Chapter 7

I stared at Lydie without moving, literally flabbergasted. Blood splashed on the young woman's chin and hair, but she didn't seem to care. The butt of a weapon exceeded from the holster blistering her thigh. She threw me an impatient look before sighing.

"Right. Blues can't do anything without their hands."

She took off the chain she was wearing around her neck to reveal a Swiss army knife. She opened it and gestured for me to reach my hands out. She slid her knife between my skin and the plastic before jerking. As soon as the tie fell on the ground, I pushed her away and rushed to Christian. I passed my hand on his forehead to clear the hair, hoping to see the wound but there was too much blood, I couldn't distinguish anything. I shook him sharply to wake him up.

"Christian! Christian! Come on!"

I felt more than saw Lydie squatting beside me. She mumbled. "Stop shaking him like this, or I won't be able to free his hands without hurting him."

But I wasn't listening to her and shook even more the young man. He didn't deign to open his eyes despite my entreaties. Lydie rolled his eyes before yelling at me to shut up. She slid her knife under the plastic as she did for me.

"Everything really needs to be done by oneself," grumbled she.

While she was cutting the tie, Christian opened his eyes. He frowned a second as I threw myself to his neck.

"Oh my God!"

"You're welcome," said Lydie her voice dripping with sarcasm.

I moved away from Christian and threw an incredulous look to the Orange before catching on. She just had obliged Christian to wake up with her gift. At this thought, my stomach painfully clenched. My fear of Lydie was returning at a gallop.

"What happened?" mumbled the Green.

"You got arrested and I came to save your ass. So move!"

I instantly jumped on my feet like Christian. Lydie. Again. I threw her a bad look to signify her I understood it was her who had just influenced us.

"You catch on quickly, blondie," she said before going out. "Keep as quiet as possible. I didn't kill them all and I must avoid to do it or the League's gonna rap my knuckles again."

She ran outside and waved us to follow her. I put my arm around Christian's shoulders to support him while he was trying to do the same with me. I was sick and he was hurt. I didn't know who was helping who in this story. And I also didn't know how I was keeping the pace Lydie was imposing on us. She was really running very fast. I wasn't a bad runner but I had to focus on my breath to manage following her. I kept my eyes on her back and on the pink hair flying across it to avoid looking at the corpses hidden in the shadows or lying in full view resulting of Lydie's previous crossing. Most of the soldiers we met were frozen at our passage, to my biggest relief.

Christian was seemingly struggling to follow. I was supporting him as much as I could with my power to conserve as much as possible, but I wasn't sure if it would be enough. I was feeling him weakening and I was increasingly fearing that he would lose consciousness again. As soon as we hit the ground outside the warehouse, bullets spurted out around us. I released a yelp when some scratched the surface of my skin.

"Lydie! I thought you were handling this!"

She slowed down to come to us and put Christian's other arm around her shoulders to help me support him. She clenched her teeth. "Yeah, I was thinking that too. But my power is a bit more complicated to master than yours, and I don't really have the habit to run while controlling about thirty people at the same time!"

A second scream sounded and this time I was sure it wasn't mine. I understood it was coming from Christian at the exact moment I felt him sliding form my arms. He had been hit. Without thinking, I caught him up with my power to recover him. Lydie threw us a look before swearing. She stopped suddenly, forcing us to do the same.

She turned hastily towards the soldiers surrounding the warehouse. All of them froze. Deep inside me, I knew what she was going to do. But with a kind of morbid fascination, I couldn't turn my eyes away from the show playing out in front of us. The soldiers turned away from us and faced each other. They kept their arms raised, weapons pointing to their colleagues.

And the shots went off.

A few seconds later, they were all down and there was only a stack of inert bodies. There was no sound around us anymore, except for our panting breaths. A violent coughing fit shook me up and I had to let go of Christian. Running had been a very bad idea. When I succeed in catching my breath, I took a peek on Lydie. She went pale and a trickle of sweat was running down her forehead.

"Lydie? You okay?"

She jumped and turned toward us. The terrifying spark in her gaze was back. She threw us a disdainful look. "I'm still in a better shape than both of you."

I sighed at her remark. The brown-haired girl observed Christian, sitting on the ground and trying to make a tourniquet on himself, before looking back to me.

"I'm gonna get Vida and the car. He won't be able to walk a kilometer. You two, stay here."

I opened my mouth to protest, but she had already disappeared into the woods.

"None of us can stitch up a bullet wound," noticed Vida, seating on the passenger's seat. "And we can't bring him to a hospital."

I raised my eyes to her, while continuing to wipe the blood from Christian's face. He had either fallen asleep about ten minutes ago or passed out, I had no idea, but the result was the same. Christian had succeeded in making himself a bandage and as he was the Green, none of us had emitted an objection. I had also bandaged his leg with a t-shirt while he had forced me to take about ten medicines among those Lydie and Vida had brought back.

The two girls had explained to us they had dragged on to come back because they had had to make a detour to shake off some soldiers. They succeeded in getting what they were coming for -and I didn't wanted to know what it was- as well as all the medicines they could find and some supplies.

"I don't know if he'd even survive until there," answered Lydie. "I think he has a concussion. We can't do anything about it. He needed a real doctor and as we can't go to the hospital..."

I didn't like what it was implying. I didn't like at all what it was implying. I would have been ready to bring Christian to the hospital but we knew once he would have been treated, the authorities would have been warned of our presence and hello again Caledonia.

"All that's left is The League."

My blood turned to ice at Vida's word. No. Not the League. Especially not the League. Everything Liam had told me about it worked well enough for me to really not to want to go there. Lydie suddenly raised her head toward Vida.

"No way."

The Blue defied her with her gaze.

"It's his only chance, you know it."

It was weird hearing Vida talking like this. I knew her for only a little week and she didn't seem to be the kind caring about others.

"And you also know we don't join the League like in a church," replied Lydie on the same tone. "Once you're in, you're in for good."

Vida opened her mouth but my words came out faster than hers.

"Deal. If you're sure the League can help Christian, then we're in."

Or me, I'm in. Christian's gonna hate me but at least he will be alive. Vida raised her eyebrows and pointed the Green out with her chin. "Don't you want to ask him before?"

"Blondie, you need to understand that if you decide to ask The League for help, it's like you were integrating it," said Lydie at the same time, serious. "And we don't leave the League so easily."

Liam's voice materialised in my mind. I fled from the League, but I had to be helped or I would probably have had to remain there. In the two meanings of the term. He never told me who had helped him to flee, but I was sure I wouldn't have the same chance anyways. Neither would Christian. But at least we would be alive. I bit nervously my lip before nodding.

"I know. But we're still coming with you. Never mind if we have to remain there."

Despite my voice made husky due to sickness, I hoped my determination was appearing through it. Vida nodded while Lydie mumbled something I didn't understand. The Orange didn't seem delighted. She shrugged, opening the car's door.

"If you want to throw yourselves in the lion's den, that's your problem. We hit the road again then, we'll find somewhere to spend the night and we'll tell Cate to find us a Leda Corp plane not so far. You should only hope that your bud survives until then," added she by looking at me.

And on this freezing speech, she stepped out of the car to get behind the wheel of the other one. I sighed and looked back again to Christian, his breathing was regular but he was so pale. I put my hand on his forehead. It felt as if he was beginning to have a fever. His leg bleeding seemed to have stopped, but we still had to pray for the wound not to get infected.

Vida slid into the driver's seat. "You're staying in this car?"

I nodded. Lydie was terrifying me too much.

This time I had to take my guard duty. I hadn't been able to avoid it. Seeing Christian's state, I preferred letting him rest. The medicine effect was beginning to work and so I could hope succeeding in staying awake for two hours. We had stopped in an abandoned campsite where we had found some trailers still in good enough shape for us to sleep in. It was pleasant to not sleep in a tent for once.

Usually, I liked to contemplate the fire or the stars, but tonight I couldn't take my gaze off of the trailer where I had put Christian and myself. He had come back to himself as I was about to leave to take my guard duty and he had forced me to take medicine again. Quite ironical situation as he was the one laid up. As a counterpart, I had made him take painkillers again, even if I hadn't had to insist much. He had surprisingly got back a few colours, but I didn't succeed in getting him swallowing something.

I tried to let my worries aside and looked back to the book I had found in one of the trailers. Anyway, I couldn't do anything to help Christian for now. I sighed while skimming through the pages. I wasn't even understanding what I was reading. This book didn't interest me. At least I was training with my power as I turned the pages with my ability. Hasty steps made me look up.

"Vida?"

Even before she had reached me, I saw her waving her hand and a heat's circle formed on my stomach. I had a hiccup of surprise by understanding she was using her power on me. The next second, I was up on my feet. She put her hands on my shoulders and looked me in the eyes. A strange glimmer was glowing in her eyes. It seemed like... fear? Was Vida able to feel it?

"You have to go. Now."

I frowned. "What? But...?"

"Lydie, she... she's totally crazy! I've always known it but now it's like she really is going completely crazy! She thinks you have nothing to do in the League and she doesn't want you to reach it. She intends to kill Christian."

I opened my eyes wide. I wanted to run to the trailer to get Christian, but Vida's grasp was too strong. Vida never seemed to be the kind to joke for everything, but this time I had no trouble believing her.

"We need to do something!"

"There's nothing you can do, Cassie. You have to go. She will kill you as soon as she will be able to. And I can't do anything either. She used her power on me; I'm incapable of keeping her from it. I'm sorry."

I struggled furiously, and when she finally let go of me, rushed to the trailer. I was however stopped in my course by Vida's power. I ended up lifted from the ground and sent over the other side. I threw a murderous look to the Blue. Keys landed in my hand. Without even looking at them, I knew they were the pick-up one's.

"Leave, Cassie. You have to forget him. You cannot do anything for him. The only thing you can do is saving your own life and never meeting our roads again. We're going to California. You should reach the East coast and it should be okay."

I continued to stare silently at her, without knowing how to react. I couldn't give Christian up. I wouldn't win against Lydie, that was for sure. Noises sounded on the trailer's side and I hastily raised my head. Vida prevented me from thinking more and pushed me with her power.

"Go!"

I threw her a last look before my body took control over my mind. I bolted into the woods, towards what I hoped was the cars' direction. I tripped a few times over branches but I miraculously managed not to fall. Tears were clouding my vision and blood was pulsing in my ears. But neither the snap of the branches I was crushing, nor the echo of my heavy breathing could prevent me from hearing the shot that tore the night apart.

So basically I don't know if anyone's reading this (well I can see the stats but that's not the point), nobody follows or let me a review so I don't know if you like the story. There are 7 chapters left. Let me know if you want me to published them. I'm also writing a story about Lydie and her past so... Just tell me.

Luna