Chapter 10

Finding an escape is difficult, but the team agrees on a plan. And as much as Simon hates it, he goes with it. Katherine learns that she can do more than she thought.

We needed to find a way out, but the door was closed and the guards were still in the room. But they were all slumped over, hanging their shoulder like they fell asleep standing up. They were mind controlled people, being taken over by the Principal and the company’s secret device, the Hex Driver. And we had one on all of our arms, which meant it was only a matter of time before we ended up like them. There was no way we were going to let that happen with a fight.

But it was the fight in me that got Claire hurt. My rage reached out when I shot an energized bolt of magic at her mother, when Claire instinctively moved in the way and took the shot herself. Simon was holding her, checking on her pulse every minute. He told me that she was fine, just knocked out. He assured me that she would be pissed and start acting like her usual, angry self after we got out of here.

“Speaking of out of here… How do we get out?” I asked Simon, looking from guard to guard. Each had military suits with the notorious hexagram symbol. In each of their arms were rifles, specially made by the company too. The symbol was everywhere. They had all the money and power they needed over anyone living on this island for their experiment. “I don’t know if walking out is going to work.”

“We have to try,” Simon told me, throwing Claire’s arm over his shoulder. I took the other, and we lifted her up between us. He looked over at me, smiled, and took the first step. The door was right in front of us, but there were a lot of heavy clicks and other noises behind us. “Crap.”

I looked over my shoulder and saw that the guards came to life. They were holding their guns up to us, red lines on our backs. The fear of them shooting was what sunk us to the floor. Six guards I counted. There was no way we could take them, but maybe there was another trick. I told Simon the small incantation for going invisible, then said it myself. My body faded from view, but not Claire’s. I amped my power and the spell started to cover Claire. Simon focused, it took him a while but he got it. Claire was covered by the spell by the time Simon had gotten it to work on himself, too. The red lines were still on us, though. We moved to the side. The red lines followed.

“You have to be kidding me,” Simon slumped his shoulders, ready to give up. “You told me only people in the same spell can see you.”

“That’s right.”

“Then how are they following us with their red dots?”

I squinted my eyes. All six guards were almost completely invisible to the human eye. Not to us, of course, since it was the same spell. When using the same spell, you can see the people who are also invisible.

“How are they copying our spell?”

A voice came over the speaker in the room’s corner. “These guards have the ability to copy certain field type magics. You’re sneaky antics won’t work on them, kiddos.”

To save our energy, Simon and I removed the invisibility spell from ourselves and Claire. The guards returned to normal at the same time. My concerning glance to Simon made him shift his own expression, his coming out more worried and scared than I thought he was originally.

“I’ll make an opening,” I mouthed to him.

“No, that is crazy,” he mouthed back.

“I have too,” I told him, out loud. “Claire told me that something was wrong with my magic. When I hit one of the school dummies, it left the scorch mark. She said that all of the others just disappeared instantly. It means something is up with my Hex Driver and I will stay visible. You and Claire can go invisible and leave.”

It was a theory that was risky, but if I stayed in view, maybe Simon could get away with Claire. He was cursing wild things under his breath, which I couldn’t make them all out. In a few seconds, he and Claire disappeared from my view. A big smile crossed my face and I stepped to the guards, all of their red dot sights lined up on my stomach now.

The door opened, and I heard Simon say, “be careful,” but there was nothing safe or careful about the ideas coming to my head. My parents came to mind. They wanted to try their hardest to make this work for all of us. The main land was too expensive, and Hex had offered a way out, a better living space. I had made it difficult, throwing fit after fit for them. There was everything good in front of me, and I refused to realize it. After getting into Hex, I searched and went into finding out all of the stuff I could about the Hex Driver, the killings, and now was caught up in something.

The guards were locked on, and Simon had been gone for five minutes… at least. That would be good enough for me to move on to the next part. I knew that if I raised my hands, the guards would take that as an act of offense and most likely shoot me. In my head, I was trying to access all of the magic that the parasite was allowing me to use. I imagined a powerful tornado inside of the room. The amount of magic that would take to pull off would be extraordinary. There was that or trying to reach out to their Hex Drivers, which was even more farfetch’d.

So a tornado in a small room was the best chance I had. Even if it hurt me. Around me the air had changed. It became stronger, picking up in speed as it circled me. My hair was whipping around in the air, and my clothes were slowly lifting up, but I held myself.

The guards in the front backed up, dropping their weapons to their hips. They build up the courage to charge me, but by then the wind was too strong. They flew to the side of the room and hit the wall with a hard thud. The next pair were a little smarter not to come toward me, but shot a few rounds. The wind was just picking up, continuously. Not even the bullets could reach me, all of them flew into the wall where the first two guards had hit.

Again, the voice over the speaker came through. It was muffled from all of the other sounds whizzing by me, but I was able to piece together the sounds of a human female voice. “Katherine, stop whatever you are doing and give up. We’re going to find Simon and Claire, then take all of you to a cell. It is over.”

“NO!” I screamed. As I did, the wind hit it’s maximum strength, it’s reach extending to fill the entire room. Around me had been the bodies of the guards. Their arms and legs flailing as they circled me in the tornado.

After a few minutes, the wind stopped. I was drained. The bodies were hurled against walls, knocking them all out. Or maybe killing them, I didn’t know. The door was there for my taking, no one inside to stop me. I ran out of the small room, looking down the hallways. Simon had hopefully been able to find a way out by now and not have gotten caught.

“What did you do?” His voice came over the Hex Driver. I lifted my arm and hugged my arm.

“Just run. I took out the guards.”

“You did what? Katherine, are you okay?”

“Yeah, keep going!” I stopped responding after that. There had been two way to go, left or right. Speaking over the Hex Driver was risky. Simon would probably go right. That is the way I started going too.

The walk took forever, but I saw a light coming from what looked like a doorway, bright like the sun. Freedom had been mere steps away. The door closed on my face, my eyes growing big and filling with tears. Before I could try the knob, I heard the click of the lock.

“Not so fast,” said a male voice behind me. I turned to look but once again, I was knocked unconscious.