Breaking Barriers

by Bob Dattolo

“Fine,” He nodded, “no retaliation from me. Chalk this up to a learning experience. I can’t even say this is the first time I’ve been blinded by a student. It’s just usually not done with fingers.”

  Did I trust him? Not even remotely.

  “As for Corey? Yes, he’ll more than likely go after you at some point, but it will take some time. Do you have any idea what you did to him?” She asked.

  “No. No idea at all. I’m not even sure why I’m not dead right now.”

  “Well, you short circuited part of his magic. He’s stuck mid-change right now. We think he’ll be able to finish the change in an hour or so, but he needs to gain more power first.”

  “Oh…goody. So I get like a day to eat and make friends before he comes after me?”

  She nodded. “Exactly.”

  “You know I should have no expectation of living through that, right?”

  She nodded. “True. You shouldn’t. Yet…I think we’ll all be surprised.”

  They let me think for nearly a minute.

  “Food? Friends?” I asked.

  “And learning about who and what you are.” The headmaster said.

  “Fine…fine. Can anyone point me towards the food, then?” The woman nodded and the other adults opened a path for her to leave with me following her. As we hit the hallway one of the quiet adults said, “And no one’s going to question how she was able to even wake up, let alone break those cuffs and stand?”

  The closing door cut off any response and I continued following the woman. Her pleasant demeanor only improved as we walked. “Hi, Ceri, I’m Ms. Darvel. I teach math and defensive arts.”

  “Uhh…defensive arts?”

  She nodded. “Right. How to defend against attackers? I’m trained in defense from a physical as well as magical standpoint.”

  She didn’t look that big to me, which means she’s either pulling my leg or has some crazy good skills to back her up. “Oookay. You know I have no idea what that means, right?”

  “I do. You will, though. I’m your instructor for two of your classes. I think you’ll enjoy it. She patted my shoulder as we walked. “Keep up what you started in there. I know you’re new to this and don’t really know what’s happening, but you started off on the right foot to keep people from messing with you. As they say, you came into prison and took a chair to the biggest, baddest guy there, and now everyone will wonder about you. Corey’s been a thorn in too many sides, and I can’t tell you how happy I am to see him get taken down a peg. It’s a shame power doesn’t go to people that deserve it.”

  “There’s going to be hell to pay over this with him, isn’t there…”

  “Yes, there probably will, but I think you’ll be able to handle it. As much as he’s a pain, he’s not dumb. I think he’ll hold back and study you for a while before going against you. I’d guess a week on the inside and…two months on the outside, depending on how careful he wants to be. I would recommend using the time to study everything you can and befriend everyone that’s willing. Then, when and if he comes for you, smack him down. Hard. I’m not saying to kill him, just be prepared to win decisively. Your bluffs were pretty weak, from what I understand.”

  Nothing stuck out at me as a bluff. “Uhh, bluffs?”

  She nodded. “You told him you’d go after friends and family? He’ll call your bluff.”

  Shaking my head, I sighed. “See, that’s just it. Last week I never would have thought about making a threat like that. With whatever happened inside of me, my threats against his friends and family are just about the lightest response I had. Everything else was worse. For the record, I didn’t bluff. I meant it. Every word. I meant it with the teacher back there, too. I have no idea what’s changing in me, but it’s…it’s not nice. I’m not even sure it’s familiar with the word nice.”

  She had a brief flicker of fear on her face before it faded to a smile. “Good. Very good. Now, go on in and get some food. I’m sure the others back there are still talking about you, so I need to head back. Try not to maim anyone else, all right? Although the eyes are pretty good. It’s a devastating injury, yet easy to heal.”

  “Huh, yeah, too bad I didn’t know you could heal it at all. I rather thought they’d be blind for life.”

  Her throat worked a few times. “You…wow. Okay, that’s rather terrifying, isn’t it?”

  I gave her a real smile. “Ya think? Imagine it from my side. I still wish I was licking their blood from my hands, and that’s just not a good thought to have.”

  I left her at the door to the building and followed the heady scent of food towards the cafeteria again. The hubbub of voices flowing from the door was too thick to make out individual voices, but they all sounded excited about something. Two guesses what it might be.

  The voices died slowly at first, then the silence cascaded in a sudden wave as people realized I was standing in the doorway again. Steph’s voice rose above everyone else’s. “Holy shit, you’re back already?!” She jumped from a big round table, leaving a huge tray of food behind, and ran over to me in a weird fast movement thing.

  The conversations started slowly and stayed low as I looked up at her. “How are you? Are they kicking you out? What’s happening?”

  I shrugged. “They’re not kicking me out and talked me into staying when I told them I’d be leaving. I’m good. I feel fine. I just don’t have a clue what’s happening…and I’m starving. They rather talked me into staying for the possibility of getting good food and...”

  She hesitated before touching me, then did it anyway, turning me towards the trays again. “Good food and what?”

  I didn’t really want to answer, but I did anyway. “And friends.”

  She snorted. “Just you wait, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by everything.”

  I know I was shocked by the food choices. When you’re raised on bland food and not much of it, being offered a huge variety of food that simply looked divine is enough to make me want to stay. I’m not sure I wouldn’t stay if everyone turned out to be an enemy even if only for the chance that I’d get to eat in here again.

  I took, well, I took one of nearly everything. My tray was overloaded in a good way, and Steph even went back for another tray and grabbed me more food when the first was too full to add more. When I headed towards an empty table, she cut in front of me and nodded to where she had been sitting and the open spot next to her. Rachel sat on the other side of the open spot, watching me with nothing in front of her.

  She slid my tray onto the table and smiled at the group. “All right, everyone, this is Ceri. Ceri, this is everyone. This is our dozenal.”

  Sure enough, with me included, we had a dozen kids sitting at the table. To a person, they looked pleased as punch to see me.

  Rachel shocked me by pulling me into a hug as soon as my tray was down. “Thank you! No one else would have or could have helped me. Thank you so much. I want you to know that anything, anything, I can do for you will be done. You just need to ask.”

  She was crying when she pulled away and I was amazed to see that her tears were infused with red, although it wasn’t pure blood.

  “Uhh, that’s okay Rachel. I’m glad I could help.”

  She sat, tugging me down into my chair. As I expected, I didn’t get a chance to eat anything before the rest started introducing themselves.

  “Hi, I’m Armand.” Next to Rachel, a good-looking guy that oozed niceness, if that’s even a word, nodded at me.

  Next to him, a younger girl that looked Hawaiian smiled at me. “Leticia.”

  Paul came next and was about four inches taller than I am.

  The next in line was a smidge shorter than Steph and radiated power. “I’m Tom. Nice to meet you. Thank you for watching out for Rachel.”

  “You’re welcome. I’ll be honest, I didn’t know for sure that she was part of our group when I came in. I figured it was a possibility when I heard her name, but I would have done it no matter who it was.”

  The g
irl next to Tom laughed. “Good! Good. That’s what we need in our group. We try to look out for each other, but it’s hard when we run into stronger folks in other groups that want to take advantage of things. Unless we can go after them as a group, we don’t stand a chance. As it is, none of us would have stood a chance against Corey. His ability with fire tends to end things too quickly.” She took a sip of her drink before nodding, “Oh, I’m Sarah.”

  Carl, a thin black guy came next. “Nice to meet you.” He added.

  Nick and Zach might as well be twins. They look that close together and even sound somewhat the same.

  “I’m Christine.” The last girl on the other side of Steph nodded at me. “I have to ask…normally when Corey threatens us for sex, he uses his fire powers on us. I can’t stand up to him and that’s my specialty. Is that yours as well?”

  I shrugged. “No idea? I’m sure Steph told you everything we talked about earlier?”

  My roomie didn’t bother looking ashamed, nor did I expect her to. Not really. It might have been nice, but I knew anything I told her would be shared. Our five-minute companionship is nothing compared to knowing most of the rest of the group for two years. “I did.”

  My first bite of food made me glad I’d stayed. “I’m not sure what else to add to that. I mean…I’m at a loss. Did you mention the whole evil thing?” She nodded, although some of them looked confused.

  I decided to enlighten them a little in between bites. “Okay, so some of you were confused by that?” Nods from most of them. “All right, so in a nutshell, my parents were sort of survivalists? They kept us locked on the family compound and only ever allowed specific people to visit. They taught all of us kids that supernaturals were evil and even talking to one would mean we go to hell unless we can purge the evil. As you can imagine, there was lots of prayer and flogging. They were also big on making us kids work against each other. Every breach of the rules had to be reported on.” I shrugged. “Well, a few days ago I overheard my parents talking about murdering me on my 17th birthday. Apparently, they’d done it to my eight older brothers and sisters. They also planned to do it to my six younger brothers and sisters when they turned 17. We’d always been told that when we turn 17, we get to go off to college or a job or whatever else they cooked up. The older ones would write every once in a while, but never really respond to our questions. And they never came back. I was kinda close to the two older than me and we worked out that they’d use a secret e-mail to reach me, but they never did.”

  “Well, when I heard that, I left. I took a box cutter and ran, climbed over the fence, then ran some more. I found an old building and tried to kill myself when a vampire stopped me. He basically drained me and left me for dead…except I didn’t die. The FBI found me and moved against my parents because they had suspicions before about them, but nothing factual. When they assaulted the house, my parents destroyed it and ran. They killed my brothers and sisters and 31 FBI agents. So…yeah, now I’m a ward of the FBI since they don’t have any clue what to do with me. Oh, I forgot to mention, both of my parents were apparently mages of some type? The FBI doesn’t seem to know what type either, so I’m a mystery.”

  I gestured at my eyes. “My eyes were normal until the vampire got to me. No one seems to know what that’s about, or if they do, they’re not telling me. So…yeah, here I am. Some sort of mage, I guess, but I have no clue what that means. I’d never met a supernatural that I knew of until the vampire found me. Every part of me that was brought up by my parents wants me to run back to my room and pray and flog myself to cleanse away the sin of even talking to anyone here…yet I’m one as well? How especially screwed up is that? I was raised to fear exactly what I am…and all the while my parents planned to kill each of us when we turned 17.”

  I continued eating as they remained silent. “So now I get to see how Corey is going to react to what I did, all the while having no idea how I did any of that. Or, I know how I tore out his eyes, but everything else? No idea. He hit me with his spells and then the flames afterwards? I’m at a loss and I can only hope the classes teach me something fast, because everyone thinks he’ll be coming after me again.”

  Tom nodded. “He will. He’s tough. Very tough. Very egotistical. He won’t accept you beating him as a real beating. I’m not sure he can accept it.”

  I shrugged and inhaled more food. “I can’t do much about it until I learn more. I’m not about to attack him, although I should, so it’s up to him right now. I’d rather not fight, but I won’t give up and take it. I might have been trying to kill myself, but no one makes that decision other than me.”

  I looked around at each of my new little group. “And…to be clear, I won’t allow myself to be forced into anything. As horny as I am, that won’t be happening. Now, honest offers? I probably can’t accept any of that right now since it’s rather ingrained that premarital sex is wrong, but I’m trying to work on that since my parents lied about so many other things.” I can’t even express how hard it was to say any of that without dying of a coronary.

  Sarah looked around the table. “You should be safe with us. We’ve all been together more than a few times, but I think we’ve been pretty good about no force?”

  They all nodded.

  “Good. I can’t say that I have a clue about getting to know people and I’m not sure my little introduction earlier worked well, but that’s sort of all I got. I’ve never met anyone my age that wasn’t one of my siblings.”

  Steph patted my shoulder. “You have time. You’re one of us and we look out for our own. At least as much as we’re able.”

  I fell silent through the rest of my food and enjoyed every bite of it, not getting full until I went back to get another sandwich and a plate of fries. Steph nodded at my food. “You eat like a shifter.”

  “I have no idea what’s up with my appetite. I’ve never eaten like this before. It started after I woke up in the hospital. I’m waiting to start gaining weight.”

  No one responded to that, although the shifters in our group did flare their noses as they sniffed again. Smelling me or the food? My vote’s on the food. It’s just that good.

  Tom stood and the other stood with him. “So, on to class again?”

  “Seems like it.” Sarah answered. “What do they have you doing now?”

  I shrugged. “No clue. I left the introduction thing when they told me that I should expect to be attacked and basically didn’t give a crap about me. I have a packet of information in my room that I need to read through. I’ll probably miss something, but I can’t say that I really care. I’ve been here a few hours and have already been threatened with rape and death. I’m pretty sure whatever punishment they think they can give me for missing something won’t really rate.”

  That earned me more strange looks, but they were smiles and laughter as they cleared their trays and left for classes.

  Is that what it’s like to have friends? Getting to spend time with them and hang out? Eat lunch? Go to class?

  Have sex?

  Ugh…I don’t even know what to do with that. My parents drove how evil sex was into our heads. Premarital sex is the devil’s gateway was a pretty common saying. Don’t even get me started on masturbation. One of my older brothers was caught, somehow, and his punishment…it makes me shudder six years later even to think about it.

  Yet they all seem happy. My new classmates seem perfectly fine with it. Am I going to have to track down a teacher or something and ask about this? I’ll admit, it’s been hard in my life not to touch myself. I have desires just like I assume anyone else does, but I was taught it was wrong and evil. That’s hard to work through, especially given how my parents reacted.

  A tiny light flared in my head that made me gasp. “What if they did it to stop energy from leaving?”

  I don’t remember clearing my tray or walking back to my room, but I was there when I came back to the present with my phone in my hand. It was ringing.

  “Ahhh, good afternoon
, Ceri. How can I help you today?”

  I so badly wanted to hang up the phone, but that would be rude. “Uh, hi? Uh, Ms. Rasphael?”

  “Please, call me Rasphael. Ms. does not apply to me.”

  “Okay, thank you. I think I have a question? I just don’t know who else to ask this to.”

  “What is your question? I may not be able to answer you.”

  I had no idea where to start with this. “I’m sort of at a loss, but something just came to me. You know what I’m becoming, right? Or what I am, but…I’m not?”

  “I do. I won’t tell you what that is, though.”

  “No, that’s okay. I wasn’t going to ask that. Umm,” I’m even embarrassed to be thinking this, “if I understand it correctly, the barriers my parents put in place stop us from accessing our powers and create a sort of dam to hold everything back and build up pressure. So, when I turn 17, I’d come into my powers and the barriers would crumble and I’d have that much more power?”

  “Hmm, close, although it’s not quite that. That’s good enough for now, though. I take it that’s not your question, correct?”

  “No, it’s not.” I bit my lip and decided to throw it out there. “My parents really came down hard on us about premarital sex and…touching ourselves. They said it was all evil and we’d go to hell. Uhh, did they do that because touching ourselves would diminish our powers? Or…maybe not doing it would add to the pressure inside?”

  She laughed and it sounded like tinkling bells again. “I think the supernatural world is hitting you fast. I take it someone attempted to…force things with you?”

  I sighed. “Threatened.”

  “I see. How did that go for him?”

  “You say that like you assume I stopped him?”

  She laughed again. “I know you did, since we do not have reports of deaths at the school yet.”

  “Yeah…I met my roommate and she was telling me how people will try to force me, so I was in a really bad mood. When we got to the cafeteria, Corey was trying to force Rachel to meet him in his room. He’s a wolf mage and the leader of the school, I guess? Rachel’s a new vampire. She didn’t want to go with him, so I got in the way. He hit me with a fire spell, then I tore out his eyes.”