Chapter 5: Ivy

We split into two separate cars. I went with Terry, and Eli in my car, and Connor took Eric and Abigail. We met up at 7:30, and we packed up all of our stuff. I brought all my stuff since I didn't have much left after the fire.

Eli insisted on driving the entire ride, it was going to be four or five hours before we reached Eli's aunt's house in North Maine. He said when she decided to sell it, she just gave the keys to Eli, and never actually sold it. She told him it was an early graduation gift, but nobody else knew. We were going to stay there.

The drive up was long and we hit all the traffic possible, turning our five our car ride into an over ten-hour car ride. Not including our stop for breakfast, and then eventually lunch and dinner as well. We stopped at a diner for breakfast, none of us really talking all that much. By lunch we had more to say, talking about the scenery and the moose we had seen on out way up. Connor said that Abigail knocked the CD's off his holder, and Eric told me it was scary how powerful she was with the power. I told him that our ride was funny, how Eli could hear everything we thought.

"He told me I was good at improving lyrics to songs."

"Oh gosh, you must be!" He gave me a big cheesy smile. He made me laugh, and I finished my soup and salad. I wanted something more, but I felt it was all I could stomach with all the stress.

We left the little café soon, and we went on our way until dinner around six. We ate quickly since none of us was that hungry, and Eric even fell asleep on my shoulders for a little bit. I felt bad for him; he wasn't going to be there for the birth of his new sibling… He had to be the most upset out of everyone. We left to go the last two hours around seven.

It was dark in northern Maine, and Eli had been driving the entire ride up. I offered to drive, but he told me I would have a panic attack driving on the roads. Terry was asleep in the passenger seat, and I was sitting in the back seat, watching the forest go by on either side. I sat dead middle.

My eyes didn't want to stay open, but I forced them to, afraid that I would close them and something would happen. The highway didn't have a guardrail in the middle, which I found very strange. It was just wide open with a yellow line down the center.

Eli cracked open windows, making me pull the hood up on my sweatshirt. Terry started to wake up from the chill, and Eli closed the window to keep her comfortable.

All of a sudden the inside of the car seemed to go into slow motion, as we veered off over the yellow line down the middle, and into the wrong lane. My heart went into my chest as I realized Eli had passed out, and when I looked ahead the situation got worse. A tractor-trailer was coming directly at us, the headlights blinding me. I felt weird, and I thought about the car. I thought hard and hoped to god that my thinking would make the car move. I imagined us skidding back into our lane, and then off onto the shoulder, safe and away from all the cars. I felt a sharp pain in my forehead, and I let out a loud and piercing scream, something I didn't think my vocals were capable of pulling off. Without warning the car veered off back into our lane, and off into the dirt of the forest. We were going head on into a tree. Eli and Terry woke up at the sounds of my screams. Terry joined me and Eli fumbled to get hold of the steering wheel, when it started to move on its own. It moved with my thoughts, and I felt in control as I forced the car to slam on the break just as we hit the tree. We barely touched it, but all of the air bags still deployed.

"Is everyone all right?" Eli panicked.

"Eli my nose is bleeding!" Terry exclaimed, scared. I looked up to see her nose dripping blood, probably from the force of the airbag. I took a napkin I had taken from the diner and handed it up to her.

"Tip you head forward Ter, you don't want to choke…"

"Thanks Ivy." She put her head forward, pushing the airbag aside.

"Are you ok Ivy?" Eli turned around in his seat, and looked at me.

"I... I think physically I am fine…" Eli looked at my face, and wiped his finger over my left eyebrow."

"You have a little cut there…but what do you mean physically?"

"What's wrong Ivy?" Terry was muffled through the napkin.

"I… I don't know… I mean when I looked up and saw the truck coming at us, I though about how the car should move back into our lane, and then off into the shoulder, and as soon as I thought that my head started to pound and the car moved… And then when we were about to hit the breaks I felt another shot of pain as I hoped the breaks would hit… And the breaks went off and we barely touched the tree…" I pulled my knees up to my chest, what was happening?

"Eli, sweetie, did you ever touch the break peddle or the steering wheel?" Terry asked him.

"No… I didn't touch it …I didn't even wake up until I heard the two of you screaming, and when I looked up the wheel was moving on its own…"

"What does that mean?" I chirped from the back seat.

"I think you might have a power Ivy, the question is what exactly is?"

"I control cars…"

"I've never heard of that." Terry turned around, the blood done running.

"Can we please not talk about this, I don't want to stress anyone out. You all have your own 'powers' to deal with. Lets not stress them with figuring me out…"

"Ivy that's not fair to you."

"No it's fine, obviously my powers are pretty maintained, so I shouldn't have a hard time." They agreed, but little did we know how wrong I was…