Quick update on my birthday. Sorry it's not much.
The day following her visit to her father was by far the most difficult for Pippa. School had been a bore, she was distracted in every class she had; she had no appetite at all no matter what she tried to do to make herself feel any emotion other than sadness. Jamie had stayed by her side basically the entire day for support. Frankly she just wanted to be alone, but she appreciated having him there nevertheless.
She sat on her bed alone and stared out the window as the tiny droplets of water fell against the glass, trickling down in jagged lines. Her own lines of liquid dripped down from her eyelids. She couldn't stop worrying about her dad. The nurses had assured her and the Bennetts that he'd be perfectly fine given time. They just had to monitor his breathing for a while to make sure the amount of smoke he inhaled was not lethal. Their words didn't exactly fill Pippa with confidence.
Her head fell onto her arms that hugged her knees. She tried to stop crying, slowly bringing her tears to an end. A light tapping snapped her neck back into place. She looked over at the window. Outside, Jaz was floating on the other side of her window. Her eyes were wide at the sight of her. After a moment, she scrambled to her feet and threw the window opened. Jaz flew in.
"How could you?" Pippa screamed at her. Jaz stumbled backwards, slamming into her desk. She hadn't expected such aggression. Pippa's eyes were practically flooding.
"Pippa…" she whispered, not knowing why her friend was like this. Pippa spun around, her head sinking to her chest. Jaz edged her way over. She placed a hand on her shoulder but the teenager whipped back around.
"It's your fault!" she yelled, not caring if her mother heard her talking to herself. She pushed Jaz away. "It's all your fault!" Jaz was speechless.
"He's going to die and it's all because of you!" Her shouting was mixed with weeping. "I hate you! Get out! I never want to see you again!" Terrified as to what was going on and why she was acting like this, Jaz flew back out the window. Pippa collapsed to the floor, crying into her arm.
Jaz flew across Burgess, still stunned as to why Pippa had reacted the way she did. What was her fault? What had she done? Who was going to die? She had to find someone who could tell her what was going on. She spotted someone running across the empty road, holding his jacket over his head to stop himself getting wet from the downpour. Even from the distance she was at from him, Jaz recognized it was Jamie. She soared down to meet him. She called out his name once he was in ears distance. He looked up into the grey sky, seeing the fiery spirit flying down towards him. He kept running until he had reached shelter from the weather. She landed beside him. He crossed his arms.
"I'm going to guess you just came from Pippa's?" he presumed.
"How'd you know?" she asked him.
"You've got that look of confusion on your face. No doubt she's spoken to you about her father." Jaz rubbed the back of her neck.
"Screamed to me more like" she muttered. "Wait, what about her father?"
"He's in hospital. Apparently he got caught in one of those recent fires." Jaz's face paled. She couldn't believe it. So that was why Pippa was blaming her. "Why'd you do it?"
She wasn't prepared for Jamie's question. "What?"
"Why'd you do it?" he repeated. "Was it for a bit of fun? Were you bored?" Jaz didn't answer straight away. "Jaz it's not just Pippa's father who's hurt. People were killed in those fires."
"Jamie I didn't set them. I came as soon as I found out about them so I could put them out, but I'm not the reason they started." The teen didn't look convinced.
"Yeah, well try telling that to Pippa." He left her, feeling as betrayed as his friend and just as hateful.
Jaz sat on the roof of a building in Burgess out in the open. As much as she usually hated the cold winds blowing against her, for once she felt at peace around them. The wind was about the only one she had left. The Guardians didn't believe her, Pippa hated her, and now even Jamie refused to speak to her.
She kept her head down, her dark hair hiding her face from sight. She never wanted anyone to get hurt, but there wasn't anything she could have done to stop the fires. She hadn't controlled them. She knew she was right about Hallows. It had to have been her to set them; she just didn't understand why. What did she have against her? Jaz thought Hallows was unaware of her and only hated the other guardians. Something wasn't right. She had to fix things, staring with her believers. She eyed the Burgess hospital in the distance. She had to try.
She took flight on the wind and took off towards the hospital. She searched through every window of the building, searching for the room he was in. She finally found him and came up to the right level. Carefully making sure she didn't run into anyone and burn them, she made it to the room she had located him in. He lay on a firm looking bed, his numerous burns scarring his body. She held out her hand over a large one on his shoulder and focused her power on retracting the fire's energy being conserved within his skin. It was a long and exhausting process, much more than she was used to. She was left gasping for air when she finished. The burn was still there but was almost completely healed over. She took a moment to catch her breath before attempting to heal the others. She fell to her knees as her draining power started ebbing away into the wounds of the unconscious man. Her healing powers worked for fire related injuries, though she had never tried on false burns and knew it would take a lot more from her in order to heal them completely. She forced herself back to her feet. She had to keep trying; for Pippa's sake.
Her tired eyes gazed down onto his slowly healing body. The subtle rise and fall of his chest concerned her. She shook her head, trying to rid herself of exhaustion. She placed a hand on her chest and gripped the handle her dagger without removing it from its receptacle. Once she had absorbed enough power from it, she hovered her hand over his mouth. Her eyes shut tight. A black haze started to emerge from his cold lips. Her hand trembled uncontrollably as she pulled the smoke from his lungs. The dark stream continued to flow from his mouth, being inhaled by the teenage spirit to prevent it infecting any other. The last amount of it was cleansed from his body, his breathing patterns returning to normal. Jaz stumbled backwards, her mind barely conscious from the poison now inside her. She saw Pippa's father resting peacefully. A small smile graced her black stained lips as her surroundings began to blur together. She tripped on the equipment around his bed, plummeting out the window. The winds blew all around her, as if trying to catch her before she hit the ground, but her unfocused and near unconscious mind made it impossible for them to take hold of her.
