then he began pushing. I braced myself as best as I could, but the guy’s arms were like iron. Slowly, gaining speed, I began to tear a path through the grass as he pushed me backward effortlessly. I struggled to move forward, but I couldn’t even stop my retreat. Finally, Dimitri straightened and laughed. I scowled, but stopped pushing. I felt my eyes flash like they did every time I was angry and a look of terror washed over Thaila’s face. “No!” Dimitri yelled, slapping my head to a side. The moment my head was turned, there was a searing hot feeling in my head and with a crackle of electricity, a lightning bolt arced down and incinerated the tree I was staring at. I blinked in surprise, feeling the heat diminish. Dimitri whistled, “Nice.” Thaila gasped as she saw the charred remains that could’ve been her. “We need to work on your temper and control of your powers, but eventually, I think you might actually be able to-” “Shut up!” Thaila screamed, “Don’t you dare get that word into his head!” Dimitri burst out laughing, “imagine in the middle of astronomy, wheeeee!” Thaila turned the color of root beer while I watched Dimitri cracking up. “You’re both insane.” I declared. “And what do you mean, nice? That strike could’ve hit us. There’s a storm coming, so I better go home.” I began backing up. “dude, I said, nice, because you wouldn’t have incinerated yourself. Unless you are suicidal. Are you suicidal?” he considered me. I blinked. “Shut up Dimitri, and come on, they’re expecting us.” Thaila interrupted, she turned to me, “And we’ll be seeing each other.” She looked me up and down. Then there was a rustle and thousands of leaves engulfed her completely, spinning and making my hair whip around. When the leaves fell limply to the ground, Thaila was gone. I kept blinking like an owl until Dimitri said, “huh. Drama queen.” Then he sprinted a few steps, made a back handspring and halfway through a backward somersault, he disappeared. Talk about drama queens. Just then, Ethan spoke. “Dude! How did you get there? Weren’t you just standing...” he pointed to a side, scratched his head, grunted and pointed in the other direction, “and wasn’t I just standing there...?” he started walking in circles. I was starting to freak out. Italy? What? I decided I’d have to tell someone or I’d go nuts. I opened my mouth and, “don’t be ridiculous Ethan. Let’s go home.” I turned and promptly walked toward the exit.