Beat it

“You two,” Ms. Miller snaps. “Are going to need to leave if you can’t be quiet.”

Shadow snickers, and I kick him. “Sorry, Ms. Miller.”

She huffs, and goes back to her desk.

Shadow and I are in the library, because he said he has a great idea. Usually, his ideas are pretty good, though they tend to get us in trouble a lot.

“So what’s this idea?” I ask.

“Chill, I’ll tell you in a second.” He pauses, grinning. “How have I never thought of that? Chill, Chill.”

I roll my eyes. “Very funny.”

My name is Chill. No joke. I have pale skin, and long white hair braided down my back. I’m in a loose t-shirt, and jeans. Controlling ice and water is my gift. My gift makes it so I’m always cold, no matter how many layers I wear. There is one exception, though.

Shadow’s gift is controlling darkness and shadows. He has frizzy black hair, and dark skin. He’s in one of Stretch’s, his partner, hoodies, and shorts. He’s probably my best friend here, other than my boyfriend, Blaze.

We’re both in a group of people that have different gifts. We’re basically illegal, so the government keeps us to make us do stuff for them. Like fighting rebels who try to attack the city.

“Okay, so,” Shadow says, leading me to a bookshelf in the back. “I found...this book.”

He pulls down a thick dusty book that looks like it’s been there for years. The title says THE HOLLOW in fancy cursive.

“What is it?” I ask. “What’s the Hollow?

He opens the book to the first page. There’s a sketch of a small cabin with a pretty garden in front of the porch.

“It’s a place where people with gifts used to stay.” He tells me. “The house is enchanted, so it’s really hard to find. But it’s huge on the inside, and the house supplies food and clothes.”

“Is it real?” I ask.

“I don’t know. There are stories that say it was attacked, and all the people with gifts were taken. So it’s probably been abandoned for a long time.”

“So what’s your idea?”

“Escaping.” He says. “We can all look for this place, and live there in peace. No one will bother us, and they won’t be able to find us, either.”

“Escape?” I whisper. “But we can’t.”

“We’ve never tried, but with all of our gifts, we could get out of here.”

I sigh. “I don’t know. They’ll come after us, and what if we can’t find this place?”

“The whole house is made of tree branches. Row could find it. And we don’t have to leave now, we can see if we can look for it next time we get let out.”

“We should talk to everyone else about this.” I say.

He nods. “Okay. But do you want to? Leave?”

“Yeah. I think so.”

-_-

“So we’re doing this?” I ask.

We’ve been planning this escape for about two months. Row, who can control plants and nature, has been using her gift to look for the Hollow, and she said she thinks she found it.

We’ve packed clothes and snuck food, just in case we can’t find the house. Shadow has the book from the library. There are thirteen of us, and we’re all in the courtyard. Shadow made the guards fall asleep by clouding their minds with darkness.

“What if they find us?” Van asks. He’s probably the most sensible of us all.

“They won’t.” Shadow says.

“What if we can’t find the house?”

“Then we’ll find somewhere else to stay.”

“What if we can’t-”

“You guys, it’ll be fine.” Blaze says. I’m standing by him, our fingers intertwined. He has dark red hair and tan skin. He’s taller and stronger than me, though I can beat him in a fight. He can control fire and heat, which is the opposite of me, but we go together well.

Shadow nods. “Yeah. We need to go now, before the cameras start working again.”

Shock froze the cameras temporarily, so we could get out undetected.

Row goes over to the giant tree in a corner. About two months ago, her girlfriend, Soar, got lost during a fight, and she trapped herself in a tree for a month until she showed up. She has light brown skin, and messy green hair.

She presses her hand to the tree, and the branches lower to let us all grab onto one. It lifts us over to the top of the tall, tall fence, and Con saps his fingers.

A water slide appears. Con’s gift is conjuring different things, which is helpful in times like this.

I douse the slide with water, and we all jump down, sliding to the ground. When everyone gets down, I pull all the water from their clothes as Con makes the slide disappear.

“Okay, everyone stay close and stay quiet,” Shadow says, lifting his hands, and gathering shadows to block us from sight of anyone who might be out here. “We’re going to the woods.”

We all walk slowly, so Shadow can keep up the barrier, and also since the darkness blurs our view, too. We’re all looking out for guards, but so far we haven’t seen any. I don’t think they thought we would ever try to escape.

“Stop,” Shock hisses suddenly as we’re approaching the trees. He walks ahead, putting a hand out. A jolt of electricity springs from where his hand is, but he doesn’t flinch, though his spiky purple hair crackles. I can see the fence now. “Give me a second to shut this off. Lift, can you-”

“Yep.”

Lift steps forward, and when Shock moves out of the way, he pulls the fence in half easily. We all go through, and Shadow drops the shadows around us. Lift pushes the sides of the broken fence back together, to make it look normal.

“Now what?” Heal asks.

“Row?” Shadow says.

She crouches, placing her hands on the ground, her eyes closing. The trees in front of us stretch to either side, making a path. Row stands.

“That’s the way.” She says.

We nod, and start walking. The trees close up behind when we all pass. Blaze moves beside me, linking his fingers through mine.

He told me once that his gift makes him hot all the time. Not attractive hot- though he is -his body is just always super overheated. It doesn't bother him, the same way me being cold always doesn’t. And we found out when we touch, it changes both our body temperatures so they’re normal, which is the only reason we know our temperatures aren’t normal.

I let go, though, and put my hands out in front of me. I form a long snake made of water. I can sit on it without it falling, and it glides through the air above the group's heads.

Shadow looks up, and grins. He makes a solid gorilla out of shadows, and holds onto it as it starts to swing through the trees. Shift shifts into a lion, and, after letting Lift on his back, runs under us.

Soar lifts herself into the air as Ace races ahead of all of us. Superspeed is an unfair advantage. Branches reach for Row, and carry her through the air along with us, and Stretch swings through the trees with Shadow, their arms extending to reach the branches.

Shock, Van, Con, Blaze and Heal walk under us, and I notice Row made the soil on the ground carry them beneath us so no one falls behind.

“Row!” Shadow calls out eventually. “Are we almost there?”

“I think so.” She says as everyone slows down. “It’s definitely close.”

I lower the water snake towards the ground, circling around Blaze. I drop to the ground, and I can feel the soil moving us forward under our feet.

Shock frowns at me. “Do you have something electronic on you?”

“What? No, I don’t think so.”

He steps forward, reaching for my hair. I step back immediately.

“What’s wrong?”

“I think there’s a tracking device on you.” He says, reaching for me again. His fingers move over my hair like he’s picking a book off a shelf. His finger stops, and he yanks a piece of hair out.

“OW! Shock, what-”

“Shut up a minute.” He says, studying the hair. “Guys, come back!”

Everyone slows, and comes over to us. The soil stops moving.

“What is it?” Shadow asks.

He still studies the hair stand, frowning. “I think they might’ve put tracking devices on us.”

“How do you know?” Ace asks.

“Chill had one in his hair. It’s made really well, so you could never tell it’s not actually hair. I think the rest of you might have some, too. I could only tell Chill did because it doesn’t match the rest of his hair. Nevermind, it won’t make sense. Anyway, I’ve got to check all of your hair.”

For the next ten minutes, Shock checks us for tracking devices. The only people he’s moderately careful with is Ace and Heal. Heal, because you don't want to get on the medic’s bad side, and Ace because that’s his best friend.

He tries to explain it, but no one really understands. He didn’t have one, because they must’ve known he’d be able to sense it.

When he’s done, he has Soar, Shift and Con go put the tracking devices on different animals, then meet us back. Row says we’re close, and we keep walking.

We reach a break in the trees, and that’s when we see it. The cabin from Shadow’s book. A dirt path leads up to it, though it looks like it hasn’t been walked on in a long time. There isn’t a garden, though, and it looks abandoned. The front door is gone, and the windows are broken.

“What happened?”