A little explosive

My parents always thought there was something wrong with me. That’s why they had chosen to send me away.

Weird things always happened whenever I got emotional. Somehow they thought that, “Mr. Clavis’s Boarding School for Problematic Children,” would change that. I knew that it wouldn’t, but I still couldn’t convince them to let me stay home.

I was on the train making my way to Montana, I was a city girl. This was going to be awful. Apparently they had a lot of, “problematic children,” in the states. We had our own train car. I tried to make myself ridiculously small, the kids in the car looked menacing.

Wearing leather and glares, they might as well have jumped out of juvie. I probably didn’t look like I belonged here. My simple ripped jeans and tee were dead giveaways. I didn’t have on massive amounts of black makeup or thousands of shiny piercings in my flesh. I already hated it and I was going to have to spend two whole years with these people.

I was right when I thought that they would pick me out as the weak one, about halfway into the trip a girl stared at me like I was candy and spoke smugly.

“So, where you from?”

I met her eyes, I wasn’t afraid of this girl, she looked shallow. Full of herself.

“New York.”

She snorted,

“The city?”

“Yup.”

Giving me a one over, she laughed to herself,

“What’d you get caught doing, singing Jojo Siwa?”

Everyone else in the car laughed, so I decided to be nothing but honest,

“Nah, I almost burned down our house after I caused an explosion. I’m sure you’re in here for much worse.”

She glared at me,

“Yeah right, you don’t look like you could beat a six-year-old.”

I shrugged,

“Whatever you want to think.”

She stood up and towered over me,

“Is that a challenge little missy?”

I swallowed, I wasn’t scared for me, I was scared for her.

“No, it’s not.”

She crossed her arms, from a glance to her hands I could see that she had brass knuckles. Did they not confiscate those? They searched me before hand, so why did this chick have freaking weapons!?

“Oh, I’m pretty sure it was.”

Without warning, she jumped on top of me and swung at my face, nailing me right under my eye. That would definitely leave a mark. I managed to flip myself over so I was on top of her, I hit her right back. Maybe I was a problematic teen, heck it, I definitely was. I wasn’t about to let her hit me and get away with it.

We tumbled off the seat and onto the car-floor. Taking turns rolling around, trying to get hits in. I didn’t let her get anymore on me. So instead she reverted to pulling my hair out. I was getting mad. I felt my face get hot and my hands trembled. A bright flash of light and a high pitched scream filled the car. Her hair was smoking and she stumbled away from me as fast as she could.

I heard the mutters as I sat back in my seat,

“Her eyes.”

“Golden.”

“Like electricity.”

I ignored them and sat on my hands, it was getting harder to control my outbursts. I would find out later that the girls name was Avon, well, I guess she wouldn’t mess with me anymore.

We rode in silence for the rest of the trip, maybe they didn’t want to anger me again. I wouldn’t want to either.

When we arrived, they funneled us off the train in groups of three. I was stuck with a dude with bright blue hair and a skater vibe and a girl with choppy purple bangs and a tattoo across her collar bone. We were the first people in line, the dude went first. Walking up to the security guard, the guard said something that I couldn’t hear and blue hair went off spouting a whole bunch of information about himself.

“Ryker Harrison, seventeen, six feet, Atlanta, Georgia, fighting.”

Next was the girl,

“Brianna Fetchers, sixteen, five five, Malibu, California, shoplifting.”

Hmm, both not super serious crimes, Ryker and Brianna. I had a feeling I would be stuck with them for longer than just this line. The guard signaled me to come forward, he spoke in a quick and rough tone,

“Name, age, height, city you came from, reason you’re here.”

I cleared my throat,

“Zeara Martel, sixteen, five two, New York, New York, outbursts.”

He nodded and waved me through,

“Next.”

I walked past him and rejoined Ryker and Brianna. Neither of them spoke to me. I can’t say I was surprised, but I thought that they would at least greet me in some way. We stayed silent while we were led through massive iron gates. I looked up at my new home, it was huge, grey brick, six stories. The windows were barred, and there was only one door. Filing us in like we were prison inmates, they handed us slips of paper as we passed through the looming doorway.

“The heck we sposed’ do with this?”

Oh, so Ryker was British, good to know.

Afraid to stop, and risk being swallowed by the swarm of kids who had arrived on other trains, Ryker, Brianna and I pushed ourselves through them all.

“I think they have our dorm information on it.”

Brianna looked at her own paper while she spoke, nearly running into people while she did so. I looked down at mine and realized she was right, it was a guide basically.

“Dorm number twenty two, sixth floor.”

They both looked at me,

“Me too.” “Me too.”

They spoke simultaneously, glancing at each other, startled. I looked back at my paper, I had to be reading this wrong,

“Hold up, we are all sharing one dorm room?”

Brianna huffed,

“Ughhh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”

Ryker rolled his eyes,

“I already can’t wait to get out of this place.”

I shook my head, it would’ve been different if I was just sharing with a girl or two, but having to share a room with a dude? This was going to massively suck. Following a printed out map on our guides, we walked to the end of the hallway and found ourselves at the bottom of the stairs. Brianna looked ticked,

“Course were on the top freaking level.”

I agreed, this was dumb, I had to hike up six levels of stairs just to go to bed at night. We started up, unsurprisingly, we were the last of all the kids to make it to our dorm. It was a decent size at least, three beds on one side of the room and a cozy living space on the other. Bookshelves lined the walls and tiny dressers were next to each bed. There was no bathroom in sight. Ryker look at his guide and audibly groaned,

“The public baths are separate to the rooms. The closest one to us is on the fourth floor.”

We all voiced our frustration, Brianna the loudest,

“This is stupid, why should we have to go down two floors in the middle of the night just to go to the bathroom? Aren’t there rules about not leaving our rooms at night?”

I nodded,

“You’d think so.”

Our bags were on our beds, of course, I was on the bed stuck next to Ryker. How fan-flipping-tastic. I didn’t have much that they would let me bring, six pairs of pants, six shirts, so on and so forth. I unpacked quickly, my dresser fitting it all perfectly. Ryker pulled out a guitar and started strumming, this was going to be a long night.

When the sun went down, a holographic clock projected onto the ceiling, 9:00 pm. I was awake until it hit 4 am. There was no way I would sleep like this. None. Brianna muttering in her sleep and Ryker rolling over every five seconds.

I finally fell asleep around 4:30. Our alarm went off at 6. I awoke with a start and sat up, the sun was just peeking over the horizon.

This was an ungodly hour.

Brianna was out of her bed in a second, I groggily followed behind her. Ryker was more stubborn about getting up, until someone came pounding on our door. He shot up, his accent way heavier than it was yesterday,

“We're up, we're up, git off et.”

A strict voice boomed through the door,

“Breakfast is in ten minutes, do not be late.”

We all called out our understanding and raced to get ready, Brianna and I holding blankets up for the either so we could change. Ryker was done before us and waited patiently in the corner of the room. I threw on plain black jeans and a yellow graphic tee, I switched to let Brianna change,

“By the way, I prefer Bri to Brianna.”

I dropped the blanket as she walked out from behind it,

“No problem, Bri it is.”

Ryker walked over to us, his hand motions all over the place,

“Right, ok, so this is great but are you don’ yet?”

We rolled our eyes and smiled at each other before we all headed out of our room. I threw up my hair into a high ponytail while we made our way down the monumental amount of stairs. Breakfast was pretty terrible, bland food and short time to consume it. I would tell you about the rest of the day but it was ridiculously boring. Nothing really happened. We did all our normal school subjects, ate, had an orientation video with all the rules and blah, blah, blah.

The first year went like that. Nothing going on, I got closer with Bri and Ryker. We stayed up every night just talking or singing while he played his guitar. The teachers all hated us for bonding so quickly. They couldn’t do anything about it now.

Today, we a class that we had never had before. A training session, training for what, I couldn’t tell you. We were put in t-shirts and sweatpants and given nothing but a map of the rocky terrain that lay outside. They led us outside in our groups, the first time that we had been outside in a year. When we walked out, the doors slammed behind us. Ryker instinctively grabbed my hand and pulled me behind him.

Yeah, that’s a thing. I didn’t think it was an important detail compared to what was about to happen to us. We’d been together for about five months now.

I put my hand on his arm,

“Relax, it’s ok.”

Bri snapped on a piece of bubble gum,

“What are we even supposed to do?”

I shrugged,

“They said we’d be training today, I thought that they meant like working out or something like that.”

I squeezed Rykers hand, he hadn’t let go yet. He looked at me with sympathy in his eyes, Bri joined us and put her hand on my shoulder,

“Zeara, you’re ok, it’ll be fine.”

I took a deep breath and tried to smile. I hadn’t had an outburst since the day that I arrived here, even though the days were all the same. Even though everything was bland, boring and repetitive. It was the nights that changed me, living with my two best friends and always knowing that I could count on them for support. It calmed me, I was so much better than when I was, even if it wasn’t the school that had done it. I didn’t want to break the streak that I had.

Ryker pulled me to him and kissed my forehead before letting me go, we decided to just start walking and see what happened. It wasn’t long before we found out.

We were walking down the long mountain trail when it happened.

Drones flew out of nowhere and started shooting bullets into the earth.

I screamed and dove to the ground, trying to find cover. Bri and I had jumped the opposite side that Ryker had. I scrambled to try to reach him but Bri held me back, dragging me behind a boulder,

“He’ll be ok! We need to figure out how to get out of here!”

I nodded and swallowed my cry, we started to crawl away when we heard the whirring sound of the drones. The bullets had stopped, and mini missiles were shooting out in their place. I cried out and was thrown sideways when one hit six feet away from me. I was covered in dust and my left leg was aching. Bri held out her hand to me,

“ZEE COME ON WE HAVE TO MOVE!”

I struggled to get over to her and we continued to move out of harm’s way, craters forming in the ground around us. I looked behind me and heard Bri’s piercing scream. I whipped back around and saw that her arm had been hit, it was bleeding badly.

“BRI!”

She waved me off with her good hand, tears streaming down her face,

“We need to keep moving!”

I pulled myself over to her and we continued dragging ourselves painfully slowly, inching our way through the dirt as the ground exploded around us. Finally I made myself stand and helped Bri up. We gritted our teeth and broke into a run. My leg burning, I ignored it and set my eyes forward. We had to find Ryker and get out of here.

Dirt was flying through the air, covering us. We didn’t look back. Finally, we reached the edge of the trail and nothing but forest lay ahead of us. Ryker was on the ground directly in front of us. Pinned down but someone, who looked like a man, wearing all black, and holding a knife to his throat.

I started running as fast as I could. He saw me and screamed,

“ZEARA RUN GET AWAY FROM HERE, GO!”

Tears filled my eyes, I was almost to him, the man started to swing the blade,

“NO!”

I leapt unto the man and felt my arms burn with electricity, I closed my eyes and willed the power to come. I didn’t care anymore, I wasn’t losing Ryker. Light filled the air, blinding me, Ryker and I jumped to our feet and tried to get away. The man ran after us. I could feel the power coming closer. I threw my body onto his, sending us both flying backwards, as far away from Ryker and Bri as I could manage with my weight. Then, my eyes went fuzzy, I knew that they had turned yellow.

I threw open my arms, the sky opening up and sending lightning to my hands. I struggled to control it, my arms shaking from the shear force of it. I screamed as the lightning burned down my arms, and slammed my hands into the man's chest.

He exploded into a massive cloud of dust and light.

I went flying, twenty-thirty feet in the air. Landing on my back. I felt a rock dig into my head and struggled to keep my eyes open. The last thing I saw, was Ryker and Bri running towards me screaming, before everything went dark.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Beep, beep, beep.

All I heard was that sound, ringing in my ears. My eyes fluttered open, I was in my dorm room, in my bed. An IV was in my arm and Ryker was hovering over me,

“Bri, BRI! She’s waking up!”

I groaned and sat up,

“What happened?”

Ryker sat down beside me and held my face in his hands, silent tears falling down his cheeks,

“You almost died Zee. This boarding school, it isn’t a boarding school, its a detainment center. For people like you, and me. We have powers that no one could understand.”

I gently placed my palm over his, sliding it off my face and holding it in my lap,

“You, you’re like me?”

Bri came over,

“Were all like you, we just didn’t know it. They keep us here to control us. That “training session” they put us through, was to eliminate you. You’re the only one who knew about your ability, and they saw that as a threat.”

Ryker nodded,

“After you went unconscious, they locked everyone up in their rooms. We haven’t left since.”

I was shocked, I wasn’t the only one? I threw my arms around the two of them and sighed in relief,

“I’m just glad you guys are ok.”

Bri rolled her eyes,

“You always were the self sacrificing type, honestly, I'm surprised that they didn't figure out that you are so powerful until now.”

Ryker locked eyes with me, giving me a goofy grin,

"Good thing though, can't have you dyin' on me."

I grinned, looking at my two best friends. Knowing that we were stronger because we had each other, nothing would pull us apart. Nothing would hurt them, not if I had anything to do about it.

“So, how are we breaking out of this dump?”