Breakable

Chapter Thirteen

I was currently filling myself up on Chinese takeaway food, we had stayed at the creek for a few hours, Tara had finally convinced me to get back in the water after proving to me none of them had leaches on them and the only reason I had been unlucky was because I had stopped downstream where they hang around when I should have gone upstream because they can't handle fast moving water.
Yeah well, that would have been goo to know before I walked away from everyone, headed exactly for the damn leaches. And not one person warned me about it either. And since we had all missed lunch, we decided to have an early dinner, too.
Lukas and Tara had gone to get it while the rest of us cleaned up and got dressed, I was back in my cotton shorts and tank top after my thorough shower, scrubbing all the itchy marks left behind on my body, even though it was only early afternoon I was now relaxing in my light fabric pyjamas.
When they got home I had taken my food and retreated to the lounge room, much to Rowans annoyance and everyone had followed me, including the complaining witch.
I was starving, all that swimming and sun tanning had my stomach feeling like it was eating itself and it didn't help that the only thing I'd eaten today was toast.
I was obviously not wasting any time as I shovelled the food into my mouth and groaned in delight at my first bite. I hadn't even waited until I had chosen a seat, instead I had started eating on my way to the damn loungeroom.
I was now seated on the bean bag in front of Tara, Lukas and Carson on the four-seater lounge, Amari was on the single couch and Rowan was on the two-seater against the wall. We had all agreed on watching an action movie, suggested by yours truly.
"That's so unrealistic," Carson groaned. Surprisingly, he had decided to eat tonight with the rest of us even though he doesn't need to.
"That's because it's a movie. Shut up and enjoy it!" I whisper/yelled over my shoulder. It was starting to get dark outside now, the light behind the curtains was fading but I didn't want this to end. Tonight, was the first time we had really felt like a proper family and I realised I had really missed the comfort of knowing you could trust someone. I felt like I was finally fitting in with this unusual group and I never wanted this feeling to go away.
I had a satisfied smile on my face as I refocused on the movie, it was a blood bath and I was smiling. See? That's why I love these people, I can smile at a massacre and they won't even blink an eye at me.
I chuckled quietly, but everyone ignored my odd behaviour. I stood up to go get myself a drink from the kitchen and caused Lukas and Carson to groan in-sync at me.
"Come on, move!"
"You're in the way!"
"Jeez, calm down." I said, achieving a glare from the both of them. I put my hands up in surrender as I walked out of way of the tv. "I'm going!"
I passed the stairs and entered into the hallway to the kitchen, pulling open the fridge I grabbed the juice and then a glass from the cupboard.
I was in the middle of pouring myself half a glass when the window above the sink smashed on my right, causing me to reflexively duck and cover my head. A small scream escaped my lips as I hit the ground and before I knew what was happening people dressed in full black were climbing through the window, I leapt up and took a few steps back as I faced off with the three guys that were already standing in the kitchen.
My back hit a hard chest and I silently prayed it wasn't another intruder and instead it was someone coming to check out what the noise was. I looked over my shoulder and sighed in relief when I saw Rowan's hard face glaring over my head at the intruders. Carson and Amari were standing behind him and Lukas and Tara were behind them.
"We're here to bring in the weapon. No harm will come from us to you if you let us take her peacefully." The intruder standing on the right said, they were wearing black masks, so it was hard to find any difference between them. They just looked like secret agent soldiers or something ready to kidnap me, but I've had my fair share of kidnappings and I wasn't going anywhere with these guys, that's for sure.
"I don't understand why you want me." I said. I mean I get that I'm a 'weapon' but what does that even mean? Do they have a reason they need a weapon and they think it's perfectly appropriate for them to just kidnap me to use it?
"The Chatswood family were out allies; we've spent decades trying to prefect the experiments and now that we have you belong to us." Another masked man answered.
"I don't belong to anyone." I sneered.
"Oh, but you are wrong, dear weapon. We made you, you belong to us as our property to do with what we please, when we please. You are our puppet." The first man snarled. "Come with us where you belong before things get ugly."
"You will leave now, or you will be killed...Less peacefully." Rowan growled out, his hand coming down to rest lightly on my arm as if to hold me in place.
I noticed the three guys all had swords about the length of my outstretched arm, we, on the other hand, had no weapons since we had all been relaxing after coming back from our swim. I think the only one of us wearing weapons was Amari and that's only because she went no where without at least a dagger.
No more people were climbing through the broken kitchen window, but I could see shadows moving around back there, informing me that there were plenty more of them out there.
The three masked men pointed their swords at us and I tried to take another step back into Rowans chest, his grip tightened and before I could blink I was yanked back as Carson and Amari charged forward.
Amari's pale hair was floating as she swirled mid-air and landed on one of the men, her handy dagger already through his throat as she went down on top of him. Carson flew towards the other two, kicking one back into the sink as he gripped the first one and ripped his throat out with his teeth before he could even use the sword in his hand in defence.
The second guy lunged forward with is sword and Carson through the twitching body of the first guy at him, Amari crept up from behind, her arm came up and she sliced his throat.
I could barely see the white floor, blood covered every inch as the bodies splayed on the ground leaking blood from all three throats.
"There's more," I breathed.
"We need to get you safe, follow me." Rowan said, he grabbed my arm and started dragging me through the hall. I yanked my arm out of his grip and glared at him.
"I hope you don't think I'm going to run and hide."
"Well you're not fighting."
"Excuse me but this is my fight! They're here for me." I argued.
"And I don't care. Stop wasting time." He tried to grab for my arm again but I stepped back out of reach.
A golden brown wolf, trotted up beside me and I recognised the colour of Tara's wolf. I don't even know when she changed, I swear she was just standing behind me in human form.
Tara stood half in front of my legs, half next to me and she bared her teeth at Rowan. I guess that's her way of choosing my side?
Rowan growled in frustration, hands pulling at his hair as he looked through the hall to the front door. "Fine," He snapped, "but you stay where I can see you."
I nodded, I'm fine with that. At least I could be sure of backup if I needed it.
Just then the front door banged open and five or more men came charging into the large area before the stairs. Just how many of them were there?
Rowan held his hands together tightly, as he slowly opened them there was a small ball of blue energy and the wider his hands opened the bigger the ball got. When it got to the size of a basketball he threw the energy ball at the five advancing men.
It only knocked three of them back, the one who had been directly hit in the chest wasn't moving but the other two groaned as they got back up. Rowan ran to the other four, fists flying, with Tara's wolf on his heels.
Tara was mauling as many people as she could, giving out bites here and there to slow them down or make them back away from Rowan. There were already more men moving in through the front door and I took this as my queue to stop watching and get involved.
One of the masked men came to stand in front of me and before he could pull his sword I lunged, tackling him to the floor where I sat atop him. With one hand I held his sword down, with the other I gripped his chin roughly to look into my eyes.
I felt the same feeling come over me as the background noise grew silent and all I could focus on was his dilating pupils through the mask. "Kill the masked men." I ordered, hoping that the compulsion would work.
His body froze up and I scrambled off him quickly as he pulled two daggers from his belt and turned against his own men. He downed two and injured one before they killed him, and I quickly picked up his sword that he had left on the ground.
Does that count for me killing three if I wasn't the one to spill their blood? Wrong timing, I'll think about it later.
The sword was heavier than I thought it would be and I was suddenly grateful of the training I had done with Amari. I pulled it up over my shoulder as one of them came running at me and I swung the sword like a baseball bat, it connected with his skull and got stuck. The man dropped with the blade still impaled in his head and I lost my grip on the handle.
I turned around to look for another weapon, to see a masked man coming at me from behind, sword swinging. My hands came up to cover my face, but the contact was never made, when I looked the man who had been storming towards me was now getting ripped apart by Tara.
I breathed a sigh of relief and her wolfs head swung towards me, face completely covered in blood and drool leaking from her snarling snout.
"Thank you." I said breathlessly, before she took off again. I walked over to the guy she had ripped apart and cringed as I pulled a dagger from his belt.
Rowan was still standing by the front door and it looked like no one else was out there waiting to come in, there was still six people inside and four of them were attempting to kill Rowan.
Tara was attacking one of the men but when the other started running towards the kitchen where Amari, Lukas and Carson were still fighting, her instincts kicked in and she legged it after the running man.
I looked back over to Rowan, preparing to head over and give him a hand with the four guys when one of them stepped behind Rowan and my eyes widened as he pushed a dagger into Rowan's back.
"No!" I screamed, Rowan's eyes met mine and time froze as he fell to one knee. His hand reaching around to the wound pouring out blood. I shook my head back and forth in disbelief as my eyes stayed glued on him, he groaned as his body lent forward and ended up laid out on his stomach, giving me a clear view of the blood soaking into his shirt. "NO!"
My eyes filled with tears that silently slipped down my cheeks and I felt like time had slowed down, my skin felt weird. It was tingling as if I had static rubbing against my bare flesh.
My hand came up before I even knew what I was doing and I flicked my wrist, the men flew backwards into the wall and I ran to Rowan, hands putting pressure on the wound.
"Rowan? Rowan! Don't die, you stupid bastard." I screamed at him, "Wake up! Death doesn't deserve you! Not yet." I sobbed. "Please, don't die."
"I'm fine." Rowan groaned, "I'll be fine Casey. I promise."
My heart stuttered in my chest and I leaned down to his face, his eyes were squeezed closed and he looked like he was in pain. "You promise?"
"Yes," he rasped, "I promise."
A cloud of relief fell over me and tears slipped down my face rapidly. He's okay. He's alive.
It felt like my beating heart was ripped from my chest as the image of him when he had looked at me as soon as he was stabbed flittered through my mind, all the noise seemed to blur together and I stood up, leaving Rowan and walking to the middle of the room. The men were now standing again and picking up their weapons as they turned to face me.
"Come peacefully, we don't want to harm you." One of them said, as he pulled out his sword.
I let out a shaky breath, "If you want me, come and get me." I whispered. I tilted my head slightly as I took in the four of them, there was something in me, dying to come and out play and with the picture of Rowan replaying in my head over and over again, I think these guys were going to be the perfect toys. 
I wasn't going to let them get away with what happened, Rowan meant something to me. I was here because of him, I was safe because of him. And I was going to kill every last one of those masked men that thought they could hurt him and get away with it.
They took a few steps towards me and I felt my skin tingle again as black sparks covered my bare skin, my hair and my hands. I closed my eyes as they approached, I felt something tug at hard in my head. I don't know how I knew but I knew that something was happening inside me, I felt something unlock when Rowan's eyes had met mine and whatever it was inside me, controlling these gifts wanted to bring out something new that I haven't seen before. When I opened my eyes again, there was a shimmering bubble of black sparks surround me and the four men. Their eyes were wide, and I could feel my wild hair floating slightly.
My hands tingled as the small sparks, lit up and grew bigger and bigger by the second. I could hear someone calling my name from outside my bubble, but it wasn't registering in my head, I felt like someone else had taken over my body. Someone who knew how to use the abilities I had forced inside me.
My hands went out to the sides of my bubble and right before my eyes, black lighting shot from the side of the bubble, eliminating everything except me to an electrocuted corpse. The smelling of burning flesh filled my bubble as the strange electricity/lightning things shot around my bubble and continued hitting the already dead bodies. Having all that power shooting through my veins, shooting through my body...It felt good. I felt alive, I felt stronger then I have ever been in my life.
It didn't last long.
My knees gave out and as I hit the ground my bubble disappeared along with the strange magic that I had somehow produced.
Sound finally came back to me and I could hear Rowan roaring my name, as well as vicious growling and snarling from two different places in the room but I couldn't focus on anything.
"Rowan?" I croaked quietly.
After feeling all the power flowing through me, I now felt like my whole body had pushed out every last bit of energy left in me. I could barely move; I couldn't barely talk and I felt darkness getting closer to taking me from consciousness.
All that power, all the strength has left me powerless and weak. So weak, I don't think I could keep myself awake much longer. I really hope everyone is alright and the rest of the masked men were dead.
I felt hands pulling my head up, I could hear Rowan's voice in my ears as he pulled me to his chest, and I could feel fingers on my throat checking for a pulse.
At least he was okay. I don't know what I would have done if he had gotten killed. It would have been my fault; this was all my fault. They were here for me; I could have gotten any of my new loved ones hurt or killed just by being here.
I couldn't do that to them. Not after everything they have done for me.
"You're not leaving, Casey." Rowan whispered roughly in my ear. "I promised you now you have to promise me."
"I promise." I croaked out, barely audible.
His voiced faded softly as the darkness finally took over.