Seth signaled to me, letting me know that it was safe to move. We had just gotten done stealing from a gang of people with powers. So far we were unnoticed and we were able to get away with some of their food. Now we had to escape without getting seen.

It was dark and the group was around a campfire. I was hiding behind one of the tents and I was going to move to behind a wood pile before making a run for it into the night. I crawled to the wood pile with the bag of food tied around me. I was about to start running, but then my stomach growled and the sound echoed into the quiet night. I cursed in my head, knowing I had given myself away and the group would’ve definitely heard that.

“What was that?” “Sounded like some weird animal.”

“Go check the food. Make sure raccoons didn’t get to it.”

I cursed in my mind, knowing they would notice some of their food missing. Seth was glaring at me, but I technically didn’t have control over my stomach growling. The reason we were stealing this food was because we hadn’t eaten since yesterday. I could feel my heart pounding in anticipation of the oncoming battle. Seth could hold his own, but my power wasn’t exactly offensive and Seth wouldn’t be able to handle all five of them.

“Something got into our food and I don’t think it was animals!”

Seth raised his hand, controlling his shadow. It spread across the ground until it reached the fire. It smothered the fire, leaving it a lot darker now. One perk about Seth’s power of darkness was that he could see in the dark. I, however, could not.

“Someone’s here!”

Flashlights lit up and I felt someone grab at me. I kept myself from crying out because I hoped it was Seth. When it was completely dark like this, Seth would tap on my arm five times to indicate it was him. But there was no tapping so I knew it wasn’t him.

“I found one!”

I sent a wave of fear at the person holding me. A light came in my direction and the person let go of me, screaming as if something was attacking them. The only real damage my power could do was instill fear in someone. That usually bought me enough time to escape since most people caught on that the illusion of fear wasn’t real.

Seth came up holding his scythe of darkness that he had learned to form as a weapon. He blocked me from the other five that were now closing in on us. Seth was so brave that it blew my mind at times.

“You think you can steal from us and get away with it?” One of them yelled. “I’ll take care of these ones. I hope you like bugs.”

It was hard to see in the dim light of the flashlights, but I could feel things starting to crawl up my legs. I squealed, jumping around, trying to shake them off. Seth ran at the guy controlling the bugs, trying to break his concentration. Seth swiped his scythe at the group and they all jumped back.

“They’re just kids. They need to be taught a lesson.” The bugs started biting into my legs and I ran. I ran as fast as I could to get out of this place, sweeping the bugs off of my legs in the process.

“Seth!” I cried out to tell him I was leaving. He backed away from the group slowly before running after me.

“Don’t stop until we get past that building,” Seth said pointing at one of the torn down skyscrapers. My legs were on fire, not only from running, but also because of the bugs that had bit into me. I still couldn’t tell what kind of bugs they were or what they did to my legs, but I’d have to worry about that later.

A blast of light flew past us and hit a car, causing it to explode. The force of the explosion threw me to the side. I collided with Seth and he used his shadow power to engulf us in a sphere to lessen the impact of us hitting the ground. “These guys won’t give up,” Seth hissed as he stood. My legs were jelly now. I couldn’t move them, they were in so much pain.

“I’m done, Seth. I can’t move my legs,” I whimpered. “Let’s just try giving them back their food and hope they let us go.”

“We’ve got no choice,” Seth sighed. He patted me on the head with a sad expression. “I’m sorry, Ash.”

Seth wrapped his arms around me, using one of his hands to cover my mouth. Darkness enveloped us and I knew he was trying to hide us. Seth knew that I was deathly afraid of his darkness, but we were in a tight spot and he couldn’t avoid using it on me. When it engulfed a person all the senses were blocked and all that a person had was their mind. The only thing I could feel was Seth’s body pressed close to mine and his hand on my mouth. I tried to keep my fear in check so it wouldn’t affect Seth. The darkness shifted around us as Seth opened a hole in the darkness so we could hear outside the dark orb we were in.

“Where did they go? They just disappeared.”

“Geez, let’s go back. If we catch those brats again, we’ll kill them.”

The footsteps disappeared and suddenly I could see again. Seth let go of me and I looked around. I gave a big sigh of relief that we were safe. Seth bent down in front of me and motioned for me to get on. “I’ll carry you back,” he said.

He carried me piggyback style and I felt bad for being such a burden. “Why did you apologize earlier?” I asked him.

“You’re hurt because I wasn’t able to protect you. I promised Mom that I would always protect you,” he stated. I could feel the sadness coming off of him when he mentioned our mother. I also felt sad at times when thinking about our parents, but there wasn’t much time to think about our parents in between figuring out our next shelter and meals.

“There’s no way you could’ve taken on five at once. And you saved both of us. If it weren’t for my stupid stomach, then we’d be back home already.”

“I still think you should stop scouting. You’re too young and your power isn’t that great in protecting you,” Seth said.

“Really? After 5 years of doing this, you’re going to say I’m too young? I’m 13! If anything I’ve gotten pretty damn good at scouting. I need to contribute somehow.”

“Then stop skipping school and become something that’ll help us get out of this situation. Let me and Liam think about survival.”

“That’s not fair,” I grumbled. We walked into the run down house we called our home. Blue greeted us happily, but Liam’s face paled when he saw me. Seth set me down on the beat up, dirty couch we had and I winced in pain.

“What happened?” Liam asked and examined my legs.

“We got caught stealing and someone that controlled bugs got to her,” Seth explained. He went to grab the makeshift first aid kid we had. “I have no idea what would help this.”

I looked at the welts on my legs. It looked like something had pinched me hard all over my legs. That’s what I got for wearing shorts on a raid. The painful part was the heat that was radiating through my legs.

“I think they may have been poisonous,” I stated. “I’m not feeling very well.”

“Just lie back and I’ll take care of this,” Liam said. It took all night of him disinfecting my legs, pulling out bug parts, and wiping me down when my fever got too high, until I felt a little better. Liam and Seth seemed so worried even though I tried to reassure them. I didn’t think I was going to die. Neither of them would let that happen.

“I’m sorry for causing so much trouble,” I whispered. Liam wiped a cold washcloth over my forehead and chuckled. “You’re lying here, paralyzed and feverish, and you’re apologizing? That poison must’ve made you crazy.”

“But you two stayed up all night taking care of me.”

“Of course we did. Now try to sleep this off. You’ll feel better after a while.” Seth gave my hand a squeeze and I nodded closing my eyes. I don’t think I’ve ever slept as deep as I did then. It must’ve been the poison making me weak and drowsy.