Warning! Dark chapter ahead!

Chapter 24/Missing Pages

I went invisible as I searched for Stronghold. I did my best to ignore the screams and shouts that were coming from the gym and shut myself off from my empathy power, not wanting to feel the pain and shock that so many were receiving. Gritting my teeth, I kept up my brisk jog, figuring Stronghold would be wherever the fighting was hottest.

As I rounded a corner however, I was distracted from my goal by a fireball launched right at me from behind. I ducked just in time and wondered how the heck Warren had seen me. After a moment I looked up and saw Warren standing there, fire dancing on his hands as he glared at someone behind me. I turned slowly after making sure I was still invisible and watched as Gabriel strode up the hallway, his slightly pointed teeth bared in an almost feral smile. I grimaced as I realized what was about to happen.

Hate was radiating throughout the room. I could tell that without my primary power of Empathy. I scrambled out of the way and crouched in a corner, watching the two teenagers, ready to step in and interfere if I needed to.

"Pathetic as usual," Gabe's mocking voice startled me and I looked over at him. His smile was now a sneer and he flicked on the device on his palm, shooting a fireball at Warren. The other pyro merely deflected it with his arm.

"You can't win, Gabriel," Warren said finally, when the two stood nose-to-nose. "Our powers are equal and neither of us can hurt the other with fire. The only way we can fight is the old fashioned way." He balled his fists, extinguishing the flames and held them up in a defensive stance.

Gabe smirked. "Whatever you say, cousin," he said, wiping sweat from his face with his sleeve. "But I'm not going to show you any mercy," he warned, stepping back and beginning to circle Warren.

"I'd be disappointed if you did," Warren countered, a grim smile forming on his face. I scrunched my eyes shut briefly, unsure I wanted to witness this. However I found I had to open them again when I felt a breeze go by me as Warren knocked Gabe down and he almost fell on top of me. I scrambled out of the way and stood slowly, wondering if I should step in as I watched them throw punches at each other.

I wondered how it would end though. Warren was indestructible and while I knew Gabe wasn't, I didn't think Warren would go so far as to really hurt his cousin, despite the surface feeling of hate I was getting.

Two black eyes, a busted lip, and a sprained wrist later, Warren and Gabe stood panting on either side of the hallway. Warren shook his head and spat blood out onto the floor.

"This isn't worth it Gabriel," he said. "If you're going to kill me then do it, but stop wasting my time with this useless fighting." He wiped his mouth on his jacket sleeve and straightened.

"No way. We've got a score to settle, Peace," Gabe spat. I recoiled at the venom I both felt and heard in his voice.

"Our fathers' score, not ours, Rochester," Warren said in an almost tired voice, as if he had used those words before. "It was my father who sent yours to prison, not me. And it tore him up inside, trust me." His voice was gruff but sincere.

In the brief lull that followed I quickly began channeling peace and tranquility and any gentle mood I could think of into the hallway. I noticed with relief tense shoulders relax and hard expressions soften. Gabe looked away and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. I began to see some of the old Gabriel come back, the one that kept trying to be my friend. The one that was kind to Karl.

He turned back to Warren and opened his mouth to speak. Before he could however he convulsed violently and dropped to the floor. Warren leaped forward and so did I, involuntarily. I stopped before I reached them however, knowing I had to keep my presence unknown for the time being. I watched helplessly as Warren knelt by Gabe's head and took it onto his lap, watching him with a grim expression as the other boy began to cough violently, blood spilling out of his mouth.

I had no idea what was going on, but when Gabe grabbed at his stomach I knew. A sick feeling settled in my stomach and I took a step backwards. His chip, the one we all carried inside of us, had been activated. A tiny explosion had occurred inside the walls of his stomach and the inner bleeding was killing him. A horrible way to die.

Warren's face was pale as he gripped his convulsing cousin tightly. Blood covered him but he did not seem to mind. I wondered what had happened to the two of their families to get them pitted against each other like this. However animosity was gone from Warren's face as he looked down at his dying cousin. The overwhelming surge of grief, guilt, shame, and (surprisingly) affection caused me to blink and then turn my gaze away. I felt as though their goodbye should be private but I wondered if when I left they would go back to hating each other. One close look at Warren's face however, told me that would not happen. I quietly slipped away.

Stepping into the Mad Science Lab, I leaned against the wall and tried to get my bearings. What I had just witness had shaken me and I felt suddenly weak. I had never seen anyone I knew killed that close to me before. My legs gave out from under me and I sank to the floor, my arms resting on my knees. I looked down my arms to my hands and watched them as the fingers slowly curled and uncurled. However I knew I could not stay there for long so I forced myself to stand.

The door opened then and I quickly ducked back down, turning invisible. The door closed and all was silent for a moment. I did my best to calm my breathing. Then I felt prickles go up my spine and I knew who it was who had entered. I knew who it was then and I surprised a groan as I turned visible and stood.

"Megan," I stated flatly. "Shouldn't you be off causing panic in the gym or something?" I frowned at her.

Megan turned toward me and smiled slightly, moving around a few desks in order to approach me. I backed up until my back hit the wall. She stopped a couple feet from me and put her hands in her pockets.

"I was looking for you," she said, giving me that sexy smile of hers that made me sick and lustful at the same time.

"Why?" I asked bluntly, trying to figure out how fast I could get to the door to get out of there.

"I need to talk to you," she said, covering the distance between us quickly and wrapping her arms around my neck, pressing her body against mine. I trembled slightly and put my hands on her hips, about to push her away. A look of anger flashed in her eyes and she held me tighter, her fingers digging into my hair so hard it hurt. I winced.

"There's something you need to know," she said calmly, the angry look gone.

I quickly spoke before she could say or do anything else. "Gabe's dead," I told her flatly. She paused, as if considering this. Then she shook her head.

"That has nothing to do with what I need to tell you," she said, leaning up and running her lips lightly down my jaw. I gritted my teeth and pulled away, well as much as I could.

"I don't think this is telling me anything," I told her coolly, pushing my hands against her hips in an attempt to get her away. She only pulled harder on my hair and I winced again.

"I'm getting to it," she insisted, pushing my head down so she could plant a kiss on my ear. "Just relax," she whispered into it breathily. I shivered and wished my tracking device would explode so I could avoid this scene before it escalated any further.

"I know you want me, Alex," she stated, pulling back slightly in order to meet my gaze. "I've seen the way you look at me."

"I don't—"

Before I could protest, she kissed me flat on the mouth. I was half-disgusted, half-incredulous. How could she even be thinking like this when a battle was waging in the gym? However my hands trembled on her hips. Her kiss was gentle and inviting and I found myself falling into it, and that was wrong, unwillingly or not. Groaning inwardly, I realized I was compromising and started to pull away.

However, before I could, she ran her tongue over my bottom lip until she reached my lip ring. Curling her lips around it she paused, her eyes opening to look into mine. She grinned then, her teeth caught around the ring . . . and then pulled back sharply.

I cried out in pain as the lip ring tore through my skin, ripping it in two. Blood gushed out of the wound and I grabbed at my mouth as Megan stepped back, spitting the ring out onto the floor. Smirking, she took advantage of my distracted state and punched me hard in the gut. Unprepared for such violence, I buckled. She then punched me across the face. My lip screamed in pain and I shouted as I fell to the ground: she had kicked my feet out from under me.

She planted her foot on my chest and bent down, pressing so hard I felt I could barely breathe. Blood continued to flow down my face from my torn lip and began to drip on the floor. I blinked back tears of pain and tried to concentrate on her face, doing my hardest to breathe.

"You don't know how long I've waited to give you the pain you gave me," Megan said, smiling grimly as she stepped off my chest. I breathed in relief but then winced as she delivered a swift kick to my side, her boots bruising a couple of ribs. I started to struggle to get up, but she kicked me again, knocking me to the ground. Stepping over me with one leg, she lowered herself so she was sitting on my abs.

"What are you talking about?" I mumbled, too much in pain to try and sort out what feelings of hers I could use against her. There was no point in going invisible now; she could have sensed me even then. My chest was aching horribly and I did not think I could fight her off at this point.

"You killed the love of my life, is all," Megan said, fingering the buttons on my white, button-down shirt. Slowly she began to unbutton them, one by one, as she spoke. I watched her warily, pressing my fingers against the split in my lip in an attempt to stop the bleeding. "Jayden was only sixteen, but he was special. Not only was he incredibly hot, but also extremely powerful. He had the power to control metal. He was also a quick learner with a photographic memory."

I wondered why she was telling me this, but then I figured every villain has to have his or her monologue, so I let her ramble on, hoping that by the time she was done I would be strong enough to fight her off. My shirt was unbuttoned by now and she pushed it back to the sides, running her cool hands up and down my now bare chest. I grimaced and started to lift my leg to flip her off of me. However she chose that moment to dig her nails into my chest and rake them down to where she was sitting.

I could not help it: I threw back my head and screamed at the pain. Megan laughed. When I looked back at her, panting hard, she was inspecting the blood on her nails. I glanced at the door, wondering how in the world no one had heard that. I realized with despair they had to be busy fighting on the other side of the school in the gym.

"I wanted to kill you right then and there; that day after you killed him," she went on wiping her hands on my shirt. My entire chest was throbbing and the red liquid was trickling down from ten long, deep scratches. I cursed long nails and told myself I would avoid them for the rest of my life. "However I could not, it would be too obvious and the Elridges liked you. So I decided to wait until this day. No one would blame me for killing you if I told them you had decided to turn back to the heroes side, now would they?" She smirked at me.

Placing her hands on my bleeding chest, she leaned forward so that she was face to face with me. I could feel sweat dripping into my ear as I looked at her, anger and pain burning my eyes.

"And it was fun making you sweat," she admitted softly, licking her lips slowly like she used to. Lifting a hand she stroked my face lightly and I shuddered with revolution. "It helped that you were attractive as well," she added, bending to plant a soft kiss on my bleeding lip. She pulled back then, making a point to run her nails through the grooves already made on my chest. I whimpered and squirmed slightly at the pain. I would have thought that after cutting for so long I would be used to pain but this was far worse than a few shallow cuts on my forearm.

"Too bad you had to go and kill Jayden like that. I might have actually given you what you wanted." She laughed at my disgusted expression and pushed herself off of me. Tilting her head she looked down at my mangled torso and face and nodded slowly.

"You should bleed to death soon enough," she said, nodding slowly. "But just to make sure . . ." She knelt by my arm and lifted it. Fear gripped me as she got out a pocketknife and pushed back my sleeve. She glanced up at me and I struggled to pull my arm away. She simply dug a nail into one of the bloody scratches in my chest and I stopped, gasping.

"Ironic, isn't it?" she mused as she began to cut my wrist with the knife. "That you would die by the very habit you started? Only I'm the one holding the razor now." She stepped back after laying my bleeding appendage back on the ground.

"Goodbye Alex," she purred, moving towards the door and leaving me gaping at the amount of blood I was now lying in. "Give Jayden a kiss for me, will you?" With that she began to leave. However someone in the doorway stopped her. I could not see from my spot on the floor but suddenly the room was full of chaos as Megan suddenly went flying across several desks. By now the blood loss had made me woozy and I began to black out. Before I did however, I heard a familiar voice calling my name, and Violet's worried face bent over me. At least I thought it was Violet. . . . It could have been Magenta . . .

Everything went black.

Oooooh, suspenseful!! Review and tell me what you think! (Only about two more chapters left, by the way. Gah! I can't believe this story is almost over!)