The Awakened Ones

The weekend passed and so did the weekdays, and by the time I knew it, Sarah and Nick pulled me and Quint back into a double date situation that Friday. We went to not hurt their feelings but after last week’s kiss, it seemed more awkward between us. We had fun though, well at least I know I did.

That Monday came awfully fast and even though I was nervous to wait in the foggy air for the bus, I did. Xi couldn’t get me, I had a new guardian stone. Well, at least that’s what I thought. I was frozen in fear when all of a sudden I felt Xi’s presence behind me. I turned around to find him a few yards away.

“Give me more,” he said, “I won’t stop till I have it all.”

My heart began to race faster than before. I slowly raised my hand to my necklace, praying that it really did what Quint said it would do. But just as my hand wrapped around the pendant, Xi threw a black whip at my hand and pulled down – ripping my necklace off my neck. It flew to the side and out of my reach. I went to grab it, but Xi sent his whip down on my arm. Tears filled my eyes from the pain that shot through my arm. A big grin formed on Xi’s face. If only I knew how to use my real powers, but Quint never told me how to really fight yet. I only knew how to push my energy through my aura to push someone away and this was not going to work with Xi. I was now defenseless without that guardian stone on me and would just have to take this beating till someone, or something, saved me.

My clothes never changed into my soul form. To be honest, I was kind of hoping I did transform because then I probably could have shot some of that power at Xi. The beating continued for about ten minutes. It was almost like Xi was playing a game with me. Every time I went to get my necklace, Xi would whip my arm to stop me from moving, then chuckle. My entire arm was sore and bleeding when he grabbed me with his whip, demanding that I stand still. I couldn’t fight back. I was too tired and too much in pain to even try. Not to mention the whip had my legs, wrist, and body tied up. I closed my eyes, waiting for Xi to finally deliver the last blow. But nothing came. I opened my eyes and he was gone. But how? My necklace wasn’t around my neck and Quint certainly wasn’t around to help me.

I found myself on the ground within moments. My body still tied up. The end of the whip was frayed like something snapped it. I pushed the broken whip off my body. The tears finally streaming down my face. My arm was dripping with blood and I was in a lot of pain. As I stood, I heard a familiar noise coming up the hill. It was the bus! I threw the whip away from me and grabbed my necklace and books, then rushed to the end of my driveway for the bus. I hid my face and arm, as I stood there. I didn’t want questions being thrown at me. Especially by people who didn’t know what was going on and not to mention needed to know.

When I entered the school, I had only one thought in my head: Quint.

I pulled the hood of my jacket off my head, letting my hair fall to hide my crying face and headed downstairs. My entire body was shaking and as I got closer to the second floor lobby, I saw Quint standing there with his group of friends. I walked up behind him and put my hand on his arm.

Quint looked down at my hand then followed my arm to see who it was touching him. “Jillian…?” he asked, softly. He noticed the dried blood on my hand and how swollen my eyes were. “Jillian, what happened?”

“Xi…” I quietly answered between tears.

“Hang on,” he said, turning back to his friends.

Quint held my hands as he asked his friend, Steve, if he could drive us back to his house. His buddies started teasing Quint as to why he wanted Steve to drive me and Quint back to the house. Quint told him to knock it off and asked again. Steve finally gave Quint a serious answer and we began to walk out of the school. The lady at the front desk yelled at us, but we never stopped walking to the front doors. It wasn’t until we were in Quint’s room when he asked me what happened again. I explained everything to him, as he dug under his bed for a first aid kit.

“So where’s your necklace now?” he asked, holding a small, white tin box.

“In my pocket,” I said.

“It’s not good there. It has to be around your neck.”

“What do I do then? The chain is broken.”

“Let me fix your arm and I’ll get you a new one.” He then asked me to pull up what was left of my sleeves. When he saw the slash marks, he said, “Those look worse than mine.”

“Will they heal nicely?”

“Yes, that and rather quickly too.” He held my arm, looking at it closer. “Now hold still.” He wiped the blood off my arm with a disinfectant wipe. I pulled my arm back in pain. He laughed, taking my arm back. “I can’t clean it if you’re going to be a baby about it.”

“But it stings!”

He smiled, his eyes twinkling. “It’ll only be for a few moments.”

I let him continue and after a few moments, my entire forearm and part of my hand was bandaged up. When he finished, we sat on his bedroom floor, staring at each other in silence. After a few moments, he told me he’d be right back and went to get a chain for my guardian pendant. When he came back, he not only had the chain, but a shirt as well, claiming it was his sister’s but I could wear it for the rest of the day since my shirt didn’t have a sleeve anymore.

We didn’t bother going back to school, mainly because we had no way of getting back, not to mention that it was nice to cut school for once. We decided to walk to the diner and took a corner booth to share an order of mozzarella sticks.

While we talked, Quint noticed I was still in pain.

“Usually the pain would go away after an hour,” he said, looking at my arm, “Let me see.”

I reached my arm to him and he held my elbow, along with my hand.

Slowly the pain seeped out.

“Quint?” I said, looking up at him, “Did you just-?”

“Yeah-” he let go of my arm and clenched his fist. “It’ll be gone soon.”

He smiled, even though I knew he was in a lot of pain. I thanked him for easing it off me and we eventually left the diner. I left his house after five, wondering what I was going to tell my grandmother if she saw my arm. But then again, I did say if, which means, for the little time she’s here, she’ll never see it.

My arm healed quickly during the week, like Quint said. Even during my training, and yes I said training. After that little attack, Quint said it was time to learn a little more on how to use our powers and defend ourselves. For the week, Sarah, Nick, and I went over Quint’s to be taught new tricks. Nick was mainly taught aura pushes, kind of like when I pushed Xi away from my soul when I broke my chain on purpose. He was also taught on how to protect himself and others around him while doing so. Quint had already taught Nick how to use an aura shield, but none of us were taught how to create the shield that Quint had. Sarah and I were mostly taught more powerful aura powers and how to use our soul’s power to make them stronger. Have you ever seen one of those anime fighting shows where the characters bring energy balls to their hands? We were taught that. It’s pretty sweet.

At one point of our training week, we sat in Quint’s backyard, taking a break.

While we ate our snacks, Sarah brought up Dee.

“Dee is still staring at us,” she said.

“At least it’s not as much as it used to be,” I said, taking a sip of my ice tea.

“Try to not take any notice of her,” Quint told us, walking around our grouping.

I then told them about how I finally felt that pull on my soul. Then mentioned a strange feeling from her aura – almost a feline feeling. Which is odd because she’s definitely not a cat.

Sarah agreed with me, but Quint ignored the comment.

Nick laughed thinking it would be funny if “Animorphs” really existed in the world.

Later that night I had a dream with Dru in it. I was fighting with Xi, displaying all my new attacks by the way, but Xi’s last attack came too fast at me. That was when Dru appeared and blocked the attack. I yelled for her again, waking me up. I looked around my dark room and saw nothing but my walls and furniture. I looked at the clock and figured it was time to get up for school anyways.

School was going pretty good until lunch came around. I wasn’t hungry, but I was super bored. Brittany was absent so I had no one to really “talk” to. I sat at my lunch table and zoned everyone out. I attempted to listen to the conversations of the souls. My mind was taken off the soul talk when I saw a girl walk up to Quint’s table and wrap her arms around him. My eyebrow rose in jealousy.

I then heard one of his friends say, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

I agreed with that statement.

“And why not?” she asked, putting her hands on his shoulders.

“Because he’s got a girlfriend,” another said.

“Since when?”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” I heard Quint say.

His friend, Steve, said, “Don’t be bashful, Quint. We all know something happened when you had me drive you two home the other day!”

“Guys-” Quint started.

“Did you guys make out?” the girl asked.

What did it matter to her anyways?

“Or was it more?” she added.

“Whatever it was, Brooke,” the second kid said, “we’re trying to get him to ask her out, but he says he “can’t”.”

I began to blush hearing all of this. Quint’s friends want the details and are bugging him to ask me out. How sweet. This was becoming quite the conversation.

“Who’s the girl?” Brooke asked, throwing her hands to her hips. I watched everyone throw their fingers my way. I quickly shot my attention back to my notebook on the table and threw it open, acting like I was looking at it this entire time. The girl walked over to me and sat down, “So you’re the one Quint’s messing around with?”

I played dumb and asked her to repeat herself, which she did, in a snottier tone.

“I guess so?” I answered, raising my eyebrow, still acting dumb.

She stared at me for a second, thinking of her next annoying question. “Why not go out with him then? You know, make it official?”

“Why couldn’t two people just be friends?” Is what I really wanted to say, but she would probably just call me a name, then steal Quint away from me. I stuttered at first answering her. I was thinking about how this was no one’s business and also about what Quint said about Sarah and Nick dating. I couldn’t say yes to this messenger about dating Quint until Xi was out of the picture. Finally I just smiled an annoyed smile at her and answered:

“I can’t.”

She laughed, rolled her eyes and mumbled, “Whatever,” all before she walked away. She went back to Quint, said something to him and left.

Was she jealous or something?

I finished my lunch period in confusion.