The trio of adventurers stare seriously at the dark mansion. One, a weapons expert, the second, an intelligent, beautiful and charismatic leader. And finally, the sidekick with a name that starts with D.

Together they will face an unknown evil. The sidekick silently thanks god that he is not wearing a red shirt.

“Elena?” Blake breaks me out of my internal monologue.

“Hm?” I answer still studying the broken down mansion.

“The sooner we go in there, the better.” He says with a frown.

I have one last look at our party of three, before I nod. “Let’s go then.”

I walk forward, taking point as the other two boys subconsciously fan out behind me. Pausing to study the broken hinge of the gate, I notice a little blood. That isn’t my priority right now, so I continue forward. The door leading into the mansion is open.

Making a motion for the boys to stay where they are, I creep forward. The sound of voices can be barely heard, they seem to be coming from a backroom on the second floor.

I put a finger against my lips and motion for them to come in.

Creeping on our tippy toes, we climb up the stairs to the second floor. I prepare my bullet stopping spell, having it ready on a moment’s notice.

Slowly, the words became clearer.

A deep voice is saying, “-Believe this shit man. This isn’t-.” I couldn’t hear the last word as his voice quieted “Why did Doss leave us behind? Mr. Demor could be here at any moment.” Demor? That is Rose’s last name.

A second voice speaks up, this one rough from what must be years of smoking, “It’s all because you got on Doss’s fucking bad side. You fucking idiot. Now we have to try to fucking kill Mr. Demor and his fucking guards whenever the fuck he gets-.”

“Hey. Is that what I think it is?” The first man interrupts the other.

“It’s a fucking car.” The second man answers. “Someone is fucking here.”

“That’s why you were supposed to be keeping lookout. Shit man. We are so dead. Mr. Demor is going to kill us.”

“I don’t think Mr. Demor drives a Honda Civic.” The second man replies calmly, surprisingly not saying a single curse word.

The floorboard underneath blakes boot lets out a long *Creeeeeeeek*. I hear him mutter a muffled “shit.”

The door ahead of us opens and a muscular man with tattoos all over his body stares at us, in his hands is a giant machine gun. He stares at us in surprise for a moment which gives me the time I need to cast my spell. I raise my hand and say, “[Stop Right There]”.

Then he opens fire. My ears hurt as I maintain the Psi spell and bullets seem to stop in mid air in front of us.

A brief glance behind me shows the two boys with their eyes closed in preparation for death.

The machine gun splutter to a stop. The boys open their eyes, staring in awe at the wall of bullets standing still in the air in front of us. A cigar I hadn’t noticed before, drops to the ground as the muscular man stares at his bullets in shock.

I drop my spell, allowing the bullets to fall to the ground.

“What the fuck are you guys doing? Shoot him!” I yell at the two boys, who finally seem to realize that the other man is pointing a machine gun at us.

Damien hesitates, but three shots ring out as Blake calmly shoots his gun. I notice his hands shaking slightly, but I don’t comment.

The muscular man falls forward. Behind him stands a thin wiry man now covered in blood. He falls to his knees and raises his hands. A surprisingly deep voice comes out as he says “Please don’t shoot. I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

Damien shows a surprising amount of calmness as he expertly ties rope around the man’s arms and legs.

I grab the gun that Damien had laid down when he tied the knots and point it at the man’s head. “Tell me where Rose Demor is.”

Blake and Damien look at me in shock. I realize that I never really told them what was going on.

Note to self: Give Blake a hug and a kiss. Also, find a red shirt for Damien.

The man stares at the gun in my hands wearily, a little sweat showing as he stares. He probably realized how little I know about guns simply from the way that I am holding it. “There is no need for guns. I’m happy to tell you anythin’ you need to know.”

I place the gun down and I hear a collective breath as everyone relaxes. Come on, I wasn’t that bad at holding the gun. Probably.

“Well, tell me.” I say with a frown.

“I don’t know exactly where they took her, but I can tell you the address that Doss will tell Mr. Demor to meet him at.” He says, his eyes now looking at me curiously. “Doss has a man just like you, you know. Able to work magic.”

My eyes narrow at that, but time is still of the essence “Tell me the address.”

He does and I motion for Damien to tie him to a chair. “Blake, do you want any of those guns?” I motion towards the two handguns that the man handed over, plus the machine gun and a smoke grenade.

He picks up the smoke grenade and says, “I don’t want to explain any of the others to my dad.”

Then we leave.

The walk back to the car seems to be a lot shorter than the walk to the mansion. Blake is about to open the car, when his face turns green. He quickly runs to a bush, before he starts throwing up. Damien joins him shortly after.

I sigh as I open the car. I grab two water bottles and a pack of mints that Blake keeps in his car. Don’t ask me why he has them.

Then I lean against the car as I wait.

It only takes a minute for both of them to finish up. I hand blake my water bottle, since I couldn’t find his. Luckily, Damien had an extra which I hand to him. They both spend another minute cleaning out their mouths.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Blake tries to hand my water bottle back, but I ignore it and say, “I am not touching that.”

“Sorry.” He says.

I hand him a mint. “It was hard for me the first time I saw death too.”

He looks at me with sympathy. “Your brother, right?”

My eyes narrow at him. “Who told you that?”

“Your sister and I were talking-” He starts before I interrupt him.

“I don’t want to talk about it. Ever.” My intense stare seems to surprise him.

Luckily, Damien finished cleaning his mouth out. I tear my gaze away from Blake to hand Damien a mint.

“Let’s get going.” I say. Neither of them argue as we get into the car.

I put the address into his GPS.

“That’s a weird place to have a meeting with a kidnapper.” Blake says.

I nod at his words.

“Where is it?” Damien asks, curious at the way blake phrased that.

“Downtown, in an office building for a mattress company...” I answer, the end of my sentence almost sounding like a question.

“Elena.” Blake says, grabbing my attention. He looks at me with a frustrated expression, “What the hell is going on?”

“I’ll tell you as you drive.” I respond, motioning for him to start the car.

He sighs as he backs up and starts driving away.

“From what I understand, Rose’s father is part of some big illegal organization and he is leading a civil war inside that organization.” I say matter of factly.

We continue driving for a little bit before Blake says cautiously, “And…?”

“That’s all.”

“Elena?”

“Yeah?” I respond, acting as empty headed as possible.

Finally Damien cuts in, irritation evident in his voice “Why the hell did none of those bullets from the machine gun hit us?”

“If I said magic, would you believe me?” I responded, looking anywhere but at the boys.

“I would have, if you hadn’t said it like that.” Blake says, his eyes briefly glancing at me, before going back to the road.

“In a way, it is magic. I physically can’t tell you more than that.” I run my hands through my hair as I answer.

“Why can’t you tell us more than that?” Blake asks the question I can see both of them thinking.

“It’s kinda like a compulsion. Something affects my thoughts so that I won’t tell you more than that. It’s kinda weird actually. Anytime I think about bringing it up, I decide not to. I wonder what would happen if I tried to write it down?” My mind starts to wander as I think about ways to get around the non disclosure agreement I didn’t willingly sign.

“Elena, come back to earth please.” Blake takes a hand off the wheel to wave it in front of my face. “That man said that Doss had another person like you, what can we expect from them?”

I frown as I think, “I don’t know. There are a lot of things in my world that I still don’t understand.”

“What will we do if we encounter them?” Damien asks, a hint of worry in his voice.

I close my eyes in thought, “If I had more time, I would create some protection for you. As it is, you should run away as soon as you see them, or hope that I can deal with them.”

I look down at the gloves wrapped around my hands. I should have payed Taylor to identify some more of their abilities, at the time, it just hadn’t occurred to me.

The car is silent for the rest of the drive. By the time we find parking, the sky has almost fully darkened into night.

We all sit in the car for a moment, thinking about what comes next. “You guys can wait here you know, I can handle myself pretty well.”

“Will a bullet through the brain kill you?” Blake asks, staring at me intently.

I stare back at him. “You have to realize that that is a weird question to ask a girl, In any situation.” At his continued stare, I answer “Yes. I can heal from a lot, but that would probably kill me.”

“Then I am going in there with you.” Blake grabs both his guns from the compartment. Then stares at Damien, “You can still stay behind.”

I turn around in my seat to look at Damien. He gulps, before some of that resolve he had shown comes back to him. Damien holds his hand out, “I won’t hesitate to shoot this time.”

Blake places a gun in the outstretched hand. “Good. You can’t afford to hesitate when someone else is shooting at you.” I can hear Blake’s father in the way he said that. Being raised in a military family isn’t all bad.

You know what to do when your friend needs your help to fight gang members and rescue a kidnapped classmate.

I don’t think his father prepared him for this situation exactly, but close enough.

I open the door and step out of the car, thinking about the other person “Like me.” If they have any kind of Psi control, then they can destroy my bullet stopping barrier easily. If that happens I need to use the other defensive spell I have.

I take a deep breath as the two boys get out of the car. I look at them, they hid the guns very well.

Giving a brief glance at my status screen, I notice that my psi has fully recovered. Good.

We enter the building. Two women sit at the front desk of a beautiful lobby. Flowing water, plants and marble floors produce a calm atmosphere.

The two boys are looking around nervously, so I put one hand on each of their shoulders. “Calm down. I doubt that they want this place to be destroyed. They won’t start a gunfight here.” I wink at both of them.

I pull away from the boys, who actually seemed to calm after my little speech, and walk up to one of the women. She is the older of the two women and her hair is starting to grey, but you can tell that she was once the envy of every woman in town. “Hello, can you help me?”

She looks up at me with a kind smile, “Of course dear, what do you need?”

“I am looking for a friend of mine, I was told that she would be here. Her name is Rose Demor.”

The woman’s gaze sharpens, “Demor? I am afraid that we don’t have anyone by that name here.”

I use my fingers to put my hair behind my shoulder as I give a fake look of disappointment. “Really? That’s too bad. I wasn’t aware that Doss was a liar. He told us that she would be here, so naturally, I assumed that she would. I’ll just have to tell Mr.Demor that his daughter is dead and he is free to nuke this place to high heaven.”

I move to turn around, but the woman grabs my hand before I can move. “Oh. You mean Miss Demor, of course. That’s my silly mistake, Doss will be waiting for you on floor three. I am terribly sorry for the confusion. We just weren’t expecting you to be here so soon.”

I reach out and pat the woman on the cheek as I smile a smile full of teeth. “All is forgiven.” Then I slip out of her grip and motion for the boys to follow me.

Damien starts to move towards the elevator, but I grab him before he can walk two steps.

I point at the stairwell. “I don’t like elevators, they malfunction too often. Especially when you are going to meet someone that probably makes people have ‘accidents for a living.”

So we all climb the stairwell. The boys take a breather at the top, while I wait patiently for them. “You guys really should get in shape, aren’t the sports seasons coming up?”

Blake holds up a finger as he finally starts breathing normally, “First off, you ran up those stairs as fast as you could, of course we are a little out of breath. Second, sports seasons? Come on, even you aren’t that ignorant.”

Once they are ready, I open the door and we walk onto the third floor. No one is waiting for us, but five men seem to be waiting in front of the elevator doors. I walk up behind them and look over their shoulders at the still closed elevator doors.

“Are you guys waiting for someone?” I ask.

All of the men move at once, two of them grab me while one other reaches for a weapon in his breast pocket. The final one moves in front of the only man not wearing a black suit.

I shake my head at the two boys, they had been reaching for their weapons. “Good evening gentleman. I honestly wasn’t expecting to be manhandled during our first meeting, but que sera sera. And you must be Doss?” I speak to the man who is obviously in charge.

He laughs at my nonchalance “Yes, I am. And you are?”

“I am the girl looking for Rose Demor.” I respond, smiling at him. “I would curtsy, but your men have kindly restrained me from any kind of movement.”

Doss motions for the men to stand down, they let go of me. “If you don’t mind me asking, how did you get up here? This is the only elevator up.”

“We took the stairs.” I tilt my head towards the entrance to the stairwell. “I knew that no one would ever see it coming.”

Doss laughs. “I like you. It would be a shame if I have to kill you at the end of all of this.”

“So far, you laugh at my jokes, so I like you too. It would be a shame if I had to kill you as well.”

He chuckles again, “Come, you and your friends can join us in my office. We can say what needs to be said there.”

Doss starts walking away.

I look back at the boys. They are staring at me slack-jawed. “What are we waiting for? Come on.”