Uncontrollable

Chapter Twenty-Eight

The man's black clothes fit perfectly with his hair. I summoned fire to my fingertips, but I knew that I was getting tired and I needed some time to rest before my magic would be at its full power again. If I were to beat this man in a fight, it had to be quick.

His eyes were the same red and orange as the woman I'd just beaten in a fight.

It struck me as odd that the man and the woman had the exact same eye color, and an unusual one at that. The colors of the eyes I'd seen since I left the Base just minutes ago flooded into my memory, and the pieces began to slowly fit together. Eyes signaled the type of magic they could use.

The fire I had already readied at my fingertips died immediately. If this mans eyes were the same as the woman's and she'd been using fire magic, that means that the fire would have no effect on him. I released water magic out of my fingertips and sent the jets of water spraying at the man.

His eyes widened in shock. He sidestepped the jets, but I just repositioned. The moment the element hit his skin, he shrieked. I felt my heart pump faster, but I did not stop shooting the water. His skin seemed to be sizzling where the water touched it. And it clearly hurt. He fell to the ground, holding where he'd been hit to protect it and ending up more hurt than he was before.

I kept the stream of water steady and strong but my head began pounding and the world around me was spinning.

Suddenly all the people around me dressed in black turned.

"Ryder, come with us," they said in unison. I stopped the water from flowing from my hand and turned to face them. They'd all fixed their gaze at me and were slowly walking toward me with motions like those of  a zombie.

"Go!" Vanessa's voice shouted, and I didn't need any more prompting. I turned and sprinted towards the woods. Everything going on around me was a blur. Shouts from behind me rose up but that just quickened my pace.

A column of flame flew by me, just missing my ear and slamming into a tree in front of me, leaving it ablaze. As I sprinted further into the woods, the shouts grew louder and more spells were shot towards me.

The entire time, I did not look back, I did not think about what could be going on behind me, I just focused on what was ahead of me. 

I reached the hatch of the Base and the leaves had already been blown out of the way. My heart rate was pulsing through my fingers as I bent down and yanked it up in a hurry.

I threw myself onto the stairs and pulled it closed, imagining the leaves covering it once more. I raised my hands and I could hear them thudding back down onto the door.

As I used the spell, I knew that I had no more magic left in my body without recharging. I let out a long breath and slumped down against the wall, sweat gluing my shirt to my torso and rolling down my cheeks.

The people chasing me were obviously possessed or being controlled somehow, so they would most likely find a way into the Base eventually. I didn't have much time, but I had one thing that I needed to do first.

Pulling myself up and walking down the stairs slowly, I began starting my journey toward the planning room. I didn't remember exactly where to go but eventually I found my way there. As I stepped in, the air felt cooler. Everything was still but something felt wrong in the air.

I sighed and looked toward the wall just to make sure my mother hadn't turned up by any stroke of luck. My heart grew a bit heavier when I saw she wasn't there, but not too much — I hadn't expected her to be.

Picking my gaze up from the ground, I turned to step out of the room, and saw someone I didn't expect to see, but the long, white hair lit a fire inside of me that I had forgotten about in all of the commotion around me.

"Grey," I started. "You son of a-"

"Ryder, don't move." His eyes were trained on me. "Do not attack me and do not scream at me — don't even try to start any drama with me."

There was a hatred for him that surged forward, but Grey told me to stop once more and for some reason, I faltered, a voice in my head preventing me from moving further and causing Grey the pain he deserved to feel.

"What are you doing?" I asked, the anger still present in my voice.

 "Don't worry about it," Grey said. The one phrase sparked a memory in my brain; one I hadn't thought of in a long time.

Slowly, everything fell into place as to what the white flash was so much time ago. I felt stupid for not realizing it before, right after it was created after Grey and I made a deal.

It was a spell forcing me to do what Grey told me to.

~+ Uncontrollable +~

And here's chapter twenty-eight! A few more answers were revealed to you guys! Like what the color of the eyes mean, and what that bright flash was oh so long ago. Now I'm sure many of you can predict what could happen with Ryder under a spell that forces him to do what Grey says.

Thank you all for reading! I hope you enjoyed. I'd also, once more, like to thank you for all the support you've given me. I've said it countless times but I just wouldn't be here without you. As of today (11/6) I hit 97K reads, 5.2K votes, and nearly 1.8K comments. Those numbers are all beyond my wildest dreams and I never imagined to hit them. Thank you. You're all amazing.

I hope you guys also enjoyed seeing Ryder explore his different powers a bit more! There will be much more of this later.

Get excited for the next chapter where we'll learn more about this spell and a small bit more about Trent.

 Word Count: 10,804 (1/5 of the way to slaying the NaNo beast!) ~Now 804 words ahead!