Free Falling

I looked at my mom, shocked, Alex and Karla giving my mom similar expressions. "I'm sorry, I think I heard you wrong. Did you just suggest that he is my father?" I asked, jabbing an accusing finger in Matt’s direction. “I already have a father! So why am I supposed to believe that?” I spat, rage in my eyes.

"I was going to tell you.” Mom wrung her hands, knowing how I could get.

“When?” I yelled, making everyone in the room flinch. Mom stuttered, not sure what to say. “That’s what I thought,” I crossed my arms, glaring. From the corner of my eye I saw Alex and Karla twitching nervously, trying to get my attention.

“Ann-” Matt started, hesitantly.

“No!” I yelled, pointing at him. “You don’t get to talk right now!”

“Ann!” Alex and Karla yelled, receiving my attention as the TV began to spaz out. The Rock Band game went from the colorful screen to a picture of a man in a white coat talking incoherently. After the screens switched a couple of times, a few words were able to be picked out. “Time….come…home,”

“No,” I whispered as the front window shattered. I instinctively turned and spread my wings out to protect Karla and Alex from the glass shards. “You okay?” I whispered, as a knife went to my neck. I was wrenched to the middle of the room, my wings pinned to my side, as I was put in a headlock.

Everybody in the room froze looking in shock to see a human wolf hybrid, also known as an Eraser, behind me. I felt a shiver travel up my spine as I felt his hot, dog breath at the base of my neck. “Nobody move,” He growled, digging his blade into my neck, making me move closer to him to prevent bleeding. Two seconds later his hand went limp as I shoved a hidden blade into his eye socket. I spun around to push his lifeless body towards his comrades who had entered the room.

The group of Erasers parted, allowing the lifeless body to hit the floor. The tallest Eraser stepped over the body then stalked towards me. “You’re in trouble,” he hissed, now in front of me, “You disobeyed a direct order.” I didn’t respond, not looking him in the eye. Glancing towards the Avenged guys, I could sense their worry and fear. Their thoughts going everywhere trying to figure out what was going on. “What’s the matter?” the Eraser asked, mockingly. “Oh, I forgot…you can’t talk,” he growled slapping me in the face, forcing me into the stone fireplace in the living room. I spun around, barely catching myself as a bullet went through my right knee. Dropping me to the ground.

I looked up at the Erasers, as I attempted to control my breathing to help ease the pain. I backed myself against the loveseat. The tallest Eraser walked up to me in two strides, picking me up by my shirt collar with little effort. “Don’t you remember me?” he breathed into my face, making me almost gag at his rancid breath. I spat in his face, as I attempted to escape his claws that were starting to dig into my skin.

“Leave her alone!” I heard my mom shriek, making the Eraser look towards her and Avenged Sevenfold.

“I’m sorry, am I interrupting something?” The Eraser purred, pleased with himself, giving a toothy grin. “No matter,” he shrugged, cutting off my moms’ retort. “We only came for one thing.” He yowled in pain when I made my hidden blade slice into his arm. “Get her!” The Eraser yelled at his companions as he released me, holding his wounded arm to himself.

My knee failed as soon as I hit the ground, I struggled to get my balance, helping me dodge an attack. Flicking my right wrist, a blade sprouted from my skin. I then sank the blade into the Erasers’ lower back. Retracting it back into my wrist after severing their lower spinal cord. Paralyzing their lower half, bringing him closer to my level. I punched him in the face with my blade, killing him. The body dropped into my lap, which I pushed off before attempting to pull myself to my feet. Two more came at me, before I had steadied myself. A metal poker flew into my hand allowing me to hit one of them over the head, while stabbing the other with the tip. My adrenaline kicked in, as my body started to register the fear that the Erasers were emitting.

The tallest Eraser growled, in frustration, as I cut their attacks as fast as they threw them at me. I grabbed the armrest of the couch, trying to finally catch my balance, as my knee attempted to go out once more. The healing taking slower than I wanted. The leader of the Eraser pack was trying to say something, but I wasn’t paying any attention. The pain was getting worse, and I was getting a head rush from all the fear I was receiving from everyone in the room. Next thing I knew five Erasers were charging me. Within seconds I had the five on the floor, dead.

Outraged, the largest Eraser jumped towards me. He slashed his claws, which I easily deflected. Next thing he knew I had a fireball in one hand and an electricity ball in the other. “The other two,” he whispered, backing away towards the window. I felt his fear increase, giving me a bigger rush, speeding up my knees recovery, making me wince. “Stop! Stop!” he pleaded. “You're not worth it,” He spun on his heel and flew out the window, his remaining comrades following him.

I looked behind me to see everyone, except Karla and Alex, had fled to the dining room. As I came down from my adrenaline rush, I looked around me to see the Erasers I had killed. Then looked back up at Avenged Sevenfold to see them staring at me in horror. Taking a step towards the Avenged Guys, my knee gave out, making me hit the ground with a groan of pain.

“Ann,” my mom rushed over to me, concerned, reaching for my knee, making me jerk it out of the way.

“Don’t touch it,” I hissed, “You’ll get burned.” I closed my eyes as the world spun. “They need to leave,” I breathed out, as I sat up. Straightening my knee to see the bullet hole, with my black blood gushing out of it. I placed a shaky hand over it, and extracted the bullet by magnetizing my hand.

“Why did they call you a mute?” I heard Johnny ask, quietly.

“Why are you still here?” I growled, grabbing the couch to pull myself up into a standing position. I saw Karla give me a death glare for the way I responded to him.

Johnny glanced at the other band members, before responding. “You should go to a hospital to get the bullet out of your leg,”

“It’s already out,” I showed them the bullet lying in my hand.

“But…how?” Matt asked, confused. “We didn’t see-”

“The bullets metal…I can produce a magnetic field. Hence the bullets in my hand,” I replied dryly, as if it should’ve been obvious.

“Do you have super powers?” a hyper Jimmy asked, apparently, not fazed by anything that had happened.

“Uh, sure,” I replied uncertainly, cocking my head, not exactly sure what to think of Jimmy. Karla had always told me he was the hyper one of the group, but I didn’t figure quite this hyper.

“Where’d the knives go?” Jimmy asked, his eyes going wide. He realized I wasn’t holding anything in my hands that could’ve helped me kill the Erasers.

“And what were those things?” Matt asked.

“Lights!” Alex spoke up, bringing our attention to red and blue flashing lights that were now outside the house.

“Alex, flip the couches over everything. Karla set the game back up,” I instructed, my heart in my throat. Police were not a good thing to have over, especially for me. They worked for the ones that had given me all my quirks. A minute later, there was a knock at the door.

“Blanket,” Karla wrapped a blanket around my shoulders. Hiding my wings, as I sat on the upturned loveseat, which was covering at least three Eraser bodies. Alex opened the front door as I made the microphone fly across the room into my hand. Karla glared at me, as I gave an apologetic look.

“We got a call about a disturbance,” the first officer said, looking into the house. Scrutinizing the upturned furniture and broken window.

“Intense game?” the second officer asked, nodding towards the TV.

“We may have gotten a little carried away,” Karla admitted, as she pretended to play the guitar.

“What’s wrong with your knee?” the first officer asked, noticing my wound.

“Like we said,” I started, my mouth tight from pain. “Intense game.”

“Care to elaborate?” the first officer asked, crossing their arms, not convinced.

“Well,” Alex started. “I don’t know about you two, but-”

“We get super into our games,” Karla finished for Alex.

“So into them, we forget that we’re not actually on stage and shouldn’t be destroying things.” I added. Suddenly, I felt the blood from my knee trail down to the back of my leg, a slight burning sensation as it did so.

“Let me look at your knee,” the second officer started to open a medicine pack.

“No!” I started in a panic, then realized what I did and proceeded to talk calmly. “I mean, no, its fine.

“Looks deep,” the officer continued, moving towards me with a cleansing swab.

“Again,” I gave my best fake smile. “No thank you. I have it under control.” I put a hand over my knee to slow the flow of blood.

“How’d the window break?” the first officer asked, taking the attention off of me.

“Intense game,” Karla repeated herself, holding the guitar up.

“Why is the glass all inside?” the officer gave a small smile, thinking he had caught us in a lie.

“Believe it or not, windows can break in such a fashion that it comes inside,” I interjected in annoyance. These men had to leave.

The first officer gave me a rude look, then turned to leave. “Well, everything else seems to be fine. Have a good rest of your night.”

“Same to you,” I responded, watching them carefully as they walked out the door.

The police lights turned off after they got into their car. A couple minutes later, I asked Alex to look outside to see if the car was still outside.

“They’re still there,” I saw concern in her eyes as she looked back at me.

My mom gasped, making everyone look at her. She pointed towards the couch, where my blood had started to drip. The fibers were quickly dissolving, as they gave up small bursts of smoke. I jumped off the couch. Instantly regretting my movement as my knee protested. I spit into my hand, and clamped it over my knee, as the loveseat flipped over once more, to show an Eraser standing up.

“No shit,” I muttered to myself. Walking a stride, I dug a blade into his side and twisted, making him look at me. “How did you find me?” I hissed, before glancing at my blade to see an orange goo, starting to seep into my blade.

The Eraser smiled, before pushing me to the ground, the wound not affecting it in the slightest. “Neck! Neck! Neck!” I shouted, not able to make a second attack fast enough. Alex karate chopped it in the back of the neck, its head popped off with an explosion of orange motor oil.

I heard Alex groan, as she was showered with the oil, giving me a death look. “Shit,” I muttered, realizing the motor oil would’ve traveled down my knife and into my blood stream.

“Are you okay?” my mom asked, taking a step towards me.

“Give me a minute,” I whispered, curling into a ball, as my body began to ache.

“What was that?” someone else asked, I wasn’t sure who, my brain started to go into a fog.

“No more questions,” I gasped, starting to shake.

“They’re gone,” Karla announced, when the cop car finally drove away.

Those were not good cops, I could feel their evil intentions dripping off them. I felt tears welling up behind my eyes, as the seriousness of the situation came crashing down. The pain in my body increased as my blood got rid of the motor oil. “No, no, no,” I moaned. “Why now? Why today?” tears started to slide out of my eyes, as I pressed my hands into my face, sitting on the floor.

Next thing I knew, Karla and Alex were at my side, hugging me reassuringly. "Want us to stay?" Karla whispered. I nodded, not sure how the rest of my night was going to go.

"Can someone please explain what just happened?" Matt asked, his voice cracking with fright.