When I sat on the couch to work on my latest toy for Alexandra, I would look up at the game Lucas and Clarisse were playing. It was a fighting game. Clarisse kept trying to mess up Lucas by putting her hand in front of his face or pressing buttons on his controller. He didn’t seem to mind too much. Carter, on the other hand, was talking as loudly as he could right in my ear.

“That’s why I think having a higher education is pointless.” He finished rambling.

“You’re not wrong,” I said as I wrapped the hook around the yarn. I almost had the legs done.

He bumped my arm, “What do you guys think the first mission is going to be?”

“Something with bad guys,” Lucas said, not looking back from the screen.

“Well, duh,” Carter exclaimed. “I bet there’s going to be a whole hoard of people trying to keep their precious stolen jewelry safe and then we’re going to have to…” I zoned out the rest he was saying.

I was starting to get antsy sitting here. Listening to Carter drone on and on was not how I wanted to spend my afternoon. I didn’t even understand why I let them in, to begin with. They randomly show up on my doorstep with food and games. I wanted peace and quiet. 

The sucky part was this was the longest I had been away from home. When Alexandra was born, I always stayed back to help them out. Plus her cute smile was irresistible to an older sister. The amount of power that toddler had over me was ridiculous. Anyone in my shoes would feel the same way. She was one of the most important people in my life.

“No!” Clarisse yelled, “I lost again,” she plopped her back on Lucas’s lap. “You beat me again.”

“It’s not my fault you suck,” he laughed while poking at her face.

“Rude,” she crossed her arms and fake pouted. 

“Awe, is someone a little angwy?” Lucas laughed.

“No.” She turned her head away. 

They were insufferable. I looked down at my progress. I still had quite a ways to go. I wish I had the ability to get this done as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, each word that was uttered out of their mouths distracted me. 

Luckily, Carter finally got bored talking to me and decided to pace around the living room. At the very least there would be peace in my ears. Didn’t help with the rest of the peanut gallery but at least I didn’t have someone breathing down my neck.

“Well, after that crushing defeat, who wants snacks?” Lucas stood up. 

“I do! Let me help!” Carter yelled and ran towards him. 

“We’ll be back in a sec.” They walked into the kitchen. Gone at last. 

As I was about to add onto the arm of the stuffy, Clarisse looked up at me from the floor, “This is fun, right?”

“Define fun.”

“Why’re you being such a sourpuss this evening?” She laughed.

“Maybe because some idiots invited themselves into my apartment without asking.”

“We can’t have you being a hermit.”

“I like being a hermit, it works well with my lifestyle.”

Not even a couple seconds later, they came back with a plate of cheese and crackers. Lucas put it on the table before taking a seat next to Clarisse. Carter grabbed a handful of food and plopped down next to me. I reached for a cracker. 

“So there’s going to be a movie playing next weekend. Who wants to go with me?” Carter said through a mouthful of food. 

I heard a door slam shut behind me, “I wanna go!” Keira announced and sat down next to Carter. “Sorry I was late, I wanted to get a couple extra reps in.”

“I wanna go too!” Clarisse raised her hand. 

“If everyone is going then I’ll go too.” Lucas shrugged his shoulders. 

Carter looked at me, “You coming too, Lydia?”

Every bone in my body told me that was going to be a terrible time. My only saving grace was that because it was a movie, everyone was going to be forced to be silent. An outing with everyone could be fun. 

My only problem was Keira. Of course, she wanted to go too. She wouldn’t be talking but her cocky attitude came through even when she wasn't. Who does she think she is saying she’s better than everyone else anyway? We’re all on the same page here. It’s her who thinks she’s this amazing fighter. I’m going to prove her wrong one of these days.

“Yeah, why not?” 

“Yes!” Carter jumped to his feet. “I’ll order the tickets.” He went on his phone and started clicking on things. 

Keira stole his seat and slid over next to me. I looked intently at the bear. I did not want her talking to me. Didn’t she know that I hated her guts? My shining personality made it obvious that I wanted nothing to do with her.

“Whatcha making?” Her shoulder touched mine, and I moved over. 

“I’m crocheting a bear for my little sister.” I refused to look at her. 

She slid closer to me again, “That’s so cool! I wish I could do something like that,” she laughed. 

“I’m sure you do,” I rolled my eyes. Was she making fun of me?

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. I was going to let her get to me. She can think what she wants. Unfortunately, though, she wouldn’t stop watching me. Didn’t she have better things to do? I finally got up from my seat and sat down in the recliner. 

While I continued my work, Lucas and Clarisse got back to their game. They still went along with the back and forth and sabotage. I glanced at the screen at one point and noticed that Clarisse was winning. Just as she was about to get in the final blow, a screeching alarm could be heard.

Lucas looked up to the ceiling while the rest of us were glued in our seats. We’d been here a couple weeks and hadn’t heard any noise like that before. It was so loud that it was starting to hurt my ears.

Keira stood up from the couch and Lucas stood up from where he was sitting. They were way too calm. Without any wavering in his voice, Lucas carefully told us that we needed to leave the building right now. The rest of us nodded in agreement, not really sure what was going on.

We followed him out the door and down six flights of stairs. Lucas was in the lead, followed by Keira then, Clarisse, me, and Carter. My fight-or-flight instincts were starting to kick in. My hands started to get warm in anticipation. 

When we reached the lobby, everyone else was evacuating as well. Outside was a mess of people scattered everywhere. Some looked borderline panicked. It was good to know we weren’t the only ones taken off guard. Lucas led us to a patch of grass farthest away from everyone.

“Can you tell us what’s going on now?” Clarisse crossed her arms with a worried look on her face.

“The building was attacked,” Lucas said calmly. I noticed the fire in the background.

“No problem. We’ll find the idiots who did this.” Carter cracked his knuckles.

"Unfortunately, no can do pal. We don’t have the jurisdiction.” Keira shrugged her shoulders.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, we’re basically at the bottom of the totem pole. For us to be able to situations like this we need to have at least a two-star ranking out of five. We currently have zero.” Keira explained.

“How do we do that?” Clarisse questioned.

“Going on missions and succeeding. The higher the difficulty the more stars we get.” Lucas said.

We all sat there antsy, watching as other groups could approach but we couldn’t. I hated the number of rules here. We came here to take down people attacking us and now we couldn’t do it.

“This is ridiculous.” Carter pouted.

“There’s not much we can do except stay out of their way.” Clarisse patted his shoulder.

“Fi-” he stopped mid-sentence and looked off into the distance. There was someone out there. “Screw this, I’m going to help.” Carter jumped up from the floor and raced away.

The rest of us stood up as well and followed after him. Lucas wanted us to stay put at first but we figured safety in numbers was better.

When we approached there was a gorgeous woman there. She was older than us, probably in her mid-thirties. She had her arm wrapped in circles around Carter. She had some sort of ability to stretch her limbs

Without thinking I snapped my fire right at her. She dodged my attack but dropped Carter.

“Who are you?” Lucas stepped up right in front of her.

She looked him in the eye for a split second before disappearing.