by Leigh Walker
But everything was not okay in my house, and it never would be again.
The officer explained that Dad and Katie had been in a head-on accident with a tractor-trailer on the highway. “They were killed on impact,” he explained. “So at least no one suffered.”
“No one suffered?” I heard the question screamed out then I realized it was me who’d screamed it, that I was crying hysterically, and that my mother’s face was gray again.
They put her on a gurney and said we had to go to the hospital, that her blood pressure had dropped, and she was in shock. “What about my Dad? What about Katie? Where are they?”
The officer’s throat worked as he swallowed. “They’re being taken care of. We’ll notify you when they’re brought back to town.”
“Their bodies.” I couldn’t stop crying, but I needed to understand.
“Yes. Their bodies.”
“They’re…dead.”
He put his hand on my shoulder and patted it. “Yes.”
“Oh, my God.” I sank to my knees, crying so hard that tears and snot and drool all mixed together on my face. “No. No, no, no.”
“Riley.” My mother was being rolled out of the house. “I can’t believe it’s you.”
I wiped my face, trying to understand her through my hysteria. “What?”
She sat up a little, and the paramedic said, “Easy, now. Lie back.”
“That’s my daughter. That’s my daughter, and she’s the only one left alive for a reason. Don’t you tell me to calm down! They’re gone! They’re both gone!”
“Ma’am—”
“Don’t ma’am me! Riley, don’t let them give me anything! Don’t let them knock me out, they’ll try to take you away from me!”
“Riley.” The officer squeezed my shoulder. “Your mother’s in shock. I promise we won’t hurt you. Come with me. We’ll follow the ambulance to the hospital.”
“Don’t get in the car with him, Riley!” my mother shrieked and tried to rip off the gurney belt. Her wild gaze focused on the officer. “Don’t you take her from me. She’s all I have left now! Don’t you dare!”
The officer nodded at the paramedic, who wheeled my mother quickly out the door.
“It’s okay, Riley. Your mother’s suffered a terrible shock. I’m not going to hurt you, I promise.”
I wrapped my arms around myself. My body shook uncontrollably.
“We need to get you medical attention, too.” The officer held out his hand to help me up.
“Riley.” Cranston’s voice jolted me from the memory. I opened my eyes and wiped my face, which I realized was covered in tears. He handed me a tissue and I took it, noisily blowing my nose.
He took it from me without wincing. “Good work just now.” He kept his voice low.
Emma and the others looked miserable. I wondered what I’d said aloud.
“It’s time for the next part of the exercise.”
I roughly wiped my face. “Wasn’t that enough?”
“I’m afraid not.” He picked up his phone made a call. “Finn, we’re ready. Come in.”
I looked sharply at Cranston, but he ignored me as Finn came in. He’d changed into a button-down shirt and jeans, all rugged and handsome. He headed straight for me, his face pale. He reached the mat and got down on his knees in front of me. I tried to scoot back, mindful of my face—puffy with tears, and covered with sensors—but he reached for my hands and held me in place.
His hands gently captured mine, and he stared into my eyes. “I’m so sorry about your dad and Katie.” He looked as though he might cry, too.
I blinked at him. “How do you know about it?”
His eyes flicked to Cranston, who didn’t look up from the machine. “We all know about it.”
A million emotions jumbled inside me, but relief was the winner. Finn’s touch soothed me. Being near him felt right. It made everything seem okay. My cheeks flushed as I cringed, imagining what the monitors were saying.
“C’mere.” Finn carefully put his arms around me, mindful of the sensors, and held me against his chest.
Enveloped by his warmth, his clean-laundry scent, and touched by the kind gesture, I relaxed against him. For a moment, I didn’t care who was watching us or what the machine said about my brainwaves. “I don’t think about that day often—ever,” I corrected myself. “I don’t think about it ever.”
“It’s okay.” He tightened his grip around me and sighed.
I moved back, remembering myself. “You can let go, now. This is all so weird. I never talk about my dad and Katie. Being exposed like this in front of all of you is kind of freaking me out.”
He released me and brushed the hair back from my face, and I died a little against his palm. It felt so good to have him this close, touching me. My nucleus accumbens, aka the pleasure center of my brain, throbbed like a strobe light. The monitor went a little wild.
Finn’s brown eyes delved into mine, but he looked sad, as though he were filled with regret.
“What’s the matter?”
Cranston nodded at him. “Get up.”
Finn didn’t take his eyes off me as he pulled away, leaving me instantly cold and longing for his closeness. “Nothing…” He rose and headed back to the other end of the room, where Rachel waited for him.
She looked slim and pretty in a pair of black jeans and a white T-shirt. Only someone so beautiful could turn such simple clothes into an intimidating outfit. She gave me a dirty look then composed her features before holding out her hand for Finn. He shot one last haunted look my way then turned and took her hand.
She pulled him in closer, putting her arms around his neck, gazing into his eyes.
Um…WTF? Confused, I turned to find Emma looking at me in sympathy. Once we made eye contact, she shook her head and turned away, as if she couldn’t bear to watch me.
Kyan shot me a look that said, I told you so.
Grimacing, I turned back to Finn and Rachel. Already raw from the testing, my stomach roiled as Finn wrapped his arms around her, stroking her back and whispering in her ear. She laughed and looked at him adoringly, then looked over to make sure I saw. Evil you-know-what-word that rhymes with witch!
What…the hell…is this? Why had he held me, only moments ago? What were they doing? But it became painfully clear pretty quick. Rachel leaned up and kissed Finn on the lips. He responded instantly, taking her face in his hands, and then they were full on making out—in front of me, in front of Cranston, in front of all of us. Jealousy ran hot through me. I had no right to the emotion, even as it claimed me. Finn and I weren’t together. He owed me nothing. But a giant, iron fist squeezed my heart as they kissed. My whole body shuddered with the injustice of it. Finn shouldn’t be touching her that way. She shouldn’t be running her hands over his big shoulders. She should get her hands off him—
No, no, NO! Get your lousy hands off him! Finn, you jerk, STOP! STOP IT! The thoughts screamed in my mind as the monitor beeped like crazy. I clenched my fists and closed my eyes, wanting to escape from the room, wanting to escape from the truth. My poor brain, completely overwhelmed, went white-hot.
I heard a series of small explosions, and the people in the stands screamed. I opened my eyes. The lights in the ceiling were blowing up. They exploded one by one, in order, working their way down from my side of the room to Finn’s. He stopped kissing Rachel and stepped back, watching the ceiling warily.
Pop, pop, pop! The lights showered glass all over the floor. When the last row of lights exploded over Finn and Rachel, they covered their heads as the glass rained down on them.
No one spoke as the beeping calmed down, and the last of the shattered glass hit the gym floor. Cranston clicked on a flashlight to read the monitor output in the darkened room.
“Okay, Riley,” he said, his tone calm and completely normal, “that’s a wrap.”
13
The Other Ninety Percent
I peered down at Finn and Rachel on the opposite side of the ro
om. He was helping to pick tiny pieces of glass out of her hair. Emma and the others were carefully shaking themselves off.
I turned back to Cranston. “What the hell was that?” My voice came out gravelly and weak.
“That was the test to monitor your brainwaves.”
Despite my exhaustion, fresh anger seeped into my veins. “You know what I meant. What the hell was that with the lights?”
Someone turned on the backup lights, and the room brightened. Cranston jotted down some notes and finally looked up. “I told you we’d talk afterward.”
“It’s officially afterward.” I stood up, my legs wobbling beneath me. “Tell me right now, or I’m leaving. Tell me what happened with the lights.”
He looked as though he wanted to make some sort of quip, but he stopped himself. “I’m pretty sure you already know.”
“I’m pretty sure I know no such thing.”
“You blew up the lights, Riley.”
I’d had a bad feeling he’d say that. I ignored the sudden urge to sit back down before I fell. “That’s not possible. I didn’t touch them.”
“You didn’t have to touch them.”
“Something had to touch them. They exploded.”
Cranston scrubbed a hand over his face. “I misspoke. You’re correct. Something had to touch them for them to explode. In this case, it was an electrical current.”
“From where?”
“From your brainwaves.”
“That might be the stupidest thing you’ve ever said to me, which is really saying something.”
“Enough of the back talk.” Cranston’s steely gaze, devoid of humor, ran over me. “In my office, Riley.” He nodded at the others, who were still picking glass out of their hair and hoodies. “Get this mess cleaned up, soldiers.”
They mumbled their assent as I followed Cranston down the hall. I didn’t look back. I’d seen enough.
Cranston closed the door to his office and motioned for me to sit. I sank down, not even able to process what he’d just said. He pulled a bottle of water out of his small refrigerator and handed it to me. “You need to drink this. And listen to what I have to say.”
I wanted to argue but instead drank the water, which I sorely needed. Utterly exhausted, my muscles shook from…thinking too hard?
Cranston sat down behind his desk and arranged his notes in front of him. “Has anything like this ever happened to you before? Anything to do with lights or electricity?”
“I thought you wanted me to listen.” I sounded haughty, my fear masked.
“Jesus.” Cranston threw down his pen and looked up at the ceiling. “Why did it have to be teenagers?”
“Huh?”
“Never mind. Answer the question, Riley. Has something like this happened to you before—maybe around the age of thirteen?”
I still couldn’t process what just happened, but it did remind me of something weird. Right around the time I started getting my period, I suffered from pretty bad headaches. My pediatrician assured my mom is was normal hormonal fluctuations but that I should lie down in a dark room when the headaches came.
One day at school, I got a headache. It came on fast. I went to the nurse—the perennially skeptical Mrs. Wilfork—who ignored what I told her about the doctor’s recommendation. She took my temperature, dispensed two ibuprofen, and told me to get back to class.
“But I can’t.” I rubbed my temples. “It hurts.”
“Get used to it,” she snapped. “You’re going to get your period once a month for the next forty years.”
“Gee, thanks.” I shuffled back to class, feeling like there was broken glass jangling around inside my head. I stopped outside the door, unable to make myself go in. I don’t know what happened next. I think I passed out because I woke up back in the nurse’s office, on the cot.
Mrs. Wilfork was on the phone, presumably with my mother. “Well, I don’t know what happened because I wasn’t there. If you ask me, it’s just a little adolescent drama.” She kept talking as my head continued to ache.
I just wanted her to shut her ever-loving mouth and let me go to sleep. Shut up, shut up, shut up!
“Well, I’m not exactly certain what you’re accusing me of,” the nurse said indignantly. This was back when my mother still used to accuse people of things. “But I am sure I don’t like your tone.”
My head throbbed, and I pulled the pillow over my face to block the light and the noise. Oh, for the love of God, shut up! That’s when I heard it—a loud whining sound. I peered out from behind the pillow to see everything in the room go crazy for an instant. The clock hands zoomed around the face of the clock. The microwave beeped. The defibrillator crackled, and Mrs. Wilfork was holding the phone away from her ear as it emitted a high-pitched whine. A power surge.
Then everything stopped, and all the electricity went out.
“What the heck?” Mrs. Wilfork asked. She turned to me, seeming to be genuinely concerned for the first time that day. “You okay?”
I nodded. For some reason, my headache was gone.
“Riley.” Cranston interrupted my reverie.
“Yes?”
“I’m assuming you have something you’d like to share, after spacing out like that.”
I shrugged. “Not really.” What on earth could that memory have to do with today?
“Just tell me what you remembered. I’ll tell you if it relates or not.”
I told him the story, leaving out the part about my period.
“And you said this happened when you were in seventh grade?” He scribbled some notes.
“Yes.”
“Around the time you started menstruating?”
My lip curled. “Ew. You did not just say that.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yes, I did. Answer the question.”
“Yes.” I clutched the water for dear life.
He put down his pen. “What happened just now in your mental test was exactly what I’d hoped for.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You broke the lights, Riley. You accomplished that by exercising the power of telekinesis, a form of psychokinesis. Have you ever heard either one of those terms before?”
I swallowed hard. “No.”
“Telekinesis is a psychic power, one of many. There’s also clairvoyance, precognition, telepathy… Any of those familiar to you?”
“A little.”
“You’ve heard of extra-sensory perception—commonly referred to as ESP, right? That’s another term for clairvoyance.” When I nodded, he continued, “ESP is a developmentally advanced brain’s ability to send and receive communication to others without speaking or moving. Some people with developed ESP can both send and receive information. Some people can just do one or the other. Some people have poorly developed skills and don’t even know that’s what’s happening inside their heads.”
“Okay…” Was he saying he believed this?
“Telekinesis is related to ESP in that it’s a function of a developmentally advanced brain. It differs from ESP in that it’s a more active type of energy. People with well-developed telekinetic powers can physically manipulate their environments with their brainwaves. The other types of powers—clairvoyance, precognition, telepathy—these are all related, too. Do you know that the average human only uses ten-percent of their brain?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Psychic powers are indicative of a formatively advanced brain, one that can access the typically latent other ninety percent. Your brain is developmentally advanced, as you just proved in the mental test by exhibiting telekinesis. Does that make sense?”
“No.”
“What about it doesn’t make sense?”
“None of it makes sense. Sir.”
He sighed. “You don’t believe in the possibility of psychic powers?”
“No, I don’t, sir.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s nuts.” I leaned forward in my chair. “You said th
at you would explain things to me after I completed the test. I completed it. So now I would like you to explain some things to me, such as why you’re pretending to draft me into a make-believe government agency and why you are apparently trying to convince me that I have some sort of weird superpower that was all the rage in the 1980s!”
The psychic-powers craze was before my time. I only knew about it because my parents had a penchant for Stephen King books and scary movies like Firestarter, Poltergeist, and The Shining. They loved their eighties movies, even though Katie and I moaned and groaned through them when we were old enough to watch. I remember Drew Barrymore being so mad in Firestarter that she set a bunch of stuff on fire, even though she was eight years old and extremely cute. And she did it with her brain.
“Are you saying I’m like Firestarter or something?”
Cranston blinked. “Can you set stuff on fire?” He sounded a little more excited than he should.
“No!”
“Then no, I’m not saying you’re like Firestarter. What I am saying, based on your aptitude test, is that your brain activity indicates that you have a developmentally advanced frontal lobe. I expected that, anyway, based on your performance in the stress test and other data, but today’s test confirmed it. You have an exceptional aptitude for telekinetic activity and are probably gifted in other areas as well. You first exhibited the aptitude in seventh grade, during that episode in the nurse’s office. These types of abilities present in females at the onset of puberty. You’re a textbook telekinetic, Riley.”
My heart sank. “You really are crazy, aren’t you?” And here, I’d started to believe at least some of what they’d been telling me, started to feel as though I finally belonged somewhere…
Cranston leaned back in his chair. “I’m not crazy, and I am not trying to pull something over on you. The truth is, The Division is real. You’ve been activated into this cell—my cell—because we knew you had a predisposition for this sort of special power, as well as some others.”
