Her words caught me by surprise. Did I actually hate her? To a degree, yes. She was annoying, too excitable, and took nothing seriously. I would’ve liked to ponder my frustrations over this girl more, but unfortunately, everything that could go wrong with this mission was going wrong.

When we caught up to the rest of the group the first thing I saw was Carter jumping off the wall. He landed on the back of a woman which pushed her to the ground. She looked familiar to me but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

There was another guy there as well. Clarisse and Lucas teamed up. I could tell that Clarisse’s Aftershock ability was in a cooldown period or else he would be paralyzed in place. This guy looked like no joke. He was the same height as Lucas but that was where the similarities ended. He was so huge you’d think he was a bodyguard.

I decided to help Lucas and Clarisse. They were already in combat with him. Lucas was trying to stab at him using his Object Permanence ability. He had two daggers that he used to stab at the man.

“Help me get behind him unnoticed,” Clarisse whispered in my ear.

I nodded at her. I snapped at just the right speed to have the fire stop in front of his face without actually hitting him. It blinded him for just enough time for Clarisse to get behind him. She kicked the back of his knees, sending him to the ground. She pinned his hands behind him. He tried to pull away but she was strong enough to keep him in place.

“Keira,” Clarisse yelled.

Keira looked at her. The vines spread from her feet to where the man was. She used them to tie around his wrist and ankles. The other woman was tied up using the same method. This prompted Carter to get off her back.

“Ok guys, we need to get out of here,” Carter said.

“Take the kids and go. We’ll get things cleaned up over here,” Lucas looked at the man and woman.

Carter grabbed the kid’s hands and started running down the hallway. I was so distracted by this that I failed to notice that the woman was somehow getting out of Keira’s bonds. Upon closer investigation, I noticed that her limbs were stretching away from her body.

Keira noticed this as well and started moving her vines so that she could keep up with the limbs. She had a panicked look on her face.

“You can’t stop me,” the woman struggled.

“We have to leave now,” Keira urged.

“We can’t. It doesn't give Carter enough time,” Lucas added.

I could hear an explosion behind me. “What happened to the kids?” It was Jonas.

“They got away,” the woman told him.

“Dang it! Chris? Is the cooldown over?”

Chris closed his eyes, “Yes.”

“Perfect,” Jonas said and was able to reach the woman and Chris at the same time. Not even seconds later they disappeared, leaving Keira’s vines spread across the floor.

Clarisse pinched her nose, “That was the last thing we needed.”

“As long as we get to Carter first we’ll be fine,” Lucas assured.

“No more chit-chat. We’ve got children to save,” Keira crowed.

We started our long trek to the parking lot. We had a car there waiting for us when we successfully rescued the kids. It was going to take us about fifteen minutes to get there. We severely underestimated just how big this stupid venue was.

“I think we should slow down,” Lucas stated.

“We can but it wouldn’t be smart,” Clarisse commented. “Why?”

“We’re not slowing down,” Keira ordered. I looked over at her. She looked like she was having trouble running. She was limping on her left leg.

“We’re almost there,” I said.

Sure enough, there were two big doors leading to the outside. It was pretty dark outside by this point. The only thing that gave us light was the streetlights down the road.

Carter was already there facing off against the three of them. The kids cowered behind him. Jonas was shooting small explosions toward him. He dodged every single one of them and even had to push the kids out of the way.

“Come on! This is ridiculous!” Carter yelled.

“Give us the kids and we’ll stop,” Jonas announced.

“Not going to happen,” Carter said while dodging the explosions.

I sent my own fireball their way. They all jumped out of the way separating them. This gave Carter enough time to scoop up the kids and shove them in the car. The main issue was getting the rest of us out.

The window rolled down in the car, “You guys have five minutes to get in the car or we’re driving away,” it was Annabelle.

Keira had already started using her vines to get ahold of them. The woman used her limb stretching ability again which made Keira’s ability pretty much useless. Every time she used it against Chris he just teleported a couple feet away. Jonas on the other hand was directly shooting at us.

“Clarisse! Cooldown?” Lucas yelled.

“I’m ready. We have ten seconds!” 

The four of us plugged our ears. She clapped her hands leaving the three of them paralyzed. We sprinted to the car. We just got to the car when the paralysis ended. We quickly climbed in. I thought we were all in but I noticed Carter was still outside. 

“You need to-” my words were cut off.

All of a sudden there was a loud bang and a bright flash of light.