The Chronicles of Fire and Ice_The Revealing

by Dexx Peay

  “You guys are something else,” Trey said. “You know she is going to find some way to get you back, Marcus.”

  “And you know, I couldn’t care less.”

  We didn’t stay that long. The party was packed but lacked real entertainment. I was better off staying at Samantha’s house where there was good food and limbo.

  “Bonfire?” Trey shrugged, his eyebrows mimicking his shoulders.

  “It’s still early but we can head over now.”

  We drove off to the school.

  “Turn this up, I love this song,” Trey screamed and continued rapping along with the radio. I acted like I didn’t know the words so he wouldn’t force me to play karaoke, but he pushed around until I joined in.

  Keeping his eyes on the road, he handed me a CD. “Here, put this on, dude. I know you’ll like this.”

  I loosened up this time and jumped right into the lyrics. I could have a successful career as a rapper if I knew how to dress and talk to girls. I got into the music, throwing my hands in the air, my body rocking to the hardcore beat.

  “Dude, it’s blazing in here,” Trey said, rolling down the windows.

  “How bout you close your mouth, bro and maybe it won’t be so bad.” Although I joked with Trey about the heat, I knew the reason why.

  I closed my eyes so that the music could flow through me as I moved.

  Trey’s attention was elsewhere because he didn’t see what was ahead of us. I opened my eyes and my heart instantly punched against my chest.

  Palms sweaty, I grabbed the steering wheel and screamed, “TREY LOOK OUT!”

  My body tensed as he grabbed the wheel with me.

  I braced myself for impact, holding onto anything that wouldn’t send me flying. Mom would freak if she found out I was in a car without my seatbelt on, I thought. We swerved around the dark object in the street; the tires screeched as Trey slammed on the break, spinning the car out of control down the lonely street. My body jolted against the window, sparks flying from the clashing metal. The car rammed into the guardrail on my side and came to a complete stop.

  “You OK, Marcus?” Trey asked, cursing up a storm. Above his eye was a small cut, a thin line of blood coming down. He wiped the blood with his palms.

  My chest tightened and the sounds coming from my trembling lips tormented me as I gasped for air. I was fine for the most part. Scared, but fine. My arm felt hot.

  “My arm,” I said, clenching on to it, “It’s bleeding, but I can still move it. Just a few scrapes.”

  Trey reached over and hauled me out of the car on his side since my door was pushed against the rail. We looked behind us to see what was in the street.

  It was a man.

  Judging by the distance he was a few inched taller than me.

  He was facing away from us not moving.

  We walked over slowly, but I had to stop when the pain said so.

  Trey walked up alone, glancing back with each step. The man was dressed in all black — hoodie, jeans and boots. He didn’t appear to be hurt or scared.

  “Sir, are you OK?” Trey yelled, getting closer. You could feel Trey’s fear in the dark of the night like needles with each inch of him getting closer to the peculiar stranger.

  I stopped on the side of the street and ripped off some of my shirt to use as a tourniquet for my arm that was now steadily bleeding. Trey unsuccessfully got the stranger to say anything.

  “Maybe he’s in shock,” Trey called back to me. His voice was faint as I was concentrating on wrapping my arm. Trey was now close enough to where he could touch the man. As his hand slowly rose to tap his shoulder, I knew something really didn’t feel right.

  He saw us coming and didn’t move or budge and he still hasn’t moved or said anything to us. This man was not in shock; he had no business being in the middle of the street.

  Trey’s hand was almost on his shoulder.

  My heart was now in my throat, making it hard for me to breath. My hand, still pressed on my arm with a dirty shirt wrapped around it, started to cover in blood. Smoke from the car infiltrated my nostrils and the lack of light had those needles stabbing the side of my neck.

  I raised my head after soaking in the accident and the words reacted to fear. “TREY!”

  Trey froze, his hand right on the stranger’s shoulder, his head twisted my direction. I stole the surprise off of Trey’s face.

  I gasped.

  “Duck!” I yelled.

  Trey didn’t ask any questions and hit the ground in just the nick of time. The man put his hands together and shot a beam of sparkling blue ice particles that was moving faster than lightning striking to the ground. The ice without a doubt would have killed Trey.

  There I was struggling to stand with a half-wrapped bleeding arm and ice racing to my death. I didn’t have time to think and in an instant, my hands went from brown to flame. I mimicked what the ice guy did and stuck my arms in front of me and it was like I absorbed the ice. When I took the ice in, the momentum spun me around in a three-sixty and I shot a stream of fire at him.

  Trey, still on the ground breathing viciously with one side of his face planted on the asphalt as the battle of fire and ice took place above him, darted his eyes back and forth between the two of us with sweat dripping to the pavement. Right before my attack could hit the stranger, he sprung into the air and disappeared. I ran to Trey, who was now back on his feet.

  “I'm fine, how did you — MARCUS LOOK OUT!” he screamed, pointing over my shoulder.

  He grabbed me and ran, pushing me to the side as the stranger flew past us so fast the wind whistled in my ear. He left a trail of ice on the ground as he went back into the sky.

  “Stay right here, Trey, don’t move.” I grappled his arms to make sure he understood how serious I was. I figured he wasn’t going to leave us alone unless we could escape, but I didn’t see that happening.

  Paranoid, I walked back into the middle of the abandoned street that only had one dim streetlight, to try and find out who he was and what he wanted with us.

  I couldn’t stop shaking.

  But I knew I had to pull it together.

  This was a life or death situation.

  And I wanted life.

  I looked back at Trey resting on one of the guardrails. As I turned back around I realized I was no longer on the ground and Trey voice calling out for me was becoming more distant.

  It happened that fast.

  The man grabbed me by the throat and held onto me as we breezed through the air with my feet dangling. I grabbed his arms for comfort; in the event he was to lose his grip, I needed something to hold. I couldn’t get a good look at him since his hood cast a large shadow over his face. We sprinted through the winds and into the tree line then — SMACK!

  He slammed me into a tree, my body now crippled in pain, his grip still tight on my throat. He rose to stand tall, taking me with him; the bark of the tree scraped the back of my head and neck, tearing through my cheap tee shirt with every movement. I grunted and moaned as he continued to strangle the life out me. My head felt as if I was hit with a baseball — no helmet. I couldn’t focus on the pain of everywhere else until I got rid of my energetic headache.

  My hands slid off his sweaty wrist as I tried to create a wedge and break the hold of his hands around my neck, but his meaty fingers had dug deep into my throat. The shapes around me were growing dim from the lack of oxygen and all I could think was, what the hell. He removed one hand and reached for his hood that draped over his face and slid it off. For the first time ever I witnessed someone African-American with translucent blue eyes.

  I was captivated.

  “What — do — you — want — with us?” I managed to say with his hand wrapped around my neck.

  A menacing smile on his face, he leaned into my face and whispered, “Not us. You.”

  He examined my body like an experiment — looking over my face and neck.

  Something wasn’t right and I was losing oxygen by the s
econds.

  His eyes trailed both my arms. “You. Aren’t. Like. The others….” His voice monotone. “What are you?”

  I didn’t know what he meant by that.

  “You are… different,” he said.

  The feeling of me possibly dying caused images of my family, graduation and Dylan to replay in my head. A boost of energy filled me and my hands sparked back up. I didn’t know how to control the bursts, but it seemed to happen at the right times.

  Almost instinctual.

  My hands released from his wrists and stamped him in the chest, catching him off guard. My fists left a scorched mark in the middle of his hoodie. He released me and I slid down the tree as he stumbled back. I stood up, grabbed his arm, pulled him closer to me and watched as fire took over him. He knelt down and I grabbed his other arm and lit him up.

  He cried out for me to stop. His eyes suddenly went from blue to dark brown. I couldn’t fathom what I was doing, so I stopped. He was barely alive from what I could tell.

  “What the heck am I?” I said, looking at my hands in disbelief. I still couldn’t grasp what was going on with my body. I left him there and ran back to check on Trey, constantly looking back to make sure the guy was still alive.

  “What the hell is going on?” Trey ranted when I reached him. “That dude tried to kill us.”

  “Actually,” I gasped for air, “he just wanted to kill me. You were just at the wrong place at the wrong time. Think the car can still drive? I need to get cleaned up.”

  “Yo! You shot fire out of your hands. How the heck did you do that? And that guy — that guy shot ice from his hands and he flew.” He continued his rant as he paced down the street. I didn’t even care that he knew; I was just happy to be alive.

  “Where is that guy? What if he comes back, Marcus? What is going on?”

  “Trey, just get me out of here,” I said as I fell to my knees. My vision was going in out and I needed to eat to get my chemistry back in order.

  We got in the car and drove away from the scene and pulled over in a random alley. Trey pulled some old napkins out from the glove compartment and pressed them to wounds.

  “So how long have you known you were — whatever it is you are? What are you?” He spoke in an understanding tone. Whatever was going on with me, he wasn’t scared. Or at least, he pretended not to be.

  “Not that long. It just started happening recently. That was me at your pool party heating the water up and—”

  “I know.” He smiled; a small chuckled escaped in a breath. “It’s not every day you see someone’s eyes flash red. I just put two and two together. It freaked me the hell out, you know. So, do you know anybody else with powers besides the guy who tried to kill you?”

  “No. As far as I knew I was the only one.” I pulled out my phone and called Dylan. “Bro, we have an emergency. Meet me and Trey at the restaurant ASAP and come alone.”

  Trey cranked the banged car up and drove to the restaurant. It didn’t run or sound as smooth as it used to. I wondered what his parents were going to say?

  “Dylan knows what you can do?”

  “Yeah, he was the only one.”

  He caught a glimpse of my playful side-eye. “If you’re worried about me telling people, don’t be.”

  “I'm not. I'm just a little bit nervous about what all this means, you know? I have no idea why I have this ability.”

  When we got to the restaurant, I told Trey to park in the back to be a little more inconspicuous. We went in and I locked the door behind us. We took a seat but kept the lights off and waited in silence. There was a polite knock on the window that caused us to jump.

  It was Dylan.

  Guess Trey and I were still shaken up from the attack. Trey let him in.

  “What happened?” Dylan asked, rushing in past Trey.

  He looked at the both of us, analyzing the condition of our clothes and bodies. Trey and I just stood there — him with his ripped-up clothes and scratched up face, and me with half my clothes burnt off and a bloody arm. Not to mention all the other scrapes and bruises I had all over my body.

  “We were just driving and in the car goofing around. Some man appeared in the middle of the street, Trey swerved, crashed, and the guy went crazy,” I said.

  “So I take it that Trey knows everything?” Dylan said.

  “Yeah I told him about my powers and that you knew. I also told him that I didn’t know anybody else with powers until our encounter with the crazy guy.”

  His brown eyes squinted at me then over to Trey. Trey looked at the both of us.

  “Okayyy, so what did this crazy guy look like?” Dylan asked.

  “That’s the thing, he looked normal, just like you and I.”

  “Except he could shoot ice from his hands,” Trey added. “Yep, other than that, pretty normal I would say.”

  “Ice?” Dylan cocked his head to the side. “He could shoot ice from his hands?”

  “Almost took me out with it. Good thing Marcus was there,” Trey boosted.

  “And he could fly,” I mentioned.

  “This is too much for one night. Let’s get you guys home. Where’s your car, Trey?” Dylan asked.

  “It’s around back.”

  “Good. Do you think you’ll be fine to drive home alone? I’ll give Marc a ride.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Be careful, Trey,” I said.

  I went to Dylan’s house to give him all the details. We walked up to his room and I took a seat at his desk. He went to the bathroom and came back with a first-aid kit.

  “Now, what really happened?”

  “Well, he had the same powers as you but he could fly. He had the whole blue eyes and everything. Then, he told me that I'm not like the others.”

  “Not like the others…” he whispered to himself, looking down at the ground and rubbing his chin. He continued to clean the blood off me. “Damn, Marc, this guy really did a number on you. I always knew you could hold your own.”

  I grabbed his hand and his attention as he cleaned my chin. “Hey, remember when you said that there would be other people out there with powers and we should find them?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I think they know about me somehow and are coming to hunt me down. And as far as them, I really don’t think they want to be found.”

  Chapter 11

  Training Day

  Since the attack a few weeks ago, nothing else major happened. I’ve been busy working to save up money for college and spending time with my family. Marcus was also busy working and hitting the gym as much as possible. He was determined to get stronger and gain some weight before we left for college. Trey came around at times but was training and conditioning in preparation for football. I managed to not use my powers or speak about them in front of Marcus due to his encounter with the mystery man. He was suffering from a little PTSD but slowly coming back to his normal self. I'm guessing the weights had been a stress reliever.

  Mom spent a huge amount of time with Dalton. Any free time she had away from the hospital was spent doing activities he enjoyed. On Tuesdays she took him to karate class and soccer on Mondays and Wednesdays. I even caught her in his room playing video games. She may act like she didn’t like them but was getting competitive lately.

  Like Dad.

  Speaking of, he was excited that I got my first job. I know that bagging groceries wasn’t a real job, but I made an income. Either way, he didn’t have to give me any money for the summer. As far as his free time, I'm not sure what he did. I felt like he was never home but that could just be because I never was.

  I just got off after working six days straight. The day was blistering hot and my co-workers were all looking like they wanted to fall out every time we pushed a cart out to a car. I quickly realize that my body was impervious to hot and cold temperatures so that wasn’t an issue for me. Another cool thing I discovered was that I could sometimes lower the temperature around me similar to Marcus raising his. For the people I
liked at work, I would turn the “AC” on for them and if they weren’t in my general vicinity I would just give them a gentle blow of fresh air. The ones I didn’t like, which were most of them, well … I would just let them suffer. I guess it was because I was the new guy who brought home the most money every other day.

  It was the end of my shift and I checked my phone on the way to my car since my boss, Mrs. Lily, hated when we checked our phone on the sales floor. Not sure if she’d ever catch us since she’s always on hers texting a mile a minute. I had one missed call from Marcus. He was at work and I wanted a smoothie so it was perfect timing.

  “There he is,” Mr. Peterson said as I walked into the restaurant. “Strawberry kiwi smoothie coming right up.”

  “Appreciate it, Mr. Peterson. No rush,” I said. The place was swamped with customers and it looked like Mr. Peterson was short staffed. Maybe I should have taken him up on his offer to help out. Marcus was running around and tossing orders like a pro. I took a seat at the booth and slurped my smoothie and when it finally calmed down, Marcus galloped over.

  “I found a place,” he said, taking a seat next to me. “A place for us to train.”

  “What? Where? When? Let’s go.”

  “Dylan, man you gotta be quiet. No one can know what we’re doing.”

  “Yeah, right, gotcha. Where is it?” I almost spit out my smoothie. He pulled out a balled up receipt from his apron and wrote “10 Hilltop Ross Circle”.

  “What the hell is this, Marc?”

  “Can you get any more stupid, Dylan? It’s an address. This is where we’ll spend our time away from everyone else and learn to control our powers. And don’t talk like that in my father’s restaurant.”

  “Yep yep, power control.”

  “Take this serious, Dylan. These freakin powers almost got me killed last time, remember?”

  “Yeah and these powers saved your tail also. See, I didn’t say the other word I was really thinking.”

  His palm smacked his forehead. “OK listen, midnight meet me there and we will develop a plan as to what we’ll do. Like a training schedule so to speak.”