Burning Slow

The s**t we were bound to live through-

Alex pulled a chair in the middle of the room, sitting on it backward. His eyes darted to each teenager. Ember, Nick, Nathan and Jacob witnessing his cold gaze as they were currently strapped down to the beds again.

"What do you know about Grace?" Alex interrogated, his voice low and brown eyes narrowed at them.

"You won't get us to speak!" Nick played along, struggling against the straps for added effect.

"Ugh, you guys are so childish." Astraea entered the room. James, Kenneth, Rocco and Greyson followed right behind her.

"Well, we're tied up." Nick emphasized his statement by struggling against the straps again. "We deserve some fun."

"Seriously?" Rocco shut the door behind him. "I mean, I get Nick. But you, Alex?" He sighed, sitting on the chair beside the door.

"What?" He exclaimed, rocking his chair back and forth. "I've always wanted to interrogate someone and be the bad cop in like a detective movie. Why pass up that chance?" The only response he got was groans of disbelief.

"Do you guys have a plan on how to save Grace?" Nathan asked, getting back to the topic at hand. The atmosphere in the room shifting at his question.

"She turned on us. Why do you want to save her?" Astraea didn't even bother hiding how much she despised Grace at the moment. She stared at her strapped down friends, none of them missing the disbelief swirling in her blue eyes. She still didn't understand why the four of them were so pushy with saving a traitor even though she stayed up all night to figure it out.

"Grace didn't turn on us." Jacob sighed. "She was saving us. She was crying, didn't you see her before we all fell off the cliff?" His voice rose a bit before repeating, "She was crying."

"She strung us along. She made up the plans. She knew when and where exactly we would be. She confided with the person that we were up against. And ow we're injured and thirteen percent of the human population is gone." James argued with his brother.

"That's a million times better than losing thirty percent in just one night. It's been what? Two? Almost three weeks since the outbreak? And we only lost thirteen percent in that time period." Ember spoke. "That's all because of Grace."

Greyson's brows moved closer to each other. "No, it's because of you- you told me what to do if things went sideways." He stared at his daughter, confusion written all over his face.

"Grace suggested the idea. W- She knew what would happen and she planned ahead. All of the events that happened was unpreventable."

Everybody fell silent at that.

"Can the four of you just get to it and tell us why we want to save... Grace?" Astraea exhaled, practically begging.

"Remove the straps and I'll explain." Nathan bargained.

Astraea, Kenneth, James, Rocco and Alex looked at Greyson, waiting for what he'll say.

The parent nodded, starting to remove the straps on his daughter.

"Ugh, thank you." Nick immediately encased Astraea in his arms, sighing in relief. His side hurt like f**k but he ignored it, squeezing Astraea more.

Astraea tensed for a second before hugging him back, feeling like a huge weight was lifted off her shoulders. It had finally registered in her mind that Nick was alive and well after kicking herself over and over again for the past days. She felt everybody's eyes on the two of them, along with their stupid smirks. "Okay, thanks for that. You can let go now, Icky." Astraea awkwardly patted her boyfriend's back, trying to hide the fact that she missed him more than he missed her.

Nick kissed the side of Astraea's head before unwrapping his arms from her, a content smile on his face. "Nathan, you can take the floor."

Nathan sat up, leaning against the headboard, clutching his arm. "I honestly don't know where to start so why don't you guys tell me where I should?"

Nathan released a chuckle, hiding it under a grunt 'cause he knew that he wasn't supposed to make that sound at the moment. He just found it the tiniest bit funny that everybody pulled on their thinking look which didn't suit them at all. Actually, no. He only found Nick's and Alex's thinking look unusual on their face which was weird for Alex since he was a scientist- he didn't even question Nick.

"Start with when Faith arrived?" James spoke, snapping Nathan out of his thoughts. He saw James look at each of their friends, searching for approval.

"Yeah, that's a good place to start." Rocco nodded, leaning back further on the chair.

"Okay then." Nathan breathed out.

"Like Em said, the whole bomb exploding was unpreventable," His mouth opened and closed, not having an idea on how to phrase his next words. "f**k, I have no idea how to say it." He groaned out of frustration.

Everybody kept their mouth shut, patiently waiting for Nathan's next words.

Nathan racked his head for why Grace had to do what she did and he remembered, "Faith mentioned that she died four years ago, right?" Everybody nodded, him included, deciding to go with this. He breathed out before carefully laying out his next words.

"She died because of Grace."

"What do you mean?" Rocco pulled his chair next to Alex.

"It's not unheard of for us kids with powers to go missing, yeah?" Everybody agreed with him. "So it shouldn't surprise you guys that Grace was kidnapped when she was around fifteen. Anyways, Faith, her big sister, immediately went after her to save her. Grace didn't really go in detail that much but she did tell me that the people that kidnapped her forced her to heal and create drugs without rest. She was consuming her power and fast. You obviously already know what happens when we consume a lot of our power-" he gestured to his body- "so when Faith and her managed to escape and the people that kidnapped her and armed with weapons were hot on their tail, Faith obviously protected Grace from them. Grace tried to save her but she didn't have enough power to save her sister.

"She was able to escape from the people that killed her sister and she spent the next three years honing her power, making herself stronger to perform her strongest spell. To bring her sister back from the dead.

"When she thought that she was already strong enough, she attempted to bring her sister back but she brought back a messed up version of Faith. But even so, she was happy that she got her sister back."

"Where does Mother Nature come in with all of this?" Greyson asked.

"The two of them made a deal with her with her. Mother Nature bargained with them that if they do what she wanted them to do, she would bring Faith back to life. Their mistake was agreeing without knowing what Mother Nature wanted them to do. By the time that Mother Nature told them the plan, it was too late to back out. Then Faith flipped, sticking to the evil side and Grace was stuck.

"The next event would be Ember being reincarnated and Greyson calling you guys and Grace had the chance to ask for help. She made up the plans along the way."

"So then why did she only tell you?" Astraea asked.

"If everybody knew about the plan and we knew who were stopping then it would be painfully obvious that Grace is going against them, yeah?" He rhetorically asked before sighing. "Guys, Grace is doing this for her sister- the only family that she's got left. We need to save her. I need your help to save her." He stared at each of them, his eyes showing vulnerability.

"Alright, alright, I get it, we get it. You love her, we know-" James exclaimed- "but how do you propose we save her when all of us are injured and it's a wasteland out there? Not considering the fact that the last time we were up against her, we almost died and ended up being unconscious for two days at the bottom of a mountain, in Greenland, miraculously not dying from hypothermia."

Nathan rolled his eyes at how dramatic James got. "Even if we go out without masks, we won't get infected."

Ember fell off the bed.

"Ember!" Greyson, Alex and Rocco tried to help her back on the bed but she raised her hand as she groaned, effectively stopping them from making any more movements.

She looked up at Nathan, the disbelief in her eyes as clear as day. "My ears must be deceiving me. Did I just hear you say that we won't get infected without masks?" She was almost yelling by the end of her sentence.

The boy shook his head, "You heard me right, Em."

She scoffed, glaring at him. "In case you forgot, I died in 2240 because I stepped out of the house without my mask. It took only seconds-" she hissed out the word- "only seconds, Nate before I passed out and next thing I knew, I only had two days left of my life. Now you're telling me that even if I go out without a mask, I won't get infected?"

"Emmy-" Ember fake gagged at the nickname- "we were blasted off the cliff by Grace and she made sure that we would land on two hundred feet of fresh snow, away from anything that could injure us and Grace wouldn't do that if she knew we could die from blasting us." He narrowed his eyes at James who silently ohhh'ed at the information. "We don't have scratches, we only have cuts- gashes. Do you seriously think we could get injured from snow?"

"James broke his arm." Jacob waved his brother's cement covered arm in the air.

"About that, when I woke up, there were some rocks and my arm was broken." It was Jacob's turn to ohhh at that information.

"So why are we injured? And what does that have to do with us not being affected by the virus?" Nick asked, facing Nathan.

"The glowing blue ball that Grace blasted us with were antibodies that would fight off the virus that would enter our bodies. They had to get in our body somehow which is why we have gashes- on the places where Grace's ball hit us."

But everybody still looked at him weirdly, obviously not getting it. "Show me your wounds." Nathan rolled his eyes.

James removed his shirt, his back faced to Nathan. Kenneth rolled up the left part of his shorts, Nick, Rocco and Jacob rolled up their shirts and the girls didn't do anything.

Each of them were sporting white gauzes, as if it was on trend. Although Ember's gauze wasn't seen since hers was on her back.

"I'm curious. Why'd you have to remove your shirt all the way?" Jacob raised his brow at his brother.

"You act as if you're not my twin." James rolled his eyes at him.

"Em, where's yours?"

"It's on her back. Not as huge and as deep as the gash on her stomach." Rocco answered out of impulse.

Nathan shot him and Ember a knowing look, along with everyone else.

Rocco blushed, clearing his throat. "Why did we have to show our wounds?" He asked, rolling down his shirt, so did Nick and Jacob, and Kenneth rolled down his shorts.

Jacob handed James his shirt. "You can wear your shirt now, idiot."

"Nah." He smirked, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Wear it, i***t. Nobody wants to see you shirtless." Astraea scolded.

James pouted, unwillingly wearing his shirt. "Mason would." He grumbled.

"Well, your boyfriend isn't here now, is he?" He just grumbled something incoherent as a response.

"As I was saying-" Nathan cleared his throat- "our wounds is where Grace's ball hit us and where her antibodies entered from. Rocco said that Ember has it on her back which means that she was facing away... from... Grace?" His face scrunched in confusion. "Why were you facing away from Grace when all of us were supposed to be focused on her and Faith?"

"To be honest, I don't remember a blue ball and falling off the cliff. The last thing I remember was the lightning that hit... her." Ember was still so traumatized upon seeing Faith that she couldn't even bring herself to say the name.

"You mean Faith?" Kenneth asked.

"Yeah, Fai- her."

"What's wrong?" Rocco asked the question everybody was wondering.

"Nothing."

"It's obviously not nothing, E. You're sweating and you choke on the name of Grace's sister."

Ember sighed in defeat, staring at her fingers while she played with them.

Greyson reached out, placing his hand over Ember's. He felt his daughter tense at his touch which made him worry even more. "What's wrong, love?"

"Her face..." A chill ran up Ember's spine. "I recognized her face."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know how it's even possible but I see her face in my memories. Her face was the last I saw. I felt her breathing by the side of my face as she..." Ember croaked, unconsciously placing a hand on her stomach. The burning sensation that she felt when she saw Faith back at Greenland shot through her entire body again; she bit her lip trying not to groan at the pain. "She was the one who killed me. She was the last face my past self saw. She was the last memory."

"You said you didn't remember it?" Rocco pulled his chair closer to Ember's bed, his voice soft.

"I don't know, okay! I know it's her. I just..." She faltered. "I can't believe the woman who gave me my powers is the same woman that was trying to kill me..."

"Faith gave you your powers?" Nick asked and Ember quickly shook her head at him.

She remained silent, a million questions running through her head and she had no way to answer those- at the moment. "I need some air." She grabbed the first hand that was closest to her which was Rocco's, using it to pull herself off the bed.

Everybody's eyes were on her and nobody tried to stop her.

She opened the door, taking her first step out.

But even before she was able to take her second, her previously already heavy body felt even heavier. She couldn't support herself any longer.

Well, you know what happens next.