Iris

Hunter, Calvin and I started walking deeper into the woods. I was still processing the quite bizarre series of events we had encountered. My entire life had changed course in a span of ten minutes. I was suddenly running for my life with Hunter and some stranger I had just met. Calvin seemed nice enough, he was very kind but lacked the same kind of confidence that Hunter had. He walked around with hunched shoulders and a bowed head. He didn't have the same authority in his voice that Hunter had and his face always wore an expression of self doubt. Hunter, however, always projected his voice when he spoke and never slouched or bowed his head. He always wore a smirk on his face, as if everything amused him, even now when we were likely being chased by Recruiters.

We trudged through the forest for about five minutes, in complete silence, before Hunter finally spoke up, "So...about that thing you did earlier, how exactly did you Entrance me without speaking?" I realized that I had promised to explain that to him during our earlier conversation,"Oh. Well, a few minutes before Calvin showed up, I got a little time to practice. I started out by trying to Entrance a nearby Sparrow. It took a lot of effort and concentration but I eventually got it to fly down in front of me. Once I figured out how to do that, the rest came easy and I got it to perch on my shoulder with just my mind. I think it was a pretty major breakthrough." Hunter's eyes widened in surprise, "That's pretty impressive! You should keep practicing that."

I realized I still hadn't asked Hunter about his date, "So how did your date go? Was it everything you hoped for?" Hunter scratched the back of his neck nervously, "To be honest, I never really had much hope to begin with. She started talking about how her scullery maid picked out her outfit and that kind of made me angry. I ditched her in the middle of the date."

I could not believe what I was hearing, "You left! Why did you do that? Oh, she definitely hates you now," I laughed. Hunter's usual smirk turned very serious all of a sudden and his stare made her heart feel all fluttery. He rubbed the back of his neck again and said, "Well, I left because I was worried about you. I felt guilty about missing training and leaving you all alone. You're really important to me Iris, whether you know it or not." I felt my cheeks get hot as I processed his words. Suddenly we both stopped and stared at each other. The space between us became noticeably smaller and it almost seemed like we were about to ki- "We're here," Calvin said. We quickly drew apart and pretended like nothing had happened. I looked anywhere but at his face. I stopped thinking about what had just happened(or had almost happened) and instead studied my surroundings. In the center of a clearing was a medium sized hovercraft and standing next to it was a muscular woman with dirty blonde hair. The left side of her head was shaved while the other had chin length hair. She had pale skin and striking blue eyes. She wore a black leather jacket and leggings. Her shirt cut low across her chest, exposing some of her collar bone and she wore a long silver pendant around her neck in the shape of an eye. She had a holster at her hip that held a black pistol and extra ammunition. She looked menacing, like if she really wanted to, she could kill you at any time. She approached us with confidence and shook hands with each of us, "My name's Cora Hendrix. I'm the leader of the rebel group That you're about to join, it's a pleasure to meet you. I'm a Seer, so you two better not try anything, because I'll know. We've been looking for you two for a long time, we weren't planning on taking you guys in until your eighteenth birthday, but due to the system hack, we were forced to do this a bit earlier than we had previously wanted to. This hovercraft will take us to one of our remote bases in Caedis. There you will be given proper housing and protection. Shall we be off?"

Hunter and I shared a look, "I'm ready, are you?" Hunter nodded and agreed that he was ready as well. Cora looked satisfied and said, "We'd better hurry, we don't know how close the Recruiters are. We started approaching the hovercraft when Cora suddenly stopped dead in her tracks. Her pupils went white and she stayed still for a few seconds. When she finally came out of her daze her eyes widened with terror and she suddenly yelled, "Duck!" I did as she said, and good thing I did because the next thing I knew a bullet had logged itself in the part of the hovercraft that was behind me. The sound of bullets firing engulfed the entire forest and I threw myself on the floor to avoid being hit by one. The next thing I knew Calvin raised a wall of ice in between us and the Recruiters, temporarily shielded from the bullets. We hurried into the hovercraft and strapped ourselves in, ready for liftoff. I could still hear gunshots outside the hovercraft and tried as hard as I could to block them out. We took off into the air and the sound of the gunshots grew more faint as we flew. I finally felt that I could relax when I noticed a faint pain in my lower abdomen. I moved the straps out of the way and what I saw clouded my thoughts. I started feeling weak and queasy, the pain in my abdomen started getting worse. I had been hit, "Hunter," I croaked. The last thing I heard was Hunter's worried voice as I passed out in my seat.