Every breath shook my body with pain, every thought through my head was laced with poison. I couldn't move, I couldn't talk, even just laying there let the sudden pain flood over me like a wave. I was drowning in it with no way out.

I heard the voices above me, raising and lowering, but I couldn't hear what they said. I felt my head move, but I didn't move it.

It was hours, days, years before the pain washed away and I could open my eyes. A bright light was above me, different from the red one clouding my vision before. It got blocked, like an eclipse, by my brother's head.

"Oh thank God, Biana. Are you okay?" He turned my head side to side, checking me for injuries that were only under the skin, until I slapped his hand away.

"I'm fine now, stop doing that." I looked around, knowing that whatever happened was because of Sophie. She'd be guilty. I'm not going to let her feel that way when she clearly had no control over her emotions. Only, she wasn't there. "Where's Sophie?"

"Gone." Tam practically snarled. Disgust filled his voice, a way I'd never heard him talk about Sophie, or any of his friends before. My eyes widened at him.

"You killed her?!" This time his eyes widened, so clearly I was wrong. The way he said that though, it sounded like he would've. Like he wouldn't have minded if she was dead.

"No, she ran off after Dex." Linh explained. She described to me what had happened after they came to find her, how Tam was screaming at her and making everything worse. I wasn't surprised, he always overreacted.

"We should go after them." I said. "It's bad enough Dex is mad at her, I don't want her to think that I hate her because of what happened." I leaped up before anyone could reply, running down the hall and outside. I hadn't heard anything on the way there, any talking or shouting, but I heard screaming as soon as I reached the front door.

It was coming from... the sky? I threw the door open and looked up, where I saw a small figure falling from the sky, getting closer and closer until it split. The screaming continued, and I joined in.

"Sophie! Dex!" I sprinted towards where they were falling, right onto the hard ground, the cement in front of my driveway.

I heard the door slam open and shut behind me, but I was too focused worrying on what to do, how to save them, to care too much. Linh screamed behind me and Keefe let out a yell of worry.

"Sophie! Take control!" He shouted. "Focus! Control it!" I didn't care about what he was trying to do, my brain was on overload. This had to be one of Sophie's powers. She could fly, and now she was falling.

Lower and lower, closer and closer to splatting into a million pieces on the ground. I could watch that. As they continued to fall, I backed away. I couldn't watch my friends die, couldn't watch them just become a stain on the ground.

I was still holding out hope, though. Hope for Sophie, hope for some miracle to save them. She's had tons of near death experiences before, this wouldn't be the one to take her.

So I took another step back, out of their path to the ground, and gripped onto the two people next to me tight. I didn't notice who it was as Dex's screams got louder, Sophie completely silent, when they were only ten feet above the ground.

Five.

Then they were gone. They just disappeared into thin air, like they were falling into something that I couldn't see. All we heard was the loud crackle of thunder and they were gone.

It took me a few seconds, maybe a minute, for what just happened to catch up to me. For me to fully process what happened, the emotions coursing through my veins, all the fear and anxiety and adrenaline that had taken over me for the past few minutes.

It was all gone, just like Sophie and Dex, and left me feeling empty without my thoughts of their immediate deaths. Empty with nothing but screams fighting to be let out.

So I let them out.

I didn't notice the neighbors leaving their houses to see what the screaming was, or looking in concern at me, on my knees on the ground, screaming for everything that just happened. It was only later, when they stopped by to check on me, that I found out.

I didn't notice my friends around me, taken up in their own shock to even think about checking on me, all except for Fitz. I felt his presence beside me as he took a seat, wrapping me in his arms. I leaned in, clutching the extra fabric of his baggy shirt tight, shaking with confusion and a weird calming feeling, knowing they didn't die. At least, not here, in front of me.

"I've got you. It's okay. They're going to be okay. You know Sophie wont die that easily." My brother whispered to me. I laughed a little into his shirt, my breathing easing.

"What. The. Fuck." Marella said, her eyes still wide in shock. "What is going on?" I could hear how stressed she was, and see the confusion she was trying to hide. This had to kill her, not knowing what was going on when she was always the one that knew everything.

"That's gotta be one of her new powers." Keefe said, almost more to himself than us. I rose from the ground, the cement of my driveway having left indents on my hands and knees.

"What do you know about this?" I asked him. "I want to know everything."

"I shouldn't tell you." He rubbed the back of his neck, his eyes darting everywhere but me.

"Please, I think we all deserve to know." I was a step away from bringing out the fake tears, except I wasn't so sure if they would be fake. I had no idea what was going on with my best friend, how to help her. I just wanted to help her with this, be there for her. But I didn't even know where she was, I very well couldn't ask her any of my questions. So Keefe would have to do.

"It's Sophie's story. Her business. I'm sorry Biana." Tam stormed over and pushed his shoulder. My eyes widened at the anger painted on his face, the cold and calculation.

"You'll tell us everything that's going on with her. She's a danger to us now, she hurt Biana. We all have a right to know just how that kidnapping screwed her up, or how she was screwed up before. So I know how to keep her from hurting anyone else."

"Tam." I whispered in shock, gently laying my hand in his arm. He jerked, but eventually leaned into my touch. I've never seen him like this, so angry and hateful. And never to any of his friends. I had thought him and Sophie were getting over the rivalry, but this was more than that. He hated her.

As he turned to me, and I looked into his eyes, I saw that wasn't the case at all. He didn't hate Sophie. He was scared of what he couldn't control. Scared that he couldn't protect us from this unknown danger, when he was so used to being able to scare off any threat. He'd kept Linh safe all his life, kept me safe as long as we'd been together. As long as we'd been friends. He hated that he couldn't protect us from this, hated that he didn't know what was going to happen, hated that he couldn't protect Sophie from herself. The uncertainty in his eyes reflected it all.

"Don't ever talk about Sophie like that again." Keefe ordered, his voice deeper with anger. "She's your friend too, don't act like she isn't. None of this is her fault, and you just had to go and make it worse. She just went through a traumatic experience that she hasn't even told any of us the details of, and you're acting like it turned her into a monster. She's getting enough of those accusations from herself, you don't need to be piling more on top of that." Keefe stepped forward, ready to shove Tam back before I got in the way.

"We don't need to fight over this." I said. "Emotions are clearly high right now, and that's not going to help, so you both need to cool it. Are we going to try to find them, or keep arguing out here?" I turned my head between both of them, seeing the shame in their cheeks as they bowed their heads. Boys with mommy issues were always so remorseful when someone acted the slightest bit disappointed, so I knew this was killing them.

"Let's go back inside, where we can talk." Linh suggested from where she and Marella had been standing off to the side, observing the fight. I noticed that Fitz was hovering behind Tam, behind me. He was ready to step in if things escalated.

Linh led us back to the sitting room, where we all sat where we were before. We were in an awkward silence for a moment, no one wanting to ruin the fragile peace. So naturally, I decided to.

"If we're going to find out what happened to them, we need all the information." I told Keefe. "Unless you have some idea of what happened?"

"Well, I think that they teleported." He ran his fingers through his hair, the hair, clearly stressed. "As you all know, Sophie has powers now because of the kidnapping, and we tried to test them after I found out. I wanted to see how many she had, what all she could do with them. So, we came up with a list of a bunch of different superpowers to try. She already knew about the pain thing, then mind reading, but we did find other ones, like flying." He paused for a second, debating what to say next. "We tried teleportation, but it didn't work. So if she did teleport, I assume it has to do with how she was falling? I don't know, I don't have a clue how this works. But that's my best guess. Cause otherwise, I have no idea what happened, where her and Dex are now."

"We could always call them, you know." Marella said from the recliner, her legs thrown over the arm of it as she picked at her nails, clearly bored. "Unless you guys want to come up with some more complex and time consuming plan?"

"No, we should do that." I said. "I'll call Sophie."

"I've got Dex." Fitz blurted quickly. I side eyed him before turning my attention to my phone, waiting as the rings started.

A ringing came from down the hall, where we were before with Sophie. And as soon as Fitz hit his call button, we heard slight vibrations from the couch cushions where Dex was sitting.

"Well that's a bust." Tam rolled his eyes. "Time for that more complex and time consuming plan?" Marella stuck out her tongue at him.

"There's not really anything we can do." Keefe said. His voice was emotionless. "They're clearly not here, we don't even know if they did teleport or not. We have no idea what happened to them and there's no way to know for sure until they come back. And who knows when that's going to be."

I watched his face closely, and my own dropped quickly. Not because he was right, which he was, but because his tone and expression matched from when we all thought Sophie was dead.

The unknown was almost so much worse. We had no idea if she was safe or not, injured or healthy. And not only that, but Dex was gone too.

"So we just wait?" Linh asked, her voice filled with disappointment. I knew she hated not being able to do anything.

"That's all we really can do."

I don't know how much time passed after that. Could've been minutes, could've been hours.

All I know is we were up and running when we heard that familiar sound of thunder on this sunny day.

still kinda short but the bext one should be a bit longer based on my planning. this chapter was kinda a struggle, not because of writers block but just motivation to write and my schedule. i'm hoping i'll be able to get a bit ahead thanksgiving break (which will have passed by the time this is out) then hopefully christmas break too which my schedule will lighten a bit after that. i'm so glad i was ahead by like five or more chapters the entirety of summer though because it's been so helpfully even when i got really far behind to still have one or two chapters left between me and updating late. anyways, thanks for reading, i hope you all enjoyed!

avery, out ->

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