Free Winter's Fury - Volume Two of The Saga of the Twelves by Richard M. Heredia

would not go there with him. She liked him too much for
that.
    A few weeks later, with a
new beau holding her about the waist, she saw that same frank glare
from Anthony for the last time. It lasted no more than a blink of
an eye, but it was there. She had seen it. Then, it dissolved into
nothing, gone. They went back to being friends, confidantes when
things with their significant others got bad. Their window had
passed.
    She had not realized she
had been staring at the lantern’s light the entire time. A couple
of her fingers brushed against her lips, a light touch, a Freudian
act brought on by an acute memory. It as a memory she liked to
relive now and again. Maybe there was a part of her that still
wondered what it would be like to be his girl. She could not help
but be curious how it would feel in her heart when Anthony
introduced her as his girlfriend.
    It would feel pretty
freakin’ good if it were true.
    “ What I haven’t been able
to figure out is why the Event started in the first place. Why are
we so special?” queried the 3rd grader.
    Christina’s glance was
speculative. Her tiny companion had a powerful brain in her head,
which should not have been too surprising. She appeared bright
enough at first glance, but her ability to think with clarity at a
time like this at her tender age was impressive.
    And yet, the girl made a
valid point. Why were they so
special?
    “ You don’t have any
ideas?” asked Marissa, staring into her hands, her back
hunched.
    Too Christina, she looked
even smaller than her four-foot three-inch frame. She looked like a
Kindergarten child, scared, lost, on her first day of
school.
    “ I’m still trying to come
to grips with the fact I’ve been kidnapped.” Christina strode
toward the smaller girl and sat down next to her. “I haven’t had
the time to think beyond that.”
    Marissa smiled, some of
her vivacious personality coming to the fore. Her eyes twinkled in
the steady, blue-white light shining before them. “Don’t be too
hard on yourself. The man-thing just carried me over from my house.
I wasn’t tied-up like a burrito like you.”
    Christina laughed, feeling
a great weight lift from her shoulders. The little girl was
magical, a gift on a day fraught with fear. A question entered her
mind a second later. “How did you get caught anyway?”
    Marissa’s smile evaporated
like water before a tropical sun. “He came through the window.
Before I could get away, he had me in his arms. He was so strong I
couldn’t get away. Then, I realized we were floating above the
trees. I stopped struggling then, because I didn’t want to fall to
the ground and crack my head open.”
    Christina blinked. “Did
you say you were floating?”
    Marissa nodded. “That’s
how he was able to get me in the first place. He came through the
window in our living room.” She leaned toward the older girl. “And
we live on the second floor.”
    “ There’s no fire escape
outside the window?”
    The 3rd grader was still
shaking her head. “It’s on the other side of the apartment. Outside
the window were my Mom and Dad sleep.”
    The teenager fell silent,
thinking.
    “ I’m not lying if that’s
what you’re thinking,” added Marissa, her eyes big. She wanted the
older girl to believe her.
    “ I know,” began Christina,
“it’s just hard to take in, you know. The world has changed so much
in the past few hours.”
    “ You mean the past few
days,” corrected the girl.
    “ Yeah, the past few days…”
The teen put out her hands to warm against the heat of the
lantern.
    “ How did the man-thing get
you?” asked Marissa after a few moments had passed.
    “ In the hallway, I think,”
began Christina, her cute brow wrinkling. She tried to put the
jumbled of images in her head together to form some semblance of
what had happened. “I remember walking out of my bedroom, turning
down the long hall that runs down the middle of my house.” She
stopped and scratched at something on