Long Way Home

9. Jade

Chapter Nine.

Jade.

Heaving the bags over the dusty floor and into the diner I dumped them on a table and slumped down in a seat away from the other three, sighing deeply and tracing small circles in the grooves of the table.

It had been two days since the earthquake. I remembered that the ground had shaken violently, toppling trees and cracking the earth open. I don't know how I'd got here.

My powers had arrived that same night. First, I had received a small headache which soon grew larger and larger into a migraine. Then the ground had started to rumble again. As soon as I relaxed, everything went still and I began to realise that I was the one causing the disturbances.

For the last two days I had been alone, thinking that I was the only human being left on the planet. As usual, my peace was interrupted by three teenagers; the only upside to this was that one of them was hot. Hot in more ways than one.

Blinking myself out of my daydream I cursed and began to scratch at my already chipped black nail polish, picking the tiny flakes off of my fingernails to distract myself from my loneliness.

I could hear the weak boy, was his name Theo? And Nicole muttering amongst each other and laughing every now and again as Theo cracked a few jokes.

A loud crash rang out from the kitchen followed by a loud shout of, "I'm OK!". Ollie. With a small smile playing on my lips I stood and walked over to the serving hatch, a small window in the wall, and rang a bell, waiting for a response.

A ruffled head of blonde hair popped up instantly, causing me to jump back a tiny bit. As usual he wore a harsh, tough expression on his face as if he was angry at me. I knew it probably wasn't personal though, he seemed to always look like that.

"Found anything good in there?" I asked, leaning against the serving hatch, peering into the kitchen and scanning the room, my toes hovering off the floor a tiny bit.

Ducking down again, he clattered around in the drawers before muttering, "That's what I'm looking for now." He spoke plainly as he rummaged through the kitchen.

Nicole scraped her chair back away from the table, standing up and heading towards the corridor with the word 'Bathroom' painted in blocky, black writing. Whistling as she went, she disappeared warily, the sound of her whistles becoming less audible as she moved further down the hall.

Growing bored of the lack of conversation from Ollie, I went to sit on the same table as Theo, lowering myself into the chair slowly and gazing out of the window. Heat waves rose up off the baking, dusty ground, creating a misty haze like a desert scene in a film.

"How're you feeling?" I asked Theo after a while, feeling awkward in the silence. However, I kept my eyes on the horizon, hoping to see a dust trail rising up as a car headed towards us. Of course, there was nothing. We were completely alone.

"Much better, thanks. My head still aches a lot though..." He muttered, folding his arms on the table and resting his chin on his wrists. Sitting like that, he reminded me of one of those puppies that you see on adverts for rehoming centres, gazing dewy-eyed at the camera, begging for a family to take him in.

I hesitated. "Maybe I could take a look at it?" Deciding that if I had to stick with them for a while, I would at least have to try and get along with the others. Theo was probably easy, Nicole a little harder, Ollie a challenge.

Lifting his head up off of the table, he frowned a little, trying to work out if I meant it. "Are you planning something?" His eyebrows knitted together as he thought.