Jack bolted into the northern tree line, expecting Lily to follow but was alarmed when she glimpsed Lily being chased south from her - and that Ms Winters and the remaining wolves were running towards Jack. She clenched her jaw as she gracelessly jumped over roots and under tipping trees, her feet stumbling over loose leaves and dips in the earth.

Jack's magic spiraled over her fingers, her rings flaring up as the wolves ran up behind her, snarling loudly when they nipped at her scuffed shoes. She held back on her magic for a moment - Jack was still haunted by Yuric's screams, and right now they echoed in her mind.

She had been defending her friend and she still failed. Lily's shoulder was scratched up thanks to Yuric, and while Jack might have stopped Yuric from injuring anyone further, it shouldn't have been possible. Witches can only control nature - trees, flowers, earth. Their magic was always a shade of green and connected to the strength of the witch.

Jack knew she was going to be strong as soon as she realised who her mother and grandmother were. She was the daughter of Frieda, the Supernova Witch who had a power with foresight and instinct, not to mention her gifts with herbal concoctions and remedies. No one sought to kill her, but to hear her advice and drink her medicines.

But Freida's mother was Andromeda - the Witch of the Night. The creator of vampires. She was the reason the blood-drinking red-eyed supernaturals existed and no one knew where her kind of power came from.

According to what Lily said, Jack was prophecised by her own mother to be The Witch Who Can Heal. It was the only explanation she had as to how she was able to paralyse Yuric's shoulder. But with all of Jack's jokes about harming people, even though she was tempted to run over Ryan when she realised he made Lily cry, they were just jokes. She didn't mean to hurt Yuric, just to freeze him in his place and stop him from hurting Lily.

Yet these wolves chasing her had to stop. This time she wasn't saving a friend, she was saving herself. Before she was The Witch Who Can Heal, she was the granddaughter of the strongest witch recorded in their history. Jack wore Andromeda's very rings on her own hands - the same hands that now curled into tight fists.

Let's show them what strength really looks like. Jack thought. They thought Yuric was strong? They hadn't faced her yet.

As Jack kept running, eyes now glowing a piercing emerald green, she felt the wolves' breath on the back of her heels. With only a second to recall Yuric's scream and shove the memory aside, she flung her magic into a tree next to her. She knew a lot about nature, every witch had to, and Jack knew what would make a tree fall.

The tree creaked and jolted as the trunk ripped up the earth and tipped over Jack's head to slam into the ground behind her. She heard the yelp of surprise from some of the wolves but a quick look behind her verified she hadn't trapped any under the fallen tree. All they did was run around or over it, but they weren't at her heels anymore, instead keeping their distance.

Jack kept running. Flinging her magic into the ground, her feet stumbled as the dirt ripped up around her. Long submerged roots surfaced, stretching as they felt the heat of the sun for the first time, before intertwining with each other to form a gigantic wall of thick vines; a natural fence to block the path behind her for the wolves. The trees tipped over as the roots kept rising and tying together, leaving a gigantic path of knots in the forest. It would have been visible from the sky, from the village atop the mountain Jack was quickly approaching, but Jack kept her gaze on the ground she was ripping up.

Jack spun around and stopped, seeing the metres of thick makeshift vines behind her and the wolves trying to weave their way in between. "Ha!" She spat. "Chase me though that, suckers! Can Yuric do that? You think he's the strongest of us all? That's only a, a fraction of what I can do!"

Jack, of course, was exhausted. She wasn't built for running, her destiny in life was to lean against walls and sarcastically narrate her friends lives while eating something delicious. Using that much energy to rip apart a kilometre of trees to make a maze of knotted roots? She could do with a nap.

Jack sighed and relaxed, seeing the rogues weren't getting out of the roots anytime soon. When she turned to look at the mountain she'd run to, the slope of the ground that spiked to form Mount Tyrill, she was met with a kick to the chest.

The witch flew back and landed on her forearms, rolling, but she couldn't avoid the chipped roots and rocks. Jack yelled as something tore within her throbbing wrists. Her eyes were narrowed sharply as she turned to see Ms Winters stood between her and the mountain. The teacher was still scowling but breathing deeply from the running Jack had forced on them all.

"Yuric might not be as strong as you, Slater," Ms Winters cracked her neck and rolled her shoulders. "But he's not a destroyer like you."

"It's Garcia-Slater." Jack hissed as she got up, groaning as she realised she'd sprained both wrists. Her rings flashed, magic coiling around her veins and muscles like a brace. "And Yuric murdered someone. Let's not forget that."

"Who do you think handed Alpha Roman over?" Ms Winters' scowl lifted with a raised eyebrow and a smile of victory warmed her expression.

"Well aren't you two a match made in heaven." Jack said sarcastically, flicking her hair off her face as a breeze rolled in, clouds moving over from the mountain.

"Yuric may not like the fact I killed you, he wanted to do it himself, but you hurt my rogues." Ms Winters stood tall, feet spread apart, and her eyes flared feral gold. "I can't let that go."

"Like the rogues you left in Andrew's cells?"

"They were caught and captured."

"I think if you look behind me, you'll see they're also caught and captured." Jack motioned behind her with her chin, not moving her hands. She was aware of her green magic pulsing from her rings, how it followed her veins like she'd dipped them into a pool of trellises. Jack knew on some instinct her magic was preventing her from feeling any pain but it didn't mean she wasn't injured - the fresh bruising was enough evidence.

"Enough, Jacinta." Ms Winters hissed, stepping forward. She paused when she noticed Jack's pulsing rings. "Your magic comes from your rings." The teacher realised aloud, scowling when Jack scoffed.

"My magic is my own." The witch shook her head. "The rings are just a touch of luxury you will never comprehend."

Ms Winters narrowed her golden eyes. "Can you even spell 'comprehend', Jacinta? I've seen your English grades."

"Was that before or after you became a traitorous bitch?"

The teacher snarled and stepped back from her, only to shift. Despite Jack being on her knees and about to be attacked, she couldn't help but see Ms Winters was a pretty wolf. Her fur was a deep brown with patches of tan under her belly and around her nose, and a single white ear - Jack had no idea how wolf to human genetics worked, she'd rather talk about food, but she was amused to see her scowl was also on her wolf's expression.

"You claim I'm a destroyer," Jack kept her chin high, eyes still glowing fiercely, "but you're the one who's about to kill a seventeen-year-old witch because your boyfriend said so. At least I'm dying free - you're chained by the rogues and their dumb theory."

When Ms Winters hesitated, her claws digging into the earth in front of her, Jack continued. "You think Yuric's going to save you all? He killed a werewolf. He tried to kill my friend - Lily, you know, the Supernova and the only one who can truly protect you from any of this toxic stuff?"

Ms Winters snarled. Jack narrowed her eyes. "She's injured too, you know. She's recovering from a lightning strike but she's going to be fine. Yuric's stuck. If you want someone good in power and someone who hasn't killed anyone and won't order you around, like Lily, then why are you trying to kill her!?"

The wolf's saliva spat over Jack's face as Ms Winter's howled at the mention of Yuric's paralysis, knowing he should have been here beside her, but he wasn't. It meant she had to enact his vengeance for him.

"Go ahead." Jack taunted, and gently rested her fingertips on the earth beneath her. Some of the green bracing sank into the soil, gripping the roots underneath once more. "Let's see you become a traitorous and murderous bitch."

Ms Winters' leaped at Jack only to be swept away by a slap of wind. Jack's magic had sprung roots right where Ms Winters' had stood but the air was faster, flinging the PE teacher over Jack's head and beyond the forest canopy. She heard her alarmed whining as her limps fumbled for anything - but her claws only scraped the air.

Jack didn't see where Ms Winters' landed, only that it was miles away, and her bracing dimmed a little as she realised she was alone in the forest - but when she looked back at the roots she'd sprouted from the earth, she jumped out of her skin.

"What the freaking hell?!" Jack screamed, twisting away from the person who sat perched on the roots in front of her, whose face was mere centimetres from her own before Jack skidded back on her heels and narrowed her eyes at the boy, registering that it wasn't indeed a figment of her imagination. "Where did you come from!?"

"Hey." He smiled, his violet eyes darting around where she was sitting, never quite focusing on her. "Jacinta, right?"

"Don't you start." Jack hissed. "I asked first - who are you?!"

"Actually, you asked where I came from, not who I was." The boy leaned back, crossing his arms smugly with an amused smile on his face. He flicked his startling white hair back off his eyes, which still didn't focus on Jack.

"Are you with Yuric?!"

"Who's Yuric?" He frowned, his barely visible eyebrows bunching as he gracefully shifted from one root to another, his weight perfectly balanced. He was perched like a dove at the end of the thinnest branch, Jack thought as she tried to calm herself down. She started to take a few things in looking at him - that he was albino, he wore a thick jumper despite the weather being hot enough for Jack to wear a t-shirt, and he wasn't wearing any shoes.

"Okay well that's a good sign." Jack muttered, still not completely trusting the boy. "Where'd you come from?"

"Shouldn't I be asking the questions here?" He cocked his head to the side and looked behind her, his eyes darting around Jack's mess of knotted roots. "You destroyed a lot of forest to trap a bunch of werewolves."

"Well, it was either I rip up some trees or be eaten, and I didn't fancy being their lunch!" Jack stood up, letting her sore wrists hang at her side, aware of her magic bracing her joints and pulsing through her veins still. "Who are you?"

"Niall." He introduced, smiling.

"Jack."

"No, my name's Niall."

"No, I'm Jack."

"But the werewolf called you Jacinta?" He frowned, lifting his head as though he could see where Ms Winters' landed.

Jack sighed. "She's a teacher, well former teacher, from my old school. She uses full names. She's evil."

"For using full names?"

"For trying to kill me, idiot."

Niall blinked at her words. "Right. So you're just Jack then?"

"Yes." Jack's nose flared as he smiled at her irritation. "Now where did you come from?"

Niall stood, his toes the only thing touching the root tip beneath him and pointed at the mountain. "Tyrill." He said. "I saw the forest being ripped up and thought I'd check it out - and then I saved you from the werewolf. You're welcome, by the way."

"The mountain? You're from the mountain?" Jack ignored his hint for some thanks and her mind whirled. Lily's words branched forward again - that they needed to head north to the mountain village after picking up someone in Widderin.

"I'm from the village there, yeah." Niall frowned, a thought occurring to him. "Hang on, why are you in the forest by yourself? Are you heading to the village?"

"Yes, well no, actually - kind of?" Jack turned and looked behind her, expecting to see Lily at her side. "My friend and I are looking for two supernaturals but we were jumped by rogues before we could get there. They chased her south and me north to here."

Niall stood up, staring south and frowning at the clouds still in the sky. "Does your friend have a chance against a dozen rogues?"

Jack was about to say yes but remembered Lily's paralysed arm. "Maybe - she's already injured and she doesn't have complete control on her gifts yet."

"I'll grab some reinforcements then." Niall said, toes curling around the roots beneath him. "Head south and try to find her, I'll catch up with you."

"Hang on, since when do you call the shots, twinkle toes?" Jack stepped back as Niall laughed at the nickname, shrugging.

"Well my arms aren't busted and I'm not exhausted from running a few miles, so I'm the best chance of helping your friend - you just have to find her." Niall crossed his arms, his hands curled in the sleeves of his jumper. "Think you're capable of that?"

Jack narrowed her eyes. "I can find her, I've done it before - just get those reinforcements, okay?"

"No problem Jack." Niall stepped off the roots and Jack's eyes widened to see he didn't fall to the ground. He was floating! "You're welcome, by the way!" He cheered before the wind curled around him, forcing Jack to shut her eyes to protect herself from the stray leaves and twigs shooting at her face.

By the time she opened her eyes again, he was gone.

"Prick." She muttered. She turned around to see the wolves still trapped in her knotted root maze, and groaned realising she had to run all the way back and further to catch Lily, wherever she was.

When she heard the lone howl ringing through the sky, Jack began running, ignoring the howls the trapped wolves made. Her rings glowed and strengthened her bracing on her arms but she didn't focus too much on that.

She just hoped Niall's reinforcements were enough of a match for a dozen rogues - and that Lily had escaped them without doing anything stupid.