by Tonya Kuper
I stepped out of the car to the thundering rumble of Reid’s and Santos’s bikes. Reid was watching me in their headlights. He’d parked opposite my house, his gaze analyzing my two- story brick suburban home, and the houses on either side.
I crossed in front of the car. Hannah waved before taking off down the street, Santos following her, but Reid cut his engine. Was he going to finish our conversation and tell me what he was supposed to teach me, to train me for, or was he going to try and kill me himself? I wasn’t quite as confident now that we were alone. And I was having serious doubts about coming home, because if he was as evil as the man in the woods, then I’d just allowed him to follow me to my doorstep. I should’ve known better. I really should’ve known better.
His leg swung over his bike and he placed his helmet on the seat. I didn’t run. If he did want to hurt me, I knew I couldn’t escape. I knew what he could do with a knife, or even a thought. He closed the distance between us in a few steps.
My porch light reflected in his eyes as he stared at me, and after a few long seconds, he cleared his throat. “The Consortium wants to control all Oculi, and they want those who are the most powerful dead. You need to train in order to protect yourself, to master your abilities, and to fight the Consortium for our lives.” Urgency laced his voice.
He stood like he was ready for a brawl, his hands open and loose at his sides and his stance wide. There was no hint of a smile, no joking.
Terror paralyzed me—my thoughts, my body, my breath. I couldn’t form a coherent thought, let alone words. The world tilted a bit, and Reid’s hand grasped my elbow.
“I know.” His voice was gruff and close to my ear. “It’s a lot.”
Was he for real? Was this real? By the USS Enterprise, things would be easier if I were crazy or drugged. And really, who wishes for that? But I’d checked my pupils in the rearview mirror on the ride home. I’d counted my pulse and felt no nausea or dizziness. Granted, those symptoms only appeared when I was, you know, making things appear, but for now, I think I could rule out mental illness or intoxication. Then again, my perception of being sane could just be a symptom of—
“Hey, snap out of it.”
“Huh?”
“You’re mumbling incoherently,” Reid said. “And no, you aren’t tripping or suffering a paranoid delusional psychotic break.”
My mom was a neuroscientist, and while I didn’t know much about her research, I had studied up on some of her old textbooks and that whopper of a tome, the DSM-5. Reading that thing was worse than checking out WebMD.
“Mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of. One in five Americans suffers from some form of mental illness. There are treatments, doctors, prescriptions that can—”
“Josie, focus. Please. I understand that you want to grasp a more…plausible scenario. But denial is not going to change who you are and what you’re capable of doing.”
I swallowed hard.
“It won’t change your circumstances,” he said.
And cue the flashback of the attack in the park…
His hand fell from my arm, and I hadn’t noticed how warm his touch was until it was gone. He bent to make sure I looked him in the eyes. “You are in danger. But Santos and I are here to protect you.”
Dead. A group of people wanted me dead. I’d have to join others to fight for my life. I couldn’t process the concept.
“Why don’t you go inside?” he said.
I mindlessly made my way to the garage with Reid a step behind me. “For now,” he whispered, “stay alert and be careful. But I’ll be on watch, so do try to get some shut-eye.”
I punched in the garage code and ducked under the slowly opening door. I slammed the garage door button and watched as it shut out the world. It was amazing the type of numbness that could be achieved through informational overload. And, I won’t lie: I rather enjoyed this blank, blissful state of shock.
A warm glow cast soft shadows around the kitchen. Mom had left the light above the kitchen sink on for me. She’d also left a note out on the kitchen island, detailing my chores for tomorrow. A second, hastily penned message said there were leftovers in the refrigerator. I wasn’t hungry, but I opened the fridge and considered the takeout container of pad Thai. I stood there for light-years, cataloging the condiments and counting the containers of yogurt and the apples in the fruit bin, letting the cold air wash over me.
But all too soon, the events of the day slipped into my mind, repeating like a scratched DVD, and I gently closed the door to the fridge and paused in the center of the room.
A man was killed tonight. A man who’d tried to kill me. I’d given him a coffin with my thoughts. And other people, an entire group of people with superhuman powers, were after me. For a sci-fi fan, this had all the makings of some Marvel comic or something à la George Lucas.
My eyes landed on Eli’s Iron Man figurine on the counter. My brother. I was jolted from my temporary paralysis, from the shock of everything, from this whole disconnected sense of reality.
I had to protect my family.
My mind looped back to the scenario in the park. I’d Pushed a gun into my hand. I didn’t know what kind of gun it was, but I’d blinked and given a Push from within myself. I thought about the gun in my hand.
Heat.
Pain.
Nausea.
And cold metal in my hand.
My fingers wrapped around the handle. The gun was real. Heavy and cold against my palm. I didn’t know much about shooting, or even how to reload this thing with bullets. But I’d learn.
I set the gun on the counter and flew to the back hallway door, the door to my mom’s lab. It was locked as usual, so I yanked the tiny message window open. Dark. That meant Mom was upstairs in her room.
I ran to the back door, twisted the dead bolt, and entered the code in the security system, then sprinted to the front door. It was already locked. I knew locks probably didn’t matter if someone really wanted to get to my family or me, but I had to do everything I could to slow someone down. I flittered around the first floor like a manic hummingbird, pausing at every window to make sure it was secure.
With the first floor as safe as I could make it, I crept up the stairs, with the gun tucked into the back of my pants, to check on my family. A sliver of light stretched across the hallway from my parents’ bedroom. With measured steps, I peeked in the doorway. The desk light above Mom’s computer shone down on her silky strawberry-blond hair, her head resting on her folded arms in front of her computer screen, iPhone next to her. She’d fallen asleep working and waiting up for me. The size of my parents’ bed behind Mom seemed larger. It wasn’t, though—just empty.
I worried about her. She worked so much and she seemed more distant, lost in her own thoughts, each day. I wanted to tell her everything that had happened tonight, like I would have before Nick died, but I couldn’t. She’d think I’d lost my mind. Maybe I had, despite Reid’s protests to the opposite. And she didn’t deserve that.
Still, it hurt. The truth bubbled from my stomach and wanted to break free. Mom was like me; she understood facts, theorem, science. She would understand, or at least be willing to listen…But I swallowed back the words, the disbelief clawing up my throat.
“Mom,” I whispered.
She practically fell out of her chair and glanced to me with one eye closed. “Everything go okay?” Her words were rushed, alarmed.
I wavered for a moment. Man, I wanted to tell her everything, but her eyes were glassy and unfocused. With everything she was dealing with—Nick dead, Dad gone, her health failing, my brother and I being far from normal…I cleared my throat. “Yeah, Mom, it was fun. I’m home—you can go to sleep now.”
She nodded, stood with the help of her cane, and gave a strained smile.
“Night,” I whispered.
I continued down the hallway and edged into Eli’s room. He was curled in a ball under his blankets facing the wall. I checked his window and placed a kiss on Eli’
s forehead before I slipped into my room.
I flicked on my light, shut the door, and my Benedict Khan and Benedict Sherlock posters welcomed me home.
I went straight for my window, pushing the blinds back to check the lock, and there was Reid, walking the perimeter of my yard in the dark. Was he keeping people out or keeping me in? His face snapped up, and his eyes locked on mine for a moment before he continued his patrol. The lock was secure, but that wasn’t going to be enough to make me feel safe.
When a guy could create and destroy things with his mind, was anyone really safe?
My hands automatically went to the gun at my back. The weight of the weapon surprised me all over again. I thought of the metals—iron, steel, copper. Heavier elements. But would this be enough to protect me? Could anything in my limited knowledge suffice?
Flopping on my bed, I set the gun next to me, opened my laptop, and started searching handguns. I wanted to know what type of gun I’d made appear and how to use it. As soon as I found the picture of my gun, a standard-issue Glock for many police officers, a light blinked in the lower right corner of my screen. Security. It was time to update the firewall for my computer.
My cursor paused over the button as panic stilled my body. I’d thought about the security of my house, but what about the security of my computer? I closed out of the window. If the creeps after me monitored my computer, my internet searches could give the impression that I was an Oculus to those looking for such signs. I couldn’t put my family in more danger than they already were.
And there it was. The moment in which I accepted what I had seen and what I could do.
I wouldn’t delude myself or deny what I’d seen. What I had done. I recalled my zombielike state when I’d learned that Nick had died. But I couldn’t dwell in that painless, oblivious place. And I couldn’t deny the truth now. Not with my brother’s and mother’s safety on the line.
I might not understand all that I’d seen and done today, but that didn’t make it any less true. Great Tesseract, there were so many things in the scope of this universe—heck, in the multiverses—that I couldn’t wholly comprehend or explain, but that didn’t make them any less real.
Real was the gun weighing down my hand.
I’d done all I could to keep us safe: secured our house and Pushed a weapon. What else could I do to prepare my family or myself? Practice. I could practice Pushing. Like Reid had said. Best to start simple, though.
I leaned over the edge of my bed to the bottom of my nightstand. I yanked the basket up into my lap and carefully pulled out my stuffed puppy I’d had since birth, followed by one of his severed legs. It’d been slowly tugged away from the body from years of play, but I never had the heart to toss him out. The picture of the mended stuffed animal was a fleeting half thought. Then heat, pain, nausea.
The leg was secure, mended. My stuffed dog sewn into one piece, without the use of needle and thread.
A tiny thrill danced up my chest. If I could create a gun and a mended toy, what else could I do?
I set my sights on the floor in front of my dresser and pictured a boulder like the one I’d sat on in Marisa’s front yard, then gave a small nudge from within myself. The painful trio of heat, pain, and nausea came and went in the same time as it had with the gun, but the severity was more intense than when I’d Pushed the leg onto the stuffed dog. I opened my eyes from a long blink, and the rock I’d imagined sat on my bedroom floor. Mossy limestone. It was bigger than I’d realized when it was outside. Crap. I could hide small things, but how was I going to hide a boulder from my mom?
I concentrated on the rock vanishing, making it disappear as I’d witnessed Reid do several times. It didn’t move or blink out of existence. I concentrated and gave that nudge from within me again, that want, that desire. A dull headache throbbed in the back of my head and behind my eyes, matching my heartbeat, almost like it was laughing at me.
I was done trying to make it go away for now. Instead, I slipped off my bed to touch the weathered limestone. It was rough under my hand, but the moss was like velvet.
It was real.
My room went out of focus and my breathing became labored.
I should’ve been relieved after successfully Pushing my personal weapon, mended puppy, and landscaping rock. Instead, fear crept into my room and wrapped its tentacles around me like a giant squid. Fast and graceful, the terror enveloped me. I took a break from Pushing, letting the headache subside, changed into comfy clothes, and spent the next several hours combing every scientific book I owned, trying to make sense of what could be possible within this new ability. I made lists and gathered everything I could from around the house to make emergency backpacks for my family and myself. If a group was out to get me, we needed to leave and be able to defend ourselves. Passports, hats, dark clothing. I Pushed two bulletproof vests and a smaller one for Eli. That took some effort. It had been difficult to visualize and even more difficult to Push. I quietly retrieved our stash of maps from the kitchen to add to the backpacks and opened a map of the city.
What would be our escape route? We’d need to flee town, seen by the fewest amount of people possible. Every route north would be watched. If we took Highway 41 east, instead of 75, there would be less traffic. By then, Mom could help me figure out where to go from there. Or, if Reid were truly here to help me, maybe he’d have an idea of how to escape. But what if he didn’t let us leave? What if he wasn’t safe, either?
My phone vibrated on my nightstand and startled me so much, I jumped and dropped my light saber pen on the map. There was no picture on my phone screen, just the word Reid and his text: u r safe
I typed back, hard to believe when the Empire is after a young Jedi
My phone vibrated with his response. Lol. U r fine. promise
Me: You don’t understand.
I tiptoed to the window and peeked through the blinds into my yard below. Wedged between two bushes directly across from my window, Reid leaned against the fence, his phone lighting up his face. His head slowly drew upward, and his gaze latched onto mine. My phone vibrated through my palm.
I hit the button and read his message: I do understand. Would it make you feel better if I stood watch in your room? say the word and I’ll come up.
Would I feel safer with him in my room? I wasn’t sure if I could trust him, but I knew I didn’t trust the people trying to kill me, and he seemed to be against those people. He definitely seemed to be on my side. If that warranted my full trust, I wasn’t sure, but I would feel better with him closer. He’d already protected my life once. And for as much as I vacillated like a pendulum, he had saved me. If I had been a target, he could’ve killed me at any time. Yeah, so I kept needing to reassure myself. A guy who could erase a forest and conjure items out of the air—he could do a lot more than stand guard outside my home.
And, hello, if nothing else, he could deal with the boulder in my bedroom.
My fingers trembled as they hovered over my phone keyboard. I typed, Come up.
I pulled the string for the blinds and they slid up. Reid ran toward the house. Stairs appeared, one at a time with each step he took, raising him higher and higher toward my room. Reid was three stairs away when my window was suddenly open. Taking a step sideways, I gave him space to climb inside my room. He straightened and, with my next blink, the window was closed and the blinds drawn.
“Hey, Luke,” he whispered. His eyes fell to my shirt.
I wore my Vader tee with the words Who’s your daddy? printed across my chest. My cheeks burned and my stomach flipped. Of course, of all nights, that was the shirt I’d chosen…
His head swiveled around, taking in my mess of a room. The maps, books, and backpacks earned me a grunt of approval. Then he saw the boulder and muffled a laugh.
“I was practicing,” I mumbled.
“Sorry. I didn’t expect to see Mount Rushmore in here.” One corner of his mouth pulled up in a grin.
Having a boy in my bedroom wasn’t
allowed. And I’d just welcomed a hottie with superhuman abilities inside. I’d broken all kinds of rules. That had to be why my heart thrashed against my ribs like a caged animal. That and the whole Oculi “out to get me” thing. Trying to ease my panic, or whatever it was, I inhaled deeply and massaged my temples. The stress of everything and the proximity of said hot boy did not help the constant dull headache that was now setting up camp in my skull.
“How about I—” Reid paused mid-sentence and froze like he just got hit by Iceman. I followed his gaze…to my gun. “What are you doing with a Glock? You don’t know how to use that thing. Could you even pull the trigger when it came down to it?”
My throat felt thick, making it difficult to form words. “If someone tries to come between me and my family, yes, I’d pull the trigger.”
He let out a puff of air, and his eyes were sympathetic. “Look. I get it. Really, I do. But this is exactly why you have to train, to learn how to use your abilities in order to protect yourself and others. This”—he nodded to the gun—“is just an accident waiting to happen.”
I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples again. “I don’t know what is going on. I don’t understand. And—”
I flinched when his hands landed on my shoulders. I sat on my bed with him beside me, his larger body settling him toward the middle while I leaned off the edge. My eyes fluttered open when he squeezed my muscles. “You need to relax. Freaking out isn’t going to help the headaches.” My stomach dipped as he moved his strong hands. It had taken me weeks to let Tate get this close to me.
His thumbs worked in neat rows up the back of my neck, while chills tingled down my spine. “I…I don’t know what is real and what isn’t. Anything could be an illusion.” None of this was logical or rational, meaning I couldn’t process it, understand it. I wrapped a hand around my stomach, trying to calm the uneasiness.
His hand swept over my head, smoothing my hair. I knew he probably only meant to move my hair so he could see my face, but the motion was slow, and the way his hand swept down my back felt like a caress.
