STATIC; JR [2]

5.6

The car ride back to the school was awkward and silent. Bates didn't know what to tell us; he knew that Roland was in the wrong and being way too aggressive for a few school kids who were doing their best to tell the truth. 

Of course, we could have done a lot better than that, but at the same time, spilling over was impossible. They'd send us away and lock us up, none of which would help get Andy home. 

Jake rode up front in the passenger seat but I didn't see him move at all the entire drive. Bates asked him if he was sure he didn't need to go home instead of continuing on with the school day but Jake just shook his head all while struggling to breathe. 

I worried between Felix and Sam in the backseat of the car, bouncing my leg subconsciously as I chewed on my thumb nail. I wanted to scream and cry and demand that Felix save Jake before it was too late, but all I could do was just sit there and stew. I felt Felix gaze on me for most of the ride but I wasn't strong enough to look at him; I felt I might have cried right then and there. 

Bates left us right away when we pulled into the car park behind the school office, mumbling something about how he had to run to cover the junior music class and that he'd see us in the last period. I glanced up at Felix, hoping he'd conjured up some sort of plan to save Jake as we drove back to school, but as he stared down at me with this vacant, scared expression, I realised we were no better off than we were when we'd found out about Jake's illness. 

I stepped around to the other side of the car and frowned when I saw her. She was standing there so expectantly with her hands on her hips and I wanted to slap her. I had never been a violent person before this, never jealous and never overzealous and yet there was just something about the way she was that got under my skin and made me want to rip hers off. 

A large gust of wind blew past us and brushed Felix's dark hair into his eyes. It made him appear more punk than usual, but only for a second before he pushed it back. "We need to get moving." He muttered, glaring at Saskia from across the car park. 

Sam and I helped Jake walk around the buildings and down the hill, hands under his arms and around his waist. I didn't think I was doing too much to aid his movement, but when we approached the fence at the bottom of the field Sam let him go and I didn't fall over, so I must have been doing something. 

He sat Jake down on the grass against the fence and breathed like it was hard to; Jake's legs were made of stone now, so he was a lot heavier than usual and he practically collapsed when Sam let him go. 

"Are you ready?" Sam asked, peering up at Felix from our crouched position on the ground. 

I felt the tears fall down my cheeks before I sensed them in my eyes. I couldn't even think, I thought I was losing my mind when I took in the way Jake looked slouched back into the wire of the fence. I'd never seen him so unresponsive and it scared me so I tried to talk to him. "It's okay." I choked out, reaching out to grab his hand and touch his face. He barely opened his ears to me let alone his eyes. "You're going to be alright and I'm going to be here the whole time. Okay?" 

"Are you sure the talisman can fix this?" Saskia questioned, her facial expression turning the innocent inquiry into some sort of accusation. Felix didn't respond, didn't even look at her, before flattening his palm and placing the magical ornament on top of it. 

He called out to the elements desperately, clinging to the hope that we could save Jake right in this moment. I ran my fingers through his hair and tilted his head back, squeezing his hand as Felix produced the spell behind me. 

"It's not glowing." Sam mumbled, mouth agape as he blindly extended an arm in my direction and touched my leg. "Edith." He said, anxiety coating him. 

Just as I turned away, in the exact second I let my guard down, Saskia swooped down next to me and grabbed Jake around his bicep, a pathetic and futile attempt to comfort him from the pain he was feeling. 

And then he was sick all over her. 

A stunned and confused silence fell over us as we stared at the situation on Saskia's clothes. Jake had nearly fallen forward vomiting on her, which meant that even more energy had been drained from his system; a system that was already in such dire condition. He tried lifting up his arm as he fought to find his voice but any version of that ended badly as he saw his fingers turn to stone. The veins in his arms cracked and separated from the blood beneath, if there was still blood at this point, and he dropped his weight onto the grass with a repulsive thud. He didn't even look real anymore and I wept openly in front of them all, uttering his name and how we were running out of time to save him. 

Sam crawled closer and tugged up Jake's school shirt, revealing the rock that was becoming him. It had moved up across his ribs and I could have sworn I saw dirt fall from the surface of his stomach when Sam dropped the fabric. "The spell made it worse!" He cried, brown eyes wide and accenting a panic more intense than anything I'd ever seen come from him. 

Saskia moaned out beside me and triggered my attention; I saw red as I registered what had happened. She'd touched Jake and he'd grown even sicker, taking away most of the little time we had left and wasting it on some pitiful ploy to get closer to him and it caused fury to touch every tiny crevice of my body. An anger I had never wanted to experience took over my mind and I could suddenly feel everything like I was about to lose it, like she was going to take it from me. 

My fingers burnt with the anticipation of stinging her with the hurt she'd given Jake, clearly something inside him reacted badly when she touched him and I hated that I liked it. I hated that that Sam was wrong and that she was the one who made him worse, and I hated that I felt like I needed to shield him from her. 

I began to lurch forward without ever making the conscious decision to move at all and grabbed her by the shoulders to throw her into the dirt, but before I could offer her the worst she leaped back with a strangled shriek and landed a solid three feet away from me. I knew something more had happened than just me pushing her, it was impossible for me to be that strong, but I just couldn't bring myself to feel anything except what she was making me lose. 

I heard Felix in my ears but his cry of my name sounded so distant from where I was standing and even though I wanted to look at him and sob in his arms, I physically couldn't turn my head. I felt my nails dig into the skin of my palms as I clenched them down, hard, at my sides. The strange blaze in my fingertips mixed with the apprehension that came with knowing you were bleeding threw me out of a normal state of mind and numbed my thought process so much I could only stare in silence at the scene before me; Saskia down in the dirt, dull orbs opened in horrible alarm as she wriggled backwards trying to get away from me. 

I'd seen her produce many feelings in the few days we'd known her, but fear had not been one of them, and yet the longer I continued to squint at her face on the ground I realised that I still wouldn't be able to add it to the list. 

All the air drew from my lungs when I perceived the moment properly and I sensed the cautious energy behind me meant that the others had figured out what I'd done before I was able to. 

I'd electrocuted her.