CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The final chapter of "Phoenix Parker"

21

After all that, how do I put it, atrociousity (I just made up a word), we walked around searching every inch of Lexington and Lexington-Crawford for anything that could lead us to Thomas and/or Lizzy. I hated the fact that we even went into this house in the first place, I hated that Thomas ran, I hated that Lizzy, even after death, was still after me. I needed to get out of here. I needed to make sure the closest thing I had to family would make it out alive. I shook my head in frustration and screamed like a banshee to the "sky". I grabbed Danny’s hand and Olive’s as we did before, but this time, I’m not letting anyone get to them, they’d have to go through my dead body first.

“That can be arranged,” a distorted voice said from behind me.

Crap. I know that voice.

I rolled my eyes and slowly turned around. “Elizabeth.”

“Nice to see you in another one of my rooms Phoenix,” she rubbed her hands together as if to summon a lightning bolt from the "sky". 

“I thought I told you I was only going to fight you one last time,” I snarled at her, “and that was it.” I tilted down my head and made my eyes wide.

“Well, it seems I was not satisfied with that last fight and I want a rematch, and I might even take your little friends down with you.”

“You’re gonna have to tear me from limb to limb to ever even get your hands on those two, I already lost Olive once and have lost Thomas too. It’s not fair. You are not taking them away from me,” I growled.

“Try and stop me,” she screamed and took to the air, she hovered there and stared at me with those icy brown eyes. She shot down and was headed straight for Danny and Olive. She swooped them up in her arms and flew hundreds of feet in the air. 

Then she loosened her grip, and let them fall.

No. No. No. I sat on the ground, thought intensely about my Maximum Ride wings, praying for them back, needing to save my best friends. 

My powerful fifteen-foot wings shot out from behind my back. “Fight time!”

I shot up to the “sky” and caught Danny, I swiftly set him down before I hit the “sky” again. I attempted to catch Olive but fumbled. I had her, I had her in my arms, but in an instant, she turned to sand. I have no idea how, but . . . she was gone. Gone from my arms. Gone from my life. I don’t even know what happened. She just . . . tears rose to my eyes and I whipped up to Elizabeth, this was a fight to the death, I knew it. It was me or her.

I rose to her for what was hopefully the last time, “I heard a rumor that you’re dead.” 

She smiled deviously, “It’s not a rumor Phoenix, I am dead.”

My eyes widened at the reality of things, “Then how are you here?”

“Well, you see Phoenix, my spirit was wandering around looking for somewhere to use a vessel. Somewhere to go. Somewhere to haunt and I found this place, and said, ‘Well, this haunted house could use some actual haunting.’ So I overtook this whole house.”

“Well, I’m putting this horrible haunted house to an end.” 

I lunged at her and threw a punch, but she dodged it, she must’ve gained speed because it was hard to get a punch in with my lightning fast reflexes. She got behind my back and threw a punch hitting the back of my neck, resulting in my head jerking back and painful tingles shooting down my spine. She hit me with a roundhouse kick to the face. I felt my jaw click and blood drip from my mouth. Then, she got behind me and wrapped her legs around my neck and had me in a triangle-hold. She leaned her head back and fell backward, almost breaking my neck. It can’t end like this. I thought as she continued to thrash me. She hit me with a devastating uppercut which made me twirl backward and start losing altitude. She zipped underneath me and landed a blow on my back, right between my wings, shattering something in my spine. I screamed out in pain. It’s a good thing bird kids heal fast. 

Oh, right! I’m a bird kid! As of right now, but I forgot that I have wings. I flapped up to her and twirled around with my back to her, I clapped my powerful wings together and she was smushed right in between them. I smiled and remembered how amazing my pure white angel wings were. My eyes narrowed and I clapped and rubbed my hands together. You’re going down Elizabeth.

I clapped my hands together on her ears. Repeating a move I’ve done on her before. She screamed as her ears rang intensely. I fiercely kicked her in the chin and her head jerked upwards. She was paler than usual, I would say losing lot of blood, but she’s dead so . . . did she even have blood? I didn’t see any blood coming out of her distorted, messed up face. So I kicked and punched and thrashed her until I ran out of energy. Her left eye was knocked deep in the socket and her jaw was out of place. She looked exhausted and fell backward, her, I guess flying powers, stopped working. I just hovered there for a while and watched as she fell out of the air. I’m not going to save you, Elizabeth, you’re already dead. When she hit the ground her body disintegrated.

After that, you guessed it, I lost my wings. Of course. My hands grasping the air, grabbing for something, anything to hold on to. I stared up at the empty gray sky as it fell away into a regular brown, water-damaged roof. I’m not going to make it out of this one. I thought. Fear encased my entire body but I just let it happen. My arms and legs were flailing. I was falling from hundreds of feet in the air. Danny couldn’t catch me because if he did, he’d get smushed. I got to the point where I just closed my eyes, crossed my arms, and straightened out my legs. I was going to die.

Danny screamed my name as I was falling, “PHOENIX! TRY TO HEAD TOWARDS THE RED CIRCLE IN THE MIDDLE!” 

I opened my eyes and looked down. The grass was green and there were firefighters with -- um, what do you call it, the safety blanket? Eight people were holding the white blanket with a red circle in the middle, but only seven of them were firefighters. Danny being one of the ones holding the blanket. I’M SAVED! I curled into a ball and tried my best to head for the red circle in the middle. I landed hard in the blanket with an audible “oof!” and smiled at the eight people who just saved me.

I rolled off the blanket and into Danny’s arms. After all that, after all those interruptions, after all those horrible, horrible rooms, our lips finally connected. Tears flowed out of my eyes as we kissed and hugged each other tightly. It was finally done and over with. Danny and I walked out of the door and the building was surrounded by police cars with their lights on. OLIVE frantically explaining to an investigator what happened. Oh, my god, she was alive, she was REALLY REALLY ALIVE! AND SHE LOOKED NORMAL! I ran over to her and wrapped my arms around her neck in extreme elation. She turned around and hugged me and sobbed on my shoulder. 

“I’m never going into another haunted house again,” Olive cried. I quietly nodded on her shoulder.

“Ditto, never again.” I walked back over to the front steps of the haunted house and saw Thomas, covered in one of those trama police blankets. He was okay! I walked over to him and his eyes looked deep-set and tired, I don’t know how that was possible, he didn’t look like that a couple hours ago.

“Danny, come here!” I called for him. He came over and sat next to me on the steps and draped his arm around me. 

“Never going into a haunted house again?” Danny looked over at me and Thomas.

“Never again,” Thomas and I said in sync and shared a wry laugh.

Danny and I sat there cuddling for a while, while Thomas went to go talk to Olive.

“I was so scared I was never going to see you again, so many times,” I whispered in his ear.

“I know,” he nuzzled his chin on my neck and encased me in his arms. His warm body was comforting in the cold weather.

“I don’t ever want to lose you again, Daniel.”

“I don’t either, Phoenix.”

“Forever and always?”

“Forever and always,” he repeated.

Our pinkies intertwined for what was sure to not be the last time. That night, the night I spent with my life-time best friend, was the best birthday I've ever had.

Author's Note

For those of you who've made it to the end of my book: Thank y'all so much for reading! I know it was long and might have taken up some of your time to read, so thank you for spending your time with my book! I hope that you enjoyed every second of it! I worked really hard on this story having no idea where it would go, but I just kept writing until my fingers were numb. That's kinda how I write all my things.