When The Storm Brews

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Sebastian sat in the office with his arms crossed. He was constantly in the office for getting in trouble. This time it was different. He was defending himself. Verbally. Today just so happened to be his fourteenth birthday as well. He knew his parents were going to have it out for him. He looked at the principal who was obviously angry with his presence once more.

Ember walked in with Max and took a seat shooting her son a serious look before turning to the principal. "I'm sorry, what did he do now?"

"He punched another child in the face and broke his nose." The principal told them.

Nick looked over at Ella almost amused. "Your brother is in for it." He said after watching the kid with the bloody nose be taken.

Benjamin glanced over at Nick. "I don't get what the problem is. I mean their parents are gay." He pointed out.

Sebastian continued to shake his mother. "Ma! Mama!" He yelled. "Wake up!" He repeated louder, and hugged her tightly. "Mama please!"

Mercy wondered into the room. "Indie." She glanced over at her sister. It wasn't the best idea to choose favorites, but Indie was probably the most who caught her attention. "I know I didn't really talk about it earlier, but if I leave, it's not because I want to it's because I'm not capable of taking care of all of you. I'm not mom." She admitted softly.

"But if you leave who will take care of us?" Indie asked as she began to tear up.

Ella stared at her mother's body and began to sob loudly.

"Mama, you said you'd try..." Sebastian said staring down at her hoping for some reason his mind was playing a trick on him or he was just dreaming. After several minutes he realized this was reality. He hugged her tightly for what felt like hours before turning to Ella. "We have to go." He managed through a thick pain in his throat. He wasn't going to let anyone else die if he could help it.

"Instinct." Mercy responded, and ran a hand gently through her little sisters soft brown hair. "Don't worry about me leaving, I'd never leave without making sure you were all taken care of. Okay?"

Kali frowned and kicked a rock across the floor. "I'm bored." She pouted as crossed her arms and leaned against the wall.

Faith shrugged not saying a word, she looked at her siblings and twirled her finger in her long dark brown hair.

"If you leave I'll never forgive you." Hale said from across the room, sitting up in her bed.

Ella shook her head and clung to her mother tightly. "No!"

Sebastian walked over to his backpack filling it the last ration of food his mother had managed to retrieve for him. He waited for Ella but ran back to his mothers body sobbing and holding her. He didn't want to let go. She had made him who he was at this very moment. "I love you." He nuzzled against her and finally headed toward the door refusing to look back as he gestured for his sister to follow and wiped his eyes. He had a plan but he was too distraught to speak. His loss made him want to curl up on the ground and wait for death itself. He knew Ella couldn't lose him too. He bit his lip and grasped his bat tightly. He had recalled all the stories his ma had told him ever after mom had scolded her about it several times. She did what she did in defense always, sometimes it wasn't justified but it was defense. He was going to use his own similar attitude to his advantage. He knew the perfect place. Somewhere everyone hated to be but could only be used as their greatest asset. He noticed two kids digging through garbage and stopped. "Benjamin, Stormie, Thomas, Kitty, come with us." He gestured to them. It wasn't long before he stopped at the high school. It was the biggest around. None of the older teenagers had been genius enough to claim it yet so he took advantage. He picked out a few candles and tossed one to each of them and light them with a match before entering. It was completely and bones with just papers and books scattered. He wasn't an education guy but hopefully somebody could take charge of that.  "This place is going to be big." He told them.

Kitty glanced around her school. While Dawn was a sophomore in the school she had been just a freshman. Since Dawn has parted to join the group of older teenagers she had been hanging around with the younger kids. "I can show you guys around. "We have solar panels on the school so we do have energy." She said and walked over to the janitors closet nearby and turned on the lights. "But we need to use it only when we have to because we don't want to waste it." She explained. "Why the high school anyway?"

Mercy looked over at Hale. She could feel her sisters anger. She never got the attention she needed being the middle child. She tried to teach her sister a lot and take her out so she knew how to relate so she'd understand Hale being unable to forgive her. "The fact of the matter is i'm sixteen and I have needs you guys don't understand."

Ella felt hopeless as she followed her brother, before they left she had put a sheet over the top of their mother. She felt like just leaving her there was wrong. Once they met up with the other kids she remained close to her bother and kept her candle pointed out.

Stormie shrugged. "Well, it's large and we will be safe from most things, the building is sturdy." She told Kitty with a shrug.

"Your friends are more important than family?" Hale growled. "That really says something."

Kitty nodded. Their selection made sense. She made her way up to the library where there was a lounge. She took a seat on the couch and waited for the rest of them to take their seat. "First thing's first, we need to recruit a lot of people." She told them.

Benjamin shook his head. "We need to secure the building. Everyone spread out and go lock up every door." He said and walked off to go do so. He returned after a while meeting up with everyone else again. "We need food."

Mercy ran over to the door and shut it as she noticed a bomb thrown in. She quickly put her body over Hale and Indie protectively shutting her eyes as it went off. She opened her eyes to a ringing in her ear.

Indie gave a yelp as the bomb went off and remained face down in her bed.

Hale blinked as there was a loud boom and glanced up at Mercy, pushing her off. "Don't act like you care."

Ella sat by her brother and stared at the wall.

Sebastian gestured to Ben to follow him to go get food. He made his way outside and went over to a building that had been cleaned out of food. He turned his head as he heard a boom and a few familiar kids walk out."

Mercy glared at her sister. "I'm not dealing with your rebellion shit right now, God forbid that bomb hurt you!" She snapped and looked Indie over making sure she was okay then repeated the process with Hale. "We need to get out it's dangerous. Blue, Nick, Demitri, Kali, and Faith, let's go." She shouted and grabbed her bag and darted out making sure all siblings were ahead of her.

Nick made his way over to Sebastian. "What are you doing out?"

"Mom died. Look get your siblings, we have a place to go." Sebastian said and gestured for them to follow.

Nick returned to his siblings. "Let's go Sebastian's got us a place."

Mercy remained still with her arms crossed as she watched her siblings begin walking away toward Sebastian.

Hale crossed her arms and followed Sebastian, she couldn't care less about Mercy right now.

India took Mercy's hand to pull her along after Sebastian.

"Indie." Mercy paused and looked her in the eye. "You have a safe place to go, I'm going to visit you okay. Do you promise you'll see me again?" She asked pulling her into a huge hug. "Promise me, please."

Blue glanced back at his older sister and Indie wondering what they were discussing but continued to walk.

Sebastian looked back at Hale. "It's good to see you again."

"Mhmm." Hale grumbled, too pissed at her sister to talk.

Indie frowned. "Please don't leave us." She begged.

"I'll leave you alone." Sebastian said and continued to walk.

"Hale and Nick are going to take great care of you." Mercy said and kissed her head. "If anything goes wrong, anything at all I'll come get you." She reached into her back and pulled out the military walky talky she had gotten from her father, and gave it to her. "If you need anything, call me over this okay?" She told her.

Indie stared at her for a moment and handed the walkie talkie back with a disappointed gaze. "Hale was right, you really do care about them more than us." She told her and turned, jogging to catch up with her siblings as tears welled up in her eyes.

Mercy shut her eyes tightly, and wiped at her own eyes. She stuffed the walkie talkie back in her bag and began to make her way to the mall.

Sebastian knocked on the door. "It's Sebastian." He said once they were in front of the school and let everyone in.

Blue looked around. "This was a great choice. We're going to need a lot of supplies though."

Indie wiped at her eyes as they walked into the building.

Hale looked around and tilted her head. "Is there electricity?"

"Yeah, the school installed solar panels." Sebastian said and guided them to the library.
After settling into the building and turning each of the classrooms into bedrooms, some rooms had become kitchens, other rooms educational. They had collect over sixty five kids ranging from four years old all the way to fifteen. He himself had become the leader of this with Hale as his second in charge, and Blue as his third in charge.

"The amount of food in storage is really good right now." Blue pointed out with crossed arms. "We have two threats. There's another group bigger than us, and we don't have enough heat to keep everyone warm during winter."

Hale sighed. "We are going to need to send a few kids out to go find houses with extra blankets and clothes."

"What if we got everyone in the library and found a way to heat up the library?" Blue asked along with his sisters suggestion.

"Do we have sentry on the roof right now?" Sebastian asked seriously. His voice had been cracking since hitting puberty. He had even grown from 5'2 to a whopping 5'7 over the past few months. "Find a scavenging group to go get space heaters."

Hale shrugged. "Send six Blue, I'm going to go ration up the food for today." She said and walked off on her own.

Blue walked off and sent the six scavengers out to do their own thing. He returned and walked over to the announcement area. "Everyone pick up their bags, and whatever you might need and move to the library. We will be staying there for the winter for warmth. After, we want you to return to your daily activities. Remember if you are thirteen or older you're available to sign up as a teach for the seven year olds and under."

Sebastian leaned back in his seat in his office with crossed arms, and glanced down at his notebook where he came up with plans for the day. He had been locked up in there for days with no one really to talk to.

Indie took her stuff into the library and settled down quietly.

Hale returned to Sebastian a half hour later. "Food is rationed, anything else?"

Thomas began to help several others moving their things.

Kitty walked over and began to round up the little kids. "Okay guys, come on let's go to class so we can learn." She told them gently, moving the group of ten along.

Sebastian looked up and over at Hale. "No thank you, just make sure everyone is settled in the library, and make sure all the activities are still running." He said and looked down at his work.

Ella watched as many people filled into the room.

Hale nodded and then walked over. "What are you working on?" She asked curiously.