Ten- Nox

A Chapter by Sophie

Chapter 10

Nox

The pain fades
To a dull throbbing ache
Loving you
Is a painful mistake.

Excerpt from “Loving You” by Sophie Lynch

Briar-Rose has been ridiculously nice. She lets me sleep in her house, she explained to her parents the situation (a fake one, apparently I'm one of her friend's boyfriend and her friend's mom wouldn't let me stay there while my parents are out of town for a week), and she's made me almost forget I'm here to kill her. With four others discovered, killing them will be easy. The other two I can find and make it look like an accident, and they'll never know of their abilities. Today is the training session, I'm going to be an instructor because I know how to do things, I “trained myself”. We set up in her huge backyard. She wears grey fabric shorts and a green sports bra. Part of having darkness powers is when someone is having an impure thought, I can get the just of it, not the actual wording, but what the meaning is. She's trying to impress a boy, one she has to train.

Almost all of them are late, except for Airborne and that's only because she slept here. Jasper, the boy she wants to train, shows up first, in a fitted tank top and sweatpants. Then Ash. Jasper and Bry are chatting, so he goes to talk to Airborne, who has instructed me to call her Air. I stand there, feeling like a loser, and outcast. How do normal people deal with insecurities everyday? It doesn't really matter, I'm going to kill them all today anyway. We wait, and wait, and wait for the fourth, light. She's the one I'm worried about. I don't know how we'll react to each other's presence.

She doesn't show up.

“Why don't we just start?” I suggest. Briar nods and gathers them around us.

“This is Nox,” she gestures to me, “he has the power of darkness. Why don't you demonstrate what you can do?” I nod and back up. I close my eyes, and feel my head start to wisp away from my body in swirls and tongues of grey and black smoke. I hear collective gasps with my disjointed hearing. Soon I'm completely a cloud and I move at unnaturally fast speeds around the yard. I whip into Ash's face. The force of it knocking him backward. Then into Jasper's stomach, it knocks the wind out of him and he falls into the ground. I go into the woods nearby and change back, then put on the clothes I put there and walk back out. Then I gesture towards the trees. A ray of... darkness comes to me, like a beam of sun would but completely black. It looks like a solid column. I make my hands get wider and it grows thicker. I move it to Air and it engulfs her. I hear her choked screams and I take it away. Ever heard the phrase, “I felt the darkness pressing in,”? The column disappears back into the trees and I get a whiff of a thought.

“Get your mind out of the gutter.” I say to Jasper, who is absentmindedly staring at Bry. He looks shocked.

“And my last power, since I get the power from the night sky, and I have darkness. I have the power of black holes, but less... large. And I can choose whether something gets destroyed or stored for later use.” I look at a brown leaf, finally falling off it's tree from the winter. I hold out my hands, cupped together, and the leaf speeds at it at lighting fast speeds. Disappearing into the space where my wrists don't touch all the way and there's a little space. Then, pointing my cupped hands at the exact spot it was when I took it, it appears again and shoots forth from my hands, resuming it's gentle descent from it's branch. I go back to my position next to Bry. She steps forward.

“I'm Briar-Rose, as you know, and I have plants, as I've demonstrated to all of you. Next up is Airborne, but she's a beginner, she won't be as impressive as Nox.”

Air's small frame steps forward, shaking slightly, anxious.

“Um, well, apparently I can create tornadoes.” She starts. Jasper gasps in a sound of- pain? Shock? Rage?- but she continues.

“Yesterday I accidentally tore down a sapling when I was trying to make a gently breeze. But Bry and I worked yesterday, and check this out. She backs up, takes a few running steps and launches herself into the air, way to high for her stature. Soon she is soaring high above us, but her laughter and glee can be heard far below. She does somersaults and dives and twirls and finally makes a messy landing, sprawled out on the ground, giggling.

“Still working on the whole walking concept. Flying comes more naturally.” She laughs. Next Ash goes up.

“So I haven't tried anything yet, just when Briar showed me, but I think I can do it again. Also, when the school blew up, I was in the basement next to the oil tank. I'm fire resistant. My broom wasn't though...” She picks up a few twigs from the ground and holds them in his palm, he closes his fist around them and when he opens it, they are crackling and smoking with fire. “I thought of this last night, but I don't know if it will work, I think I might be able to move it, too.” He takes his other hand and gestures up and to the right. The fire lifts off the ashes of the twigs, leaving them cool and dead, it balls in the air, flames licking out, like a sun almost. He closes his fist above it and it extinguishes. He stands next to Air and she gives him a high-five. Then Jasper goes up.

“So I discovered what I can do by accident. I was mad and I kind of lightly hit the ground, and when I lifted my fist, a boulder popped up, and I practiced, and here's what I figured out.” He says. He turns, facing the woods, and brings his hand down in a karate chop position. A crack splits the ground, and he moves both hands farther away from each other, the crack widens into a bottomless gorge. He claps his hands and the ground reattaches. Then he stomps his feet and jumps backward boulders just from the ground. Then her puts both hands on the tops and barely pushes, the submerge beneath the soil again.

“I can also make mountains, but that was kind of a mess to clean up last night... Taller than Everest.” He grins.

“Nox, would you mind getting the drinks and snacks?” She turns and addresses the group as I walk into the kitchen for the food. “As a beginner, using your powers will exhaust you, so we're going to take a break. Some powers will also make you nauseous as you get used to them.” I walk back out, holding the tray.

“Yeah, turning into smoke used to make me puke for days, but I kept doing it-” was whipped until I did, “-and I got used to it.” Got stronger. I still feel slightly queasy, but I can't admit that, or I get whipped. The smoke power is relatively new, we discovered it three months ago, but it does come in handy. We sit in the grass and eat the PB&J's Bry made.

I've never had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich before.

Air notices me inspecting it closely, unsure if I will like it, unsure if I eat if I'll throw up, but I won't, I just think I will.

“Not hungry?” She asks.

I'm stupid and tired and I can't seem to come up with a lie fast enough, or have the ability to just nod. “I've never had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich before.”

“Where the hell are you from?!” Ash asks, outraged.

“He doesn't have any sort of accent, are you like, Amish or something?” Jasper asks.

Bry just gapes and shoves the corner of my sandwich into my mouth. “Chew.” She commands. I do.

What the hell have I been missing? I shove more of the sandwich into my face until it's gone, then I reach for another.

“Don't eat that, that's for Ray.” Briar says.

“Yeah, maybe I'm hungry too.” A voice behind me says. Before I turn around I see Jasper's face break into a dopey grin. I stand up and turn around, facing my enemy, the girl who could cut through me, expose me, kill me.

Light.

I meet her eyes. They are a deep brown, but shine with an inner light that sees into my soul, I know she knows every secret I've every kept. Even the ones I barely admit to myself. I'm falling and I can't say anything, it's like she's sucking me in, and I guess light absorbs darkness. I'm dumbstruck. I'm speechless. I'm horrified. I'm awed. I'm an idiot. This can't be happening. I'm going to be exposed. By my enemy, the very personification of light. I'm dead.

I'm in love. And that's even worse than death.

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