Rewind (Vanish Book Three) (13 page)

My coughing woke me up. I
could see Dante’s face and nothing else; the ghosts were gone. He
pulled me up into his chest and held me there for a few minutes. I
couldn’t speak without coughing. He pulled me away to look at my
face.

“
I was so scared,” he said.
“We need to get you home to Cooper.”

“
What?” I asked, confused.
He looked down to my foot. My shoe was gone, and my white sock was
completely red. “What happened?” I asked.

“
I don’t know how, but your
foot was caught under a rock. I’m so sorry; this was a bad
idea.”

When we got home, Cooper healed my
foot, and I was good as new. Dante and I went back out to the tent;
we needed to be well rested for tomorrow. We set up our sleeping
bags and zipped the tent shut.

“
There’s something I need to
do before tomorrow,” he said. “Close your eyes.”

I did as he said. I sat
there waiting for at least a minute. I didn’t know what he was
going to do, but I had an idea. The anticipation was building up,
and it was getting harder and harder to breathe. Finally, when I
didn’t think I could take it anymore, I felt his lips against mine.
There was no difference between this and any of the other kisses
Dante and I shared, but technically this was our first kiss—if you
didn’t count him giving me mouth to mouth. He pulled away and sat
there looking at me.

“
What?” I smiled. He brought
his hand to his lips.

“
It was like electricity.” I
couldn’t help but laugh. “I hope it’s not hard for you, with
Allison being here and all.”

“
Not at all, I hope it isn’t
hard for you,” I said.

“
Not at all,” he
smiled.

When I woke up in the
morning, the sun was just coming up. I sat outside the tent for a
few minutes and thought about how the day would go. Grace’s power
would definitely help us. Cooper’s power could end up being needed.
Lily would be an advantage if she could still be in two or more
places at once. All of that considered, I still didn’t know how we
would make it through. I had no idea how many people there would
be, and no idea what powers they would have.

Cooper came out the back
door.

“
Hey, are you guys almost
ready to go?” he asked.

“
Yeah, give me a minute.” I
went back inside the tent to wake Dante up. Once he finally did, we
went in the house, and everyone was ready to go.

“
Hey Grace?” I said. “Do you
have a pair of tennis shoes I could borrow?”

“
Oh sure,” she said as she
went to her room. “These are great for running.” She
winked.

“
Thanks,” I said.

Cooper, Lily, Allison,
Jackson, Grace, Rose, and Rachel all got in Cooper’s car; there
wasn’t enough room for all of us. Dante and I contemplated between
driving and teleporting. In the end, we decided it would take too
much strength to teleport, so we took Dante’s car. I was nervous,
and I wasn’t hiding it well. Dante could see it, but he knew there
was no other way.

We were heading to the Sunny
Bay Alliance; I didn’t know it before, but Sunny Bay was a big part
of the Alliance’s history. Not only was it the strongest division,
but they were in charge of every division. If they told anyone to
come, they would, and they wouldn’t have any other choice. They
knew we were coming, and I had no doubt that they would try and be
as prepared as possible.

I knew we were heading back into Sunny
Bay, but Dante took a turn that surprised me. I wasn’t sure why he
took it, or what he was planning, but I couldn’t keep myself from
asking.

“
Where are you going?” I
wondered. I didn’t know where the Alliance was in Sunny Bay, but I
knew for sure that it wasn’t down Dante’s street.

“
I called my brothers
they’re going to help.”

“
Dante,” I started to
say.

“
The more people there are,
the lesser the odds that you’ll get hurt,” he argued.

“
Someone could still get
hurt, Dante, and now you’re dragging your brothers into
it.”

“
They’ll be fine,” he
assured.

“
Do you even know what
powers they have?” I asked. “I mean there’s a possibility that they
might only slow us down.”

“
No I don’t know what powers
they have, but if I have powers they must, right?”

“
Well, in theory yes, I
don’t think that could have changed, but we still don’t know if
their powers will be of any use,” I reminded him.

“
I’m going to go inside real
fast; I’ll talk to them. If it doesn’t seem like they could help,
then I’ll tell them that they can’t go.”

He came back out alone. He didn’t get
into what powers they had, but he said that I was right, and them
being there wouldn’t stop anyone from getting hurt. Not to mention
the fact that every single one of us was in that picture, his
brothers weren’t.

We left and arrived at the Alliance’s
neighborhood no longer than ten minutes later. We drove past the
gate and up the road a little ways to park behind some bushes.
Cooper and everyone else was already there waiting.

“
What took you guys so
long?” he asked.

“
We just made a quick stop,”
I answered. “Okay, Dante and I are going to go in and check
everything out. We’ll come back and let you guys know what’s going
on.”

“
And if you don’t come
back?” Jackson asked.

“
Well, if we don’t come
back, then I don’t know.”

“
If you’re not back in
fifteen minutes, we’re going in,” Cooper said, everyone agreed. I
was a little nervous, what if fifteen minutes wasn’t enough
time?

I grabbed Dante’s hand, and
we were invisible. He held onto my hand and teleported us into the
neighborhood. I didn’t know if you could really call it a
neighborhood as much as a small town, the one we went to with
Annabelle—
Annabelle
. Panic took over me; it didn’t hit me until now. Annabelle
was in the picture, too. Another thing that she was in… the
classroom that mysteriously vanished. She may have been a big part
in this, and we needed to find her; I was hopeful that she was
somewhere inside.

“
First, we need to check
where they keep their prisoners,” I said.

“
Why?” Dante
whispered.

“
Someone in the picture…
they aren’t with us, but I think I know where they are.”

We ran back behind the
buildings until we found one that looked almost exactly like the
one we went to before. Like that one, there was a door in the back,
and it was unlocked. I ran down the stairs, and just as I
suspected, the entire classroom was down there, along with some
other people I didn’t recognize. We would need to get everyone out,
but right now, it would be too much of a risk to get anyone out
besides Annabelle. She was in the cell on the end furthest away
from the stairs. No one knew we were here, and that was a good
thing. I imagined Annabelle outside of the bars, and like magic,
she was.

I grabbed her hand and
dragged her to the stairs where no one else could see. If they saw
us there, they would start a riot just like last time. Instead, all
there was, was confused chatter. I went visible. She
gasped.

“
Shh, we came here to get
you. We’re going to get everyone out, but right now I need you. I
know this is a little sudden, but you’ve probably noticed strange
things happening right? I remember when I first met you, we were at
a beach; someone came after us, you put your hands up, and they
flew across the beach. Does this make any sense?”

“
Yeah, I just thought I was
the only one, I didn’t want to say anything, I thought I was
weird,” she whispered.

“
No, no you’re not weird. We
need your help. I’ll explain everything later, but we are going to
fight the Alliance. Dante and I are checking things out right now.
I’m going to find a safe place for you to hide, and we’ll come back
for you, okay?”

“
Yeah,” she said, sounding a
little shaken up.

We went outside. There was a
patch of bushes, I had Annabelle climb inside. As long as she was
still, no one would know she was there. I turned invisible, and we
went to go check things out.

All of the houses looked empty; it
would take us hours to walk around the whole place. Finally, we
came upon a large group of people; they were all sitting in front
of a lake.

No matter what I imagined,
no matter how many people I thought would be here, I never imagined
a group of this magnitude. There must have been thousands of
people, if not more.

I walked through the crowd
to see what they were doing. A man who looked like pure evil, stood
in front of all of them. I recognized a few of the faces; they
weren’t people I knew—they were the ghosts from last night, the
ghosts from my dream.

“
Thank you all for joining
us. I’m sorry we couldn’t have this meeting earlier, but at least
the attack hasn’t happened yet. As you all know, the strongest of
our kind has recently been found. She will come to stop us, and I’m
sure she will be well-prepared and have backup. Even though she is
strong, I do not see her winning this fight,” the leader
said.

I walked through the crowd
with ease with Dante at my side. When I got closer, I could see the
man better. He was standing next to what looked like a
cage.

“
So how do you plan to stop
her?” one woman asked.

“
Everyone here has a
necklace, whoever gets it on her, gets to kill her,” he
smiled.

When I got to the front of the crowd,
the man stopped smiling and reached his hand into his
pocket.

“
What if none of us can do
it?” one man asked.

“
Did I ever mention, that I
am but a spirit trapped inside an unfamiliar body?” he asked. “It
has its advantages, like being able to see what most people can’t.
Being able to touch what most people don’t even know is
there.”

The entire time he was talking, he
inched a little closer to the crowd. Was it for effect? Or was
something very bad playing out before my eyes?

“
You are one of them?” a
woman asked.

“
Yes, have been for a few
days,” he said nonchalantly.

People looked confused—a lot of people
looked angry. They obviously recognized this man as a leader, but
he was murdered and his body was stolen.

“
You’re not our leader, so
who are you?” Someone else asked.

“
I’m the person who is going
to get Scarlett Summers’ powers.”

The man ran at the
crowd—more specifically at me. He grabbed me by the neck, and
brought me up in front of the crowd. I knew immediately what this
man’s power was as I felt electricity coursing through my veins.
Making my hair stand on edge, making me lose consciousness. He
threw me inside the metal cage after one last zap, and I lay on the
bottom, unable to move.

“
Go!” I tried to scream. I
knew he heard me, but his outline didn’t move. “Go!” I mustered up
enough energy to scream at the top of my lungs.

There was confused chatter
among all of the people, they didn’t know what my powers were, I
assumed, only that I, for some reason, was regarded as the most
powerful.

“
Let them see you,” the man
said as he closed the door to the cage. I ignored him, and he got
angry. “Now!” He screamed.

I did as he said, I needed to buy time.
I knew Dante would come back for me, and I knew he would bring the
others, but by then it might be too late.

“
What are you going to do
now?” One man said, sounding amazed.

“
It’s nice to see you again
Scarlett,” the man said, ignoring the other man’s question. “You do
remember me, don’t you?” I shook my head. “You thought you didn’t
have to worry about me anymore, didn’t you?”

“
Ann?” I
whispered.

“
No,” he snarled. “What, you
think Ann was the brains in this operation? She found you, but I
constructed plan after plan, and you kept ruining it,” he screamed
like a little girl having a fit. “Do you still have no idea who I
am?”

“
Hello Debby,” I said
through clenched teeth.

“
Well, are you going to get
away this time? No, I don’t think so.”

“
You know Ann was always in
charge of things, you know she’s much smarter than you. Didn’t you
think the last time you had me locked up in that disgusting place,
that I might just come back once I got out? That I would see what
the hell that place actually was?”

“
I don’t have to listen to
this,” she said in a calm voice as she walked in front of the
cage.

I looked behind me at the water; it
looked deep. When I looked back in front of me again, her hands
were against the cage, and she was pushing it towards the
water.

“
Wait, what about my powers?
You haven’t gotten them yet, and you’re just going to kill
me?”