A/N: Holey cow, we're in the 30s! They grow up so fast... (snif)
The bookshelf closed right on their faces, Ivor disappearing from view with a smirk as the shelves slammed together slowly. Jesse slowly came to a stop right in front of the now-shut entrance, and turned slowly as Axel tripped, even falling unnaturally slowly. Jesse hadn't found the effect funny then. She definitely didn't find it funny now.
"Waaattccchhhh iiit," Lukas said, before suddenly everything returned to normal speed, "Get out of the way!" he yelled.
Axel screamed, which became audible, before rather violently faceplanting only an inch from Jesse's feet, who stared at her friend with wide eyes. He'd come dangerously close to flattening the much-smaller female.
There was a short silence, with Axel not getting up off the floor, all of their eyes wide as everyone panted, silently.
"Everyone okay?" Jesse finally asked, a bit shakily.
Axel groaned at her feet, still not pushing himself off the ground. "I felt all of that," he moaned.
Olivia chuckled and winced a bit. "That was one heck of a landing, Axel," she said, rubbing her curly head concernedly.
"He mostly used his face," Lukas agreed, wincing a bit.
Jesse held out her hand to Axel (one of the lower ones), which he took and used to unsteadily steady himself and lurch to his feet. "We need to find Soren," Jesse said immediately, looking around. Jesse searched around the area, glancing through the bookshelves.
She turned back around to notice Petra wasn't with them, and walked over to her friend, who was kind of hunched over by a white table. Petra lifted her head a bit, making Jesse's heart shoot into her throat in fear.
Petra looked worse. Her skin was literally a shade of pale gray, and her eyes were going even darker gray, a huge deviation from the gold tint it used to be. Her arm also seemed stiffer, and the bruise thing was was spreading. The bags forming under Petra's eyes were a darker shade of gray than her skin, and Petra's face was beaded with sweat.
When Jesse spoke, her voice was a whisper, so as to not attract attention, but also because she was incredibly concerned. "Petra?"
Petra raised her head even more at Jesse's concerned tone. "I'm fine," she insisted, before Jesse could even ask.
"You don't look fine," Jesse responded.
"Everything's fine, all of it," Petra argued back.
"Doesn't look it," and Jesse reached out to put her hand on Petra's shoulder.
The moment her hand made contact, she instantly pulled away, a pained gasp tearing at her throat, frost smoking on her hand. It wasn't a lot, but Jesse had felt it through the cloak, which was already pretty thick. That was... bad. Very, very bad.
"Are you o-" Petra was cut off with a cough, "wait, are you-" another cough- "are you-" She went into a full blown coughing fit, her entire body shaking violently as spasms tore through her chest.
Jesse reached out instinctively and put her hands on Petra's shoulders, ignoring the frost that was now smoking on her hands, steadying her redhead friend.
Petra was silent, not even bothering finishing her question, before she showed Jesse her Blaze-Rod arm. "Look at this," she said, quietly. The purple was spreading, fast. The veins were turning purple, almost black, the ones that weren't going dull gray, at least. "I'm not trying to freak you out... but I'm a little freaked out right now. It's feeling really stiff." And Petra pulled herself into a hug, hands cradling her elbows and head lowered again, nestling deeper into the cloak with a harsh shiver. "And my vision's all jittery."
"We need to tell the others," Jesse said immediately, seriously.
"This isn't a 'we' thing," Petra argued back, shooting Jesse a glare that didn't scare Jesse in the least, because of how much energy it lacked.
THAT scared her, though.
Jesse put her hand on Petra's shoulder and forced the redhead to make eye contact with her. "Hey. We're all a team, okay? We're friends. And our friends deserve to know." She smiled encouragingly at Petra, or as encouragingly as she could while her hand smoked painfully.
"Maybe." Petra didn't seem too encouraged, as Jesse was forced to finally pull her hand away and rub them together to keep herself from getting frostbite, "Look, I-I'll them. Eventually." Petra's eyes dropped to the floor. It seemed as if lifting her head took too much energy right now.
"You have to," Jesse insisted.
"It's just gonna cause panic. And we can't afford that right now. I'll tell everyone, I swear. But... let me do it. Please... don't tell anyone, not even if they ask," Petra pleaded, which was what really scared Jesse- Petra was practically begging her. And the redhead never begged anyone. In fact, she'd rather punch them in the mouth, now that Jesse thought about it.
Jesse sighed, a sound that disappeared into the air silently, before whispering her agreement quietly. "Okay." And she did her signature oath, crossing her heart and then covering her eye but not actually saying the oath. As Petra went back over to the others, satisfied, Jesse whispered the oath, quietly, so no one could hear her voice.
"Cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye, we were friends then, we're friends now, I'll stay your friend, even as I break my vow."
A/N: Jesse's gonna tell Lukas in this version, as you can probably tell from the oath.
One of my shorter chapters, but I wanted to end on the oath.
(sigh) and while I have almost 25 reviews on this story I haven't seen any of them. Is it bad that I really, really want the reviews section to die a slow and painful death?
x.X. A.L. X.x
