by Sybil Nelson
“I’m gonna have a headache for a week.” My father leaned up on his elbows, and my mother and I helped him to his feet.
“So, how do we get out of here?” I asked, taking a good look around for the first time. We were completely surrounded by mountains that seemed to hug a soft blue sky. It would have been the perfect vacation spot if crazy men in lab coats weren’t trying to cut me open and study me a few feet away.
“Fly,” my mother said simply as if it were completely obvious. She buried her face into my father’s chest as he stroked her head and kissed her hair. Okay, the public displays of affection were starting to get out of hand.
I turned my back to them and tried to figure out what she meant by flying. Once again, I was confused. Could she fly? Maybe my dad and I were going to ride on her back as she flew us home. Or maybe I could fly. I’d never tried. Maybe that was another one of my powers. I spread my arms out and tried to jump as high as I could. Nothing. I tried flapping my arms like a bird. Once again, nothing. I did this several times until I heard snickering behind me.
“What are you doing?” my mother asked.
“You said we were flying home, so I’m trying to fly.” I turned around and saw that my father was laughing so hard he clutched his side.
“No, honey. We’re taking the jet,” she said, smiling.
I looked and looked, even turning around several times. I didn’t see any jet.
“Oh, right,” my mother added while pressing buttons on her silver belt.
I heard a whoosh sound, and then right before my eyes, a black jet appeared. It looked like one of those jets from those awesome air shows. I didn’t know exactly where in the world we were, but I knew we would be able to get home within minutes using that thing.
“So, what else can you do, Mom?” I asked once we were in the jet. It was more spacious than it looked from the outside, kinda like a winged Mercedes with four plush tan leather seats in the cockpit and sixteen more seats in the back.
There were a lot less controls and buttons than I expected. In front of the pilot and copilot seats, there was a W-shaped wheel with buttons on it, kind of like a Playstation game controller. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. Oh, that would be the ultimate racing game. Well, I guess it would be a flying game. In any case, I knew I could master it in seconds.
“Well, besides speed, telepathy, and super hearing, I’m pretty strong, but apparently not as strong as you. I really think you broke your father’s leg.” She helped my father into one of the back seats and rested his leg on the seat next to it.
“Sorry, Dad,” I said again. I really did feel guilty.
“No, prob, Priss. Your mom has done worse to me. Remember that time you put me in a coma for two weeks, Quin?”
“Must you always bring that up?” My mother rolled her eyes and started walking toward the cockpit.
“What happened?” I asked, curious about my parents’ mysterious life.
“Your mother tried to use her telepathy on me and nearly killed me,” he said with a smile. I think he enjoyed teasing her.
“It was a long time ago. I didn’t know how to control it. I was just trying to tell you I liked you.” My mother winked at my father then entered the cockpit. She sat in the pilot’s seat and clicked several buttons on the jet game controller, and the plane lifted straight in the air a few feet and started to hum.
“What else? What else?” I hurried and buckled into the copilot’s chair. I was so excited. I wanted to know everything.
My mother pressed a few more buttons; we went higher into the air and then took off as if we just got shot out of a slingshot. It was the most awesome thing in the world.
“Well, I have a bit of telekinesis,” she said after a few moments.
“What’s that?”
“I can move things with my mind.”
“Seriously? That is so awesome. What about all those moves you were using in the warehouse? Is that part of your powers, too?”
“No, that’s part of years of training. I’ve been trained in boxing, kickboxing, karate, fencing, taekwondo, and judo since the day I started walking. It’s not the life I wanted for myself. I didn’t want to exist only to kill people. I wanted to create life. I wanted to have children, a husband, and a house with a white picket fence in the suburbs.”
My mother sighed and looked down at her hands on the steering wheel. It was hard for me to imagine what her life was like. I admired her for having the strength to choose her own path. It must have been so hard for her to leave everything she knew and run off with my father. Maybe that’s why she never showed emotion before. Maybe she felt she had to hold it all in to give my brothers and me the safest, happiest life possible. But I was a little confused about something.
“But, Mom, if you finally got everything you wanted with Dad, why are you never home with us?”
She sighed again and glanced back at my father, who had fallen asleep in one of the backseats. “I did have everything I wanted, but my happiness was stymied by a tugging at my soul. I felt the cries for help from my brothers and sisters who were still held prisoner at Selliwood. So I worked on strengthening my psychic abilities and forming connections with those who wanted to escape. Four years ago, I started working full-time at getting them out. Each rescue takes months of planning and telepathic communication. Once I help someone escape, I move them to another part of the world and stay with them until they adjust to life on the outside.”
“So you keep breaking into the Selliwood Institute? Do you have to fight your way out like that every time?”
“It usually doesn’t get that physical, but, yes, I do often have to use my martial arts training. In between rescues, I also intercept as many assassination attempts ordered by the institute as I can. Those are usually guaranteed to turn into hand-to-hand combat. You should probably learn some moves yourself for self-defense. With your natural gymnastics ability, it should come pretty easy to you. I can teach you if you like.”
“Really?” I nearly jumped out of my seat. Thankfully, I was buckled up. “That would be awesome.”
“Then again, maybe I shouldn’t.” She turned her green eyes to me and bit her lip in thought. “These powers that I have … that we have, they’re not to be taken lightly. I’ll train you if you want, but you have to promise you won’t use your abilities on frivolities. I don’t want to hear about you eavesdropping on private conversations or getting revenge by damaging personal property.”
I sunk down into my seat guiltily. Those were things I had already done.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“As a matter of fact, no one can know about this. I’ve managed to rescue six people from the Selliwood Institute. Three have already been recaptured. Four months ago, I completely lost psychic connection with the children. Something’s wrong. I can’t figure out what Selliwood is planning next.”
“But didn’t I just blow up the institute? Shouldn’t it be all over now?”
My mother shook her head and then turned her attention back toward the sky. “I wish it were that easy, Priss. That was just a section of the institute. A minor section at that. It will be rebuilt with different access codes and tighter security. What we need to do is get into the central control room and destroy that place from the inside out. But I can’t do that with so many innocent children inside.”
Suddenly my mind flooded with images of some scary looking building.
“Whoa, wait, what is going on in my head right now?” I asked trying to shake the images away.
“Oh, sorry Priss. I must have inadvertently teleported my memories of the Institute. I’ll retreat from your mind now.”
“No, it’s okay. Just a little warning would be nice.”
My mother took a deep breath and then sent me some much more calmer mental images of the Institute. She showed me what looked like a blue print of the entire facility and then zoomed in on what I assumed was the central control room. She even showed me the sequence of buttons I needed t
o press to activate the self destruct sequence.
“So, Mom, why did Mister … or Doctor … or whatever he is Witherall keep calling you Specimen Q?” I asked when I finished my virtual tour of the Selliwood Institute.
“Specimen Q is my given name. The seventeenth letter of the English alphabet. Before me, there were sixteen failed attempts. After me, they finished using the letters of the English alphabet and then started naming the specimens after the Greek alphabet.”
“So how many more are out there?”
“Thirty.” My mother clenched her jaw. Saying that number clearly upset her. I searched my mind for a reason, and after a little simple math, I think I figured it out.
“Shouldn’t there be a few more than that?”
“Specimen Y died in combat.” She took a deep breath and added, “Specimen Beta was killed while trying to escape.”
I didn’t want to ask any more questions. I had a feeling Beta was a friend of hers. Maybe she had even watched Beta die. I shook off the thought. It was too much to bear. I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to one of my friends. If Kyle or Tai were killed because of me, I’d never be able to forgive myself.
Instead of talking, I watched as my mother effortlessly maneuvered the super cool jet and tried not to think of the pain that so-called institute had caused so many people.
As if she read my mind, my mother said, “You want to try it?” while nodding toward the control. Well, now that I think about it, she probably did read my mind.
Too excited to actually speak a syllable, I just bounced in my seat like a puppy about to get a treat. My mother pressed a button and immediately the jet started spiraling down. “She’s all yours,” she said, pointing to the copilot’s steering wheel and unbuckling her seatbelt.
“Where are you going? What do I do?” I yelled above the sound of the wind rushing against the jet.
“Press that button there and that button there and then pull up and keep us level. I’m going to go visit with your father.”
“But, Mom, I don’t know what I’m doing!”
“You’ll figure it out.”
Moments later, after I managed to keep the jet from crashing, I relaxed a little and heard my parents whispering.
“So you mean to tell me you knew about Priss’ powers the whole time?” my dad said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I wanted to tell you in person. I didn’t want you to panic and do something overprotective and crazy.”
“You can’t keep secrets like that from me, Quin. She’s my child, too.”
“Well, speaking of secrets, I think we need to talk about—” My mother stopped abruptly. “Hold on. She’s listening.”
Then everything went silent.
Chapter 18: The Hottest Girl in River’s Bend
After landing the jet in an isolated section of woods, we piled in to the family car and made the short drive back to River’s Bend. On the way, we stopped at the hospital, where they took care of my dad’s leg. Yep, it was broken.
My parents wanted to keep all that had happened secret from Josh, but I wouldn’t let them. I knew he needed to know. All these lies weren’t healthy. Besides, I thought this new information would get his mind off of what Stefanie had done to him.
So, as a family, we sat around the kitchen table while Mom and Dad explained their past and what we had just been through over the past twenty-four hours. When they were finished, Josh didn’t say a word. He looked back and forth between my parents and me. Then he chewed his thumbnail.
“Are you okay, honey?” My mother reached out to touch his shoulder, but he jerked away. Then he stood up, looked at all of us again, and sulked off to his room.
“Joshua, you get back here!” My father tried to run after him but hadn’t quite mastered movement with his new cast. He ended up falling back into his chair with a thud.
“Let him go,” my mother said with a worried expression on her face. I got the feeling there was something going on with Josh that she knew about and wasn’t sharing.
I couldn’t think about Josh for too long because the twins started bombarding me with stupid questions.
“Can you really start a fire with your fingers?”
“Can you melt things?”
“Can we roast marshmallows with your fingers?”
“Oh, s’mores! Let’s make s’mores with your hands, Priss!”
“We are not going to use my powers to make snack food,” I snapped. Charlie and Chester both poked out their bottom lips in a disappointed pout. I sighed and looked at my mother, asking permission. She shrugged. I guess she was okay with it as long as no one saw. “Oh, what the hay?” I said. The next thing I knew, I was in the backyard frying s’mores from ten feet away, much to the delight of my little brothers.
An hour later, Josh still hadn’t come out of his room, and my parents had retreated to the basement. I tried to use my super hearing to figure out what they were saying, but my mother was apparently able to block me like she had when we were on the jet. All I knew was that they were talking about Josh.
Even though the twins had eaten enough chocolate and marshmallows to explode, I still couldn’t convince them to call it a night and head inside. They kept wanting me to light things on fire. After melting the heads of half of their G.I. Joe dolls … I mean “action figures,” I was finally rescued by the door bell.
“I’ll get it!” I yelled, even though Josh and my parents were still MIA so I was the only one able to get it anyway. “Hey, Kyle. What are you doing here?” I asked when I opened the door.
Kyle stared at the ground and ran his fingers through his freshly cut hair. It looked more blond than usual. He probably had to get it dyed for a photo shoot or something. It really suited him, though. I hated to admit it, but he looked pretty gorgeous in his khakis and blue sweater vest that matched his eyes perfectly. “Uh, I called, but no one answered,” he said.
That made sense. My parents had unplugged the phone when they started to explain everything to us. But I didn’t really understand why he was calling me. So I kinda just stared at him, waiting for him to say something else.
“Um, I got these for you,” he said, pulling what looked like a bouquet of candy from behind his back. “They’re raspberry crème lollipops from Willie’s. I know they’re your favorite.” As I looked at the arrangement of lollipops tied together with a red ribbon, it finally hit me why he was there. I totally forgot I agreed to play Street Mania with him that night. It was kinda like a date and I kinda stood him up. I felt terrible.
“Do you want to come in and play video games?”
He nodded, but didn’t take a step toward the door.
“Uh, Kyle, it’s gonna be kinda hard for you to play from the front porch. The controller cord won’t reach.”
Kyle gave a nervous laugh and stared down at the ground. “I kinda don’t wanna play.”
“Why? Afraid I’ll beat you again?” I punched him in the arm as lightly as I could. I didn’t want to break anyone else’s bones tonight.
“I kinda just wanted to ask you something.” His voice jumped up an octave on the word something. It was really, really cute. I felt a little tingle in my stomach.
“What?”
“Do you … dance … River … do … go.” He stopped, took a deep breath, and blurted, “Do you want to go to the River Day Dance with me?”
My eyes nearly popped out of my skull. Kyle Montgomery asked me, Priscilla Sumner, to the River Day Dance. This was huge. Yes, it was a stupid little tradition with lame costumes and square dancing, but it was also a very sentimental occasion. Town tradition stated that if you married your first date to the River Day Dance, you were guaranteed to live happily ever after.
“I know you think I’m a jerk and I’m probably not your type,” he added when I didn’t respond immediately. “But I can’t stop thinking about you. You’re super cool, super cute, and you’re the only girl I know who can kick my butt at anything. You’re the hottest
girl I know.”
Hot? He thought I was hot? He had no idea.
Part Two
Chapter 19: Josh, the Prophet
It started with a fever. But to a girl who can shoot fire out of her fingers, a fever is no big deal. Unfortunately, things got much worse.
It was Wednesday and Kyle had walked me home from school. As soon as I said good-bye to him on my front porch, the lightheadedness started. I had a hard time holding my head up straight. I lay down on the couch for a minute, but every time I tried to sit up, my head would flop forward or backward. Then my balance went all haywire. I’m not saying I’ve ever been super graceful or anything, but I thought I had mastered walking through the living room without falling on my face when I was like three.
