The Revealing

“Who do you think it is?” I said.

The front door slammed shut. Mason grew protective and stood in front of me. “I don’t know, but whoever it is just came inside.”

I watched the door with great anticipation, when I saw a light. The light looked as if it were coming from a flame. I realized it was a flame.

“Mason!” I looked at him, and he took my hand. We ran to get out of the house. Something green was blocking my windows. It scared me.

“They are trying to trap us! They are going to try to take you!” He pulled me around the next corner.

“Who are they?” I shouted.

We turned another corner and met another wall of fire. I felt as if my eyelashes would singe off. Then I remembered the trick window. I stopped us in our tracks. Mason tried to keep going forward, but I didn’t let him. The window was the other way, so I pulled to go the other way, and he followed.

“Where are we going?” he shouted over the flames.

I didn’t need to answer him, because we were already there. I kicked the left side of the window so hard that the green thing blocking it flew out onto the lawn. I was about to climb out of the window, when strong hands grabbed me and pulled me out. I looked up at the face of the person who’d pulled me out. His face was covered in soot, and I couldn’t get a good look. His features were dark, and immediately, I knew who my rescuer was: Damian. He reached into the window to grab Mason, but Mason hit his hand away and climbed out on his own.

We stood back and watched our house burn. My paintings and pictures were all gone. The only pictures I had of my parents were gone, burned away to ash. There was another figure on the lawn, fighting with someone. They were both moving around too much, and it was dark; I couldn’t make them out. Then one figure hit the other straight in the chest, and there was a flash of light. Then there was just one figure. Mason looked at Damian and nodded.

“Thanks, Damian. I didn’t think they would come so soon.”

Damian was watching me. I was surprised at how touchy Mason was, holding me close to him and pinning me to his side with his arm. But what surprised me more was that Damian looked almost jealous. I smirked at him.

“Are you all right, Obsidian?” Mason looked at me.

I nodded and looked over at where the flash of light had appeared on our front lawn. Car jogged over and noticed whom he was there to save. He nodded toward Mason. “Mason, you never told me that the Halfling was Obsidian.”

Damian rolled his eyes. “Wasn’t it obvious? She totally gives off that damsel-in-distress vibe. I knew it was her as soon as her books hit your back during English.” Then he looked at me and winked. I made a face at him and looked away. Damian had his own way of being irritating and attractive at the same time. It was annoying.

“That’s enough, Damian. Mason, what are we going to do about your living arrangements?” Car said.

I looked at Mason, waiting for him to answer.

“They could come stay with us. We still have room,” Damian suggested, and Car looked as if he liked the suggestion.

“All right then. Come on, Obsidian. Grab your stuff,” Car said.

I glared at him. “What stuff? My house and all my stuff just burned down!”

He pointed at the burning building.

We really should call the fire department or something. It looks like the neighbours are going to notice soon. I think I should be panicking right now—I mean, my entire house is burning, including all my belongings, but strangely, I’m not. I’m just really pissed off.

“Your stuff—it’s in the safe place,” Car said.

It? “Shouldn’t we call the fire department? And where is this place?”

“Behind the house, under the tree. Already got that covered. We have a crew coming over to fix the fire.”

I rolled my eyes, sighed, headed toward the scorched house and walked around it and under the tree. There was a small door. I opened it, and there was a USB stick.

“Okay, I got my stuff.” I put air quotes around the word stuff because this USB did not replace the things that had burned—but then again, I did not know what was on the USB.

“Get in the car. Let’s go.” Car held the door open for me.

Once again, Damian dramatically heaved a loud sigh. I ignored him, sat down in the car and looked at my house burning. We reversed out of the driveway and turned left. Damian was a fast driver—and a skilled one at that. I thought it was overkill; I didn’t understand why he needed to speed. I looked over at Mason’s car behind us and wondered why I was in Damian’s car and not in Mason’s. That was when I realized I was in his car because Mason did not know the way to where we were going.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

Damian smiled while keeping his eyes on the road. “My place.” His tone sounded seductive.

I knew he was trying to push my buttons, so I ignored it. “Why?”

“Because that’s where you will be safe. They tend not to target groups of us all at once.”

I practically slapped my hand against my forehead. Of course they would be relocating us since our house was burning down. “Why would they set my house on fire?”

“They probably wanted to make Mason and you panic. They wanted you to leave the house.”

“But why?”

“’Cause they are evil? Duh. What a stupid question. I’m guessing if they really needed or wanted you for something, they had someone able to poof you guys out of there, leaving Mason there to die, and you would be theirs without a problem. They were trying to kill Mason. They obviously didn’t plan on us coming, though.”

“Oh. Well, thank you for saving us,” I whispered. He didn’t respond; he didn’t even say, “You’re welcome.” What a turd. I crossed my arms and slumped in my seat. At one moment, I thought I heard him whisper, “You’re welcome,” but I convinced myself I had gone crazy.

Damian turned the radio on while he sped up, cranking the volume up so loud that I was sure he would wake the neighbours if the fire already hadn’t. We drove down long, curvy roads, and each time he turned right, I would almost touch him from the force pushing me to the left. I didn’t like being in this car. Mason’s was a lot more soothing. Maybe it was because Mason played music that we both enjoyed.

“Are we there yet?” It seemed like an overused question, but I felt as if we’d been driving for hours.

“Almost. We just have to make sure we are not being followed, so we are taking the long way,” he said, mocking me with his tone.

Now it was my turn to roll my eyes, and then I looked back out the window. This place seemed familiar for some reason, even though I knew I had never been there before. I saw endless hills of green, not sharp and unwelcoming hills. These hills made me want to run my hand over the horizon they created. The grass looked soft—not too long and not too short. This, in my opinion, was nature’s art. I wanted to paint it to keep it in my memory forever. Unexpectedly, the car turned onto a pathway cutting through the forest, and my lush, rolling green hills were gone just like that. I promised myself I would come back to them one day, and I intended on keeping that promise. I tried not to focus on the negative but to take in the new surroundings the car was hurtling through.

Green was everywhere—a little too much for my taste, even though it was my favourite colour. Everything felt so alive; all I could think about was how many mosquitoes there were going to be in the summer. Then I thought about how much mosquito repellent I was going to breathe in, and I felt sick. I prayed that this wouldn’t be where his place resided. Someone answered my prayers when I saw an opening at the end of the road and the left-hand turn we would take. We turned left into a wide-open space kind of like a meadow, and the car stopped.

“Why did you stop?”

We had already been driving for so long that I didn’t want him to waste more time by stopping for whatever reason he thought was suitable.

“’Cause we’re here. Duh.”

I glared at him. “And what exactly is here? I thought we were going to your place.” Mocking his voice gave me joy and gave him a startled expression.

“This is my place. You just can’t see it yet because you didn’t drink the juice.”

What? “The juice?”

“The juice.”

There was no way in any part of this world that I would ever drink an unknown substance Damian gave me. Whatever sick fantasy he was planning, I would not drink the juice.

“Oh, calm down, Bunny.”

He opened the car door, stepped out, walked around and opened the door for me. That was when Mason drove up, and I knew that this was in fact the right place. Mason parked his car, and Car came out first in the most attractive way possible.

“You’re okay, right? Damian didn’t say or do anything to make you uncomfortable, right? ’Cause if he did, I’ll pound him,” Car said.

Damian rolled his eyes and punched Car in the shoulder. “Oh, please. She’s fine. Does she look traumatized? We had a wonderful drive. I even got to hear her snore for a bit, and that was a bonus for me.”

Mason spoke up, protecting me, as usual. “Obsidian doesn’t snore.”

Then Car looked at me, expecting answers to his questions.

“Damian wasn’t any more pigheaded than usual, and nothing traumatizing has happened so far,” I said.

“Other than your house burning down,” said Damian while leaning on the car and picking something out of his nails.

I wanted to smack him, but I knew he was just trying to get a rise out of me, so I ignored his comment. That didn’t stop Car or Mason, however, from each punching him on the shoulder.

“Knock it off!” said Car, annoyed with his brother.

Mason and Car accepted my answers to their previous questions for now, but I knew there were probably going to be more questions later on that day. As I looked back at the open field in front of us, I could tell Mason didn’t see anything either, because he had a lost expression on his face.

“So where is this juice we have to drink to see this place?” I said.

Car sighed and smacked Damian in the back of the head. Damian burst out laughing. He’d tricked me again. Not cool.

“There is no juice, but there is Lisa,” Car politely pointed out.

I turned my head and saw a little girl who couldn’t have been older than 7 years old walking up to us. She was wearing a lab coat that went past her feet and goggles that made her eyes look huge.

“Lisa is a Halfling like you. The only difference is she already found her gift, which is the gift of concealing. She just likes to walk around dressed like that, and since she can make anything invisible, we let her.”

She put out her hand, which the sleeve of the lab coat covered, for me to shake. I did, and I felt a little jolt like a shock. Suddenly, the house—no, it was a mansion—appeared. My eyes widened to take in the whole site. Mason looked at me and was eager to see too. He shook Lisa’s hand and winced from the shock; then his eyes widened more than mine had.

“She can let anyone see something she has concealed by shaking their hand and giving them an electric shock. Your blood determines the intensity of the shock. If you are a Halfling, as she is, it will feel like a static shock—only for girls, though. Boys get an intensified version of that. Kind of like if you stick your fingers in an outlet. However, if you are a full-blown Tharsion, the shock is immense. You should see what happens when she shocks an elder. Most of them don’t survive. It’s her form of defense.”

I understood why Mason had winced. She smiled at me and waved. I waved back with a smile already on my face at the wonder of this little girl.

“Why would she shock an elder?” I said.

Car’s face looked sad. “If they ever force her by torture to reveal where the house is, she will show them. The shock kills them, and then they see it’s too dangerous and try to kill her.”

My mouth dropped open. This was a horrible life for such a little girl.

“Most of the girls in this house don’t have their born protector. He was most likely killed by an elder or one of their scouts, and then they are forced to rely on their gifts for safety until we find them.”

I smiled when Lisa giggled and ran away. “How old is she?” I said.

“She is seven years old.”

Oh, wow, I thought.

“She doesn’t like to talk too much. She witnessed her born protector get kidnapped to be used for experimental purposes. He was a good friend of mine, and she stopped talking after that.”

I understood why. When my parents died, the only one I talked to was Mason, and that was only because he forced me to talk by tickling me. Since I was little, that method worked.

We walked over to the house following the fleeing Lisa, and I saw people my age and younger everywhere. The only ones older were about Mason’s age. They brought me upstairs, which took a while, and down the hallway to the seventh bedroom. There was only one bathroom in the hallway, which surprised me, and there was a room filled with showers on a lower floor. The seventh bedroom was not too small. It wasn’t as big as my old room, but it was cozy. There was one bed; it was small. Damian put his hand on the small of my back. No one noticed but me.

“All right, Obsidian, this is your room.” Damian guided me into the room with his hand, and then he got shocked. I turned around abruptly and saw Lisa standing behind him.

“Leave her alone,” Lisa said.

Her voice was high pitched. Everyone in the room stared at her with eyes and mouths wide open. She smiled at me, waved and ran away giggling.

Car started laughing. “Looks like Lisa likes you, Obsidian. Damian, sorry, pal, but she’s got a new bodyguard now.”

Mason joined in the laughter as Damian rubbed the small of his back.

“So what do I do about clothes and stuff like that?” I said.

Car took out his phone and texted someone. Then around the corner came a familiar face. It was Willow from my music class.

“Obsidian!” she squeaked as she jumped, flinging her arms around my neck and nearly suffocating me. “I knew they would bring you here sooner or later! I could tell, you know.”

“Hey, Willow.” I had a calm voice, contrasting her piercing, high-pitched voice, which was probably due to her excitement. I was excited too. She was the first person I was actually relieved to see that day.

“You remember my name!” She was so happy. It was a good thing she was easy to please.

“If this reunion is just about wrapped up, Car did call you here for a reason, Willow,” Damian said.

Her face went from ecstatic to annoyed with Damian—a common reaction to him, I guessed. She took one step back and one long look at me and smiled. “I have just the thing. I think you have a similar size to me, right?”

“In theory.”

She laughed and punched me lightly on the shoulder. “You’re funny. Come—let’s go to my room, and I can give you some clothes to change into after your shower. I also have extra towels if you need one. Oh, and shampoo and conditioner. Do you condition? What a silly question—of course you do. I love your hair.”

I sighed and followed her as she jabbered on about something to do with music class. I felt bad for zoning out as we walked up another flight of stairs, but I couldn’t concentrate anymore; I was too tired. We finally got to her room. It looked smaller to mine, but the way she’d decorated it was fantastic. The colour was a nice shade of purple, and the bedsheets looked like silk. The cool thing was that she had her own bathroom. She had no shower, though.

“So, uh, what’s your power? If you don’t mind my asking,” I said.

She laughed and grinned at me. “Compulsion. I can make anyone do anything I say. That is why I was so surprised when you turned me down today during music. That’s one reason I thought you were Tharsion—you have a very strong sense of control.” She smiled as she shuffled through a big pile of towels. “Ah! Here it is!” she shouted with glee, adding a little jump for joy.

She tossed a towel toward me, and I caught it. The towel said “Pretty Princess” on it. I looked at her and cocked an eyebrow. As if she read my mind, she said, “I know, I know, but laundry day is tomorrow for the whole building. I think that is one of the only clean ones left. It was a gift from an admirer. Don’t look at me like that. I couldn’t just turn him down flat; plus, it’s good to have extra around here. You never know when the boys will decide to skip laundry day.”

“Isn’t a towel a weird thing for someone to give you?”

“Well, it wasn’t that strange; he worked at a beach shop, and he said it was perfect for me. He gave it to me for free. He said it belonged to me and stuff like that. Tharsions can come on a little strong sometimes. I imagine he probably got in trouble later on for that.”

“He was Tharsion?”

“Oh yeah, it was a whole ordeal that we met another like us at the time.”

I laughed at her defensive attitude when it came to the story of how she’d come to own such a towel. I laughed when she felt guilty for it.

“Okay! I get it!” she said apologetically before I even commented on her story. “Now, I think you need to go take that shower before all the hot water is gone. Plus, we all share the showers—the girls and the guys. So hop to it, little bunny.”

I gave her a look, and she laughed, knowing that was what Damian had nicknamed me. I walked downstairs and down the hallway to where there were extra bathrooms, hoping the showers would be close by. I was in luck; they were right next door and clearly labelled, probably for people like me. I turned the corner, and I couldn’t believe my eyes. Damian was leaning against the counter, brushing his teeth, but the sight of Damian wasn’t the worst part, mostly because the sight of him would never be bad. It was just that being around him made me feel self-conscious. Also, all the material he had on his body was a pair of pajama pants hanging loosely around his waist, which was a little unsettling. He spit into the sink. His hair was damp, as if he had just taken a shower and was getting ready for bed. He looked up at me through his hair hanging low on his forehead and said, “Um, do you know how to knock?”

He was trying to push my buttons, and it was working, but it didn’t matter. I needed to take my shower, and I wasn’t going to let the sight of Damian shirtless bother me or distract me. I ignored his question and walked past him, looking for a shower that wasn’t dripping wet.

“Don’t bother looking for a dry shower, and judging by the time, don’t expect hot water either,” he said.

I ignored him again.

“We could always get winter in here to warm up the water for you, or you could just use the steam coming out of your ears to keep you warm while you shower.”

He laughed, and that just made me even angrier. Where was Lisa when I needed her? Like now. I turned around, expecting him to still be at the counter farther down in the long room, but he was only a foot away from me. His move was so sudden that I jumped, and he laughed.

“What are you doing?” I said.

“Scaring you.”

My eyebrows rose.

“Is it working?” He took my towel, read the writing and laughed.

I yanked it back and said, “No! It’s not working!” I got into the closest shower and hung my towel on the hook provided. Again, I heard Damian’s irritating but attractive voice.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you; it’ll get soaking wet in there.”

I rolled my eyes. I stuck my hand out of the curtain, found the hook outside of the shower stall and put my towel on it. I left my clothing inside the stall; it could use some good cleaning anyway. I had a pair of pajamas that Willow had lent me on the outside with my towel, so I was all good. I turned on the water and was annoyed to find that Damian was right: the water was freezing. I debated taking a shower at all, but I sucked it up; it was the worst seven minutes of my life. I turned the freezing water off, stuck my hand out of the curtain and reached for my towel. I felt the warm comfort as soon as it reached my fingertips, but in a second, someone snatched that warm comfort away.

“You think you’re so tough!” said a female voice I had never heard before. “You think that just because you have Damian and Car as your personal bodyguards, you are safe. Well, let me tell you now: you are quite mistaken!”

I had no idea what I had done to get this girl so upset, so I just listened.

“He was mine! They both were! That is, until you came along and just took them away!”

Was she talking about Car and Damian?

“And now you’re going to suffer. I will take what is yours! I’ll take Mason, and I will drop him when I feel like it, and he will splat like a pancake!”

How dare she threaten Mason? I thought. I wasn’t as ashamed of my body as this person thought I was, because I pulled the curtain back to look this girl in the eye. “First of all, I do not own Mason; he can be with whomever he chooses! Second, Damian and Car are big boys and can make their own decisions! And third, no one threatens my family!”

I looked at the girl; she looked smaller than she sounded and was obviously younger than I, and she was attractive. Judging by the fact that a physical fight would be unfair, I let her jealousy slide. Besides, there was no reason to be defensive. Obviously, my nakedness startled her, because she dropped my towel. I picked up the towel, looked up and saw four exact copies of the girl who had stood before me just a second ago. I put on my towel and tried to get around all of her, but she wouldn’t let me.

“Damian is ours! Car is ours! And Mason is mine if I want him to be!”

Her tone sickened me. It echoed through three other duplicate mouths of hers. I snapped. I turned around and jumped at her, but I stopped in mid-air. Two hands pulled me back down, planting my feet on the floor. I could feel the height of the person slightly holding me back, and I could see the reaction on the girls’ faces. All of the clones sank back into the original body, and the young girl blushed, whispered a name under her breath and ran away. The only part I could make out was “mian,” and that made no sense, but I put two and two together and realized that could only mean one thing: Damian. I turned in his hands, embarrassed by my childlike display of pouncing on a girl who was most likely two years younger than I was.

“Let me just ask you this: What exactly were you planning on doing when you made contact? Pulling her hair would have been a nice touch,” he said.

I squirmed as much as I could, minding the fact that I was still in my towel. I was glad he had come on the scene when he had. Things could have gotten out of hand quickly.

“Would you let me go? It’s cold, and I want to get into my pajamas and go to bed. I’m tired.”

He nodded and, thankfully, without fuss, let go of me. I tried to tighten the towel without Damian noticing, but there was no way of making that move subtly, so I just grabbed my things and left the showers redder than a tomato.

Out of all the people to rescue me from making a fool of myself or even hurting that girl, it had to be Damian. That was just my luck. As I walked back to my room, I ran through the conversation repeatedly in my mind, seeing what I could have done differently to change the outcome. I sat on the edge of my bed and looked over at the desk in the room. It had the USB on it, as well as a laptop that the boys or Willow had probably placed there.

I sat down at the desk and opened the laptop. The screen saver was like a blast from the past; it was a picture of what looked like Willow, Car and Damian together as children. Willow’s hair was still black and pin straight, but it was shorter, and she also had bangs stuck to her face from water. Her face was rounder and less mature. Willow was wearing a one-piece bathing suit that was blue with pink flowers all over it. She was sticking her tongue out in the picture and squeezing her eyes shut at the camera holder. She was doing bunny ears on what looked like Damian as a young boy.

Damian’s hair was almost past his eyes, and the wet, shaggy hair stuck to his forehead. He was thin, but he was smiling a big, boyish smile that I hadn’t seen before. He was shirtless and wearing what looked like a bathing suit. Next to him was Car. I recognized him by his eyes, which were a shallow purple colour. They seemed lighter in the picture than they were now. He was also wearing a bathing suit and was soaking wet, smiling through the water dripping from his hair. He wasn’t as thin as Damian was, and he was shorter. They all looked happy. I wondered what had happened to smear the happiness that they shared in the photograph.

“Ah, I see you found the laptop.” Car had walked in when I was examining the childhood memory of his.

“Yeah, I did. You guys were so adorable, and you all look so happy in this picture.” I smiled at him.

“Yeah, that was before Damian hit puberty and all the girls weren’t as insistent for his attention.” He laughed, almost as if he knew exactly what had happened in the showers.

“I just don’t understand why he feels the need to be such a jerk sometimes,” I said.

He nodded as if he understood what I meant. “I just think it’s his only line of defense, to be honest. He doesn’t really want to hurt girls. He just needs to let them down gently, and doing that so often can get tiring; you might just end up dropping what you’re carrying.” He tilted his head like a puppy. “Do you get it?”

I smiled lightly and nudged him. “You know, he isn’t the only one that needs a defense. You’re just as attractive as he is, yet you’re a nice guy. How do you explain that?”

He shrugged and put his hands in his pockets, stretching and emphasizing his denim pockets. “It’s in the jeans.”

Car sat down on my bed and looked down. He was so striking I just wanted to sit beside him and lean on him, but obviously, that would be inappropriate. He seemed nervous, as he was playing thumb-twiddling games with his hands.

“I know that your old house and things are gone, but just to let you know, we did get the house to stop burning. I have a friend who can shoot water from her hands.”

Oh boy, here it goes—the sympathy card, I thought. Yet I was glad he felt the need to tell me they had put the fire out.

“And I know that it isn’t good enough to replace everything you lost, but I got you this.” He pulled out a little teddy bear small enough to fit in the palm of his hand and handed it to me. “It’s so you don’t feel alone sleeping in this room by yourself.” He smirked at me to lighten the mood.

I stuck my tongue out in response. “Thanks so much for this, Car. You’ve been really kind to me, and I haven’t really gotten to thank you, so now would be a proper time. Thank you for everything.”

He got up off my bed and hugged me. “Good night, and it was my pleasure. You’re my very own brand-new damsel in distress, and what else is a knight supposed to do with his life? I need to save someone from a dragon every once in a while.”

I couldn’t help but notice the reference to my childhood he made without knowing it—knights and dragons and rescues. He hugged me tighter and then left the room. The whole room smelled like him. It was a good smell. He smelled like freshness in general; there was no real reference point for it. Whatever freshness was, he smelled just like it.

It was late; it seemed as if everyone was asleep. Sitting on my bed with nothing to do except relive the tragedy from that day was not acceptable. I decided to get up and have a look around. First, I went over to my window to look outside. It was beautiful. The sky was cloudless, with about a million stars shining. I guessed that living so far from the city allowed this type of sky. I looked down through the window and saw a roof just below. I opened my window and hopped onto the roof; the air was chilly and crisp. Finally, I found what I needed: fresh, cold air.

I sat down on the shingles and took in a breath. Something caught my eye, and I turned my attention to what looked like a small fireworks display on the ground. My curiosity piqued, I jumped from the roof I was sitting on to another below me and slid down the angled second rooftop and then to the top of another roof sticking out above a window and then to the ground. I headed toward where I saw the lights bouncing off the trees.