Things to Run Away From Really Fast

I'd led my friends into an abandoned house to hide from the group of rebels. They've found us now, five rebels armed to the teeth against six or seven unarmed civilians.

Well.

And me.

"What's this?" The leader sneers. "Snivelling collaborators, hiding with the trash?" He smiles, and it's an awful little thing. "Get up and fight us!"

"You still outnumber us, after all," says one of the rebel women, a smile in her voice.

That won't do.

The group of civilians are removed with a mental gesture, hustled through the aether. It takes me a moment to think of a place to set them down, where there won't already be a crowd. I settle on the dirt pile next to the Ixburg house.

I blink, coming back to the now-emptier abandoned house. The silence has been drawn like a bow string, the rebels staring at me.

"Seems fairer now," I explain.

The leader swears.

"You don't understand," he says, anger colouring his voice. "When our enemies came in and overthrew the last regime, they turned my country into HELL. They needed diamonds to fulfil the promises they made to their allies; they worked the citizenry like dogs. This is our chance to set things right."

"Of course," I say mildly. "By marching into people's homes and murdering families in cold blood. Setting things right. Definitely not starting on the same track your enemies did."

Face red, the man shouts a war cry and charges at me.