The Shooting Star

(5) Cinco: The Battle of the Atlantic Storm Cloud

The night was beginning to fall and the air grew cold. There, me, Henrie, and new companion #2, Ricky, were preparing to kidnap— sorry, save new companion #1, Lily, from her wicked mother's grasp. To be fair, I'd want to escape to. Ricky has a whole stash of weapons: a katana, rope, chains, smoke grenades, stun grenades, even a set of throwing knives... but no gun.

We sat in Ricky's underground hideout, a wet and cold hole that is barely habitable. I was able to start a fire for us, but we didn't want to draw attention, so we ended up making a very small fire, which kind of defeats the purpose.

"Okay," Ricky started, "Lily doesn't know that we are coming back tonight, and her mother could be anywhere in the house, so we have to be so super careful. Any sight of someone other than Lily will trigger her, and she will blow."

"What fighting strategies do we have?" Henrie asked, "I still don't know what her abilities are."

"Well, of course, she can tell us the weather," I said, making us all laugh. "No, seriously, though. She's dangerous." Ricky replied.

"And so are we! I can shoot fire for Christ's sake." I said, standing up, "And we're about to save Lily from that Cloud Demon of a mom!" I jump up and climb out of the hole, Henrie and Ricky following. "And after this, maybe you two can start catching up on your romance," I added sarcastically. I saw Ricky look confused but amused at the comment, and Henrie looking embarrassed. I don't know why he's so awkward at times, I'm doing all the work.

From the hole, we could see the lights from their small, blue house, and we were ready to approach it. "Do you see that?" I said, slowly crouching towards the home, "The light." Just as Henrie described, there was this blue tall figure passing by windows inside the house. I couldn't tell what exactly it was due to the curtains and the distance, but it was definitely strange, sending chills down my spine. "Okay, the thing is on the other side of the house, so we can get into Lily's room."

We go back down into the dark tunnel from the back yard, me lighting the tip of my finger on fire for light, and we climb up the plant and crawl through it, entering back into Lily's bedroom. The room was lit with a lantern, and I just noticed how large it was, and how green. Both the walls and furniture were shades of green and plants were everywhere, even coming out of the floorboards.

"Lily's not in here, but we can't leave this room." Ricky whispered to us cautiously, "We can't risk her mother seeing us."

"We didn't come all the way down here for us to just sit here in the room waiting for her to come back, she could already be gone."

"I don't know, Jasmine," Henrie said nervously, "There's a chance we could get caught before even finding Lily."

"There's only one way to find out, right? We have powers, remember? We can handle this." I walk up to the door slowly and crack it open. I stick my head out and look down the hallway. Behind a wall, down by the kitchen and living room, I can see the shadow— or the light, I guess— of the mother, a blue gleam coming from around the corner. And even farther back, I could see the famous Lily. She looked a lot younger for some reason. Her hair was put up into a high ponytail and she was wearing a loose light blue short dress. She kept her eyes down on the table and wasn't moving.

I tried to get her attention. I flashed fire, blinking it a few times hoping it would show up in the corner of her eye, but she couldn't see it. "I see her," I said to Henrie and Ricky, closely waiting behind me. I looked back into her room and grabbed a pencil off of a desk, and went back. I lit the tip on the fire, a nice green one, and began to wave it up and down in the hallway. She noticed it. She looked up at me and I waved at her, pointing in the direction of her room. She smiled at me, flinched at her mother and then went back to looking down. Did her mother see her smiling down the hallway? I flashed back into the room.