Fire and Lightning

Everything was still, still and dark. The dark clouds promised rain but the wind was nonexistent. There was a boy standing at the bank of a lake. His spotless white clothes contrasted sharply with the dark atmosphere and his dark emotions. The dark emotions that suffocated him.

The boy’s brown eyes were focused on the water that was smooth enough to be a mirror. The boy was just as still as everything else, almost as if he was afraid to move, maybe he was.

The water showed another figure walking up to him. The newcomer looked exactly like the first boy, right down to the white clothes. The only difference was the eyes. The new boy’s eyes weren’t as haunted as the first boy’s, however they were more mature. Like an older brother, which indeed he was.

The twins stayed completely still and silent for minutes. Just enjoying each other’s company for the first time in months. Unfortunately the elder twin wasn’t used to standing so still for very long, or for that matter staying silent.

“I missed you Malcolm.” The newcomer said in barely above a whisper as if afraid that breaking the silence would be a crime. Malcolm, for that was the younger boy’s name, winced at the voice. It might have been a whisper but it sounded loud to Malcolm. He hadn’t heard much in a long time, part of his punishment (more like torture), the only time he heard noises was when he was to be punished. It almost scared him to hear noises now.

Malcolm tried to tell his brother that he had missed him too but no sound would come out of his mouth He tried for a full minute to push the words out, nothing happened. Ian just wrapped an arm around his brother in an effort to comfort him. The younger tensed.

Ian felt like crying. It was his fault that Malcolm was punished, he realized that he shouldn’t have run. Though to be fair, Ian thought his brother was right behind him. Now, as far as the older twin was concerned he was a horrible brother.

Ian pulled Malcolm into a hug even though it made his brother tense more. They needed to get out of here, this place was slowly killing Malcolm and Ian wouldn’t allow his brother to die. With that in mind, Ian started to formulate a plan. He was a trained planner, the brains behind any operation, and he would get them out of this hellhole.

The older twin glanced at where their guards were standing. They were just out of earshot. Nonetheless Ian whispered his plan to Malcolm as quietly as he could.

Surprised by the very idea of running away Malcolm looked at his brother with wide brown eyes that clearly said he was crazy. Ian just smiled wryly.

“I promise you won’t have to endure this for much longer.”

-

Malcolm snapped his eyes open, at first he thought he was looking at Ian. Then the illusion faded away. The boy was too young to be Ian, and his eyes were blue. Blue. Claire’s eyes.

It was Justin.

The boy was reading a book and hadn’t noticed that he was awake. That’s when it suddenly hit Malcolm. Hadn’t he been dragged into a burning cabin?

“Your at Aunt Rose’s house.” Malcolm looked back up to see that Justin had put his book down and was looking at him.

-

Ian jerked awake. At first he thought that he was still in prison, then he remembered that Harvey had bailed him out. No, he was at his apartment at school.

He ran a hand through his black hair as he recalled the odd dream he had. It was almost like a flashback, but that never happened. Not that he remembered anyway.

He was just about to go back to sleep when there was a knocking at his apartment door. Ian frowned, if it was Harvey he’d find himself with a black eye. Yes, the man had bailed him out of prison (Ian had done the same for him countless times) but it was really too early to deal with his nonsense.

Yanking open the door Ian was very surprised to see a mop of blond hair and wide brown eyes starring up at him, Jacob. The boy was wearing a coat over his pajamas and shoes without socks on. He immediately calmed down at the sight of his son.

“Shouldn’t you be in bed?” Ian asked as he moved aside to allow his son to come in.

“I just needed to see if you were alright. I…I have a really bad feeling in my gut, like something bad is going to happen.” Ian frowned at his son’s words as the boy plopped himself down on the couch. Jacob didn’t have future sight like him but sometimes he can have minor premonitions. It’s a genetic thing.

“What kind of bad feelings?” For some reason his future sight has been quiet. Usually he gets at least one vision every two days or so. He hadn’t had a vision since Malcolm got out. Like something’s blocking his power.

“Like everyone is going to be hurt, really badly.”

“Everyone?”

“You, Uncle Harvey, Aunt Rose, Justin, Mal….me. Everyone.” Ian frowned as he brought his son a cup of hot chocolate.

“Do you know when?” You don’t ignore things like this.

“Soon. Very soon.” Ian frowned again as he sat beside his son, he sighed there wasn’t much he could say to that.

“Jacob the only thing we can do is wait and see. We haven’t got much to go on at all.”

-

“You think you can walk?”

“I’m not an invalid.”

“I didn’t say you were an invalid.”

“You implied it.”

“Oh, stop being such a baby, your making a very bad example for Justin and Conner.” Said boys snickered from the open door way. Malcolm glared at them but it didn’t have any venom in it. He could feel their amusement which made it contagious. The boys just smirked back, totally unaffected. Justin could feel the amusement eating away at the man who, was a second ago feeling frustrated. Rose just rolled her eyes and told them to stop patronizing their uncle.

“We’re not patronizing him mom!” Justin nodded in agreement as they heard Malcolm give a humorless laugh.

“We were laughing with him.” Conner stated looking up at his mom.

“I wasn’t laughing!” Malcolm replied quickly as he, once again, fell back on the bed.

“You were on the inside.” It was Justin’s turn.

“I just realized how annoying empaths were.” The groaning Malcolm put his head in his hands as Rose looked between the two.

“Justin you’re an empath?” Justin looked up at his aunt and nodded.

“I thought you knew.”

“Hmm, hey why don’t you two run downstairs and wait for Harvey, he said he’d be here soon.” They looked at her for a moment then both nodded and ran down the stairs.

“What’s up Rose?”

-

“I wish I could meet mom.” Ian looked down at his son sadly. The boy really did take after her. He looked at the wall mounted clock, he wasn’t going to get any sleep tonight, and by the looks of things Jacob wasn’t either.

“Better now then never.”

-

Conner had arrived home two days ago and had been keeping his cousin company ever since. Sure Conner was about two years younger then Justin but they were the best of friends. And the two friends were playing cards on the front porch waiting for Harvey to arrive.

Both were huddled under the porch light, Conner wouldn’t admit it but he was scared of the dark. Because Justin hadn’t yet figured out how to turn his empathy off, the older boy was also afraid of the moonless night.

-

Harvey walked up the drive of Rose’s house whistling something that was a cross between a nursery rhyme and an AC/DC song he heard on the radio. He had finally gotten Ian out of prison, that took quite a bit of work I might add, and now he had to see what Rose needed him for.

It’s not that Harvey didn’t want to see Rose, it was just that Ian could find him missing and look for him. It would kind of be suspicious if he was at Rose’s house in the middle of the night.

Harvey pauses as he sees figures sitting on the porch. Smiling to himself he turns invisible and walks up to them quietly. Conner and Justin are too occupied on arguing over the rules to notice the gravel crunching under invisible feet.

Harvey got behind Conner and picks the boy up suddenly and tosses him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Conner screams and Justin jumps up. Harvey is just about to say something when he feels a sharp kick in his knee making him fall to the ground.

“Ever consider trying out for a soccer team, you’ve got quite a kick.” Harvey says through a pain filled voice.

“Uncle Harvey! I didn’t know it was you.”

“Why’d you have to scare us dad?”

-

Jacob walked down the white sterile hallways of the hospital. Technically visiting hours were over but Ian had pulled some strings .

The blond haired boy was scared and excited that he was finally getting to see his mom. The boy pushed open the door to the right room and saw several machines hooked up to a pretty but tired looking blond haired woman. She had her eyes closed obviously sleeping.

Jacob quietly made it across the room and sat in a vacant chair beside her bed. Ian was down in the waiting room reading outdated magazines, he had thought it wasn’t a good idea to come up. Not that he didn’t want to, he’d love to see Claire again, it’s just that she hated him.

Suddenly the blond haired woman opened her eyes and looked right at her son.

“Jacob.”

“Mom.”

-

Malcolm had finally made it down stairs and was resting on the couch in the living room when Rose helped (dragged) a ‘wounded’ Harvey into the living room. He sat down on one of the armchairs rubbing his knee. Malcolm was about to ask him what happened when to guilty faced kids came into the room. All was explained.

Rose laid her hands on Harvey’s knee as she closed her eyes. Her hands started to glow and the pain ebbed away in Harvey’s knee.

“There we can’t have two invalids in the house.” Rose stated as she stood up.

“HEY!”

“Your right your not an invalid Malcolm. The pain is all in your head, I bet you could walk fine if you at least tried.” The resulting glare sent her way just made her smirk.

-

Ian sat in the waiting room waiting, obviously. A National Geographic that was dated to a two years ago was sitting in his hands but he couldn’t bring himself read it.

The brown eyed man sighed as he dropped the magazine into his lap and rubbed his tired eyes. He could feel a headache coming on, though that was an understatement, it was more like a migraine. The bright lights just made it hurt more. He supposed a hospital was as good as any place to get sick, maybe he could ask someone for some Tylenol.

That was when the lights went off.

-

“I didn’t know that Uncle Harvey was really my Uncle.” Justin said looking between Harvey and Rose and back again. Malcolm looked up from his book for a moment.

“I kind of guessed.” Harvey looked at Malcolm confused.

“How’d you guess? I thought we covered everything.”

“Well, Conner resembles you as does some aspect of Fiona. You two were practically inseparable before I was arrested And, of course the most obvious answer is that if I recall correctly Patrick is about as straight as a corkscrew, if you know what I mean.”

-

Ian stood up quickly as he looked around the dark hospital. The backup generators weren’t coming on. Doctor’s, nurse’s, and patients alike were screaming and complaining.

Sabotage. There’s no way both generators would go down at the same time. With this thought registering in his head Ian quickly ran to the stairs. He had to find Jacob. For some reason he knew this was happening because they were here.

-

Jacob looked up at the ceiling and the failed overhead lights. What was going on?

“Jacob, sweetheart, I want you to get out of the building and go to your Aunt Rose’s house. If I see Ian I’ll tell him where to go. But you have to leave. Make sure no one sees you and don’t use any phones. I know your as resourceful as your father.” Jacob looked at his mother even though he couldn’t see her in the dark and knew this was very serious. He had the bad feeling in his gut again.

He jumped off the chair and hugged his mom tightly, he just knew this was the last he’d see her. She hugged him back just as tightly.

“I’m so glad I got to finally see you again. I love you so much.”

“I love you to mom.”

“You have to go now. But I want you to know something, Justin is going to need your help and guidance. You’ll need his too, don’t fall apart like your father and your uncle.” Jacob nodded and let go. He heard noises down the hall.

“Bye mom.”

-

Ian ran up the stairs, what floor was he on? Damn it.

He had to get to Jacob before they did. Though who ‘they’ were escaped him. He just knew that someone was coming to get Jacob.

Ian shoved a door open and ran into the hall. He was gambling that this was the right floor. The black haired man knew that the emergency lights weren’t coming back on.

He had to just about stop in front of every door to make out the numbers on them. He stopped running when he heard noises in a room. Ian suddenly wished that he had Harvey’s invisibility.

Ian tried to push the doors open quietly but apparently the hospital didn’t believe in keeping the hinges well oiled. It creaked and alerted the people in the room that he was there.

Two men wearing pitch black clothes and skiing masks spun around to look at him. They had guns with silencers, Ian tried not to look at Claire’s unmoving body. He didn’t need to be a doctor to know that she was dead.

The one good thing was that Jacob was nowhere in sight. He made out. Now if only he could do the same. Ian didn’t notice the two guys sneaking up on him though.

-

Jacob was a floor above his mother’s room. If anyone was trying to find him they would thing that he would go down, not up.

The blond haired boy used a keychain flashlight to work by as he tied sheets tightly together. The floor he was on was relatively empty and he could take as many sheets as he needed. Good thing he was taught to do things like this in a summer camp his dad once asked him to go to.

Jacob quickly tied an end of the sheet rope to a bed post and gave it a hard tug to make sure it’d hold. It will have to be good enough. The boy turned off the keychain and opened the window, it was a long way to fall from.

Shivering as the cold air blew into the room, the blond boy through the sheet rope out the newly opened window. It stopped just above a closed dumpster.

Suddenly, Jacob heard the the sound of the stairwell door opening. Someone was coming, there was no more time to dally. Taking a deep breath Jacob grasped the sheet rope and climbed out the windowsill. The brown eyed boy was just glad that he wasn’t afraid of heights.

He concentrated on climbing but his arms were already getting tired. He tightened his grip a fraction and tried to control his shivering, it really was cold.

He heard the door to the room he had just been in open. Jacob quickened his descent, he had to get to the bottom before he was discovered. Too late.

A head covered in a ski mask looked out the window and down at him. They stared at each other for a moment before the man grabbed the sheets and started to pull it up.

Jacob’s eyes widened almost comically before he looked down at how far he was from the ground then back up at the masked man. The blond haired boy then did something completely unexpected, he let go and dropped to the ground.

The man shouted as Jacob hit the dumpster painfully and rolled off onto the hard ground of the alleyway. The ten year old shakily got to his feet swaying slightly as he held his ribs. That was really stupid, but he’d rather be in pain then kidnapped.

Kidnapped. The reminder of exactly why he had been climbing out of the window in the place urged him into movement. He broke into a run towards the alley’s entrance. His ribs hurt but it was better then waiting around and having those kidnappers come and find him. He hoped his dad was okay.