Thunder Rolling

by Ripley Proserpina

  They’d jump off a cliff if I commanded it.

  I didn’t want the responsibility of another person’s life, but sometimes, that was how it went.

  Maybe I’d instructed the residents of Zero to take care of their garbage so we weren’t overrun with animals. And yes, maybe I’d told a few depressed Uncontrolled to eat.

  “Whitney, the last thing I want to do is use that on you. I love you. I don’t like the idea of manipulating your brain. I’ve never done it, not once, with you.”

  She bit her lip, staring at me. Her skin was still pale, but her eyes were clear. “I did it wrong. I looked at our energy, and I poured more into it. I couldn’t stop. And I wanted to. It’s not like you’re making me do something I don’t want.”

  Our eyes held. She reached for me and her cool fingers skimmed the back of my hand. “Just this once, John, you can be the boss of me.”

  I loved the way my name sounded on her lips. Then, despite myself, I smiled. “Okay. Let’s start again.”

  Whitney nodded, and I stood, holding my hand out to her. I helped her to stand, but didn’t let her go. Brandon took her other hand before holding his free one out to Nick. We stood in a circle and waited.

  Whitney let out a breath. “I can do this.” Her eyes closed, lids fluttering shut so the lashes lay against her cheeks. A gentle hum filled the air and a tiny blue ball appeared in front of her. This one was paler than the last, and hovered, directly in front of her.

  “Our energy links us together,” Brandon said. “It flows through each of us, gathering speed and power as it passes from one to another.”

  As he spoke, the ball glowed brighter but stayed small.

  “Do you feel it?” he said.

  I shut my eyes. It took a moment for me to locate the energy. It was light, like the breeze, and flowed through me so quickly I almost missed it. “I feel it.”

  “Me, too,” Nick answered.

  Each of my friends answered in the affirmative, and finally, so did Whit. “I do, too.”

  It passed through each of us. Me, Whitney, Brandon. Then onto Dante, Isaiah, Carson. I could almost see it, a wave of blue thread. Around and around.

  The words left me without thought. “Now, stop.”

  I waited for the energy. Waited for the slight caress it gave as it moved over me, through me. But it never came.

  “Did it work?” Whitney asked.

  I opened my eyes and met Isaiah’s stare. Slowly, he nodded. “Yeah. It worked.”

  Brandon dropped Dante’s hand. “I don’t feel it anymore. I mean—I feel fine, but I don’t feel that zing of energy I did before.”

  I turned my attention to the girl next to me. I hadn’t let go of her hand, and I didn’t want to. “Whitney? How do you feel?”

  She let out a huge breath. “Tired. Sort of wobbly. And even though this is a dream world, I’d like to take a shower.”

  The world suddenly blurred, and when I blinked, I found myself sitting on the bed next to Whitney.

  Voices filled the room but cut off suddenly. “What was that?” Dr. Robinson strode forward and crossed his arms. “You seemed to enter some kind of shared catatonic state.”

  Whitney’s gaze flitted between me and Dr. Robinson. “It’s hard to explain, but it’s our connection.”

  The doctor studied her. “Excuse me,” he said, and I moved out of his way. He touched Whitney’s wrist and stared at his watch. “Your pulse is normal. And your color is better.”

  She lifted her hands to her face and touched her cheeks. The skin paled for a second, revealing her orange freckles and then pinked up again.

  I smiled. We’d done it. She was going to be okay. It wasn’t that she couldn’t handle the energy, she just had to control it. We could help her do that. For once, my weird burden could be helpful instead of potentially destructive.

  I nodded at Brandon. “Thanks, man.”

  “Anytime.” He smiled. “Of course, we don’t know what my psychic ability is just yet. I’m great at telling everyone else what to do.”

  Did he really not know? “Brandon…”

  I didn’t get to finish my thought. Whitney let out a noise and grabbed her head. “Oh, I suddenly…”

  “It’s the infection.” Dr. Robinson sat down on the bed next to her, forcing Nick to get up. He took two steps backward, crossing his arms over his chest to watch. “Or the virus. Or whatever it is that’s wrong with you. Your immune system is catching up to finally being allowed to do what it needed to do. You’re going to get sick, but that’s what we wanted.”

  Whitney scrunched up her face. “I understood it in theory but now in practice, feeling like this is something else entirely.”

  He put his hand on her forehead. “Yes, you’re getting a fever.”

  I could feel the energy pulse inside of me. All of us must have been experiencing the same thing. We wanted to help her but that wasn’t what we’d been doing. Whitney was a living woman, a mouth breather, as Nick would say. She had to get sick to get better the old fashioned way. That was what came with never having died.

  That was such a strange thought. I took a step away from her. “Maybe we should let her rest.”

  “Yes.” The doctor rose. “I’m going to check on her in an hour. We’ll have a better sense of what’s going on at that point. We’ll know how high the fever is and, hopefully, what we’re dealing with. If she has symptoms, I can diagnose what’s going on.”

  Brandon leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “Sleep, okay? I know how you hate to be sick. But we aren’t having a repeat of seventh grade. I don’t want to find you outside hiding when you should be lying down in bed.”

  Her eyes brightened for a second. “I wasn’t going to miss watching that football game. I’d waited a week to see it and then I got a cold? Yeah… that wasn’t happening.”

  “Not this time.” Brandon rose, and we all stared at her for a second before we left the room. I knew I wasn’t alone in feeling like we left our heart behind.

  As soon as we got outside, I rounded on Brandon. “How did you know?”

  “Know what?” he asked. “About how to help Whitney? Or about you?”

  “About me.” Could I sound more selfish? “And how to help Whitney, too.”

  “You’re easy,” Brandon said. “I’ve been watching you and Isaiah a lot lately, and we’ve had three instances of newly Uncontrolled becoming aggressive. There was that fight over one of the outbuildings. Then the love triangle—”

  “Wait.” Nick held out his hands. “What love triangle? There was a love triangle and no one told me about it? Just kidding. I don’t care.” He crossed his arms again and leaned against the wall. His gaze shifted from me to Whitney’s door.

  “Each time,” Brandon continued, “you were able to diffuse the situation. Not with reasoning, like Isaiah uses, but with a simple command.”

  Isaiah snorted, and I tamped down the impulse to elbow him in the ribs. Brandon was right. I’d ordered those Uncontrolled to do what I wanted. In the first case, I’d ordered them to stop fighting, and in the second, I’d ordered them to work it out privately. All of them had done what I’d asked without question.

  Thinking back, I often made demands when faced with conflict. In fact, I would watch Isaiah and inwardly roll my eyes. He engaged in too much discussion. The easiest way to solve a problem was to do it myself, but he insisted on including people.

  My way worked better, but with the benefit of reflection, it wasn’t that my way actually worked, but that I used my influence to make it work.

  “As much as we instructed Whitney what to do, how to breathe and focus, she couldn’t do it,” Carson said. “She couldn’t stop herself from over-thinking.”

  “I watched you watching us, and it just came to me,” Brandon said. His skin flushed and he shrugged. “I figured it couldn’t hurt to try. But I was as surprised as you that it worked, honestly.”

  “What are we going to do about Whitlee?” Dante asked, like the enti
re discussion between Brandon and me had never happened. He turned his attention to Nick. “And tell me specifically what Dr. Karlton said.”

  Damn. That was right.

  “It wasn’t words so much as an impression of what he wanted. He was demanding you, Dante.”

  “I had hoped he was dead,” Carson said, anger evident in every word. “The next time we meet, I’m going to kill him.”

  I stared at my friend. Carson wasn’t blood thirsty, he was too logical for that, but now I got the sense that if the opportunity presented itself, he’d take advantage of it.

  “You saw what he did to Whitney,” Carson said. “Who knows what he’ll do to Dante.”

  “I don’t think he wants to do anything to me,” Dante replied. “I believe he wants my help.”

  “To turn Controlled?” I asked.

  Dante laughed and shook his head. “Absolutely not. Karlton isn’t interested in helping anyone but himself. If he wants my help, it’s because he’s stuck. He’s come across a problem he can’t solve on his own.”

  “Why on Earth would he think you would help him?”

  Dante shook his head. “I don’t know. And that’s concerning to me. It’s all extremely worrisome that he was able to get into Nick’s head like that.”

  “It was painful. Much worse than when I hear Dex.” Nick groaned. “You think anyone else is going to want to get in there? Or can I expect just the two of them?”

  Dante closed his eyes. “I don’t know what to expect any more, my brothers. Not one fucking clue.”

  His not knowing was happening more and more frequently. I hadn’t realized just how much we counted on Dante to have all the answers and how incredibly screwed we all were when he didn’t.

  14

  Whitney

  I wasn’t getting better. If anything, I’d never felt worse in my life. I stared up at my doctor. He’d taken care of me since childhood. He was a very good man, and I could see his concern as my temperature rose higher and higher. There were, of course, medicines that could lower body temperature, but it seemed we didn’t currently have any of those. Three days since they’d taken their energy away so I could battle whatever this was and I was officially in hell.

  “How bad?” I could barely speak through the lump in my throat.

  He sighed. “You have the flu. I’m sure of it.”

  I’d had it before. “I don’t remember it hurting this much.”

  “There are all kinds of flus, Whitney. And you were younger. Kids bounce back better than rundown adults.”

  “So you’re saying that I just have to get through this.”

  He nodded at me, and I knew right then he was lying. These days people died from the flu. All the time. Even in Roanoke, which had been one of the best facilities around.

  “Thanks.” I smiled at him and lay back on my pillow. This was a mess. If they’d left their energy to help me I would have died, and now I might die anyway from the flu. How many times can Whitney be almost dead in one week for the win, Diane. Of all the times to remember game shows…

  Carson slipped into the room, passing the doctor on his way out. He lay down next to me in the bed. I coughed and then groaned. My lungs hurt. Did I have pneumonia? Was I on my way to having it? Would anyone tell me if I did?

  “Maybe you shouldn’t be in here. I have the flu.”

  “I’m dead, Whit. It’s not going to kill me.”

  I might be joining him in that state sooner than later.

  Carson narrowed his eyes. “Stop with the fatalistic thinking, Whit. You’re not going to die.”

  “Well, I’m getting pretty sick and tired of telling you you’re not dead either.” I laughed and then groaned. “Get it?”

  “Hilarious.” Carson propped his head on his hand and touched my forehead. “You’re burning up.”

  “Are you saying I’m hot?”

  He chuckled. “This is you sick, huh? Puns and bad jokes?”

  I nodded, letting my eyes close as the coolness of his skin seeped into me. “This feels good.”

  “You know,” Carson said. “We are still dead. Even though our hearts are beating now. Our default is dead.”

  I didn’t like that. Why was he talking like this?

  “I’m not saying this to upset you.” Apparently, Carson had inherited some of Nick’s mind reading ability.

  “Nick’s not a mind reader,” I said.

  “What?” Carson asked. His voice seemed to come from very far away.

  “Nick’s a receiver, but every so often he picks up another frequency. Like a radio.”

  The door opened and shut, but I didn’t open my eyes. “She’s not making any sense,” I heard Carson say.

  “It’s the fever.” Dr. Robinson sounded tired. The poor man. He’d been taking care of me night and day, falling asleep in the chair next to my bed.

  “Take a break,” I told him, but the words came out slurred. “Everyone gets a break. It’s the law.”

  “Whitney, sit up.” Carson’s voice urged me to open my eyes, but my body hurt too much to move. His arm slid beneath me, helping me. The edge of a glass touched my mouth, and I opened automatically. “Drink this.”

  Cool water flooded my mouth, but it didn’t taste right. It was chalky and bitter. It was hard to swallow, like pushing glass down my throat.

  “Don’t spit it out, Whit,” Carson urged. “Come on, baby.”

  I wanted to listen, I really did, but my body wouldn’t work right and the water spilled over my chin.

  “Let’s try again,” he said.

  “Only once more,” Dr. Robinson said. “She might get some of the medicine, so we need to be careful.”

  “It all came out,” Carson argued.

  “I can’t,” I managed to get out.

  “Can you dissolve it into an IV?” My eyes popped open at the new voice, and I found Dante staring down at me.

  I opened my mouth to talk to him but started coughing. The most I could do was lift my fingers in a tiny wave. He smiled at me. “Hi, Whitlee. We’re figuring some stuff out.”

  He sat on the edge of the bed at my feet and turned to Dr. Robinson. “Nick went back to the rail yard with John. Apparently, he ran into some people there and thought he might need some backup. Maybe they’ll find some antibiotics.”

  “That would be good,” the doctor replied.

  “Why John?” Carson asked. His cool hand touched my forehead again, and I shut my eyes. “Not yet, Whit. Try once more.” The glass touched my lips, and I opened. Water dribbled into my mouth, and I tried to swallow. It hurt so much, but I thought I did it. “Good job, baby. Again.”

  Drip by drip, he poured the water into my mouth, and I forced down as much as I could. The whole time I could feel Dante sitting at my feet, staring at me.

  “One more drop,” Carson whispered, and I got it down before falling back onto my pillow, exhausted.

  15

  Dante

  I stared out the window, Carson, Nick, and Isaiah’s gazes staring at my back. “I have a thought. I don’t know if it’s a good idea or a bad idea. We don’t know if John can tell those people at the train yard to give us meds because we have no idea if they have any meds to give us to begin with.”

  “I’m trying to put positive thoughts out there in the hopes we get them back.” Isaiah sighed, and I turned around.

  Carson rubbed his eyes. “What’s your idea because all I’m coming up with is that maybe Dex has meds. Maybe he’d give them to us. He wants us, and I don’t know if he wants Whit dead. I don’t think he does. Whatever his objective is, I don’t think it’s that. So… yeah. What do you have, Dante?”

  I sighed. “We’re on the same wavelength, Carson. Both of us going to suicidal ideas. But mine is better in the sense that it’s going to assure us medicine.”

  Brandon placed a hand on my shoulder. “What do you have in mind?”

  “I’m going to get in touch with Dr. Karlton. We know he wants my attention. I can guarantee he has
what we need. If anyone still has medicine in this world, it’s him.”

  Carson sighed. “Let’s wait. Nick and John might come through.”

  “No.” I was sure about this. “She doesn’t have time for us to wait and see. We have to do something now. I’m going.”

  “How will that work?” Isaiah blocked the door. If he really thought he could keep me from leaving, he was fooling himself. “Nick isn’t here. You can’t just transmit a message.”

  I didn’t know that Nick could do that just yet anyway. “I know how to get to him. Carson, you stay here with Whit. Try to help the doctor keep her hydrated. Isaiah, go get your step-brother and Nick. They should be back here. And Brandon, come with me. I’m going to need help.”

  They all nodded. At least for this moment, I was in charge. “Brandon, get a flare.”

  “Do we have flares?” He scratched his chin.

  I tried not to flinch. I’d managed so much for them over the long years in Zero. I’d been happy to have something to do, but if this went the way I imagined it was going to, then at least one other person should have a working knowledge of our inventory.

  “Yes. A lot of them. In the basement.”

  I didn’t need Brandon to set off a flare. I was more than capable of that myself. What I did need was for him to bring the medicine back to Whitney. After I traded myself for what she needed, I wouldn’t be coming back.

  “I didn’t know we had flares,” he muttered as he went toward the stairs.

  I turned around to find Isaiah staring at me. “You’re going to leave.”

  “What?” Carson pushed my shoulder, forcing me to look at him. “We’re talking about it. We’re making plans and they don’t include you going off half-cocked.”

  “Whitlee has no time. You see her. She can barely swallow. She’s hallucinating. You really want me to wait?” I strode down the hall, but I could hear them following me.

  “You’re ready to sacrifice yourself to Karlton. What if we turned on the circuit for a moment? Wouldn’t that be better than watching her body fight?” Isaiah’s reasoning was sound, but we were past that. If we reconnected, her body would overload. I’d never been more certain of anything.