by Leigh Walker
“But your ability surfaced when you were under stress. It would’ve come out eventually.”
“But would it?” I asked. “I’ve been through a lot, and I’ve never caused a power surge before. Except once, but that was a long time ago.”
Finn shrugged. “Things like this—our powers—have a way of rising to the surface. Maybe yours was masked for so long because of what you went through after you lost your dad and your sister. You were in survival mode, pretending everything was okay. You were also your mother’s caretaker. Maybe your power got buried under everything else that was going on.”
I swallowed hard, remembering what he knew. “So…you could hear me during the mental test? When I visualized that day?”
“Yeah.” His hands clenched into fists. “I’m so sorry, Riley. You have no idea.”
“It’s okay. It’s not your fault.” I had the odd urge to comfort him, even though this was my personal tragedy.
Finn didn’t look at me. “It seems like it was difficult…afterward, with your mother.”
“She had a hard time handling the accident.”
“She lost her husband and her daughter. I don’t know how you get over something like that.”
“You don’t.” I shook my head as if I could shake off the subject. “What about you? You know my sordid family history, plus you can listen to my thoughts on an ongoing basis. It hardly seems fair. I don’t know anything about you, except that you have superpowers.” And bulging biceps—oh, for the love of God, Riley, please stop thinking about them! He can hear you!
Finn grinned, relaxing a little. “I don’t mind.”
“Great. Just great.” I looked around in vain for a hole to swallow me up.
“There isn’t much to tell you,” Finn said, smoothly circumnavigating my irritation. “Like I said, I realized I could hear other people’s thoughts at an early age. It took me a while to figure out that other people couldn’t do the same. I used to respond to my mother’s thoughts all the time when I was a toddler, which really freaked her out.” He laughed.
“Is your mother still in New York?”
“Yes, but I don’t see her.” He turned to face me. “That was one of the difficult things about joining the agency—I had to let my mother go. It’s too dangerous for her to be in contact with me. If our enemies found out who she was, they could use her against me.”
I shivered, a bubble of panic rising inside me. “Does that mean I can’t talk to my mom anymore?”
“I don’t know,” Finn admitted. “Would you care?”
“Of course. She’s not exactly mother-of-the-year material, but she’s all I’ve got. And I’m the only family she has left.”
“I didn’t mean to be a jerk, but I’m genuinely curious, based on the way you think about her. It’s harder to tune people out when their emotions are raw, and yours are always very raw when you think about her. I can feel your pain.”
I winced. “It’s complicated. We don’t have a great relationship, but I need to check in on her. There’s no one else.”
“Just tell Cranston that. They can make exceptions.”
I put my face in my hands. “This day has gone totally off the rails. I can maybe comprehend, like, a tenth of what’s happened.”
“You should go to bed.” Finn stood up and pulled me with him. “Even though you didn’t move your body, using your power is very physically draining, especially early on. Did you eat enough?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” Except my skin feels hot where you just touched me—oh SHUT UP, Riley!
Finn played the perfect gentleman, either by not listening or pretending to not listen. His calm expression didn’t falter. “You need to make sure you increase your food and water intake. Your body’s tapping this new ability, and your whole system is going to be buzzing. You’ll be burning triple to quadruple the calories from now on, even when you’re sleeping.”
I smiled for the first time in what seemed like forever. “Finally, an upside.”
“It’s not a joke, though. You need to take care of yourself and get enough rest. So off to bed, Hanover.”
I gave him a look. “You don’t need to read my mind to gauge my reaction—read my face.”
“Got it.” He grinned. “Good night, Riley.”
Emma and the others weren’t back yet as I crawled into bed, my limbs heavy. I would say that the day had knocked me out, but Finn’s smile had the same effect on me.
Ugh. I’d better stop thinking. Was he like a short-range walkie-talkie, or could he hear me all the way down here in the dorm?
I shut my eyes tight, trying to quiet my brain. I knew all too well that my thoughts could get me into trouble. Luckily, sleep came quickly, a reprieve from the tumultuous day.
Then Finn showed up in my dream, making my heart race. So much for a reprieve. He was on my cot next to me, wearing sweats and a T-shirt. He lay down next to me.
“What’re you doing here?” I mumbled.
“Shh,” he said, “come here.” He pulled me against his chest the way he’d done during the test.
His touch both comforted and frightened me. I felt relieved to be in his arms, but the depth of my emotion scared me. It felt so right as I nestled against him, it had to be wrong.
No good could come of this.
He brushed the hair back from my face. “I’m sorry for what you’ve been through. Your memories were so painful.”
“You could see my memories?” I asked, horrified even though this was only a dream.
“I saw them earlier, yes. You were visualizing, projecting a very vivid picture.”
“So strange that you could see what I remembered.”
“Telepaths are a pretty talented bunch. We can listen. We can see memories. We can sometimes visit others in their dreams.”
I pulled back. “Are you doing that right now—visiting me?”
“Are you dreaming about me?” he asked innocently.
I sat up and rubbed my eyes. “I think so?”
He held out his arms. “Then come back and let me hold you. It’ll be our little secret. No one ever has to know.” He kissed the top of my head as I nestled against his chest. “Not even you.”
15
All That Glitters
I woke up the next morning to find Emma sitting on my bed, her hair already perfectly gelled, pink lip-gloss shining on her lips.
“Hey,” I mumbled, sitting up. “Is something going on?”
“We’re going to meet in the gym pretty soon, but you already knew that. You slept in a little, but that’s to be expected after yesterday.” She grabbed a small package from the floor and handed it to me. “This came for you.”
I took the package. My mother’s shaky scrawl had sent it “care of Sergeant Cranston.” How did she know his name? Via text message, I’d told her we’d made it to Freel. But as far as I knew, she didn’t have any more information. Puzzled, I started to open the package.
“I’ll let you have some privacy.” Emma got up to leave.
“No—wait.” Desperate to talk to her, I didn’t want her scurrying off. “I’ll open this later.”
Emma smiled. “You’re going to like it.”
“You know what’s in the package.”
She nodded. “I didn’t mean to peek. Not into the package—I’d never be that tacky—into the future.”
“No, it’s okay.” I sat up straighter. “Finn told me you have precognitive abilities. You didn’t peek. You just saw the future, and in the future, I like what’s in the package, right?”
“That’s right.” She sounded proud. “It’s so nice to finally have you in on the secret. Hiding our talents from you has been a bore, not to mention it’s been killing me that you didn’t even know what you were capable of.”
“I still don’t know what I’m capable of or if I’m capable of what Cranston said.”
“You are.” Emma’s eyes shone. “I’ve seen it. I saw you in action during the mental test yesterday, and I’ve s
een you use your power in the future. Now that you’re here, the future that involves you has presented itself to me a couple of times. I’ve seen how you develop your power. It’s going to be awesome.”
I processed her words for a moment, ignoring the spark of hope inside my chest. Awesome. When have I ever been awesome at anything?
Several things nagged at me, however. “But why…” I fumbled for the words. “Why were you so underwhelmed when I first showed up? You seemed disappointed in me.”
“I already told you. You seemed too normal. I didn’t want to blow up your life.”
“But you knew about me. You’d seen me—so you had to know I was destined to be part of The Division, right? If that’s true?”
“Sort of.”
“You sort of saw me? I was sort of destined to be your telekinetic co-soldier or whatever the heck I am?”
She squirmed a little. “It’s complicated. My power’s not always one-hundred percent, and there were some things blocking out what I could see about you.”
Exasperation and self-doubt brewing, I asked, “Like what?”
She fidgeted. “Nothing you need to know about.”
“Why not? You can tell me everything, now. I’ve officially been drafted. I’m on the team. Cranston basically told me I can’t leave, even if I want to.”
“But you don’t want to leave,” Emma said quickly. “You need to stay with us, where it’s safe and where you can develop your talents.”
“I want to know what you saw about me. Tell me why you reacted to me the way you did when we first met.”
Emma groaned, got up, and started pacing. “I’d heard about you for a long time before we came to get you.”
“Okay…”
“There was a lot of buzz about you, Ri.” She looked at me quickly. “We were hoping you were going to be able to deliver on the telekinetic front.”
“What was the buzz about me? I’m not exactly buzz-worthy.”
“It was talk about your power,” she said, soothingly, which raised a red flag for me. “And there were some other things I’d heard about you, just rumors, really.”
“What sort of rumors?”
“That you were important—stuff that’s tied up in your destiny.”
“Care to let me in on it?” My voice rose. “Since it’s my destiny?”
“I can’t.” Emma’s glance flicked away. “I can’t always tell what’s true. The future’s always in flux.”
“So are your visions—wait, do you actually have visions?”
Emma nodded. “Sometimes, they’re just feelings, a sense about the way something’s going to go or how things will work out for a person. Other times I have actual visions. I can see scenes from the future or less often, the past, and I watch them like a daydream in my head.”
“That’s so cool,” I said, forgetting for a moment she wouldn’t tell me what my destiny was.
She smiled. “I know, right?”
“But you were saying that they can change—your visions?”
“They aren’t an exact science. The future is always in flux, dependent on a billion moving pieces like the free will of every single person involved. And people are fickle. They change their minds. People are also fearful and lazy, so they don’t always follow through on their plans. Sometimes, they’re acting on impulse, and that’s when things get really interesting.”
“Wow. But have you seen the war? Do you know that it’s really coming?”
“It’s already started,” Emma said softly. “It started on 9/11 and it hasn’t stopped. There are terrorist attacks all the time. You know that. Our job is to track down verifiable homeland threats and stop them before anyone can get hurt.”
“Your power must be extremely important for that.” I pictured Emma sorting through terrorism threats on social media, identifying the real danger amidst all the haters and the ugly noise.
“It is important. But enough about me and my awesome power—we’ve got to get you to the gym, so you can show us more of what you can do. Get dressed and grab a bagel. We’ll see you out there in a few minutes.”
I grabbed her hand so she wouldn’t walk away. “Wait—I thought you guys were going to show off.”
“We all are.”
“Can you please tell me my destiny?” My voice came out small, small but clearly begging.
“No, I can’t. It depends in large part on your actions and what you choose at any given moment. If I told you too much about what I’ve seen, you could make choices based on what might be false knowledge. It could lead you down the wrong path. That’s dangerous, and it’d be unethical of me.”
“Can you tell me anything?”
She shook me off. “This is so typical. Everybody does this once they find out I can see the future. It gets old, let me tell you.”
But I could tell she was flattered. Emma loved attention.
“Just one tiny thing? About my destiny?” I begged.
“Oh, fine.” She rolled her eyes and sighed dramatically. “You’re important to the cause, Riley. I’ve seen it, and I know that for sure. You’ll underestimate your worth until the bitter end, I also know that.”
That sounded promising—except for the part about the bitter end—but I had more burning questions. “Okay…anything else? Like about, um, my personal life, or anything?”
“You non-cogs are all the same, I swear.” Emma snorted and stomped out. “See you in a few.”
I sat there for a while, my head spinning with everything she’d told me. It was probably going to spin every day for the rest of my life, based on the way things were going. I remembered the package and opened it quickly, anxious to see what my mother had sent. There was a maroon velvet box inside, long and light. The box looked familiar, but I couldn’t place it.
Inside, I found a necklace—a delicate gold chain with four colored stones. Katie’s necklace. She’d gotten it for her sixteenth birthday. The stones were her favorite color, a bluish green.
I hadn’t seen the necklace in years. I’d been the one to pack up Katie’s belongings after the accident, but I’d never been able to find it. I grabbed the note from my mother out of the package, wondering why she’d sent this to me. Parts of the note were crossed off:
Dear Riley,
I’ve been holding onto your sister’s necklace because I couldn’t bear to let it go. I’m sure you understand. But I thought it was time for you to have it.
You might not realize it, but I couldn’t bear to let you go either. I had to numb myself. I knew what was coming, and I couldn’t bear it.
There are a lot of things I can’t bear.
I hope you can forgive me for everything I’ve done. It’s a lot. I hope the people you’re with can protect you, but please don’t forget XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.
If parts of this letter are XXXX, it means XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.
I want you to have this necklace because Katie would want that. So would Dad. They loved you so much, sweetie, and so do I, even though I’ve done a terrible job of showing you. I couldn’t bear to show you, not after everything we’ve lost, and what I knew XXXXXXXX. I hope you understand that, too, even though I know I’m asking a lot.
Don’t let XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX. He’s not the God he thinks he is.
I love you, sweetie. Stay safe. I hope I get to see you again.
Mom
I dropped the note onto my bed. I didn’t understand some of what my she’d said and not just the redacted parts. There were too many questions spinning around in my head, and I couldn’t find the strings to pluck them and examine them more closely.
I put the letter aside and clasped Katie’s chain around my neck, fingering the delicate beads.
Kyan waited in the hallway, wearing a tight-fitting white tank top and skinny-leg sweat pants. He practically pounced on me. “Told you that test was going to suck.”
I sighed. “Yeah, you did.”
He smiled, smug. “I was right.”
“Yeah, you w
ere.”
He looked around to make sure no one was near. “It only makes me feel better because it shows you what jerks they are. They don’t care about us. They use us.”
I shivered. “How long have you been with Cranston and the others?”
“For seven years, like everyone except you.”
It was silly, but I felt left out. “Why am I the last one to come in?”
Kyan shrugged. “I don’t know. But what I do know is, you’re my last hope.”
“Hope for what?”
“Hope for getting out of this mess. I want you to join me, Riley. Maybe together we can find a way to get away from them. They haven’t brainwashed you yet. You can still see them for what they are.”
“Okay—hold on a minute. Who is the ‘they’ you’re talking about?”
“Cranston and the leaders of The Division, the ones who run the show. I don’t trust them.” Kyan bounced on the balls of his feet, nervous energy radiating off him.
“Do you trust the others? Finn, Emma, and everyone?”
He shrugged. “I do, but they won’t listen to me. They think we have to stay. I disagree.”
“What do you want to—”
“I told you to stay away from her!” Finn’s voice boomed as he strode down the hall toward us.
“Keep your voice down.” Kyan puffed his chest up.
“Put the pecs away, you idiot.” Finn reached my side and glared at the shorter boy. “If I had time, I would totally punch you right now.”
Kyan’s chest puffed bigger. I worried he might pop. “As if.”
Finn’s lip curled into a sneer. “Just shut up. Stop putting ideas into Riley’s head.”
Kyan started arguing, and Finn started yelling, drowning out each other’s words. “Shut up!” I hissed. “Finn, I wanted to hear what Kyan has to say. He has some concerns about The Division, and as its newest and most clueless member, I should listen to him.”
Kyan looked smug. “See? She knows she should listen to me.”
