Missing a Human Heart

She’s gone… She’s gone! What was she thinking? What was she trying to do? I kept looking back to the clutter of trees that Jaren pulled Pamela through. I ran as quickly as I could back to the school buildings. Where were the guys? I slowed down once inside the science building. Calm down, Pandora… I stood in front of the water fountain and gathered some water to wash my face and clear my mind. I dried my glasses of the rain’s drizzle, breathing slowly all the while. What do the guys have this period?

When I finally realized Charlie was in his math class, I sped toward his room. I opened the door without a second thought, which earned me the bright eyes of the class. “I need to talk to Charlie Dassel. Um… There is a problem with transferring his credits from his last high school. The office needs him right now.” His teacher allowed him to leave. Charlie cleared his assignment from his desk and quickly followed me out.

“Pandora, what’s wrong?” he asked in a hushed tone once the door slammed close and we were a couple feet away.

“Pamela’s been kidnapped by Jaren! Hurry, we need to get the others,” I answered with a shivering voice. Charlie hurriedly located and assembled the others in the hall. “So I don’t know exactly what was going through her mind, but Pamela said something about proving someone wrong and doing something dangerous. Then she just dragged me to Mr. Barber’s class and she called him out and started asking about mixing human and animal DNA. Then he got really mad and hauled us to the parking lot. He didn’t believe that we didn’t know much about it and then he tried to abduct us. Pamela told me to get you guys before he yanked her away,” I explained in three breaths as my eyes started to water slightly.

“Calm down, Pandora. We’ll find her,” Charlie soothed quietly, patting my back.

“I knew we should have left,” Damon muttered.

“Do not start with that Damon, it’s obviously too late now,” I hissed. Yeah, I know I’m being more moody than usual, but I have an excellent excuse to be so. They paused in surprise for a second.

“Sorry,” Damon murmured and surprised me with a reassuring hug.

“Well, first off, we have to figure out where he’s going, alright Pandora?” Charlie coaxed. I nodded bitterly. We hurried to the parking lot and I grabbed an umbrella from the car.

“Damon, can you sniff out the trail?” I asked when I showed them where Jaren and Pamela disappeared into the woods.

“Maybe… I think Charlie and I should change into our animal forms.”

“Good idea.” Tempest and I turned around as Damon and Charlie went further into the woods to change. As we stood under the drizzle of the rain, it occurred to me that we could ask Ms. Evington for Jaren’s address. “Tempest, I think we can get his house address from the counselor,” I began when the other two came our way. “You two should go after Jaren’s trail. Make sure you stay out of view from people. We’ll go to the counselor and check out his house.” Charlie gave me his neatly folded clothes to put in the car. I noticed that Damon’s nails had also changed into claw like figures, comforting me that they’d be able to defend themselves, no matter what happens. The two dashed away without another wasted second. Before we started towards the office, Tempest placed his damp shirt beside Charlie’s clothes in the car. Being part fish, he clearly enjoyed jogging in the rain as we made our way to see Ms. Evington. I took the time to calm my hyperactive nerves.

The few staff members there were appalled to see a boy without his shirt. “I’m sorry, we just need to see Ms. Evington for a moment and we’ll be out right away!” I apologized, unconcerned with them. Noting that she was the only person in her office, Tempest and I barged into Ms. Evington’s room and shut the door. “Ms. Evington, we need Mr. Barber’s address. He told us we could visit him for help,” I tested, knowing it’s a weak excuse.

“Pandora, what is this about? You know we don’t have students visiting student teachers at their own homes like that,” Ms. Evington replied cautiously.

After trying a couple more flimsily invented excuses, I decided to stop acting cute. “Alright, Ms. Evington, I’ve had enough of this. The truth is Mr. Barber knows you made those fake student Ids for Tempest and the others. He wants to get rid of them. We only want his address so that we can go talk to him. And lets face it, your job as a counselor would totally diminish if this were to be made public. So stop wasting our time and give me Mr. Barber’s address for all of our sakes,” I threatened icily.

Ms. Evington gave me a look of utter astonishment and a slight hint of fear. Slowly, she logged on to some files on her computer and copied down Mr. Barber’s address. I took the note and thanked her sweetly, desperately hoping she’d never make that face at me again. I turned to Tempest as we started to leave and realized he held a milder form of Ms. Evington’s expression.

“When did you get so vicious?” Tempest asked as we left the office and started jogging to the car.

“I only act that way when I have to,” I answered. “When did you get so quiet?” Tempest merely shrugged. How curious… we reached the car and I hurriedly typed the address into the GPS. We drove in silence until we reached a tiny, old house amongst a sad looking neighborhood. After parking, I grabbed the often-forgotten mace from the dashboard and we left the car. At first, we tried to civilly ring the doorbell. Next came the clangor of our knocking fists. And finally, Tempest’s foot came crashing down onto the door multiple times until it was quite clear the door wasn’t going to give. For a feeble looking door, it sure was stable. We looked around the perimeter of the house. The window frames seemed like they were made of steel. We hollered at the house and gained no reply. Finally, we decided to return to the woods by the school.

We parked in our original spot, which was slightly bothersome due to the fact that everyone was leaving school for the day all at once. Despite the lovely sound of rain hitting the car, Tempest’s refusal to respond to my attempts at conversation was getting to me. His intense gaze into the woods confused me. “Tempest, what’s going on? Why are you acting so weird?” I questioned jadedly. I was trying to guard my frustration over Pamela’s abduction from spilling over to him. I probably failed.

“I’m… kind of afraid to tell you.” Was he joking? It wasn’t very funny.

“That’s not funny. I’m an emotional puddle of unhappiness right now. That’s not nice,” I stated with a sigh. “Won’t you please tell me what’s going on?”

“Well, I may have been a prominent factor in Pamela’s decision to do this…”

“How prominent?”

“I may have insinuated that she gave the impression to have an extremely trivial disorder.”

“WHAT?!” I screamed angrily.

“We were just talking! I didn’t think it’d make much of an impression on her!” Tempest tried to exonerate himself.

“I can’t believe how much trouble you three are! I wish I’d never persuade Pamela into letting you guys stay with us! You guys won’t even talk to us about your past! Why are you all so selfishly denying us any information about yourselves? I’m sick of it! And now, even worse, you’ve managed to get my sister kidnapped! I mean, I know you guys had a sick, twisted past, but you don’t have to help spread the difficulty of your lives to us! All we’re trying to do is help you, but you three just won’t let that happen, will you?” I expressed all my accumulated annoyance and anger at once.

“I think you need to calm down,” Tempest said slowly, patronizing me.

“I can’t believe this. I’m going to go look for her myself,” I mumbled as I left the car with the keys, slamming the door shut. I could hear him calling after me, and eventually follow as expected. I locked the car doors with a button on the keys and continued through the dense woods, exasperation slowly being replaced with misery.

“Pandora, we’re going to get lost if you keep running blindly through the woods like this,” Tempest warned. I slowed down, ultimately stopping in the middle of this wet woodland. The rain was still pouring away, and I’d forgotten the umbrella in the car. My glasses were freckled with raindrops and, obviously, I was cold. “I’m sorry we weren’t open with you two, even though you both let us in …” Tempest apologized, rubbing my shoulders soothingly.

“Tempest?” I murmured. “What will he do to her?” He didn’t respond. “Will he turn her into a mutant, too?” I held my breath, just realizing what I’d said

“You’ve been thinking of us as mutants?” Tempest asked slowly.

“What I meant was-”

“Maybe this is why we haven’t been open with you two,” he cut me off, a bit bitter.

“Alright. I have been thinking of you guys as poor, pathetic mutants. I wanted to help you, is that so wrong?” I replied, despairingly. “If you guys tell us more about your pasts, let us get to know you all… I won’t think of you three in such a bad light anymore.”

“Deal.” At last we agreed on something. But before I could even smile about that, the rapid movement of a horseman caught our attention. “Charlie!” Tempest shouted. Shortly after, we noticed Damon behind him. They came over quickly, impatiently.

“We found her, come on,” Charlie informed us as he quickly pulled me over for a horseback ride there. As he galloped away, I realized that even without changing forms, Tempest was faster than normal humans. And Damon was also surprisingly speedy.