Thump! Thump! Thump!
“We, technically, never asked him to try to make a ball, so whether he can or not is undetermined,” Annabel unhelpfully pointed out. Did it really matter right now?
He winced as the fire started to flare up, growing as the pounding in his head worsened, more sounds of cracking wood and flickering flames following it.
Thump, thump, thump!
Red let out another frustrated hiss. “He doesn’t need to create a ball to show control, he just needs to hold it back.”
THUMP, THUMP, THUMP!
“Ollie, you need to calm down. The fire is reacting to your mood,” Noble had the audacity to say from behind him.
“Calm down!? I am calm! I am perfectly fudging calm! But I would appreciate it if you all would shut the heck up about fudging BALLS—” His words cut off on a frightened scream, as a sudden whoosh of heat hit his face, followed by a violentforce that sent him flying backward as the tree beneath his palm exploded in a muted boom and a silent burst of fire.
Instead of hitting the ground as he expected, Ollie slammed back hard against a firm chest, Noble’s arms coming around him as the man caught him.
The air was knocked out of him, and he started coughing like a dying man, while Noble carefully set him on the grass and started looking him over. “Anything hurt, Baby?”
“Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck! Ollie, are you okay?!” Jahla squealed as she rushed to his side, her hands roaming over him as much as Noble’s were.
Was he okay? He didn’t actually know…but he now barely felt his headache because his back hurt worse, as did his lungs, of which he was currently attempting to hack out. Oh, his face also felt a bit toasty…
“Back—cough—lungs. Face?”
“Nothing seems broken. I think you just got the wind knocked out of you. Your face is a bit burned, but more minor sunburn territory than anything…” Noble wrinkled his nose. “You did lose more baby hairs.”
“Not my—cough—baby hairs!” he whined.
“They’ll grow back,” Noble chuckled softly. “Remind me to never tell you to calm down again.”
Ollie whimpered. “Sorry…my—cough—head hurts…”
“Baby, you should have said something. Though maybe I should have guessed by how much you kept squinting,” the man said sweetly.
Red sighed. “I’d say I’m surprised, but…”
Annabel let out a hesitant laugh. “It’s, um…a bit impressive.”
“A bit,” his cat agreed.
“Would you two stop being impressed and put the damn fire out before we have the Fire Department called on us!?” Jahla snapped.
Still coughing, Ollie looked towards the disaster, staring on in horror at where his tree used to be. Pieces of burning wood and branches littered the forest floor around them, and where the tree had once stood was a blackened, burning gouge in the earth, as if a bomb had gone off. “My tree!”
“You sure you’re up to ghost research after being blown up?” Jahla asked, turning to eye him as she moved further into the secret library. “Not to mention, it’s already ten.”
Her gaze seemed way too focused on his poor, barely-there baby hairs. “Stop looking at them. And I’m fine. I took some meds for my head, and I ate something. Admittedly, the headache mostly went away after I ate.”
She stared at him, her brow raised in judgement.
“I didn’t skip a meal. Noble always makes sure!”
Noble scoffed as he walked into the secret library behind them. “He ate part of a sandwich around five, but his meal was cut short by a toddler having a meltdown, followed by a toiletexploding. And from there, I couldn’t seem to get him to stop moving long enough to finish eating.”
Ollie laughed hesitantly and pointed out, “I mean…I didn’t faint or anything.”
“No, you just blew up a tree,” Jahla deadpanned.
