Imprisoned Gods - G. Bailey Page 0,4

she is mad as hell. I reach up, slamming my hand into his just as John, the moron, pulls hard on my leg as he screams. My leg slams through the magical barricade, my hand slipping from Peyton’s, and there is nothing to stop us as we all fall into the dirty water. I swim up to the surface, gasping air into my lungs as I wipe my eyes to see John come up right in front of me. He screams as he sees me, like I’m not the person that just tried to save his sorry ass. How ungrateful. A second later, my brother’s head appears out of the water to my right, and he looks like he just wants to murder me. Fair enough, I can’t actually blame him.

"Hey, bro...how are you?" I awkwardly ask. “I see you had a haircut…”

"Why am I always saving your arse, Karma?" he asks, glaring at me before swimming towards the edge of the pond. After a while, I see that Peyton pulls himself out of the pond and shakes his long red hair of the green water before crossing his arms. I shrug before turning around and swimming to the end of the pond, a bit away from him as I’m not stupid, and pulling myself out. My clothes are ruined, and I hold in a squeal as I pull out a small fish from my hair and throw it back in the pond.

"I didn't need any help. The pond broke our fall," I point out as I see Pey looking at me like I should be saying sorry or thank you. I don’t know which one he expects, but he isn’t getting either.

"Y-you were flying!" John shouts, saving me from having to say anything at all. John screams at Peyton as he gets out of the water and then starts running into the forest in front of us. I look at Peyton, and we both burst into laughter, neither one us able to stop laughing for a little bit.

“See, it’s not all bad. Just a little mess up, and I could have handled it,” I say when the laughter dies off.

"That pond has sharp rocks at the bottom, and it would have killed you if you fell without me stopping you," he points out. "Now I'm going to find whoever that screaming idiot is, wipe his memory, and then we can get going. I feckin’ stink, Karma."

"I didn't know he was going to fall off a cliff, now did I?" I say, squeezing the pond water out my hair as Peyton walks past me.

"Somehow, you never seem to have any blame for every job that goes wrong," he tells me. "Lucky you have a family to get your arse out of trouble, isn't it, little sis?"

"I don't mess up every job," I point out. "It's like one out of five, and I think that's pretty good."

"Not for a karma god, sis," he reminds me. "Now your guy is going to forget today, including his bad karma and get away with whatever he did. Without true karma, the world would be ruined. You need to get better at this." With his gloomy warning that makes me feel bad, he jogs into the forest after poor John. I lie back on the grass, looking up at the rocky cliff and bright blue sky. At least it's a nice day for John to have gone swimming.

3

I’m not sure whether it’s the stench of the pond scum or the fact that there are rocks digging into my ass, but I’m unable to get comfortable lying alongside the water, so I stand up, giving my long red tresses a squeeze to try to wring some of the water out. It doesn’t do much good; I’m sopping wet, and I smell like something that’s been sitting at the bottom of a lake for about a century. Still, at least I’m able to pluck a couple of stray sticks out of my unkempt red curls and give myself a desperate wipe-down with my hands. Damn, I think. I really liked this top. Maybe Mum will be able to reverse the damage when I get home. She seems to have a charm for everything, and if not a spell, then she might at least have a rune or potion that will keep it from getting stained. My clothes stick to me uncomfortably as I begin to make my way in the direction Peyton went, the rocks crunching under