Burning Slow

Just in the nick of time

"Where the hell is Nick?" Nathan asked everyone as he grabbed his fifth helping just like everybody else. Well, except Ember who only had space for three helpings.

"It's only been like twenty minutes." James shrugged, his shoulder bumping into his twin's other shoulder making his food drop back onto the plate.

Jacob glared at James but he, once again, just shrugged.

"And it isn't supposed to take that long." Nathan spoke to James as if he was talking to a child.

"We're talking about a girl here though." Alex spoke. "A girl that Nick was supposed to get twenty minutes ago. Who knows, Nick might have teleported someplace else and ate first."

"That actually makes sense." All teens nodded at Alex. Some of them, their mouths still filled with food, disgustingly having food splatter in front of them.

"I don't know, kids... I have a bad feeling about this." Greyson looked like he was deep in thought.

"What do you mean, Dad?"

Before Greyson was even able to answer, a grumpy girl and an even grumpier Nick appeared.

The frown on the girl's face looked like it was so unnatural on her red-ish skin. Her thin arms that were crossed together were less red compared to her face. She looked like she was trying to tan her skin that was probably as white as Kenneth's but she ended up getting sunburned. Her platinum blonde hair reached till her butt, her bangs slipped to the side.

Nick plopped his ass on his chair, immediately taking a bite of his food that he found extremely comforting but it wasn't able to completely diminish his grumpiness.

The rest of the group paused from eating the minute the two arrived. All of them were looking at Nick feeling overly weirded out at seeing a grumpy Nick instead of a giddy idiotic Nick.

The blonde haired girl roamed her blue eyes at all the people in the room, her face scrunching up even more in what looked to be in disgust at each man that her eyes landed on.

"Why does this group have to have more men?" Her voice laced with disgust.

"Bitch." Ember muttered under her breath.

Nathan elbowed her in the stomach hard, oblivious to her recently opened wound that she only wrapped up in more gauze, not bothering to stitch it up. Ember felt a huge jolt of pain spread throughout her body but she easily hid it with a cough. She felt her blood soak into the gauze faster than it did before Nathan elbowed her in the stomach. She felt a cold shiver run up her spine as a thought popped in her mind.

She's about to lose a s**t ton of blood again.

"Fox," she poked Nick in his arm, quickly wiping the finger that she poked him with on her shirt after, "take me back home. I can't deal with all the men here." She glared at all the men, looking absolutely repulsed at all of them.

"Can you f*****g wait until I've finished eating?" Nick growled.

Again, the rest of the group felt weirded out, pausing from eating as they tried not to gasp at Nick. Basically all of them had one thought on their mind.

Don't mess with Nick when hungry.

"I already had you on my mind twenty minutes ago. God, I thought a girl was going to come get me." She then narrowed her eyes at Ember who then glared at her, a green glow emanating from her hand, ready to hit the girl she deemed as "bitch."

Nathan noticed this and elbowed her in the stomach again. Ember suppressed a gasp as she felt blood start to flow out even more. Ember elbowed Nathan back, glaring at him.

"She's part of the group now." Nathan hissed. "And we're trying to keep your powers a secret."

"Fine." Ember backed down, the green glow from her hand disappearing.

"Take me back home." The girl spoke again, her voice sounding exceedingly unpleasant to everybody's ears,

Nick harshly dropped his utensils on the table, standing up straight, towering over the girl who only was tall enough to reach her chin.

"Listen here, Aea." He growled, adding emphasis on the old nickname. "You sent me your address at a really inconvenient time. My food is f*****g cold as you made me wait for a whole f*****g twenty minutes and you didn't even bother to speed up the process of packing your shit." He then grabbed her arm harshly, leading her to the living room. "Now you sit your ass here, watch some movies, or don't. I don't f*****g care what you do with your life. Just let me f*****g eat without your face in my line of sight."

The girl was glaring at Nick but she felt nervous, like she just crossed a huge line.

Nick walked back to the dining room, everybody silent.

"Dude," Rocco exclaimed, prolonging the word, "I thought that I was the one who was going to kill the girls?" He chuckled, trying to make Nick feel better.

"Yeah, sorry about that. She got on my nerves." Nick awkwardly smiled, eating another spoonful of his cold food that practically made him depressed and happy at the same time.

"To be honest, we were practically celebrating in our heads when you did that. "Jacob whispered loud enough so that only people in the dining room would hear him.

"Really?" Everybody nodded as a response.

"Though, what's with the Aea part? Is that her name?" Kenneth asked.

"Oh, it's nothing. Don't think about it." Nick quickly waved off, resuming on devouring his depressingly cold part.

After a couple more minutes, Ember started to feel light headed. She stood up, her hair screeching against the wood floor as she tried to not show the excruciating pain she was feeling.

Everybody paused from eating, averting their gaze to her.

"Don't mind me, guys. I just feel a little dizzy." She reassured them, walking out the dining room.

She was barely able to walk up the stairs as she felt her blood soak into her shirt and her eyelids start to feel heavier. The newcomer tried to catch her attention but Ember was so out of it that she wasn't able to hear her.

She grabbed her door knob but her knees gave out. The last thing she was able to grab was the table cloth beside her bedroom door.

Everybody heard glass shattering and a loud thud as Ember laid in a poll of her own blood. Most of the boys stood up from their chairs, alarmed, looking for the source of the broken glass.

"Guys!" A girl's voice was heard from the second floor.

The boys ran up the second floor, Nick sighing from being taken away from his food again.

The rest of the boys had their feet glued to the ground at the top of the stairs.

Nick followed, seeing the horrid sight that everybody was seeing.

"Holy shit."

They witnessed the new girl kneeling beside Ember, her blood prominent that was soaking into the new girl's white pants.

They all saw Ember's chest heave up and down and her face scrunched up in pain. Her mouth opened and closed as if she wanted to say something but couldn't because the pain was just unbearable.

She opened up up a small galactic portal beside her, grabbing a first aid kit from inside it.

At this, Greyson immediately identified her as Astraea Alastair- the girl who sends men to other dimensions.

"Astraea, what happened?" Greyson asked, his voice shaking.

She cut open Ember's black shirt, all of them seeing a blood soaked gauze.

"I need a clean rag." She also cut open Ember's sleeves and pulled it from under her, temporarily using it to soak up the blood flowing out of Ember, and she hasn't removed the gauze yet.

Rocco immediately went down the stairs despite not knowing the place.

"Where are the clean rags?" He asked the astral body of a woman named Elizabeth Agapov who had the exact same features as the girl who was bleeding out upstairs.

Elizabeth pointed to a cupboard above the kitchen sink before she disappeared.

Rocco hastily opened the cupboard, seeing a stack of fresh white towels. He grabbed a couple and sprinted up the stairs, immediately handing the new girl the towels.

"-then I heard the crash and ran up. I saw her laying in her own blood and I immediately called for you guys." Astraea finished explaining as she grabbed the towels from Rocco, placing it on the floor where the blood won't reach it.

She removed Ember's blood soaked shirt and she cut open the bright red gauze. All of them audibly gasping at the huge deep open gash on her upper stomach, huge amounts of blood gushing out of it.

The girl sighed in relief. "The cut only got her skin. It barely touched her organs." It baffled all the boys how she saw that when a s**t ton of blood was still gushing out the wound.

“I can’t.” The twins said at the same time, making puking noises as Astraea begun applying pressure on the gash with the fresh white towels that were quickly becoming red.

“Call us if you need anything.” Jacob choked out as they walked down the stairs.

"Can anybody get me a bucket of water?" Kenneth already knew the ins and outs of the kitchen so he was the one who quietly volunteered.

"God, it won't stop flowing out. How much blood does she even have?" She exclaimed, blowing away a piece of hair that fell in front of her face.

Nick sighed at this, grabbing Alex's extra hair tie that he wore around his wrist and he walked towards the two ladies.

One bleeding out and the other trying to stop the bleeding.

He gently tied back Astraea's hair. He almost considered ripping it off by how hard it was for him to tie it because of how long it was. The girl was too busy to notice what he had done.

After that, his phone chimed so he quickly disappeared as if nothing happened.

He reappeared a minute later with a familiar girl.

"Blood." Was the first thing that everyone in the second floor heard from the girl that Nick arrived with.

"How come she's not sick?" Kenneth placed the bucket filled water beside Astraea.

"I'm Grace Viotto, by the way. I'm a healer so I don't really get sick." She mumbled as she tied her coily hair up, kneeling beside Ember. She shivered at the feeling of the thick cold blood on her exposed knees and legs.

"In three, we switch." She grabbed a towel beside her as Astraea nodded. "Three... two... one." Astraea took the towel off Ember- who was already fully unconscious- placing it in the bucket filled water.

Everyone saw the water immediately turned red in just a couple of seconds. Greyson shook at the sight in front of him, seeing his daughter in a pool of her own blood again.

"I can't anymore. Save her please." Greyson's voice shook as tears silently flowed down his cheeks. He shakily walked down the stairs and Alex helped him. Even he could not stand the sight of his best friend bleeding out.

Even though Nathan was feeling the exact same emotion as the other two, his feet were planted on the ground. Afraid that if he took his eyes off her for even a second, he would lose her again.

He couldn't go through that again.

"We need to stop the bleeding first before I can heal her." Grace applied even more pressure on Ember's wound having more blood spill out.

"Can you take over first, Miss?"

"Astraea."

"-Miss Astraea, I can feel someone with the same blood type as Ember." The two men that were slowly walking down the stairs tensed along with the others upon hearing Grace.

All of them had furrowed eyebrows, frozen in their spots, excluding Astraea who had to apply pressure on Ember's wound.

Greyson stopped mid-step. "Children born with powers have rare blood..." He trailed off, gripping the railing tightly.

Alex ran back up, his eyes narrowed at Grace. "You're a healer, right?" The girl nodded, her eyebrows furrowed as she was unable to think of a reason as to why he was accusing her.

"Then you, of all people, should know that children born with powers do not have the same blood type with anybody else."

"You said it yourself." She looked at him as she squeezed the water out of the other towel. "I'm a healer." She finished wiping the blood off her legs and knees, leading everybody down the stairs.

"I just need you all to sit on the couch." She ordered and everybody complied.

She held her left arm forward, palm facing the boys. A blue soft glow came from her hands. It grew stronger as each second passed by that it was almost blinding.

She passed by each of the boys slowly and when she was face to face with Rocco, the blue glow engulfing the whole room making Astraea look curiously to their direction.

"It's you." She immediately grabbed Rocco, Nick and Nathan, who conveniently sat next to each other, with little to no effort.

She released her hold on them halfway up the stairs and she ran ahead, opening the door in front of them.

"Ember. On the bed, now." The three boys immediately did as she asked, Astraea still not removing her hands from Ember.

"She's supposed to be dried out by now." She told Grace. "She's been bleeding for fifteen minutes and seeing her shirt and the gauze that was wrapped around her body, she had already been bleeding heavily even before now.

"Why didn't she say anything..." Nathan mumbled, staring at Ember's body with shaky eyes as the girls tried to do everything to save Ember.

Astraea stood on Ember's left, still applying pressure on Ember's wound- the rag already soaked with blood and was now soaking into Ember's pristine white sheets. On Ember's right was Grace, running her left hand with the same blue glow earlier, a few inches above her body repeatedly.

As Grace continued with what she was doing, her eyebrows moved closer together even more as each second passed.

She cleared her throat, staring at Astraea. "Astraea, can we, uh, switch?"

"Sure. One..." Grace nodded, preparing her hands that was already holding a new towel. "Two... three." Astraea took her hands and the soaked rag off Ember and Grace immediately replaced her. Both of them seeing that the blood flow wasn't as bad as it was minutes ago.

"Can everybody step out of the room for a while? And call Greyson in." Everybody nodded, leaving.

Nathan shut the door behind him as him and Greyson entered.

"There's something weird with Ember."

-

"Guys, you can come in now. Grace needs all of us." Nick, Astraea and Rocco nodded.

"Okay so I've managed to stop the bleeding but without some blood replacement, she'll never wake up.

"But like Alex said earlier, we have rare blood. It's a hundred percent impossible to find a match." Rocco reminded.

"I know that!" Grace snapped, feeling tired from putting pressure on Ember's huge gash for a whole twenty minutes since she and Astraea switched when she made them step out of the room.

"I can't really heal Ember for some reason." She shrugged, starting to stitch Ember's wound close with the supplies that she and Ember picked out yesterday. "She's going to have to heal by herself."

"Rocco, Ember's going to need your blood."

Everybody in the room looked at Grace weirdly.

"Why Rocco?" Greyson walked over to Grace.

"Because for some reason, these two-" she waved her arms at Ember and Rocco- "have blood that are compatible with each other. I sensed it when Nick and I arrived.

"So what do you need us for?" Nick gestured to him and Astraea.

"I need you two to go to a hospital or something and get something for blood transfusion. Right now."

"On it." Nick grabbed Astraea's hand and they disappeared -- reappearing after a couple of minutes.

"Here." Astraea shoved the supplies in Grace's hand, her cheeks a light shade of pink.

Nathan moved a chair beside Ember, making him sit on it. "So Grace explained that you're just going to sit here and just do the whole transfusion thing until it's done." He explained.

"Ember should wake up after a couple of hours when all her blood is restored."

Everybody in the room audibly breathed a sigh of relief.

Their dying flame hasn't died.