Just Like Magic

Chapter 12 Leaving

Randalyn's POV

I leave my hand in Cassius' hold, just enjoying this comfort for the moment as we listen to Winnie walking away and through the house to the front door. I send him a small smile as he willingly matches it. I can't help but stare into those beautiful green orbs, just loving this silent moment with him. I have never had a person make me feel ok without saying a single word, while only using a single look to hook me. I will admit only to myself that I'm loving every second of this.

I think he might be liking this with me too, by how calm he looks with me.. Or maybe it's him feeling bad for me and not trying to make me feel bad about it. I hope not, but that always was a possibility when he just heard the worst parts of me. So before my bubble bursts, I'll just enjoy this moment for as long as I can have it.

That doesn't last long, it only goes until we hear the front door slamming shut, getting our attention as we hear Winnie running through the house and straight back to us. "So Cass, if we are going to help her, then you two need to go now." With urgency in her tone, she demands of us, we look back and forth between each other, obviously confused about why this is happening... Wait, hold on... did I hear her correctly? I didn't know they were actually considering helping me after all this. But that doesn't answer what happened that we have to go now. I don't understand what changed in the matter of time it took for her to go to the door and back... Who was at that door?

I think she can see the confusion on both of our faces, so she quickly explains. "The Aurors are here.. for her.. the neighbors must've heard or seen something to report it, but that does matter because either way, they are here for her. So you both need to go." She says this as a loud banging is heard on the door again, echoing throughout the entire house, getting our full attention. "Open up.. last warning." The Aurors yell through the door at us... but I watch as Winnie and Cassius don't move a muscle, they just stare attach one another for a long moment.

They look as if they are communicating through their minds. I don't know if that is happening right now or not, but this gets my mind running rampant... Is communicating like this a normal thing in the magical world? Or maybe this is a normal thing for twins? Who knows? I don't... but either way, it looks like they might have a plan forging in this exceptionally long silent moment... It might not be as long as I would like to think it is, but at least it feels like a lifetime, even though it might only be for a second. The seconds seem to pass like hours when you have no idea what's going on while hanging at the edge of your seat... waiting to know what will happen next.

Whatever plan they have come up with must not be the ideal one. It looks as if Cassius doesn't seem to like the idea. His head wouldn't stop shaking as he intently stared at Winnie. "I won't leave you here with them... Let's all go now and we will figure out everything else as we go." Cassius demands as he stands up and helps me stand since he is still holding my hand. I see Winnie shaking her head at his comment before she states, "I can handle the 5 of them.. but she, cannot.. you know they could hurt her.. So go, before things get ugly.. go to mom.. she can help for a little bit and I will try to meet you there after.. now go!" she makes her comment then shoving him by his chest so he stumbles backward, towards me. At that moment, an explosion ignites in this place. It feels as if it has happened right on top of me, but the fact that my left side hurts worse than any other part shows me that it happened next to us, not on us... This explosion has sent me flying across the room. I flailed my arms trying to get down to the ground, before I'm slammed into the wall, letting out a yelp of pain as I whimpered to myself.

I opened my eyes to see tons of debris flying all over the place like rain from the sky. It's so thick that when I try to take a breath in, it feels like smoke to my lungs. It doesn't help that everything else is covered in a sawdust fog, making it hard to breathe altogether. I cough as I fan my hand in front of my face, trying to get the debris away, but it doesn't work, not even remotely.

My ears are ringing, sounding as if someone is screaming loudly in my head, making it so I can't hear anything going on around me. I rub my temples, bringing my knees to my chest, trying to get my sh*t together. Am I dead? No, but am I dying? Who knows? I groan out, holding my throbbing head in my hands, to cradle it as if it's a baby needing to be soothed. I look up to see if I can see anyone.

My gaze bounces from one object then to the next, but this is quickly expoding the little fires that are all over the chunks of wood, that seem to be scattered around the demolished room. Everything that I thought was so intriguing about this room before, is now completely destroyed and I couldn't feel worse about it. I kept looking around the room until I was startled by random spurts of lights, shooting through the smoke that was filling the house. It looks like lightning that shoots through the clouds during a thunderstorm, but I know for a fact that there is no storm inside this house, so what's causing those lights?

I slowly start to stand up before ducking once again to see that men are shooting something at not just me, but Cassius and Winnie as well... What am I missing? This doesn't make sense. This is looking more and more like a movie or a dream... I don't seem to understand why they are attacking us like this. Is this all my fault? I have no answers to my plethora of questions so I drop them at least for now, to make sure I get out of here alive. So I stay close to the ground, not knowing where to go or what to do. I just know I can't stay right here.

As I sit there, another explosion happens beside me from one of those shots of lightning. I scream as I stay crouched close to the ground, but still move as quickly as I can around the bed to use it as a shield, to hopefully hide me from oncoming attacks. I looked back and forth, not knowing where to go in this house, let alone town. I started to inch up to peak over the bed and hopefully see a solution for gaining an exit out of this place.

When the fog started to clear up, it exposed the room enough to give me a chance to peek over the wooden bed frame and really see the room. I can see Cassius and Winnie on the other side of the room, arguing back and forth. I can't hear what they are saying but they are relentlessly arguing as they use their wands to shoot at people in the house. Cassius blocks their oncoming attacks towards him and his sister as he shoots back instantly, taking all of my attention with his heroics. I can't help but to keep staring, getting excited about him protecting his own, as I feel a heat building up inside of me at that sight alone.

I'm brought back to reality as the room around me starts to get louder and louder showing that my hearing is coming back slowly but surely. "Help her... I'll meet you there... go... apparate now!" Winnie demands as she shoves Cassius towards me while covering him from the array of shots from the enemies. He stumbles as his gaze bounces around the room until our eyes connect. Without hesitation, he points his wand at me and I instantly am pulled across the room and straight into his strong hold without any effort of my own. His arm wraps around me as he says to me. "Hold on." I nod and wrap my arms tightly around his torso as we disappear, zipping away from that tragic scene. I feel so awful that his house got destroyed the way it did because of me. I feel awful.

We zoom through the sky feeling just like what I did when traveling with the hat before, but luckily for me, my stomach has adjusted this time around. We emerge onto a hill as we land on the ground. We rolled for a moment until he is able to put his arms down to anchor us to the ground. He is looking down as he hovers over me, we are both panting for air, not knowing what to say as our hearts try to catch up with our bodies. I stare up into his eyes before the moment was cut short by the sound of a loud pop and zip, making me think the men followed us... Or maybe it was his sister... we will soon find out.

Loud threats are heard beside us as he quickly stands up, taking my arm in his hand to help me stand. He uses his arm and magic to put up some sort of invisible shield as he blocks shots that are directed at us, before dragging me behind him towards a treeline that looks like it leads into this dark forest. It's so dark that it looks as if light hasn't seen the inside of that forest ever. Like it's an eclipse on land, but only in this area. The fact that it's morning with the sun shining bright, has absolutely no effect on the trees inside the forest. And yet that is where he wants to go.

We just keep running until he stops, so of course, I do too. But he doesn't like that. He turns to look at me saying, "Keep going, run and I will catch up.. just keep running." He demands as he flips around with his wand in hand, swinging it out towards a man that pops out from behind the tree. In an instant, a light that looks like a lightning bolt emerges from the tip of his wand until it connects with the other man's wand that is doing the same thing. He came out of nowhere and I never saw that coming. I'm in shock and I think Cassius can tell that. "GO Randy!" he yells behind him but not looking at me at all.

Without a moment to lose, I turned to run through the tree line. I quickly weave in and out of the bushes and trees, avoiding them as best as I can. I use my slick, durable boots to skip and slide easily over the wet ground, taking advantage of the slippery mud under my feet. I jump over every pile of bunched-up tree limbs on the ground, using the trees and boulders to keep me on my feet. I keep looking back, trying to spot Cassius, but he is nowhere to be seen since I have run far enough away to be out of sight.

But my skills must have been too good to be true, because while I was slipping and sliding over the land, through the mud, trying to keep my momentum going as if I had done this a million times. It seemed to be going perfectly until there is a straight slap to my chest, catching me off guard and feeling as if it had stopped my heart with that one action. This causes me to get clotheslined as my feet fly out from under me. I fell onto my back, landing in the mud as I instantly see a man straddling over my body, trying to hold me down. I don't fight the hold too much with the wind being knocked out of my system, so I gasp for air as I wheeze to myself as he laughs at my pain.

I can't just lie here and take this, so I try to get up, but that causes this man to lean more onto me with his weight. I swipe at his face but when he tried to block that action, I quickly changed my sights to his hands and luckily knocked away his wand. It flies to the side as we both look that way knowing we both have a chance to get it. I try to reach for it but he does the same before I hit his hands away. We get into a shoving match as I slap him in the face and he does the same to me too.

I keep hitting his arms away as he wraps his hands around my wrists and pushes my hands and arms to the ground, pinning them to the mud beside me. I struggled under him, flailing my legs until I made contact with his groin, causing him to groan out as he let go of my hands just to punch me in the face, then elbow me in the chest. I grunt out in pain but I won't give up... This man doesn't know that this type of fight is normal for me, so I will keep fighting as long as I can.

We keep fighting until he loses his cool, slapping me then punching my side. I yelp out as he reaches over, swiping up his wand into one hand as the other quickly latches onto my throat. He is pushing down on my neck with his weight, cutting off the air supply to my lungs, making it very hard to get any air into my system. I scratch at his arms to get some relief for my burning lungs at the lack of air. That is until he puts the wand closer to my face. "Stop moving you disgusting monster... I will kill you where you sit and we will solve this here and now.. but if you be a good girl, I'll bring you to the president of the ministry and we will let him decide what to do with you." This comment makes me freeze, not knowing what I could do to get myself out of this.

He smirks at me stopping his threats as he hovers over me looking like a predator sizing uo his prey before he says under his breath. "Good girl." This doesn't seem to work with getting his hand off of my neck but he does loosen it only slightly so I can breathe a little. A malicious smirk covers his face as he leans down closer to me until his wand flies right out of his hand. He looks just as confused as I am until a bright light hits him straight in the chest while shooting him off of me and into the darkness of this deep dark forest.

I feel my arm being grabbed as I'm being pulled off of the ground. I looked up to see a worried Cassius. He is helping me stand. "Randy... you ok?" he asks in a rushing tone as I vigorously nod as he does the same, mirroring me while looking as if he is thinking. "Are you ok?" I ask him reaching up and gently gliding my hand over his cheek. He swallows the lump in his throat and he places his hand on top of mine.

He stares into my eyes as this position quickly changes by him grabbing my hand and pulling it off of his cheek, but leaving it between his palms. I don't know what that means, but maybe that instant retrieval of my hand, means he doesn't like me touching him like that... and that the last thing I want to do is make him feel uncomfortable.

"Don't worry about me, Randy... We need to get further into the trees to hide.. let's go," he states this with a determination that gets me ready to go. I nod as I follow him to get up to speed by running once again. I don't see anyone around but we run as far as we can until we both need a break to just breathe.

We slow down until we come to a stop. I lean against a tree just trying to breathe as he does the same, but only for a moment. Then, before I even knew what was happening, he quickly came over to me, gently touching my face to look at me. He touches over my neck and then my cheek. I'm assuming they are red from the guy attacking me. I can feel them still throbbing, but I didn't think with this bad lighting that they would be noticeable, but I guess I'm wrong.

I don't want him to worry over this when it's not as bad as it feels. So I just try to make him feel better by waving off his worry to say. "Don't worry about me, Cass... I have had worse... I'm ok." I say to him, but this doesn't make him feel better. He huffs out shaking his head as he says to me. "That's not ok... But we will take care of that later... We can't stay here... so, let's keep going... My mother's sanctuary should be towards the middle of these woods but they're hard to navigate, so you have to stay with me." He says as I nod at him.

"Do you know exactly where the sanctuary is?" I ask as he shakes his head. "No, for the safety of the creatures she has to keep moving it around... All I know is that she stays in these woods because they are so huge she can hide easily... But her sanctuary will also be under a cloak that makes all of it invisible to the unwanted guests." he says as I think about that, but I am confused.

"So how do we find it? Especially if it's invisible?" I ask him as he shrugs and replies. "With immense difficulty." he retorts playfully before adding. "Well, my mother has come out to protect the sanctuary, so I'm hoping she will come out since she will see us snooping around and find us... But until then we need to get to a safe spot to set up a little camp at least for the day until things cool down out here. I'm hoping that was the last of those men, but I don't know, so we will need to watch out... But first things first, we are headed to the middle of the woods and go from there." he explains to me as best as he can. I nodded at this as we started to walk again.