Hunter: Gods & Monsters

Chapter 20

In the week since his hospital release, Zane was getting better, almost quicker than I was. Mum had been in Mum mode, looking after him better than the nurses had with an endless buffet of his favourite things and I was sure he was never going to leave her cooking. Dad had even been, happy, doting on Zane nearly as much as Mum was. It was strange, and gave me plenty of ammunition against Jordan whenever he started annoying me, since Zane was the son they had always wanted.

Today though, everything was different. They had to go back to work, unable to reschedule their lives any longer and the three of us were acting like teenagers left at home alone. After pretending Jordan was invisible, drawing on Zanes face when he slept and finding myself pouring gravy out of my shampoo bottle to wash my hair with, prank time was quickly replaced with a movie marathon. An endless pile of Jordans favourite action movies were lined up ready to go, while the reality was, this was going to be the first real test of what magic I could do again. My attempt at teleporting myself to the Academy the day before had failed, so who knew what would happen now.

I sat between Jordan and Zane, focusing on the coffee table in front of us, trying to hide how nervous I was. I simply told them I was a person before my powers and could still function like a normal person; I got an odd look but they didn't push it. I forgot how annoying pulling jeans on could be.

"I want those little black cats, and wizz fizz," Jordan demanded while I closed my eyes.

"Who eats that?" Zane didn't hide his disgust.

"Who doesn't?"

"What do you want?" I ask him instead, before this turns into an argument.

"Mangoes." Zane answers smugly.

"You can't have mangoes during a movie marathon. We need popcorn, and junk food. Not mangoes!" He gasps.

"I nearly died, I can have mangoes if I want."

"Okay, shut up. Both of you." I think of the junk food spread Jordan wants and the mangoes Zane requested. Daring to open my eyes, it's all there.

"Nice, Ellie!" Jordan makes a grab for a bowl of popcorn, frowning as he throws a handful into his mouth. "This tastes like mangoes."

I take some and he's right. We tried a few different things, but it's all mango flavoured. Zane happily slices into some of the fruit, unbothered by my siblings dilema.

"Maybe I thought too much about mangoes? Let me try again." So I do and the flavours seem to correct themselves.

"How are things, you doing ok?" Zane asks while Jordan is so engrossed in Rambo I don't think he would notice an elephant walking through the house right now.

"Yeah. I feel good today, powers are back though from that little experiment, I don't quite trust them just yet."

"Well, they were the best mangoes I've ever had." He smiles, yet it doesn't last. "Seriously though, you good?"

"I am, honest. Don't worry." Of course that makes him frown. "So, what are your plans once you're all healed."

Zane hesitates. "I'm asking Ailin to assign me a team again, hopefully even with some of my old crew if they want to."

"No more Academy?" I try not to hide my disappointment.

"Na kid. It was a nice break, but it's not me. I thought if I stuck it out, tried harder, it would end up working out. Maybe once I hit real old man status," He smirked. "Like your Dad."

"I don't like it."

"I know, but it felt good to be back out there, well, before you know. Plus, I didn't know those guys. I happened to be just hearing about the mission, they had a team leader and just needed one more to join them since their usual go to was sick. I thought it would be easy, I wasn't even going to be in charge of anything." He sighed. "I missed the hunt. I missed it all. Even when I thought I was going to die, I was kind of glad it wasn't because of the boredom of what had become my everyday life. I also hated I wasn't with my team. The guy leading it made a few mistakes early on and he didn't want to listen to me either. I'd never let my team do what they did. I put it all in the report."