Elements
Chapter 15

Raven drove us to school, the five of us piled into his car. “Are you guys ready to go back to school after everything that’s happened?” he asked as he made a turn into our school parking lot.

“Of course not, but what other choice do we have?” Carina said gloomily.

“Oh, Jade and I almost forgot to tell you guys something,” Leo said. I looked back to him from my spot in the front seat. His eyes were smiling. “Do you want to tell them?”

I considered this. I was slightly nervous because I wasn’t sure what their reactions would be. I waited until Raven pulled into a parking spot, afraid he might lose control of the wheel. “Leo and I are now boyfriend and girlfriend.”

There was a second of silence before everyone started talking over each other. Carina was ecstatic and squealing how happy she was for us. Michael slapped Leo on the back and told him how cool it was.

Raven, on the other hand, was skeptical. He looked at Leo through the rearview mirror. “If you ever do anything to hurt my little sister, I will destroy you, do you understand me?”

Leo looked uncomfortable. “Of course.”

“Same goes here,” Carina said, her mood changing. “You better not do anything to upset my best friend. I had no problem slapping Kayla, and I’ll do the same to you.”

I laughed. “Guys it’s fine. You’ve all known Leo forever now, and you know he would never do anything like that to me. There’s nothing to worry about, right Michael? You trust Leo.” I noticed he wasn’t responding, so I turned around to look at him.

“Guys? Look out the window,” Michael said cautiously, as if he was telling his parents he crashed his car.

I peered out the car window to see a stampede of news reporters coming our way. The flashing lights from the cameras were blinding, and they looked like zombies trying to get to us. I could hear their muffled voices outside, asking more and more questions, nonstop.

Wayne, along with the rest of our bodyguards, were making their way through the crowd, pushing reporters and shoving cameras out of the way. The bodyguards opened all of the doors, gesturing for us to come out.

I stepped out of the car, and was immediately approached with microphones in my face, each one with a different channel logo on it. I even recognized one of the news reporters, Selena Alker from Dawn News, the one who released our identities. Wayne spread out his arm so they couldn’t get to me and led me through the crowd. I lost track of where my friends were, but that wasn’t my main priority.

It took us twenty minutes to get inside of the school, and by the time the five of us did, we were met by Kendall.

Before she could say anything, Carina spoke up. “Beat it, Kendall. We don’t want to hear it.”

“I completely understand, but I left Kiely’s group because I realized how fake they were. I’m sorry for everything bad she’s done to you, and I’m sorry for everything bad I’ve done. I was hoping we could maybe be friends?” Kendall said shyly.

Carina and I exchanged glances. “If this is any sort of trap, I will have your ass flying up in the air and you’ll be swept away in a tornado,” Carina threatened.

“It’s true,” Michael said. “Don’t break her trust.”

“It isn’t a trap. I promise. I was blind and now I’m finally able to see how bad Kiely really is. I’m done with being her little minion,” Kendall said. “I also broke up with Jason. I realized he was only dating me because of my looks.”

I felt proud of her. “Good for you, girl.” The bell rang. “We’ll see you at lunch, Kendall.”

I saw a smile growing on her face before walking away to class, holding hands with Leo. “She made a good decision,” Leo said.

“Yeah. I’m happy for her. She needs to find someone who genuinely loves her. Everyone deserves that,” I replied, squeezing Leo’s hand.

The rest of the day went by fast. During lunch, Kendall told us embarrassing stories about Kiely.

“Wow, wearing white and getting your period for the first time?” Carina said, shoving a spoonful of the cafeteria’s chili in her mouth. “I almost feel bad for her, but then, she deserves it.”

We noticed Kiely’s whole group glaring at Kendall, but we just ignored it. When the clock hit 3:00, I met with my friends by the oak tree, with our bodyguards, of course. The amount of news reporters seemed to die down, and the remaining looked too intimidated by our guards to actually come up to us.

“Do you guys want to come over to my place to hang out?” I asked Michael and Carina. Leo wasn’t there yet.

“Sure, as long as you two aren’t all lovey-dovey,” Carina said, talking about me and Leo.

“Don’t worry about that. We won’t,” I said. At the same time I said that, Leo came up next to me and gave me a soft peck on the cheek. Carina narrowed her eyes at him.

“Woah, what’s that look for?” Leo asked, holding his hands up defensively. “Can I not give my girlfriend a kiss?”

“Not on my watch.” I turned around. Raven was coming to us. “C’mon, I’ll drive you guys.” He looked at Leo. “If I see any more of that, you’re walking.”

Leo opened his mouth to answer, but before he could manage to say anything, all five of our wrists were buzzing. The willow tree on all of our watches was glowing.

“I’ll answer it,” I said. I pressed the button and heard Willow’s frantic voice on the other end.

“I need all of you here now. I have no time to teleport you myself.”

“What’s going on?” I questioned.

“There’s no time to explain. Please hurry. We need yo…” There was static, then her voice cut off.

“Willow? Hello?”

“What was that about?” Carina wondered. She wasn’t the type of person to be scared, but I could tell by the look in her eye, she wasn’t feeling very brave.

“I don’t know, but we should go now. It sounds like she’s in trouble,” Raven suggested.

“Where are you going?” Wayne sternly asked. We all completely forgot about them.

“We have something to take care of. Don’t worry about us,” Carina shot at them. She held out her hand to me. “Let’s go.” Raven had already left. I took her hand, as well as Leo’s. The four of us stood in a circle, closed our eyes, and connected. When we opened our eyes again, we were in Mystic Meadows, only, it wasn’t the Mystic Meadows we were used to.

The golden trees were being burnt to the ground, covering everything with black ashes. There were no people around, and the village the citizens lived in was on fire, as well as the majestic palace. We found Raven observing everything around us.

“What happened?” Michael whispered.

Raven ignored his questions and immediately began barking orders. “Carina and Michael, start putting out the fires on the trees. Leo, try making them smaller. Jade, go to the village and help people out. Try supporting the houses so they don’t collapse. I’ll go to the castle and try to help there too.”

“On it.” I switched to my outfit, and the others did too.

The village was so smoky, I could barely breathe behind my mask. There were many people covering their faces with their hands or pieces of cloth. I noticed two people who were leaning on each other for support. I cleared a path from all the debris and gestured for them to get out. I did the same with any other people I saw outside, then started going through houses. The smoke was really getting to me, but I kept going.

I entered a house and saw a mother and her child inside. The mother was stuck under a fallen piece of debris and the kid wouldn’t leave her. I looked above them and realized the roof would cave in on them at any moment.

“Get out of here now,” I said to the little girl.

“Not without my mommy,” she replied, crying.

“I’ll help your mommy, but I can’t do that with you here. Please get out now.” She stayed for a second, as if considering her options, then ran out of the door. I shot some roots up to the roof for support, but they wouldn’t hold forever.

I also used the roots to lift off the piece of ceiling that landed on the women. Her legs were crushed, and she was silently weeping.

“C’mon ma’am. We need to get out of here.” I put my arm around her neck and legs and lifted her. She wasn’t the lightest person ever, but I was able to manage. I heard cracking sounds, and the roots were breaking. I sprinted out through the door, and the second I got out, the house was just a pile of wood and ash.

I spotted a middle-aged man running out and gave him the women I was carrying. I located the little girl as well. “Sir, please take these two out of here and to safety.” He nodded and kept running, keeping the girl in sight.

I may have been some sort of superhero, but being in fires was not one of my strengths. My lungs were filled up with so much smoke. I started choking on the air and coughing furiously. My eyes were burning and stomach was hurting, and just as I was about to leave, I noticed an elderly woman laying on the ground. She was in the opposite direction of where I was headed, and for a split second, I considered leaving her, but I felt bad about even thinking about it.

My vision was becoming blurry within each step I took. I made it to the women and lifted her up. She was unconscious, but I checked her pulse and she was still alive. I finally made it outside of the village and handed her off to someone else. My knees buckled and I fell to my hands and knees, coughing uncontrollably.

“Jade!” called a familiar voice. It took too much strength to look up, so I waited for them to come over to me. I felt my limp body being lifted off the ground, like what I did with the people in the village. I was hardly awake, but I could hear Leo, Carina, and Michael talking.

After a while of bouncing in Leo’s arms with every step he took, I was set down next to an unburnt tree. I assumed we’ve gotten far away enough from the fire because of the cleaner air. I tried to talk, but instantly begin coughing instead.

Leo’s face comes into view, and he waited patiently until I stopped coughing. “Are you okay?” he asked, worried.

“That was the worst plan ever,” I croaked. “Who’s idea was it to send a girl who can connect with flowers into a raging fire?”

“Yeah, Raven didn’t really think that all the way through,” Carina admitted for him.

“Speaking of which, where is he?” I looked around and only saw three people surrounding me.

“Good question. I’ll call him,” Michael suggested. He held out his wrist and pressed the button with the bird.

We waited for the call to go through, but just as we thought he wasn’t going to pick up, we heard his voice.

“Guys come to the palace, quick. I’m under attack. Ah!” We heard movement and fighting on the other end.

“Raven? What’s going on?” I asked.

“Just get here now!” The watch went silent. I made a break for the castle. My friends were calling after me, but I kept running, ignoring the weakness I felt. I needed to get to Raven. When I finally made it, the palace was still on fire. Carina and Michael came up behind me and got to work on that. Michael put the fire out with water and Carina got rid of the smoke. When it was clear, I headed inside.

Raven was fighting a whole squad of people wearing masks. I quickly took in the number of people and counted eight. One of them spotted us and yelled at the others. We got to work straight away.

One lunged at me, but I stopped them midair with roots and pinned them to the ground. I was ready to keep putting up a fight, but he couldn’t get back up.

“Guys!” I shouted. “They don’t have powers. Get them down so I can stop them with roots!” I pointed to the guy on the ground. They nodded back to me.

As I turned around, I was punched right in the cheek. Pain and surprise shot to me, and I stumbled to the ground. The person who punched me looked like a woman, and she was about to jump on top of me, but I rolled out of the way. I got up and shot roots at her, but she dodged all of them. I felt a gust of wind nearby, and she was swept off her feet. I covered her with roots and silently thanked Carina.

A man came running at me, but Raven teleported in front of him and pushed him into the wall.

“Raven! Move!” Raven stepped to the side and I got the guy stuck to the wall. He grunted and spit on the ground at my feet.

After a while of teamwork and fighting, all people were stuck somewhere in roots. Most were on the ground, a few on the wall, and even one of the ceiling, thanks to Carina.

“These people weren’t the hardest challenge we’ve faced,” Leo said, trying to hide the fact he was out of breath. He didn’t want to add any more fire, so he had to fight by hand.

“Do you think they were some sort of rebels? They didn’t have any powers,” I said.

“Let’s find out,” Carina said. She walked over to a woman pinned on the wall and pulled off her mask. She stood there in shock.

“Carina,” I said slowly. “What’s wrong?” Carina stepped out of the way to reveal the woman’s face. My jaw dropped to the floor, and so did the others’. We took off everyone else’s masks and were horrified.

We were surrounded by our parents stuck under my roots.

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