Chapter Seven
Before Kyle knew it, one and a half months of summer were gone. Kyle could hear the Fourth of July fireworks going off from his room, which he had hardly left since his experience of flying; only to relieve himself and eat did he leave his room. Something in the back of his mind just told him that using his powers again would be a bad idea at the time.
It had been three days since Kyle had last seen Justin and Julianne. They had made no attempt to contact him in any way. Kyle tried texting and emailing them, but he never heard back from them; they didn’t even answer or return his calls. He figured that they were mad at him attacking them for no reason. A part of Kyle didn’t blame them. He was acting like a jerk, and they were the last people he wanted to hurt.
Kyle paced his room with his phone to his ear. It was a cloudy morning, and the sun had yet to come up. It was probably going to rain later in the day, but for now it was pretty quiet. The lights were off, but Kyle’s vessels were creating enough light for what he was doing. The phone rang and rang until Kyle got the message.
“Hi! You reached Jules Slade, but I don’t have my phone on me at the moment. If you’ll leave your name and number at the beep, I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Have a wonderful day!!”
Kyle listened to her message with annoyance. It was the fifth time in three days he was listening to it. Why didn’t she just pick up? Kyle knew why she wouldn’t, but after this long he hoped she would just hear him out. When the recording beep sounded, Kyle spoke.
“Hi. It’s Kyle. Again.” He signed, continuing, “Listen. I don’t want to do this over a phone. I need to talk to you and Justin. Please contact me in some way.” He paused for a few seconds before adding, “I know you know my number by heart, so please call. Bye.” Any other thing he could think of he had said in previous messages on their phones.
He sat down in the chair at his desk, tossing his phone onto his bed. He sat there, staring at the phone where it landed right next to his pillow with the room completely illuminated by the soft light that shown from his vessels at all times.
After an hour of the phone doing nothing, Kyle left the room, his need for food finally overriding all other desires. He scooped the phone and slid it into his pocket as he left the room.
He walked into the kitchen and pulled out a box of cereal from the drawer next to the refrigerator. He was the only one in the kitchen at the time, so he just prepared and ate his breakfast on the kitchen island. It took him five minutes to finish his meal; the whole time is mind was in his pocket, waiting for his cell phone to do something.
His entire morning was spent waiting with one hand on his phone, hoping it would ring or vibrate, or relay any message to him that Jules had listened to his. He truly hoped it would do something. He felt terrible for what he did to them at the mall. He wanted to apologize, but they were obviously mad at him for it. Kyle didn’t want to lose his best friends, and he would do anything to keep that from happening. If he had to camp in front of their house to apologize to them, he would.
It was lightly raining outside. Kyle did what he could to keep busy. He read books, he watched TV, and he even played video games.
Finally, at just after one in the afternoon, there was a knock on the front door. Kyle was in his room, checking the homework he had over summer for the tenth time. He heard Sarah answer the door, but he couldn’t hear who it was. He had just gotten up from his desk when his door opened. Sarah pocked her head into the room.
“Emma’s out here,” she said. “She wants to talk to you.” Her head disappeared.
Kyle was surprised. Emma was there? He hadn’t seen Emma since school ended. He panicked for a second. Emma didn’t know about the vessels. He rushed to his closet and slipped a sweatshirt over his head to hide them.
Kyle went downstairs to find Emma and Sarah sitting on the couch. Neither of them talking, Kyle guessed that they were waiting on him. He recognized Emma’s long blonde hair immediately, still wet from the light rain.
“Hey, Emma,” Kyle called when he was at the foot of the stairs. Emma turned her head to see him, and then she stood up. She was wearing jeans and a button up blouse. A rain coat hung over the couch next to where she was sitting.
“Hey, Kyle,” she answered. He saw her eyes run over him before she said, “What’s with the layers? I thought it was kind of warm in here.”
Kyle didn’t answer. He thought about a response to the question, but in the end he just shrugged, sticking his hands into his pockets. He wasn’t sure whether or not she knew about his condition. Emma and Jules were friends, so he knew that they talked to each other quite often. But did Jules ever talk to Emma about what was happening to Kyle?
Sarah suddenly stood up, saying, “Well, I’ll leave you two alone.” She turned to Emma and said, “Kyle really doesn’t like it when I talk about him to his friends.”
“Really?” Emma asked sarcastically. “Wonder what that could be about?”
“Why aren’t you gone yet?” Kyle asked Sarah while giving her a look that basically said “get out.” Sarah left the room with a smile on her face and a spring in her step.
Once Kyle heard her door close, he slowly walked over to the couch and sat at the end Sarah just vacated. Emma sat down after he had. She sat there just watching him, while Kyle looked down at his feet. Both were quiet for about a minute.
Finally, Kyle couldn’t stand the silence. “So,” he said, “Sarah said you wanted to talk?”
“Yeah,” she replied. “I heard about what happened at the mall.”
Kyle swallowed. He kept his eyes on his feet. “You did?” he said.
“From Julianne,” she explained. Kyle noticed that she used Jules’ full name. There were very few people Jules would allow to call her by her full name; she reserved that honor for those she really trusted.
“So, what did you think?” he asked.
“Well,” she began, “I think I needed to hear the other side of the story. Jules is pretty upset right now. That’s why she hasn’t been talking to you.”
“I’ve been trying to apologize,” Kyle explained. “That’s why I’ve been calling her. I didn’t mean it.”
“If you didn’t mean it, why did you do it?”
“I don’t know,” he said, almost exploding from his seat. “I don’t know why I snapped at them. It just happened; I couldn’t control myself.”
She didn’t talk for a minute before saying, “Can I see them?”
Kyle knew what she was talking about, but was hesitant to show her. He still really liked Emma, and he didn’t want to scare her off. He knew she had been there when he was in his coma, but the vessels were only on his hands at that point. Now, they were nearly up to his shoulders. But, what harm could it do to show her? It was obvious by now that the only person they truly affected was him.
He took a deep breath, and slowly pulled the sleeve of his left hand up past his elbow. Emma’s eyes grew wider as he twisted his left arm around to show her all of it. She kept a respectful distance, but after a minute, she reached out for his arm, asking, “May I?” Kyle nodded.
Unlike when Sarah examined his vessels, Emma lightly tugged on his arm very gently. She scooted close to him. Like Sarah, she traced the tendrils with her fingers, but something was different this time. Kyle’s heart started to race, and his arm felt tingly where she touched it. The feel of her skin touching his excited him. And she was very gentle as she turned his arm over. She moved from the arm to his hand, continuing to study the alien mark that nearly filled his entire palm. Kyle was fully aware of how close she was sitting next to him; he could rest his head on her shoulder if he wanted to.
She lightly pulled his hand up to her eye level, palm facing her. “Wow,” she said.
“What?” Kyle asked.
“They hum,” she said, not taking her eyes off of his hand.
Finally, he had to pull his arm away, remembering Sarah’s comment. As soon as he did, the tingly feeling left. “They do a l
ot of things,” Kyle explained, “and very little of it seems to make any sense.”
She turned her head to look out the window. Kyle followed her gaze and noticed that the sun was just now starting to poke through the clouds.
“C’mon,” Emma said, turning back to Kyle. “Walk me home.”
Kyle was surprised by her request, but decided to go along with it. “Alright,” he said as he pulled his sleeve back down. They stepped outside, and Kyle closed the door behind them. The sun was warm, but the air was still cool from the rain, and everything was shiny outside.
They were silent as they walked off of Twin Oaks. Emma lived a few streets over on Monclair Avenue. When they turned off onto Lynbrook, Kyle asked, “So, how has your summer been?”
“Oh,” she began, “I can’t complain. My family had to cancel our vacation last month. It was supposed to be their birthday present to me, since I always wanted to see the Grand Canyon. But then we heard about what happened to you, and I just didn’t feel like going.”
“I’m sorry,” Kyle said.
“It’s not your fault what happened to you.”
“Yes it is,” Kyle said. He looked down, saying, “I went out to find it. Again, I don’t even know why I did it. Something just drew me toward it. Sarah was with me when the whole time, begging me to stop and go back, but I wasn’t listening.”
“You can’t blame yourself for that.”
“Why not,” Kyle said, his voice rose somewhat. He stopped, almost furious, continuing, “I’ve been doing it all summer. Why should I stop now? My best friends want nothing to do with me anymore. Everything that has happened was because of one bad decision.”
Emma didn’t react to Kyle’s abrupt confrontation. She only stopped ahead of him saying, “Because I believe everything happens for a reason. Every choice we make makes us who we are.”
“So you’re saying this is who I am now? Some kind of half alien freak?”
“If you let it be.”
Kyle was about to say something when what Emma said hit him like a truck, stopping all of his thoughts. Emma continued, saying, “Life hands us things every day, but it is up to us what we do with what life gives us. You’ve been given something no one else on Earth has, and now you get to work with it.”
“So I’m privileged to have this?”
“It’s all about how you see things. If you only want to see the negative, that’s all you will see.”
They stood there facing each other in silence for a few minutes before continuing on to Emma’s house. For the most part, it was a silent walk as Kyle mulled over what Emma was talking about.
When they turned onto Emma’s driveway, Kyle noticed a bald kid at Emma’s front door. He knocked on the door three times and waited patiently for someone to open it.
Emma spoke out to the boy. “No one’s home. Come back later.”
The kid turned, startled. Emma laughed at the kid’s expense. They were now walking toward each other. Now that they were closer, Kyle could see that the kid was not bald; he had blonde hair, and then he kept it very short.
“Kyle, this is Tony,” Emma explained. “He moved in next door last month from across town. He’s going to be a freshman this year. Tony, this is my friend Kyle.”
Tony extended his hand to Kyle. “It’s nice to meet you,” he said. Kyle shook his hand, being careful not to let his sleeve slip up. Turning to Emma, he said, “Hey, can I borrow an egg? Trying to bake a cake, but we’re an egg short.”
“Sure,” Emma said. “Of course. Let me just go get it for you.” She walked past both of them to the door. Kyle watched Tony watch Emma as she past him, fumbling with some keys she pulled out of her pocket. Tony then turned back to Kyle.
“What’s the cake for?” Kyle asked, trying to make conversation.
Tony looked over his shoulder before leaning in to say, “Just a cake.”
He didn’t say anything else, leaving an awkward silence. Then he suddenly asked “Hey, man, how long have you known Emma?”
“For about a year, I guess. Why?” Kyle asked.
“She’s kind of cute, don’t you think?”
Kyle slid his hands into his pockets, studying this boy. He could tell where this was going. Tony was reminding Kyle of a puppy that just found a new favorite toy.
Kyle didn’t answer the question, but it didn’t seem to bother Tony. “I was thinking of asking her to be my girlfriend. I never see her with any guys, except for you just now, and you’re just her friend. I’m planning to ask her out at her party. What do you think? Dude, are you okay? You’re shaking like crazy.”
Kyle hadn’t even noticed, bewildered by the audacity of this new kid to just come in and talk about asking Emma out like this. Sure enough, his arms were shaking, but not because it was cold. He had somehow drawn energy into the vessels without meaning to. It wasn’t an incredible amount of power, but as Kyle had already learned, once it is in the vessels, the only way to get it out is the flashy way, which he was avoiding.
“I’m fine,” Kyle said. “Emma,” he called out. Emma had just gotten the door open when she turned back. “I have to get back. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Okay,” she said, a little confused. Then, she said, “Oh, hey. I’m having a party next weekend. You want to come?”
“Yeah, sure,” he said. “Just send me the info, okay?”
“Sure. Come on, Tony. I’ll get that egg for you.”
Kyle turned to go back home as Tony disappeared into Emma’s house. Kyle dropped his hands out of his pocket and let all of the power in the vessels out, leaving long black marks in the pavement behind him.
Power Trilogy Book One: An Ancient Power Page 7
