Obliteration

Chapter 10

The next time I woke up I was in the back seat of the rental van we had got when we first arrived in the U.S.. I was spread out across Julian's lap, my guess being that he had to carry me into the car.

I tried to sit up but a horrible burning pain in my shoulder made that too difficult a task in a moving van.

"No, no don't try to move." Said Julian.

"What happened? Is everybody alright?"

"We're all fine, just a little beat up." I had to see it for my own eyes.

Blocking out the pain and the complaints from my friends, I sat upright in my seat. I visually checked on each one of my friends. Landon was driving, my guess being that he was able to use his Telekinesis to keep the Demons off of him because he didn't look too beat up from the little but of him that I could see.

In the passenger seat was Quinn who turned to look at me once she felt that I was awake. She had a split lip and was covered in dirt but she didn't look too bad. Both Addison and Kayla were in similar conditions. Covered in dirt with a few bruises and bumps, but overall nothing too bad.

Then there was Julian, who had been looking at me throughout my assessment of the others. He had a pretty bad looking bruise on the top of his cheek but was otherwise looking alright and looking at me with worry.

"You've been out for a couple of hours. We're still in Connecticut, some place called Wallingford. We're going to stop for food soon but we needed you to wake up first. How's your shoulder? That Demon that was on your back bit you. It was really weird actually, none of us expected them to bite like animals but that's really how they acted, like animals."

"It hurts but it's not unbearable. What happened after I passed out? How did you guys get rid of the Demons?

"Hey Quinn? Can you help me on this one?"

At Julian's request I felt the calm emotions take over my mind, which in turn made me more worried about the fight.

"You lost Control during the fight. The Demons stopped fighting us once you began Obliterating them, but you didn't stop. I think you couldn't. You killed them. All of them. The ability started to come over us, but we only felt a minor part of it because that's when you passed out."

I killed them. All of them. They may have been vile, disgusting creatures but they were human once. They were children, they had families, and I murdered them. Who am I? I never thought this would be my life.

What do we do now? How many more of these Demons are there? I don't think they're completely gone, but what if I have to kill more people?

Addison turned to look at me and said, "You are not a horrible person. You are the same Mara that we have all loved for years and those were not people. They were evil and they were trying to kill us.

You did what you had to in order to save us all. We were supposed to be on this trip to protect you, but instead you saved all of us. Don't ever regret that."

Despite Quinn's calm emotions, which I think she gave up on after she realized that I'm not going to lose Control, I couldn't help but cry. I know that it was necessary and they were trying to kill us, but I still feel horrible about it.

Julian pulled me to him to comfort me. I stayed there and cried on his shoulder for a good fifteen minutes, it was not a pretty crying either. It was an ugly, snot-filled crying that under normal circumstances I would be embarrassed about. And once I calmed down and stopped crying that's exactly what happened.

"I'm sorry. I don't mean to put all of this on you. Ugh, plus your shirts covered in tears now. Sorry." 

He lifted my chin and made me look at him, "You don't have to be sorry, not for something like this. If there's just one thing that we can learn from the Demons it's that too many emotions are better than none."

With that said he kissed the top of my head and everything went back to normal.
After all of the overwhelming seriousness had passed, the six of us easily slipped back into our normal routine of joking and teasing each other.

Kayla got a far away look for a second and then turned to the group and said, "Let's stop for the night. I don't See us running into any Demons in the next couple of days. I'm so stupid! I should have been Looking before we first stopped at a hotel, the whole fight could have been prevented."

"Don't beat yourself up about this. If it didn't happen this morning then it was sure to happen tomorrow, or the day after that. You can't be Looking 24/7."

Landon says this as he pulls the van into a hotel parking lot. "But since we're safe for a couple days we are so getting two rooms. Connecting, with the door always open, but that way we have more beds."

The Island Officials had given us a credit card and told us not to worry about costs. They said to be mature about it but spend as much as we needed to. It was honestly a huge relief. If you're going to send six teenagers out into the world on a dangerous journey to run away from the evil people who just want one of the teenagers abilities then the last thing you want them to have to worry about is money.