I turned to Dante. This fit into what we already knew. “How do we pull back our power? Lessen the circuit?”
“A buck converter.” Brandon snapped his fingers. “The nature of our circuit is faulty. We need an off-switch like in a buck converter. We’re operating in a continuous mode right now. We need to change that. Then we can figure out what’s wrong with Whitney and fix her. If this is just a bad cold, we need to let her body actually heal itself.”
Dante blinked rapidly. “Yes. You’ve diagnosed the problem perfectly. That is what’s wrong. Why didn’t I see that?”
Brandon patted him on the arm. “We’re all playing a role in this. You just regrew an arm. It’s okay if you’re off your game. We’ll all step up.”
The doctor sucked in an audible breath. “You what?”
I ignored him. I’d always been really good at tuning out when needed, at focusing on the problem at hand. It was why I’d been able to work in a noisy environment. In fact, I could even meditate…
I snapped my fingers. “Meditation. We have to start really feeling the circuit, of being conscious of it. We have to get together, close our eyes and feel it. Then we can control it like we do our breathing. We have to take ownership of this.”
Isaiah nodded fast. “Yes.”
Nick ran a hand through his hair. “They had me try that stuff in juvie. It never worked that well for me.”
Every time we peeled back a layer of Nick’s background, it got more complicated. Was he in juvie when the world ended? How awful must that have been? The jails and places like it became utter chaos. Most people died. But Nick lived for years to become an adult. I shook my head. This was what came from complimenting myself on my concentration.
“We can all do it together. This will work.” I was sure of it.
Brandon pointed behind him. “Do we need Whitney?”
“Can she do some breathing exercises right now, Doctor?”
He nodded. “I can’t see as it would be a problem. We can watch her heart rate. If anything goes awry, you can stop it.”
“Let’s do this.” John stepped away from the wall where he leaned. “I don’t think we have a second to lose.”
He was right. We really didn’t.
11
Whitney
Dr. Robinson examined me, all the time with the blandest expression on his face. I didn’t trust it. It was too calm.
Not that I wanted him to put the stethoscope to my chest and yell out, “Holy shit, Whitney!” But a little clue would have been nice. Was I dying or was I fine?
He’d glanced up at me, giving me a tight smile and said, “I’ll be right back.” Now he was out in the hall. A low murmur of voices filtered through the door, but I couldn’t focus long enough to make out what was being said.
Which concerned me.
I needed my brain to work. I needed my body to work, because it had a job—keeping my guys alive. If it stopped working, I worried they’d stop working.
My head still throbbed from the earlier pain. I could feel it, like a heartbeat, behind my eyes. Resting against the pillows, I shut my eyes and concentrated on breathing. In the days before the Infection, I’d gone to a swanky private school and our PE classes consisted of things like Pilates, yoga, and meditation.
I hadn’t thought about those things in years, but now I did. I wondered if I could heal myself the way I healed the guys. Could I delve inside my body and fix what was broken?
Exhaling, I imagined my breath traveling a continuous circuit from my nose down to my toes and then back to the top of my head. I imagined it like a blue wave, washing away everything that was dirty or broken, to leave behind a perfectly functioning system.
The blue traveled from my nose to my throat before I got distracted.
So I started again, and this time I made it to my stomach before I began to wonder if Dr. Robinson was telling the guys what was wrong with me.
Dang it! Meditation was hard. I never had been able to clear my mind of my thoughts.
The voices in the hall lifted, as if everyone was speaking at once. That’s not good.
The door opened, and John glanced at me. “Hey,” he said, his voice all soft and overly calm. “You doing okay?”
I glared at him. “Am I dying?” I asked. He was acting weird, and I didn’t like it. “Tell me the truth. Don’t sugar coat it.”
“Why are you using that voice?” Nick boomed, and I couldn’t help but smile. Leave it to Nick to call a spade a spade. “You’re going to freak her out.”
“He did,” I called and started to cough. It took too much energy to project my voice into the hall. The breath I had in my body wasn’t enough to sustain me and be loud enough at the same time.
Especially when they started talking again.
I lifted my hand, gesturing for John to come in and he did, followed by Dr. Robinson and the rest of the guys.
“We want to practice some breathing exercises, Whitney,” Dr. Robinson said. “This circuit you and these young men have… we’re not sure how it works, but Brandon had an excellent idea, and we think meditation might be the key.”
Fuuuuuck.
Nick snorted. Oh my god, had I said that out loud?
Clearly, I had because while Nick looked amused, the other guys wore matching worried expressions.
“I just tried to meditate and it didn’t go well.”
Isaiah plopped down on the bed next to me. “That’s because you didn’t have me to help you.”
John rolled his eyes but sat down on the other side. “If he offers you any herbs to help you do this, I’d decline.”
Isaiah let out a breath. “I smoked pot, John, and occasionally ’shroomed. Let’s not act like I’m some sort of drug addict. John never likes to be out of control. He can’t fathom any other way.”
John shrugged. “My point stands. Don’t take any herbs with him. Losing what control we have over this situation doesn’t sound appealing right now.”
“It never does to you.”
“Fuck, you two need to cut it out, now.” Nick shook his head. “We have something to do. Bitch at each other later.”
That must have done the trick because they did stop arguing. All the guys walked into the room, sitting around the bed. We linked hands, and I almost made a kumbaya joke before I thought better of it. They were taking this seriously.
Brandon spoke next. “We’re going to all try to breathe together, to try to feel the energy between us and how it’s moving. What we need to do is figure out how we can help you control this, Whitney. It may be that your powers just work regardless of what you want. You may not be able to turn them off. But maybe we can plug them for you. We can say to the circuit, ‘Don’t distribute energy right now.’ ”
I sighed. “Look, I get why that is necessary, but it’s frustrating to me. I’m supposed to be able to help you whether you want it or not. What if Carson gets stabbed in the stomach and then decides not to let me heal that? Saying no seems counterintuitive to me.”
Carson scrunched up his face. “Why am I the one getting stabbed in the stomach in this scenario?”
“Okay.” Isaiah didn’t let me answer Carson. He’d been next to Brandon, and so I’d picked him. There was nothing nefarious. Still, the conversation quickly moved on. “In the beginning, it didn’t make sense to give us a choice. You’re right. We’d still be without our bodies working. But now? You just regrew Dante’s arm. It’s pretty cool, Whit. But he has an injured leg. I have part of my shoulder missing. We are doing okay. We don’t need you to regrow those things. Plus, we seem to be having a bad effect on you. You probably should have a fever right now that would kill this infection. You don’t have it because we’re pulling it out of you. We need to get control of this before we accidentally kill each other.”
What he was telling me was logical, but it went against my sense of purpose. There was a reason I was the way I was. What if we started messing with this circuit and we couldn’t undo it? I didn’t want
the universe to take back my guys because it got harder for me to help them.
“Balance,” I said to Isaiah. “You have to give something in order to get it.”
He narrowed his eyes, studying my face. Then he shook his head. “You don’t have to be sick in order for us to be well, Whitney.”
“Is that what you think?” Dante interjected. “That this is some sort of payment for us?”
Wasn’t it? The world ended, and I lost my best friend. Then suddenly, I got him back, along with five other men who made life worth living.
If feeling rundown was the worst of my problems, I could live with it.
“Whitney…” Brandon sat on the edge of the bed and took my hand. “Please. Just try it. I know you’re stubborn, and I know sometimes you get things stuck in your head and reason things that make no sense—”
“Hey!” I argued.
“You do!” He laughed. “Remember that time when you decided insects were just ugly dogs, and you cried when Dex’s fireflies died in their glass jar.”
“I still don’t understand why if they have brains, they don’t have emotions,” I muttered.
“Actually, an insect can live several days without a head. Their brains are very different…” Dante trailed off. “Never mind. Not important.”
“The point is…” Brandon glared at Dante. “The point is sometimes you have to open your mind and consider things differently.”
I huffed a breath, but it came out a cough. My ribs ached with the force of it, and I sucked in air, trying to breathe. The room disappeared until there was only me and my struggle to stay alive.
Slowly, my surroundings came back into focus.
“In and out.” Isaiah’s voice was a beacon in the fog, and I followed it, forcing my lungs to expand.
Six worried men perched on the bed, staring at me. Each one of them touched me in some way. Nick held my hand, while John and Carson touched my legs. Dante stroked my hair. Brandon held my other hand and Isaiah rubbed my back.
Their eyes entreated me to at least try, so I would. For them, I’d do anything.
“Show me how to do this,” I told Isaiah. “But I don’t do drugs, so if you tell me that’s the way to chill, or whatever, you’re out of luck.”
He grinned, but it was tight. “You and John. It’s been years, Whitney. Years. Where the hell would people get weed anyway?”
“Are you kidding?” Nick asked. “There’s an entire field of it on the other side of…”
If I’d had the air, I’d have laughed at him when he realized everyone was glaring at him.
Turning his gaze away from Nick, Isaiah focused on me. “Think of a place where you’re happy,” he said.
My mind immediately went to when I slept in Dante and Carson’s arms. My happy place was wherever the guys were.
12
Whitney
We stood in the field. I blinked. How had this happened? I could never quite remember this place except when I was in it. Usually, we were asleep when we did this. The seven of us—in a circle. Lightning illuminated the sky, and I eyed Isaiah.
He shook his head. “Not me this time.”
Another noise caught my attention. Thunder in the distance, rolling in like it wanted to shake the very foundation of the earth. The boom moved through my soul. There was so much contained in that noise. It was like I could hear the other cellular noises within the broader spectrum of the thunder. Dex. The horde. The Uncontrolled. Roanoke burning to the ground. The disease that spread and caused all of this to begin with. Always churning, always rolling toward us, always on its way…
“Whit…” Brandon said my name. “We’re here. We all collectively brought ourselves here, and I know we’re not asleep. Not really. So let’s use the time.”
“Right.” I nodded. “Let’s do that.”
We linked hands, and this time I didn’t want to make any jokes. There was power in this moment. This was something we could do that no one else had managed. We could join collectively to be one unit that was bigger than all of us. I understood what I hadn’t earlier—they needed me to be strong. If part of a circuit broke, the whole thing eventually died.
I needed to be okay. If that meant shutting down part of what I did, then so be it.
Here, in this place that was both real and not real, I could see our energies traveling. It looked like a beautiful blue ball. Back and forth. Sometimes it ran through all six of us in a circle. Sometimes it would go from one of us to the next. There was a lot centered on me and Dante right now. And back. He was needy, and much as he’d hate to acknowledge it, he was worse off than the rest of us. The energy would never flow to all of us equally.
But could it be controlled?
There was no way to know without trying. I stared at the ball that was our energy, and I willed it to go to Brandon. He seemed pretty solid, pretty whole. It wouldn’t take too much from him or give too much at that moment.
The blue essence turned and traveled right where I’d sent it. My hands tingled, like static electricity. Yes, that was what it felt like.
Brandon nodded. “Good. Now try that again. And let’s see if we can stop you.”
I imagined what electricity looked like, not that I’d ever seen it before. So I pictured lightning. I pictured the way it streaked from the clouds to the ground. And then stopped.
I stared at the ball, willing it to hold onto the charge, but it zapped me, and I jumped. Concentrating, I tried to imagine lightning staying in the clouds instead of releasing into the earth. As I stared at the ball, it seemed to grow larger and larger. It shifted, no longer spherical. It was like the surface of the sun: explosions of fire and light.
The ball burst, energy streaking into each of us. I couldn’t absorb all the energy. It threw me backward, and I hit the dream ground.
Then I didn’t feel anything.
13
John
The energy had been beautiful for a moment. I stared in wonder as it shifted and grew. Across from me, Whitney stared at it, her entire being focused on the energy.
Brandon said to stop it, but it was growing, and when she wavered, swaying where she stood, I opened my mouth to tell her.
But I was too late.
The ball couldn’t contain the energy and it released. It flew into me, and I screamed. It hurt. It hurt so fucking bad, like every cell in my body was on fire. I dropped to my knees while in the corner of my eye, Whitney flew backward.
Move. My body didn’t want to listen. I’d been flayed alive, and now I wanted my torn and injured muscles to move.
Mind over matter. I dug my fingers into the soil, felt the grass and earth beneath my nails, and dragged myself to Whit.
Her freckles were stark against her pale white skin. But her chest lifted, and her arms and legs twitched.
“It didn’t work.” Nick groaned as he pulled himself next to me. “Is she all right?”
“I don’t know,” I answered. I placed my hand on her chest, but jerked it away when a bolt of electricity shot into me. “Fuck me!”
“Move.” Dante shoved me out of the way and leaned over her. “Wake up.” He tapped each side of her face. “Whitlee. Wake up.”
She didn’t.
The world darkened. Huge, icy raindrops fell from the sky, landing on my neck and soaking me to the skin.
“Wake up,” Isaiah whispered next to me. Above us, thunder crashed, shaking the ground.
“Dial it back,” Nick demanded as he lifted himself onto his knees. “I can’t see what Dante is doing. It’s too dark.”
“I can’t help it,” Isaiah said.
“And yet I expected Whitney to know how to stop this.” Brandon’s voice was broken. “But I just made it worse. She poured everything she had into this, and now…”
“Now what?” I asked, not able to tear my gaze from my girl’s still body.
“There’s nothing left,” he whispered.
No. She’d worked too hard, but between the six of us, we’d fix i
t. We still had energy, life, to share. “She’s not dead.”
“No,” Dante answered. “She’s not.” He glanced up at Brandon. “You weren’t wrong. We have to close the circuit. We just went about it the wrong way.”
Whitney sat up, groaning. “I know what we did wrong.”
I blinked, staring at her. She seemed okay. She breathed. She shook her head. She blinked rapidly, but she was alive. Okay. I’d get through this, somehow. We were still in this dream place. I had to believe if something went terribly wrong, we’d be yanked out of it.
“What did we do wrong?” I looked between her and Brandon. Then Dante. Someone had to answer me. “I don’t have any experience with electricity. None. I turned it on, it went on. I turned it off, it shut off. Someone who speaks electrician answer me.”
Carson shook his head. “Don’t look at me.”
“She can’t be the one to shut it off. She can’t be the conductor and the breaker. One of us has to be the shutdown.” Brandon nodded toward me. “You do it.”
“Me?” I practically shouted. “I think I just told you that I don’t understand how this shit works.”
He got up. “You don’t have to. You’re going to use your psychic ability and make it stop.”
They’d all gone silent. My ears rang. “My psychic ability? Brandon, I don’t have a psychic ability.”
“Oh sure you do. We all do. Or we wouldn’t be in this situation. You turn yours on and off so seamlessly you don’t even realize you do it. You could give lessons. John, you can make people do whatever you want using only your voice. It seems to be a choice you make. Who to use it on, I mean. You certainly never do it with Isaiah, but you can. When Whitney goes to release the energy, tell her not to. But don’t just tell her. Tell her.”
Fuck me and the horse I rode in on. How the fuck did he know that? I never focused on it, never let myself think about it. Yes, from the time I was a child I’d been able to make people do what I wanted if I concentrated hard enough. It freaked me out in the beginning. I could get people to do more than just grab me a beer.
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