Chapter 11
I sat on the chair and began to nod off, the lack of sleep and the shock of everything catching up to me. It was about half an hour to an hour later when I was woken up by arguments happening between the members of the house.
"If Shadow was infected," Terra said, "wouldn't Blaze be infected as well?"
"If I was infected," I said, pulling myself out of my sleep, "Do you think I would be idiotic enough to come back here and infect all of you guys? I'm not infected. Heck I don't even carry the virus. For some strange reason, I have immunity to all diseases apart from genetic or hereditary diseases, diseases that are passed on by parents."
"And how would you know that?" Rei asked.
The look on my face told everyone to drop it, so they did. They knew when I didn't want to talk about something, I wouldn't talk. That was something I wanted to keep to myself.
"Alright," I said eventually, "everyone get to bed, we do have school tomorrow as much as we all hate it."
Moaning and groaning followed that comment but eventually everyone went off to their bedrooms and Skye and I were left alone. She held Max in her arms and looked at me questioningly.
"What is that look for?" I asked, "I am allowed to keep some personal stuff to myself aren't I?"
"It's not often you keep something from everyone," Skye said, climbing the stairs to put Max to bed, "So what is so different about what happened tonight?"
I paused for a moment then spoke, deciding to tell Skye.
"You know how Flame can talk to spirits right?" I asked Skye, "I always thought my ability to fuse with spirits ended with the fusion, that I couldn't actually summon them or see them, only become one with them."
"So what changed?" Skye asked me, placing Max in her crib and tucking her in, "what made you think about this."
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," I replied to Skye.
"Try me," was all she said.
"On the way home," I said, "I… how shall I put this…? I saw a ghost of someone close to Me."
"Who?" Skye asked.
"Your going to think I'm nuts," I replied, "But it was my mother. It was Max. She decided to come in contact with me from the other side. It appears I can talk to spirits as well. Must be a shared ability between Flame and I. Max told me about my immunity to diseases, about how my connection to the dead allows me that immunity. She also gave me some advice. Stop worrying so much and just be myself."
"Blaze," Skye said, "In this world, nothing surprises me any more. And take your mothers advice; you worry about us too much."
Chapter 12
The morning was chaotic. Flame and Drake were trying to make breakfast. Notice the emphasis in trying? Terra and Falcon had gotten up late and were rushing around trying to get ready, Skye was fixing up the charcoal mistake that was called breakfast, while taking care of Max and here I was just getting up and not rushing or anything. I had made my decision last night.
"Blaze!" Skye shouted, seeing me walking into the kitchen, "Why aren't you in uniform? We have school today! You know we have to go. The regulations…"
"I know the regulations, Skye," I said, "I know them. But I'm not going to school. The government can forget it. I'm sick of people ruling my life. I'm going to do what I think is right, I'm going to Shadow's region."
Everyone suddenly stopped what they were doing and looked at me like I was crazy. I probably was.
"Blaze?" Drake broke the silence, "Are you feeling ok? You haven't been acting like yourself since last night."
"And how do you know who I am?" I snapped at Drake.
Everyone looked at me surprised. They had never heard me talk like this. I had never acted like this. Everything was going downhill again. I thought with everything at the Installation over, the worst we would have to worry about was the groups of people who wanted to kill us. Now I was worried that my family was going to die sometime in the next month or so because of some idiotic person who decided it would be fun to kill us off with a virus.
"I'm sorry I snapped," I apologized, "I just wish people could accepts us as a part of their lives now. I just want people to leave us alone, accept us into society. Now we have a killer virus on the loose targeting our kind and I don't know when it will show here. To tell you the truth… I'm afraid."
There was a stunned silence from my confession. The entire time I have known my family, they had never heard me use those words. Never, not once since I had met them. Now I was telling them I was afraid.
"I'll come with you," Skye said.
"No," I ordered, "I can't risk letting you get infected, and there is Max to think about. I can't let her get infected as well. I don't know how many of us would be immune to the disease. The only person I'm certain of is Flame. She shares the same affinity to the dead, so she would have the same immunity I would."
"I could help," Falcon said.
"If I even knew what you abilities were," I replied, "I might know if you would be vulnerable or not. Unfortunately I don't even know what they are."
Flacon looked disappointed and a little bit ashamed.
"I don't even know if I have powers," he told me, "If I do they haven't shown up yet."
"Hey," I said, seeing the look on his face, "don't worry about it. I want you to be my eyes and ears here while I'm away. Keep an eye on things for me will ya?"
Flacon nodded, looking happy he could do something for me. I gave a glance at Drake to tell him he was to look after them as well, all of them. Flame, who seemed to have disappeared while I was talking, reappeared, fully clothed for the flight and her backpack full of anything we might need.
"Ready to go?" I asked her, "It'll be a five hour flight, if we have normal conditions, maybe seven with bad weather. Maybe a rest of an hour or so. We should arrive by nightfall. They would be having a meeting about then about why Shadow hasn't returned. That should be interesting to attend."
Flame nodded, indicating she was ready to go. We said our good-byes, a few hugs and kisses and the occasional funny face from Terra and Falcon. Eventually we left, the sun, already up in the sky. I wasn't sure what was going to happen now, but it left me feeling like an amputee not being able to have my entire family with me, not being able to keep them safe. Sometimes the decisions I have to make are hard. This was the worst yet.
Chapter 13
Flame and I arrived at the city just before nightfall. There was only one major problem. We couldn't enter the city. I mean we could have just flown in, if it weren't for the helicopters patrolling the skies around the city. Walking in wasn't possible, all the roads in and out of the city had been barricaded by the military; all traffic was being turned away. They couldn't afford the humans to spread the virus.
Lucky land walkers, I thought, Humans have it easy. They've been around for much longer than we have. Always thinking they have a right to this world. No wonder so many disasters have happened throughout their history. The world probably got sick and tired of their self-righteous attitude and tried to get rid of them, but humans are like roaches, they are hard to kill. Just like the virus we have to face.
I snapped out of my brooding about why humanity is so cruel, and focused on how I could enter the city. The thoughts that were in my mind just now weren't normal. I had slowly begun to change and hadn't realized it until now. My attitude towards life was so negative. I suppose that's what you get for living in constant fear of your life and the lives of those you care for. That and the loathing you feel towards those that have always lived a normal life, while you've lived through the worst nightmare of your life.
A helicopter searchlight shone in our direction and I realized we had flown over the quarantine border into the city limits. A warning shot rang out, whistling past my head so close I could feel the heat.
Wow, I thought, these guys are more paranoid than I am. Shoot to kill if anyone makes it through. Man I hate that order.
"Flame," I shouted to her over the noise, "looks like we aren't welcome. Diving run, now!"
Flame and I dived both at the same time, taking the helicopter off guard. We folded our wings and let the wind whip past us, our speed increasing as we fell further and further, the ground rushing closer and closer. We hit the canopy and shot through, unfurling our wings to stop our collision with solid ground. There is something thrilling about diving at over a hundred miles per hour out of the sky towards solid ground. We raced through the trees, going further towards the city. Suddenly, the helicopter was above us, rotors whipping up a storm, making it hard to fly without having our wings ripped off. Gunfire rang and it sprayed through the trees; they were aiming at us, trying to shoot us down. To them we were a threat to the quarantine.
Flame, I thought, hoping she could hear it, Flame, can you disrupt their infrared? They have to be tracking us that way. That's the only way they could be following us through all these trees.
I can try, Flame thought back to me, or I could just give them some ghosts to follow.
Not real ghosts I hope, I thought to her.
No, Flame replied, I was meaning to make the equipment think we went in one direction while we go in another, fool the equipment.
After a few minutes the firing stopped then started again, but off in a different direction. The helicopter went flying off in the direction the guy was shooting at and the down draft from the rotors eased up to allow me to fly properly without being almost slammed into trees.
"There," Flame said, "all taken care of. Now where are we going?"
I didn't have time to reply to Flames question. I had run out of forest and had entered the outskirts of the city, right into the middle of a military convoy…
Chapter 14
I flung up my hands, the headlights of the trucks blinding me. Have you ever been in a dark room for thirty minutes or so then walked out into the sunlight? That's pretty much what I had just done. Tires screeched and there was the occasional smashing sound as the other trucks hit each other. Voices shouted and I could hear a commotion going on. My vision slowly returned to me, only to find myself with about twenty different soldiers pointing guns at me. So much for a pleasant welcoming committee.
"You are in violation of the quarantine of this area," one of the soldiers stated, "return to where you came from or we will be forced to shoot you."
"If I was infected," I stated, "Why would I have come from the forest into the city? Why would I risk infecting myself? I'd be mad to do that."
The soldiers looked confused, wondering what I was talking about. I took my opportunity then, leaping and taking flight, Flame diving out of the cover of the forest to follow me. The guards responded slowly so we were able to get a good head start, then they began to open fire on us. I had once heard a saying that everyone in life has a bullet that is meant to kill them, the question is, can you outlive that bullet and die of old age before it finds you? Well, it seemed we had annoyed the fates and had about a hundred bullets after us right then. Talk about overkill. There was no way for us to outfly bullets. I have an affinity towards the dead, that doesn't make me superman, but I would prefer not being a target practice dummy and meeting them on the other side. I threw up a telekinetic shield that seemed to stop the bullets from hitting us, but each bullet required me to use energy to keep the shield up. I don't know how long I could have kept that up.
After a few minutes of flying and trying to keep the shield up, we found a place to hide out. A new apartment complex that still needed to finish construction, but with the quarantine, was put on hold. The upper floors were nothing but framework, but the lower floors had unfurnished apartments with locks. In between were the partially completed apartments, no doors, no furniture, no walls; but they had insulation, and best of all, it was nice, warm, dry and quiet. We landed in one and collapsed on the ground.
"Remind me never to do that again," I told Flame.
"What?" Flame replied, "Antagonize the military? Trust me, if you do that again, I'll shoot you myself."
I laughed at that, we both did. It was so like Flame, how she was before she was taken away four years ago. She had been caring for me when I was sick as I cared for her when she was. We helped each other survive. We also drove each other around the bend at times, but what's life without a few sibling arguments?
Chapter 15
"So," I said, after a moment of silence, "you and Drake have been going out for about a week? I'm happy you found someone, Flame."
"But?" Flame asked.
"Make sure Terra and Falcon don't catch you kissing again," I replied, "I can't keep fixing up your mistakes like last time."
We started laughing again at that comment. It was good to be able to just hang with my sister after four years of not knowing if she was alive or not. Now that I had seen what Max looked like, I saw the resemblance between them. Flame had the same blond hair Max had, although it wasn't streaked; even her face kind of resembled Max's. It's strange just realizing all this about Flame, especially since I had only met Max recently, from beyond the grave, so to speak, it would be hard to say that since we cremate our dead. But I had known Flame most of my life, it just felt strange only realizing it now.
"You know what?" Flame said, "Drake is different in how he acts around everyone. With me he's kind, caring, sweet and - best of all - he's not afraid to show it around me."
"I always knew there was more to him," I replied, "than the silent, second-in-command guy he always showed around home. I remember when I first met him back at The Academy; he tried to stab me with a knife when I tried to help him. Survival instincts had kicked in on his trip there. I disarmed him without trouble, but that's not my point. Drake always guarded against anyone reading him. Hardly talked, always guarded his body language. It was hard to know him. But I knew he would have had a softer side."
"Yeah," Flame replied, "I guess he always did, but it took someone special to get him to show it."
We were silent for a moment; the sound of the traffic could barely be heard through the walls, although we were a few floors off the ground. Then Flame spoke.
"You do realize that with everything that is going on in the household, all of us would become a family anyway." She continued, "We may not be blood related, but because of your relationship with Skye, we are related to Skye and Terra, as well as Max. The only people left out are Drake and Falcon, but Drake chose me, so we're almost a complete happy family. Except for Falcon."
"I wouldn't leave him out of the equation just yet," I commented, "Skye made it known to me that we have young love in the house. Although, they are only eleven. I don't see how that's possible."
"Well," Flame said, "If I remember correctly, there was something you said about our kind, about how we mature faster than humans, although we live longer."
"So?" I asked.
"So," Flame replied, "that means both Terra and Falcon are capable of feeling emotions like we do. They are more mature mentally than they are physically."
"I suppose that's a good point," I replied, "you wouldn't happen to know the time though? I think a stray bullet hit my watch. It's busted."
