Chapter 48: Candle in the Wind
“Please, go ahead.” Scarlette was once again showing her gentle side. I would be lying if I said I didn’t find this particular aspect of her endearing. Hmm, perhaps that’s too strong of a word.
As I was busy musing over Scarlette’s character, Mira cleared her throat. “I’m not very good at talking, but I’ll try my best.”
“It was back when I was in my final year of elementary school. My dad was away overseas, and I’d just gotten my test results back—somehow, I’d done well enough to make my mum really proud! She decided we should go out to celebrate, just the two of us.”
“So, after school, my mum took me to my favourite restaurant,” Mira’s gaze drifted as if she were looking through the walls, reliving the memory. “After dinner, she drove us home. It was dark out, and the streets were usually quiet where we lived.”
Mira’s voice dropped. “We were almost home, just a few blocks away, when everything changed. Out of nowhere, a man staggered into the road right in front of our car. My mum slammed on the brakes so hard I thought we’d be thrown out of our seats. I looked up to see this stranger—he had these wild, unfocused eyes, barely able to stand. At first, I thought he was just a drunk.”
Her hands clenched as she continued. “He walked right up to the car, banging his fists on the hood, yelling at us for almost running him over. My mum panicked and honked, trying to scare him off. But instead, it just set him off even more. In one quick motion, he lunged forward and shattered the windshield with his fist.”
“That’s when I knew something was horribly wrong. It wasn’t just that he broke the glass so easily… it was the way he did it. His hands—they’d hardened somehow, like claws. He reached right through and grabbed my mum by the neck.”
Mira took a shaky breath. “My mum floored the gas, and we shot forward, crashing into a ditch down the street. It stunned him just long enough for us to catch our breath, but he quickly came at us again. He was relentless, and all I could do was scream. Since my mum was just a 3-Star healer, she didn’t have any means to defend us. He ripped off the door and dragged her about before…”
Mira’s voice broke, and she trailed off, unable to finish her sentence. Tears welled up in her eyes and she leaned forward, burying her face in her hands.
Scarlette, clearly alarmed, wrapped her in another tight hug. “It’s okay. You don’t have to go on if it’s too much.”
“No, I—” Mira let out a loud sniffle “—I can continue.”
“I didn’t know how long the attack lasted. It could’ve been seconds, or minutes. He just went… berserk… and started hammering at her. The whole time, she was screaming, doing her best to fight back. He only stopped when… when she couldn’t move anymore. At that point, some people with Abilities overheard the commotion and ran over to help, but by then, it was too late. My mother was lying there, barely conscious, unable to heal herself in that state. I remember clutching her hand, trying desperately to heal her with everything I had, but nothing seemed to work…”
“They later found out he’d been using illegal performance enhancers. Apparently, the drugs can make the user lose control of themselves, so with that and alcohol, he just… snapped. It was a total freak accident.”
Scarlette, upon catching her drift, seemed to go through the seven stages of grief in a few seconds. Her face paled as she swallowed. “Oh gosh, I’m so sorry. I had no idea—”
“It’s… fine. It was my fault that she died. If only I hadn’t done so well on that test, she wouldn’t have taken me out. And if I’d been stronger, maybe I could’ve healed her…”
This time, it was Kaede who consoled her. She scooted over and rested an arm on Mira’s shoulder. “Hey, no one in their right mind will blame you. You were a kid. No one expects a child to handle something like that. The most important thing is that you’re still alive.”
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“My father doesn’t seem to agree.”
Those words sent a chill through the room.
“Why couldn’t you save her?! You’re a healer right?! I still remember him shouting at me when he found out. He apologised when he calmed down a few days later, but things had never been the same since then.”
A heavy silence filled the room. I could see how greatly this revelation had affected my friends. If I had experienced a normal upbringing, I would’ve probably reacted the same way.
“But you saved me.” Scarlette’s soft voice broke the tension. “And for that I owe my life to you.”
“Exactly! Without you, we wouldn’t get to see Scarlette say such cheesy lines!” Jonah blurted.
Scarlette shot him a glare that could melt steel—if her eyes weren’t so puffy. “I—I’ll deal with you later,” she snapped.
Mira let out a chuckle. “… So you really owe me one, huh?”
Scarlette turned back to her. “Wha—uh, yeah, I guess. You’re right,” she stammered.
Thankfully, Jonah had somehow successfully lightened the mood. I had been useless the whole time, so I reached out and grabbed a box of tissues from the nearby table and handed it to my friends, which they accepted gratefully.
“Do you ever cry, Cadel?” Scarlette asked. Her voice was a little hoarse. My friends turned to me out of curiosity.
I didn’t like discussing about my personal feelings, so I decided to change the subject. “I shed a tear when I found out our egg broke.”
“What?!”
I showed them the egg, which now bore a small crack in it.
“I mean, it’s not like it’ll amount to anything now, right? The camp’s already over. We could just replace this egg with another one and nobody will be none the wiser,” Scarlette reasoned.
“We had such a good run. I hope they still count the sash competition at least,” Jonah voiced out.
“I’m sure they will,” I said. “Anyway, we’ll just have to wait for Ms Reina to update us.”
Scarlette clapped her hands once. “I guess that’s it for tonight then? Us girls will probably be having a sleepover in my room.” She turned to Mira. “Oh, and thank you so much for sharing your past with us.”
Mira smiled. “Nah, thanks for listening. Sorry if I just dumped all that on you guys out of nowhere.”
The girls continued bantering as they left my room, leaving just me and Jonah to ourselves.
“I guess I’ll be staying here for the night. Got an extra bed?”
“No, but you can use my blanket.”
----------------------------------------
The next day, I decided to get my meeting with Kazen out of the way. As Jonah returned to his own abode, I made my way to Kazen’s apartment.
“Come on in.” His tone was anything but welcoming.
A person I did not expect to see was lounging on his study chair.
“I hope you don’t mind me being here,” Raven acknowledged my presence with a small nod. I couldn’t say I was surprised. Her Ability made transporting between dorm rooms a piece of cake. Perhaps I could ask her to teleport me back to my own room after this.
“Hey,” I nodded back.
“So, what happened?” Kazen was quick to get down to business.
He hadn’t offered me a place to sit, so I walked over to the foot of his bed. “Mind if I set at the edge?”
He gave me a brusque wave, indicating for me to get on with it. I quickly summarised the events. At the mention of Soren, his gaze darkened.
To Raven, Soren should be a completely unfamiliar figure, but surprisingly, her eyes didn’t reflect confusion or curiosity.
“You know about him?” I asked.
“I’m aware of his relationship with Kazen, if that’s what you’re asking,” she replied.
“And? Who won?” Kazen spat.
“No one, really. He wasn’t that interested in fighting me. But I did make him skewer his own throat.” I made sure to emphasise on the last part.
Kazen scoffed. “Doesn’t sound like either of you were being serious. Whatever. Anything else worth mentioning?”
“Nothing else on our side. What about yours?”
Kazen crossed his arms. “We hid out in Raven’s Void realm the entire time.”
“Isn’t that cheating?”
He shrugged. “No one ever said it was against the rules. When we came back out, we found the scoreboard gone and a siren blaring. Figured something was up, so we returned to the campsite and found out the event had been cancelled.”
It made sense that they wouldn’t have heard the initial warning sounded off by Dr Connor. But a siren? Huh, I must have had been too engrossed in my battle with Soren to have registered it.
“Would you be willing to explain Soren’s Ability?” I asked.
“Let’s hear what you’ve deduced so far.”
I proceeded to give a short hypothesis, about his power being cold related, and how he could lower the ambient energy level of a specific area simply by cooling the area down.
“You’ve more or less got it. The only thing you haven’t got is how cold Soren can cool things down to.”
“How cold?”
Kazen’s lips curled into a smirk. “As cold as you’re probably imagining right now.”
“You know, for someone who doesn’t like their own brother, you’re glorifying him a fair amount.”
“Well, I don’t like you either, so it’s fair game.”