Annie's New Power

Annie's New Power
Logan cradled me against his body, instantly making me relax. His touch always did. I nuzzled into him for a moment before leaning away from him to smile softly at Gerry, who was frowning deeply at me, which immediately made me sigh.

“We’re going to get her back, Gerry. I promise,” I said, trying to reassure him.

His lips curled up to bare his teeth at me. “What makes you so confident about that? He’s had her for days, and no matter how much time we spend in these woods, we can’t find even a trace of her scent. So, tell me what we’re going to do?”

I sighed as I wiggled to get down so I could go over to him and grip his face in both of my hands. “Listen to me, Gerry. Giselda and I are bonded. We–”

“Bonded like how you’re bonded to Milton,” Logan growled.

I shot him a stern look before returning my attention to my brother. “I can find her. I promise you that I will.”

“Wait! What do you mean by I? It’s us, Annie. You’re not going into the forest without us! You–”

While he spoke, I dug my toes into the soil, calling out to my vines to come to me. They erupted out of the ground at the same same I pushed out my aura hard and fast, instantly taking both Logan and Gerry under my control. Their eyes immediately went hazy as they swayed back and forth for a moment before they both pitched forward, only to be caught by the vines wrapping tightly around them. I took a deep breath as the ground opened up to let the vines take my family under. As the ground closed over them, I sank to my knees, placing a hand on both of their current resting places.

“I can’t risk you getting in my way, brother, but I promise that when you wake up, it will be next to Giselda. I promise.”

I closed my eyes for a moment as Marsha started to push forward, taking control from me slowly until we were standing in place. Her claws curled into the ground while her body trembled with power. After a long, deep inhale, her eyes snapped open, making me gasp in her head. Everything was different now. Not only were the colors more vibrant, but I could almost see the heartbeats of the other living creatures around us. She pawed at the ground again, emotions coursing through her blood at a rapid pace. Suddenly she let out a loud, deep growl that echoed around the clearing before she took off sprinting, leaping over logs and ducking under the branches at a pace that was so fast that everything was a blur.

As she raced through the forest, she kept inhaling deeply, quickly filtering out scents that didn’t belong to Giselda, while simultaneously zeroing in on Kirkland’s to make sure that he couldn’t sneak up on us again. I could smell the scent that he was trying to use to cover up his real one, and I was shocked that it was so easy to separate the two scents. We ran for close to an hour, passing straight over the border into Crosstimbers, too zeroed in on Giselda’s scent to care where we were. Not that it mattered. We would put anyone and everyone that got in our way down. Nothing was going to stop us from getting to her.

As we drew closer to the source of Giselda’s scent, we let our our other senses flare out, searching for any noise that would help guide us to where she was. A twig snapped to our left, and I forced Marsha to shift back so I could step behind a tree, pulling the scent of the forest that I was using to hide my scent even tighter around us. Moments later, footsteps crunching leaves came from my right, and I crouched down, hiding behind a large bush as I watched to see who was walking in my direction. A few seconds later, Kirkland walked into view, whistling cheerfully as he snacked on a chipmunk.

Following a new instinct, I stood up as power oozed out of me, encouraging me to stay close to Kirkland. As I approached him from behind, vines came up to wrap around me, sliding over my skin to form a sort of outfit that covered me modestly. I stepped down on a twig and it snapped under my weight, making Kirkland immediately spin around to face me. My heart started to race in my chest before Marsha slowed it down until it was barely beating. Kirkland scanned the area, his eyes sliding over me without a hesitation, which shocked me. I was standing less than six feet from him, and he didn’t seem like he knew it. I swallowed hard as I eyed him, praying to the Goddess that he continue on his way without finding me.

When he finally shrugged and turned around, I let out a slow, silent exhale. Okay, I could definitely get used to my new powers. They would definitely come in handy. I followed him for another ten minutes until he slipped into a cave that was almost completely hidden by plants. I crept closer to it, slowly moving inside to let my eyes adjust to the darkness. A low curst drew me deeper into the darkness until I couldn’t see anything at all. As I began to panic, Marsha took over, and suddenly my vision cleared, almost as if there was no roof to the cave and the sun was shining directly above it.

She walked us confidently into the next chamber, where Kirkland was walking around Giselda, grumbling to himself about not being able to touch her. Marsha pushed our power out hard, immediately locking his arms and legs together, making him face-plant into the ground. Vines multiplied on my body before moving across the cave to wrap around Giselda, while I moved to stand over Kirkland, glaring down at him.

“Shame you didn’t fight back! I would have loved to remove you off the face of the earth for everything that you have done to my people!” Marsha growled as she kicked him.

More vines came up wrap around him as I rolled my shoulders back. After checking Giselda’s vitals through the vines, I turned around to walk out of the cave with the vines bringing them both behind me, dragging Kirkland, while it let Giselda hover about a foot off the ground. I was almost back to where I had buried my mate beside my brother when pain coursed through the vines, and Marsha made me reach over my shoulder to slice through the vines that were hurting. I spun around, and the vines moved Giselda behind me as Kirkland twisted and turned, pulling the vines off him. I took a defensive stance in front of Giselda as he climbed shakily to his feet, struggling to push himself up.

“W-what did you do to me?” he asked hoarsely, making Marsha smirk at him. When I didn’t respond, he took a step toward me with his fists balled and anger lighting his eyes up. “ANSWER ME, BITCH!”
I tilted my head, still refusing to reply to him. All we needed was one reason, and we could end this for good. Marsha stretched inside of me, her muscles coiling inside of me. He took another step toward me.

“I SAID ANSWER ME!” he roared as he lunged forward to wrap his hand around my throat and slam me against a tree.

Marsha gave him a cold smile as the promise of violence glittered in my eyes. “Thank you.”

“Thank–”

I sent my vines flying forward, sending them straight through his chest, removing his heart seconds before his entire body exploded, splattering my body in his blood. The vines slowly lowered me back down to the ground, where I picked up his heart before turning to check on the protective vine pod around Giselda. After a thorough check and seeing no damage to it, I continued on my way to the clearing where the rest of my family were buried. I quickly collected them before making my way back to the sleuth house. Once inside, I glared at the stairs before glancing over my shoulder at the three pods I had with me. Deciding to trust the vines a little longer, I made my way up the stairs, surprising myself how easy it was. I got Logan tucked into his bed before taking the other couple into their room, where I got them both on the bed before checking Giselda out again.

When I put my hands on her stomach, I was happy to feel little pulses of energy coming from her stomach, telling me that their child was okay, not that it surprised me. I knew Angel wouldn’t let anything happen to him or her. Their baby meant everything to them. After checking her out physically, I had a vine prick her and take some of her blood. As it checked her blood for whatever she had been given, I put Kirkland’s heart on the dresser, still wrapped in the vines. The moment the vines determined what was affecting Giselda, a liquid began to drip from one of them, and I carried it back over to the bed to place it on Giselda so it could feed her the antidote over night.

Before I left the room, I carefully positioned Giselda on Gerry’s chest before smoothing her hair back and kissing her cheek. It felt good that Kirkland could never hurt her or any of our people again. I raced back to Logan’s room to shower and pull some of his clothes on before climbing onto the bed and nuzzling into him. I knew that we still had people to eliminate, but for tonight, I wasn’t going to worry about it. I was exactly where I belonged, and after everything that happened, it was the only thing that mattered. At least for the moment.