Love, Loyalty and Family by Anysia Eaton (freenovel24 txt) 📕

my Biology partner, well, science partner. And he’s in my maths and English. He’s being really nice. He’s a science geek – apparently – according to the other lads. But I think he’s really cool” she blubbered.
“Science geek? Just be careful. Science geeks are more acceptable to believing Alien enthusiasts like the ‘We Come in Peace’ folk” I warned her.
“I’ll be careful. Promise” she laughed. As her laugh died she started a new topic, “So... why where you upset when we were heading home?”
“You caught me at a bad time. I was about to make a nice person happy” I replied.
“How exactly?” she asked suspiciously.
I shrugged. “Give him some company”
“He?” she burst in fits of laughter at that sentiment. I’ll agree, I’ve never really been the type of girl to make friends with one boy alone without making a friend with a girl, but it’s not that funny.
“Yeah, what’s wrong with that?”
“A he? No wonder you were upset. I bet you like him”
“No. I just read that he was a good person that has been treated poorly and so I wanted to rectify that” I told her.
“Yeah right” she laughed.
We spent a long time going from one lad – Zach – to the other – Mike. It was then that Irena worked out my new desire for gothic clothes.
That night was another training night. We started the same way every training session. Rock, paper and scissors to see who will sit out first. It was a rock, paper, scissors match against me and Alec. We always fought each other last because we could go on all night if we wanted to but both of us always wanted to fight first against Irena.
I don’t see why we do rock, paper, scissors because I always win. He always thinks which one he will put forward and so I can always beat him.
Rock... no, paper... no, scissors... no, rock... Scissors. Yes, scissors.

“One, two, three” he said.
He put forward scissors as I put forward rock. Yes, he sits out first.
He walked glumly to the deck chair that was on the decking. He lay back in it and relaxed.
Irena was waiting on the lawn. I walked to the other side of the lawn, directly opposite her, and turned to face her.
Knock her down Irena.

She told herself.
She dashed at full speed towards me. I braced myself. Waiting. Her body collided with mine. I didn’t budge an inch. I stopped her flat, not allowing her to charge. She staggered backwards a little at the sudden collision.
Ouch!

She would never say that out loud.
She swung a roundhouse punch. I bent backwards and felt her knuckles swish past my nose.
She tried again. I blocked her arm, and twisted around her body taking her arm with me.
She cried in anguish.
“Give?” I asked her.
“Give”
I dropped her arm. She swinging her arm in a circle, stretching it.
“I’ll beat you tomorrow” she growled.
“You said that yesterday” I smiled.
She grumbled, but soon sighed and admitted “And the night before that”
“When you’re older you’ll beat me” I commented pulling her head down and messing her hair.
She laughed as I let her go, “Yeah, right”
I stepped aside as Irena faced Alec.
I never understood why Irena never used her levitation when she fought against me, but she used to when she was fighting Alec, always. Though it never did her any good. Alec only had to change the direction of the wind and she’ll be thrown off course. It didn’t stop her from always trying. I had to give her some credit for her determination. Most of their fights took place up in the dark sky, and today was no different. As Alec could use the air to give him propulsion, he could stay up in the air with Irena. But as well as being up in the air, he can attack without moving anywhere near her. They always fought in the clouds, so mom and dad who I could see watching from the window couldn’t see a thing. I was watching from both Irena’s and Alec’s point of view.
Irena dropped to the ground a few minutes after they first went out of sight. She didn’t hit the ground but managed to stop herself a few feet shy of the ground. She touched down on the ground lightly.
“Well, who won?” I asked.
I could see Alec slowly heading down, a gust of wind following him.
“As if you don’t know” Irena snorted sarcastically.
I laughed with her as Alec’s feet touched on the ground.
“Ready?” Alec asked me.
I nodded.
We took our places on opposite ends of the lawn.
They better end this quickly this time. Three o’clock was far too late.

Mom’s thought’s rung in my head.
They’d came out to watch. They always did for the first fight in a new place. We had to be careful in the first fight. If we got carried away, it may give us away, and to get carried away on the first night would be a disaster.
I’m going to beat you this time Sarah. I won’t be settling for a draw.

He thought.
“You will if Dad says so” I laughed.
He scoffed and charged – at full speed – towards me. I jumped quickly to the right.
He spun and changed back. This time I ran – at full speed – directly in to him. We both staggered back at the collision.
The wind picked up. I lowered my body, shrinking my surface area down as much as possibly as the strong winds rippled and swung around me. I ducked my head, and curled almost into a ball. Alec rushed forward, but as he did the wind decreased. I swung my leg around, connecting with his jaw.
I steadied myself and then kicked again, knocking him to the ground.
Geesh Sarah!

He groaned. The wind was picking up again.
“I won Alec. No need to get grumpy” I laughed. This, also, happened every training session.
“I want a rematch” I grumbled.
“Kids. Come in before you get carried away” shouted mom.
Oh! I wanted to watch another match. I suppose I better not anger her after taking her to a freezing cold place without even consulting her. That would be held against me for a while.

Dad thought as we all walked to the house.
“Probably a wise move dad” I laughed as I passed him.
I entered the house first, followed by Dad, mom, Irena and finally Alec.
We settled in the lounge. It’ll be a while until we go to sleep. It was only twelve. I couldn’t believe mom had stopped us so early. Alec and I didn’t even get to fight properly. She did normally shorten the training times for a new place but never by this much, we only got an hour.
“Mom, how come you cut short our training session?” Asked Alec before I could. It had been pondering on his mind just as much as it had on mine.
“I’ve been chatting with the birds from down south.” They’ve just flown up from California. They’re wonderful... Focus Janice, back to the message.

“According to them the ‘We Come in Peace’ company have been recruiting so they can create a bigger search group for us, this way they can search more places at once.”
“So they have an advantage on us? I’m presuming the tracker that we’re relying on is only relays the signal from the one group” I asked her.
“Three tracking dots appear on the screen, but the birds say there are at least five groups and possibly growing” replied mom.
We stared at each other uneasily.
“Then why did you let us train at all?” asked Alec.
“Because I know how much you like to train. It would be wrong to take that away from you” she replied.
“No offense mom, but I think we could have sat it out for the reason of our safety.” I told her.
“Yes, but how long would you be able to go without missing it too much. We don’t know how long they will do this search for and how long we will have to stay on orange alert, or when we’ll have to move up to red.” We sometimes graded situations with green, orange and red alert. Green meaning just be careful, orange meaning be wary and alert, and red meaning no power usage at any time. “I’d prefer you got it out of your system now, so then if we do go onto red, you won’t be bogged up with unused training time”
“Fair enough” commented Alec. “Do you think we’ll have to extend it to red?”
“Maybe” admitted Mom. Though I hope not.

“Dad?” asked Irena. She wanted his opinion.
“Possibly. Should we hear of any coming too close, we’ll move it up to red, but for now we keep low profile. You can train, but only at night when the light is gone. Never during the day. And be prepared to leave at any moment. And... No distractions or ties.” Commanded Dad. Dad’s word is the law when situations like this arise. We do what he says. If he says no training, we won’t train. Thankfully he hasn’t said that, he’s just said we can’t train during the day.
We all nodded in agreement.
We discussed several other things that night. Mostly about Billy Wright and the meddling ‘We Come in Peace’ company. With the extra money they will be harder to avoid. They will be harder to escape from. They have the money, resources and a big name backing them up.
“Do you think they will calm down after a while?” asked Irena to Mom and Dad.
“Of course they will” grunted Dad.
“I don’t think they themselves will. The publicity and media coverage will, but we already know how determined the ‘We Come in Peace’ folk are, and I got a good look into Billy Wright’s mind, he doesn’t quit at something he has started. That is why he is so successful.” I told them all. “But I think soon the media will direct their attention off Billy Wright and us as soon as another murder or natural disaster happens”
“If things become too desperate would we create a natural disaster? Like a Hurricane or Tornado?” asked Alec.
“No” stated Dad firmly. “That will not help us. If anybody catches wind – sorry about the pun – of it being our doing, it will scare a mass majority of people and will spur the search on. No that would make it more difficult. And imagine the lives lost. Had I been speaking only for myself I would hand myself over to save innocent lives, but I’m not speaking only for myself. If I handed myself over, the four of you will be in danger and I would be constantly worried. But I will not let you kill innocents.”
“I agree with Dad. Killing innocents isn’t right” I said.
“What about Billy Wright and the ‘We Come in Peace’ folk? Couldn’t we scare them off?” asked Irena.
“I thought we’d discussed this in Santa Barbara. If we tried to scare them off and it failed... it would cause even more problems. It would just make them more determined” I replied.
“So... all we can do is hope for the best?” asked Alec sceptically, not practically happy with that idea.
That’s stupid. We can’t just hope. Hope alone will get us nowhere.

“I’m afraid so Alec, but if we keep low key, no powers apart from in training session at night, hope is all we need” answered Dad. I couldn’t have put it better myself.
“Beside, without hope, we’d have nothing” Irena added.
I never said anything about no hope

grumbled Alec.
We didn’t get