by Laura Winter
“You both have a point,” Angie said as she walked in, Nate and Tom following close behind. “It’s true, the two of them are probably better. If the Cold Souls try to use Nate’s black hole, Clara would be able to stop it. Even if they can’t trap the Cold Souls, they could at least keep them from recharging the power sources until we can find a new way to trap them.”
“See?” I snapped, glaring at my mom. She just glared back.
“She said you were both right,” Tom said. “You’re just teenagers. You shouldn’t be doing this alone.”
Don’t do it. I heard Nate in my head, trying to keep me from opening my mouth again, but I did it anyway.
“What do you want us to do? None of you have powers, or any power you can fight with. We could get Glitch involved, but he’s just a teenager too. We let the Cold Souls out. They look like us and they have our powers. It’s our job to stop them”
“Really?” Mom said as she stood up. “And how do you plan to do that? The last time you did this on your own, you got stabbed.”
I could see the regret wash over my mom as soon as she said it, but it was too late. The image flashed back through my head. The long walk to the clearing with the knife in my grip, knowing I could do nothing to stop it. My hand lifting, shaking, but unable to respond to my commands. Red tugging at my vision, emptying my mind and my body as I watched in slow motion. The blade dug deeper and deeper, and I could feel it slide through me, the sharp pain piercing my spine as blue blood spilled through my fingers.
Clara, you have to listen to me. Let me in.
I opened my eyes. Nate had my arms pinned around my stomach as his body wrapped around mine. We were kneeling in the middle of the floor, shards of glass from the shattered mirror scattered around us.
My mom looked down at me in guilt and horror while Tom and Angie were still ducking away from us.
Nate picked me up off the ground, glaring at my mom. “We’re done here.”
I was shaking, completely horrified as flashes of that scene crawled back through my head.
“Why are you walking away?” Angie shouted after us.
Nate growled. “None of us have answers, so I’m going to actually try to help the one situation we can help right now — Clara — because you sure as hell don’t know how to handle this.”
I don’t know if it was Nate or House that slammed the door behind us.
63
Nate
“Oh hell yeah I want to get involved.” Glitch spoke a little too loudly. Mrs. Roberts looked up from her desk but decided to ignore us. The TV was still blaring in the front of the classroom, playing some history documentary that no one was watching. He lowered his voice. “You’ve had to kill Richard twice now. I want in on the action.”
Clara pulled the collar of her shirt back up to hide the handprint bruise as I shook my head.
“We don’t even know what action there’s going to be.”
The pencil I was bending finally snapped in my hand. I set it down, annoyed that I couldn’t keep my fidgeting under control. We were in over our heads, with all of it. Our parents were right, we were just teenagers and we were in no way equipped to handle this situation.
Glitch shrugged. “You can absorb powers, dude. Just steal the Cold Soul back.”
Clara sighed. “It’s not that easy. We have nowhere to put that power.”
“Didn’t you have the whole Cold Soul in you once?” Glitch asked, leaning closer.
“That was before we had half of the Blue Soul power in us. The Complex said that much power would kill someone, and I believe it. This guy is packing a lot of punch,” I said, pointing to my arm to remind Glitch that we already had too much power in us to begin with.
“Plus, the Cold Soul literally drove Finnley insane. She was absolutely crazy,” Clara added.
“So we just sit around waiting for them to use Nate as a black hole?” Glitch asked, finally seeing how helpless our situation was.
“And hope that Clara is around to keep it from happening,” I replied as I picked up the broken pencil and went back to bending it.
“I hope you guys like each other. You can’t break up ever again,” he laughed.
Clara found my hand without looking and I felt the power shoot up my arm. “Insomniacs united,” she said as she laced her fingers through mine and squeezed.
Glitch leaned back, smug. “I told you she was your type.”
“She’s out of my league,” I corrected.
“No, I’m out of my mind,” Clara clarified.
We laughed before several glares shut us up, one from Mrs. Roberts. That first day of school seemed so long ago. Now that everything was in perspective, I could smile about how much everything made sense. The headphones when Clara had walked in, the cold air as she pulled herself into the desk, the volleyball ‘experiment’ she had run, the smoothie and scar reference after Queen Bitch Emma tripped…
Clara’s eyes got wide as she slapped her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing. Glitch looked at us confused.
“You tripped her, didn’t you?” I whispered, a huge smile on my face.
“Of course I did. You wouldn’t let me punch her.”
I pulled her hand away from her face and kissed her as Glitch scrunched his nose.
“Gross. Get a room.”
◆◆◆
Clara didn’t want to go back to House so she could avoid her mom. Our parents had decided to take turns keeping an eye on us. We would spend two days at my place, one for my mom and one for my dad to stay up, and one at House so Ellie could watch us. Clara decided she would wait the full two days before going back to House.
I was sitting at my desk, finishing our calculus homework while Clara sat on the bed, staring at the ceiling. She had finished her homework faster than me. I knew she was brilliant, but now that she didn’t have voices in her head, she didn’t get distracted and could breeze through her assignments.
The last question was driving me insane. I had burned my pencil eraser to a nub trying to figure it out. As I scrubbed the paper again, the poorly taped pencil I had fixed from this morning snapped again. I groaned and planted my face into the desk.
“Here.” I jumped as Clara slapped her answers next to me. “Complements of Finnley’s brain.”
“You remember Finnley taking calculus?”
I had been using the completely wrong formula to try to solve the question. No wonder I couldn’t figure it out.
“No, your thoughts were making me dizzy and I’m really smart now that I don’t have Cold Soul voices distracting me.” She slid around behind me and kissed the top of my head as she wrapped her arms around my neck. I leaned my head back against her stomach as she continued. “I still don’t know if I remember anything about Finnley or if I can just picture my mom’s stories happening.”
“Do you want to remember things?” I asked as I closed my notebook.
“I think I kind of like Finnley now. Even if she was a pain in the ass, I understand why. The Cold Soul drove her absolutely nuts. You saw what it did to me. I wouldn’t mind learning a little more about her, from my own perspective.” She pushed my papers to the side and sat on the desk to face me, her eyes a dull blue as she looked at me. “I just don’t know how to get the memories back.”
That gave me an idea. It was a bad idea, but it was an idea. “Well, House and The Complex didn’t trigger anything, but going back to that power source cave did. I hate to say it, but maybe going back to Richard’s house would do something?”
“We’re under house arrest on a Friday night. We should probably just wait until we figure out what to do about the Cold Souls. It’s not like those memories will help us stop them.”
I shot up, sliding the chair back away from me. “Clara, yes it could.”
A smile crept over my face in excitement while Clara just looked at me like I had grown a second head. “What are you talking about?”
“If we can trigger a memory of Finnley, you’ll remember wha
t it was like to have the whole Cold Soul inside you. Maybe you can find a weakness or figure out how to stop them?”
Now Clara shot up, inches from my face. “Holy shit. Screw Finnley being brilliant, you’re a genius.” She kissed me hard, forcing me back against the wall and knocking the chair over. Just as quickly, she pulled back. Her blue eyes started to shine as she grabbed my hand, dragging me out the door. “Come on, we have to tell your parents.”
64
Nate
Our parents actually agreed it was an idea worth trying. Saturday morning, Ellie met us to drive up to her old house. I had forgotten at one point she would have lived there too. She seemed just as hesitant to go as Clara did.
Clara and I sat in the back seat with her, my parents in the front. It was an extremely uncomfortable silence as Clara leaned into me hard, avoiding touching her mom. My parents looked just as uncomfortable as when they had walked in on Clara and I back at The Complex.
“Good, you should be sorry.” Clara’s harsh tone startled everyone as her head snapped to face her mom. Ellie had probably tried to apologize with her thoughts.
“It was an awful thing for me to say and I should have been more careful,” Ellie murmured as she hung her head. “I’m worried about you.”
Clara folded her arms and leaned back into me. “Just be glad Nate was there to stop me. It could have been worse.”
“Is that what your headache outbursts used to do?” Ellie asked.
Clara faced forward, avoiding eye contact. “No. That was weak in comparison.”
“Your panic attacks have never done that before,” I chimed in. I looked over at her but she just elbowed me, angry that I had spoken up.
“Panic attacks?” Ellie said, her face going pale.
Now Clara sat up and glared at me before facing Ellie. I shouldn’t have opened my mouth because even my parents looked nervous.
“Yes. I used to get them because of the headaches. Those were much more destructive. Now I’m getting them because…” Clara trailed off.
“We keep it under control. It’s done and over with,” I said, trying to end the conversation.
“You two together are always going to be a handful,” my mom grumbled as she glanced back at us. “There is no controlling you.”
I knew our parents had never been able to control Finnley’s antics, but I had never been in trouble before in my entire life. I’m pretty sure I’d never broken any rule of theirs. Well, at least until Clara came into my life. Of course they thought she was a bad influence on me. I didn’t have a chance to argue as we pulled into the driveway.
Ellie hesitated while the rest of us climbed out of the car. My dad made it up to the front door and wiggled the handle before Ellie had opened her car door.
“Locked. Ellie, is there a key?”
Clara walked up on the porch and flicked her fingers. We heard the lock click and my dad pushed it open.
My dad shrugged. “Right. Should have known better.”
Nate, if I start to remember something, can you come with me? Clara kept her eyes locked on the inside of the house.
How?
I’m letting my wall down. Maybe you can read my thoughts?
I stuck my right hand in her left, connecting the scars on our palms. The energy felt stronger that way, and the buzzing feeling always made me feel closer. Our parents followed us as we stepped into the house.
The living room was dustier than the last time we had been here, probably because no one had been inside for a couple months.
“Your room is upstairs to the left,” Ellie said as she leaned against the wall, looking around at her old house. Her fingers slid over a framed photo of her with baby Finnley peering up into her face. Their dark green eyes were identical as both of them smiled.
“I’m sorry, mom,” Clara whispered as she bit the inside of her cheek.
Ellie gave us a weak smile. “I am too. I’ll just be a moment.” She sat down on the couch as my mom went to join her. Dad seemed uncomfortable so he just stood still.
Clara turned to walk up the stairs but paused, looking at another framed photo. I had missed all of these things when we were first here.
Finnley looked barely younger than Clara was right now. Her purple hair was tangled in the branches of the tree out front as she leaned against the trunk, her legs resting on a thick branch. She had climbed just out of reach of Richard, his arms folded as he looked up at her. Finnley was smiling, holding The Magicians open as she read, probably ignoring Richard. I nudged Clara who broke out of her trance and started walking up the stairs.
The bedroom door creaked as it opened. It was definitely her room because it was in complete disarray. Clothes were thrown all over the floor, sticking out of the closet that couldn’t close all the way. The gray comforter and pillowcase were stained in pink and purple splotches, probably from her wet hair. Even her desk was stuffed to the brim with notebooks and loose papers. Pens and other random items had been stuffed into the pages as bookmarks.
Clara just stood there, looking around. Her walls were down but her mind was blank. She didn’t know what to think. Slowly, she pulled me into the room, dragging her right hand against the white walls as she made her way to the bed. As we passed her desk, I snagged one of the notebooks on top. She sat down on the comforter that was bunched up at the foot of the unmade bed.
“Anything?” I asked as I sat down next to her and started flipping through her notes with my free hand. Her lettering was neat and clean but didn’t stay on any of the lines. The handwriting slanted across the page and filled every white space, written at different angles or completely upside down. The sentences were clustered in groups that didn’t make any sense.
“No,” she groaned and rolled onto her back. “What did I write about?”
I chuckled. “This is from when you blew up the building. Everyone’s thoughts and reactions.”
“Nate.” Clara squeezed my hand and pointed her free one up. I looked up at the ceiling she had painted a blackish blue, speckled with white and pale yellow. She had literally created a night sky on her ceiling.
Then I felt it, the punch of nausea knocking me back next to her. I was either going to feel her as she went through her memory or get sucked in with her.
“You’ve got to be joking me,” Clara groaned as the stars started to spin on the ceiling. I had to shut my eyes to keep from throwing up. Soon, I felt a cool breeze running over my face.
I opened my eyes, still staring up at the ceiling. No, that was the actual night sky. The ground underneath me was rough as I sat up. Clara leaned up too, holding on to my hand tightly. I still couldn’t talk or think to her but I don’t think she was going to let go for fear that I wouldn’t be there anymore.
We stood up in the middle of The Complex plaza. It must have been late at night because none of the lights inside the buildings were on. Movement caught our attention to the left.
In the building where all the apartments were, the screen of one of the windows pushed out. Hands tried to reach out to keep it from falling but they only knocked it hard to the side. The screen dropped, bouncing off an awning before crashing to the ground.
Finnley stuck her head out the window, grimacing as she looked down, her purple hair swinging in the breeze. I wanted to laugh but no sound came out.
Clara and I watched as Finnley climbed out of the window, dangling with her hands as her Converse skidded against the wall, trying to hold her up. I could see her starting to slip as she swung her legs to the side. She let go of the window and flung herself toward the awning. As she hit it, she lost her balance. Her legs scraped the awning but she tumbled and rolled off, dropping down to the ground with a loud crack.
She groaned as she lay sprawled on the sidewalk below. Clara yanked me along with her as she started to run over. I don’t know what we would be able to do if Finnley was actually hurt, this was just a memory.
As we approached, Finnley sat up laughing, her hand pressed to the b
ack of her head. She pulled it away, looking at the red blood on her fingers. There was a small amount on the sidewalk where her head had hit the ground, but she didn’t seem bothered.
Holy shit, Finnley was a psycho.
She just shrugged and jumped up off the ground, taking off running toward a building near the parking lot. That building hadn’t been there when we were there. Clara and I chased after Finnley as she ran up to the front of the building. With a swing of her fingers, the door unlocked and she ducked inside.
When Clara and I got through the door, Finnley was in the process of ripping the alarm system off the wall.
