All of us froze with horror, before breaking into a full out shouting match again. My head started to spin as I felt them approach closer. Nine miles, seven, six. I wish I could be as optimistic as Natalie about these people. Agitation began to build up inside me; what are we supposed to do in a situation like this?

“We can still out run them!” Fred argued; his face twisted into a look of agitation that I never thought was possible on his face. His left arm was griping Natalie tightly like she was going to disappear into thin air in any given second.

If I was only mildly panicky before, Fred’s expression had caused me to start into a full-out panic attack. My breathing began to shallow and my heart started to beat wildly inside my chest like it was hypnotized; it was like someone was turning the inside of my body around and around. My vision started to swim a little and Owen seemed to sense my state of unwell and grabbed hold of my right arm to support me.

“We need to go.” I said weakly, fighting the nauseating feeling in my stomach and clutched my head with my free arm. However, as I said it I realized that we were too late, the other team of POE had locked in on us and I could tell that Natalie heard them approaching. Fast.

Suddenly Tom shoved me backwards causing me to tremble into Holly’s arms.  Holly caught me quickly as Oscar stepped forward from behind and shield us behind him. Fred’s arm clutched around Natalie protectively and looked around the back with his lower jaw clutched tightly. I had never seen him this nervous before.

“We can’t outrun them.” Tom stated and gave Fred a glare, as if the whole situation was his faul. “Might as well get prepare and see what they want.”

I tried to fight the dizziness in my head, but it was like my body was refusing to let me focus at all. I resist the urge to hurl – as if we didn’t have enough to deal with already.

Each second that ticked by was like torture, each lasting a life time.  I kneeled on the ground, trying to stop my head from spinning. It was like my body was trying to send me a message, and it won’t stop until I get it.

Holly was kneeling right beside me, one arm hovering protectively on my back and the other out to fight at the slightest notice. I could feel Natalie’s worrying glance and heard her muttered something to Fred, who sighed in response.

“They are nearly here.” Owen whispered and everyone tensed up in anticipation. The dizziness intensified and I felt like I was being rocked from the core of my body. My eyelids started dripping shut on its own accord and it took a great deal of effort for me to keep them open.

“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” a deep voice teased. My heart skipped a beat; this guy sounded middle age – there went the theory of them being a group of survivors from POE Academy. Not that I held much hope for that anyway.

“If you will excuse us, we need to get going.” Tom said; his back tensed. “Our friend is not feeling too well.”

Finally mustered enough strength I looked up and studied the group standing before us; the group of nine were all dressed in full camouflage gear completed with huge backpacks each. The middle age man who spoke was standing slightly in front of everyone else right in the middle.  There were a mix of Caucasians and Asians in the group, and most of them seemed to be in their late twenties to sixties. The other thing about this group was they were all male.

Two Chinese guys in the group were eyeing Holly and Casey up and said something to each other loudly in Chinese, before bursting into loud laughter. Natalie took a sharp intake of breath, she must have understood it.

“Tom, Oscar, we need to get out of here. Now.” Natalie whispered furiously, fear laced in her words. Whatever the two guys had said must be bad.  My illness seemed to be subsiding now and I took another look at them; they were eyeing all the girls in our group and I certainly didn’t like the way their eyes gleamed with lust. In fact, they were so vile that I could sense their dirty thoughts all the way from where I was. Oh god, I want to vomit.

“Not so fast.” The leader said, taking a step closer to us, causing Tom and Oscar to change to a fighting stance immediately. “Why don’t you stay and have a talk? We had never seen you before; you are not from Yunan Citybase are you?”

Yunan Citybase? I tried to conjure up a world map in my mind. That’s somewhere in Asia, which country? Vietnam? Surely we hadn’t walked that far. Okay, I should have taken geography more seriously.

Tom stayed silent, afraid that he might say something wrong to tip that off that we were from nowhere near Asia. Hopefully Natalie’s presence will make them less suspicious of us.

My heart beat wildly as I looked at their expression, too afraid to use my mind reading skills just in case one of them can sense it. My mind reading skill had pretty much useless in important situation these days because of this tiny little problem. Who is to say that a one in a million chance might occur and we get screw over because I couldn’t hold in a power that I hadn’t even told them about.

“You know what folks, I think they are lying to us.” The guy said, talking obnoxiously loudly to his gang. Their group started whispering to each other in hushed voices. The uneasy feeling in me grew, my fear overriding my illness and I exchanged a terrified look with Natalie. With her super hearing she could hear most of what they were saying.

“Let’s back down slowly.” I whispered through gritted teeth. The situation was taking a turn for the worst with every passing second, judging from the look of hostility on their faces they look ready to fight us; throwing all thoughts of caution out the window I allowed myself to read their thoughts. Immediately I wished I didn’t. Bile rise to my stomach and I fight the urge to vomit. These people are sick.

“This is going to turn nasty.” Evanna said, her face white as sheet. I could see beads of sweat forming on her forehead and rolling down her face, fear evident in her eyes. She must have seen what they planned. A shiver ran down my spine as I replay the vulgar images in my head.

“On the count of three, start running.” Tom whispered, indicating the direction with his hand. We could see their discussion was coming to an end, their plan of attack finalized. I ignored the unpleasant thoughts and images coming out of their mind and focused on their plan, we will need as much help as we can if we want to get out of this in one piece.

“Holly, how many do you think you can take down?” I nudged Holly and asked, she narrowed her eyes at the people as we continued to slowly edge backwards without being too obvious.

“One or two, and three if they stand close enough.” She said, I nodded and turn to Fred. “Do you think you can make an ice field between us?”

Natalie’s eyes brighten as they caught on to my plan and gave Fred a poke, making him sighs. “Yes, when do you want it?”

“Casey, do you think you can hide us? They don’t have a locater.” I said and Casey nodded. Good thing we were in a forest and it wouldn’t be long before they lose sight of us. That is, if we can keep them off long enough.

“I will hold them off with a force field.” Nate piped in, I nodded. Tom gave me a quick smile to show his support of my plan.

“When Tom shout go, Fred and Holly you can begin. Take the bald guy and those two Chinese guy beside him too if you can.” I said, we were a good meters of two from where we were standing when they finally realized the ‘prey’ was slipping away right under their nose.

“Stop where you are!” Their leader shouted, and at the same time Tom shouted go. Without hesitation we all turned around and began to run. I could feel a drop of temperature behind us and three screams, meaning Holly and Fred had done their job. A string of curses seconds after also meant that Nate had successfully buy us a few precious seconds.

Willing my legs to carry me faster, I risked a glance backwards and blasted a mind wall, nearly toppling over in the process. There were five of the coming after us; I could only assume one stayed behind to look after the ‘fallen’ comrades, but soon enough they will join the chase too.

“Keep to the right.” Evanna shouted; Owen was practically half carrying her through the forest; she looked white as a sheet. I heard Tom muttered a string of French words which we came to recognize as profanities before shooting fireballs at our pursuers. They were throwing some kind of small star shaped weapons at us, forcing me and Nate to create a force field or mind wall to block it all, effectively slowing us.

Despite us being hidden by Casey’s power it wasn’t really that difficult to follow us. The sound of our footsteps and the occasional necessary attack to slow them gave away our general position; we simple weren’t fast enough.

“Turn right!” Evanna barked another order and without hesitation we all turned. Those evil little weapons missed hitting us by inches earning another episode of swearing behind us. I secretly wondered who these people were and what they would gain from capturing us. It’s all very strange; I always thought POE stick together, even after graduation.

Countless questions bubbled inside my head and none of them were close to being answered any time soon. I shook my head to clear my thoughts; now wasn’t the time to be curious, we were in a dire situation and I need to focus.

The forest blurred past us; this brought back the memories of my first encounter with a Legre, who would have thought that I would ended up being chase by my very own kind one day?

“We are almost there!” Evanna whispered, her voice carrying eerily across to us.

“To what?” Fred asked incredulously. “Our doom?”

“Guys, I can’t hold it anymore.” Casey shouted; her face a mask of pain; Oscar was half supporting her as we ran. “They are getting too close.”

“Keep running!” Tom ushered and create a fire wall behind us, he was still holding up the rear. I could hear the hint of exhaustion in his voice and knew we had almost came to the end of our resistance, we simple didn’t have the strength to carry on.

Just as my heart sank to the bottom of my stomach, along with the shatter of Casey’s camouflage around us, a new voice suddenly appeared.

“Who’s there?”

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Hey :) sorry for not updating! I know my updates have been irregular anddd too long inbetween, but please forgive me and I will promise to try my best to work around my coursework schedule. And I will let you know about any long time of absense!

I have to thank you for the amazing response to the create-a-character competition :) I got some great entries! I will inform those whose characters get picked by private messages when their character comes out and you will each get a dedication!

I have been getting a lot of Team Tom comments lately :) I have to admitt I am a Tom girl myself! Butt I have to say myself I haven't decided how this whole romance thing is going to turn out for Gail :) there is still a lot yet to happen for them that might change the whole thing ;)