Starling Cambridge and the Mind-Users

Chapter 3

       I shot awake, gasping for air. I was alive, I was alive! I gulp down breathful after breathful of sweet oxygen. I open my eyes and look around the room. The boys are gone and a large wooden cupboard is laying on its side on the floor. The cupboard is so large and so heavy that I know for sure that Nightingale and the boys could not have pushed it over. 

        I shakily get up to my feet and almost immediately fall back to the floor. My left leg is burning like its on fire and my brain is pounding in my skull. Before I can check my leg, I hear a whimper from beneath the cupboard. My brain immediately skips to, GHOST!, but as I walk over to check, I realize that someone is trapped under the cupboard. The person's face is down, pointed towards the ground, so I can't see their face, but the shower of black hair gives her away. 

    Nightingale's body is crushed beneath the cupboard. I couldn't help myself, I thought she was dead, so I screamed. Her head shot up and I could see that her eyes were glossy with tears and pain. 

    " It's okay, it's okay" I whispered gently, trying to comfort her as she screamed and cried. She was probably in some sort of shock because her face was pale and she was shivering. 

    "You," she screamed, " You did this to me, your one of them!" 

     " One of who?" 

    "You're a mind- user, you made this stupid cupboard fly!" 

   "I don't know what you're talking about," I said quietly, not firmly enough. Panic was rushing through my veins. I had to get out of here, but I couldn't just leave Nightingale. My problem was half-solved for Nightingale's benefit because just as I was stepping towards the cupboard, twenty policemen, a couple of firemen, and two teachers flooded the room. The policemen went to work, trying to lift the cupboard off of Nightingale. From the looks of it, the cupboard had for sure crushed both of her legs and likely broken her spine. 

   The two teachers grabbed me roughly by both of my arms and shoved me out of the room. I was too numb and shocked to fight back. I was trying to figure out what I already knew. I kept playing Nightingale's words over and over again in my head. I made the cupboard fly, but...but that was impossible. Mind-Users were only supposed to have one ability. I forced myself to think it: I had telekinesis, too. 

   I must've been in shock because next thing I know, I'm being shoved down the main hallway on the first floor by two different teachers wearing masks and gloves. Idiots, Mind Users weren't contagious. They roughly had hold of both of my arms as they jerked me down the hallway. They would never treat a normal student like this. I had seen many Mind-User students jerked down the hallway like this, screaming and crying because they knew what would likely happen to them next. 

   My leg was still burning and I could still feel blood dripping down my face. They hadn't even cared enough to fix me up. I was also pretty sure my nose was broken, I could barely breathe out of it and I could feel the congealed blood around my nostrils. Even my fists were banged up from punching Nightingale and her cronies so hard. They were bright red and bleeding. 

   The idiots pushed me into the principle's "office", it was just a corner of the main library downstairs where Principle Dummkopf had set up a dinky little wooden desk and five wooden chairs. The red-headed teacher on the right pushed me into a chair roughly and stood "guard" behind me. I guess they stood there so I couldn't escape? I turned around and looked at the principle. He was a short, pudgy little man with beady little grey eyes and it looked like he was stuck in the eighties because behind his expansive bald spot he had a mullet of blonde curls. He stared at me silently. I stared him right back in the eyes, letting a smug smirk creep onto my lips just for show of carelessness. I would not let any of them see my fear and panic. I would deny everything that the principle said unless it was in my favor. 

    The principle and I sat in silence staring each other down with cold glares, until footsteps walked behind us. The principle broke our little staring contest to look up at the person or persons behind us.  

    "Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Cambridge," he said cheerfully. My heart froze in my chest as I shifted in my seat to look up into my father's menacing grey eyes.