Thoughts like dominos fall in rapid succession … brother … labs … lasers.
I glance to the sky. “Very funny,” I call out.
Lincoln looks around uncomfortably.
“I’ll tell you what.” I prop a hand on my hip. “You take me to Nathaniel’s house and we can both tell your brother.”
His mouth falls open. “Oh my God, you’re psychic too.”
* * *
Nathaniel
I’ve been sitting on the couch since I got home, staring into space. As far as apologies go, that was an epic fail so big it may go down in history. Not only did I make her go off, I somehow made her feel even worse. She was rigid with pain as I left her. That, more than anything, causes me the most regret. What do I do now? How can I make her understand that I had wanted to kiss her? That the experiment was part of it, sure, but it was just my awkward nerd-way of making a move?
A move I should not have made. I had no right. She warned me that she could hurt me. And now she is wracked with even more guilt and disgust for her incredible abilities. Only, it hadn’t hurt. It felt good and a little tingly. Of course, that was just a tiny bit of Julia’s power. Who knows if she fully released herself? What if I made her come?
I blink away the thought, shocked at myself. Only I have to admit to having that thought more than once. When my brain slips, I imagine all the ways I can bring her pleasure. If only she could see herself through my eyes. If she could understand how incredible she is.
There’s a rustle at my front door. I blink myself back to attention. I don’t even know how much time has passed since I got home. The door flies open with a crash.
I shoot up off the couch, prepared to fight. Then drop my fists remembering that I’m an idiot.
Lincoln stops just inside the threshold.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
I’m already running toward him, but he isn’t scared or hurt. His eyes are wild with excitement, arms sprawled out. He’s panting like he ran here but I spot his BMW—a gift from our dad after a bad episode—outside the open door.
“You didn’t tell me you knew a fricking superhero!” he shouts.
I stop and stand still. I’m sure a series of the emotions flash across my face. Denial. Shock. Confusion.
“What are you talking about?” I say flatly and completely unconvincingly.
He rolls his eyes and starts to speak when another car zips into the spot behind his. Julia comes running out of her Jeep. Lincoln looks back to me and the smile on his face grows. “Powers.” He wiggles his fingers as he says it.
Julia runs into the house. “I was supposed to be following you.”
Lincoln shrugs. “Sorry. Lead foot.”
Julia looks to me. Her face is set like she’s trying to be serious as she catches her breath but a small smile tugs at her cheek. She is breathtaking. I always forget the impact of seeing her. Like I convince myself I don’t have feelings for her but when I see her again, it’s another punch to the gut. She looks so much better than when I left. She’s shimmering with life. Her shoulders are back and her face is bright with exhilaration.
She looks lighter. Happier.
“So. Something happened,” she says out of breath.
“I gathered that.” I walk to the door and look out to make sure nobody can see us. It’s a small town and neighbors are nosy. I close and lock the door. “Why don’t you guys sit down and tell me what’s going on.”
Lincoln and Julia exchange a shared look that makes me unaccountably envious. I’m so easily jealous when it comes to her. I squash down the feeling and remind myself that the grown woman I just passionately kissed only a few hours ago isn’t going to run away with my sixteen-year-old brother. Sometimes I hate how broken my brain feels.
Julia sits on the edge of the couch and dives into the story. “I was at Quickstop and your brother was in front of me. Obviously, I didn’t know it was Lincoln yet.”
Lincoln jumps in, “There was this real asshole guy. He was riding my ass when I pulled into the parking lot.” He turns to Julia. “I meant to tell you that. He had beef with me before you even showed up.”
“What a total toolbag. He followed me around the store too,” she says to him and they’re shaking their heads at the shared experience. I already hate this strange man.
“So then tell him about the part with …” Lincoln holds up his hands and shakes them.
“I’m getting there. Patience. We need to build up the story, give some background.”
I can hardly sit still. Julia seems to sense my anxiety because she shrugs and states, “I slipped. The asshole came at Lincoln and I went all mama bear and I pushed him away. But I never actually touched him. He just fell back. Your brother saw. That’s never happened to me before.”
Lincoln plows on, “Yeah, I totally saw it. It was like mushrooms shot out of her hands, but like, made of light. It was wicked. I can’t even tell you.”
I step to Julia as realization set in. “You controlled it. More than that, you focused it! Did the rest of you glow?” I ask. A hundred questions tumble through my mind and I want to ask them all at once.
“Glow?” Lincoln is looking back and forth between us. “What does she normally do? We clearly have a lot of catching up to do.” He leans back on the couch, spreading out his arms and putting one around Julia’s shoulders. She flinches before taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. He smiles so openly it cracks my chest.
I can’t help the smile that spreads at the sight of him. Julia and I share a look and she must see it in me too. The simple happiness that comes from seeing somebody you love excited about something. In that moment, everything dissolves between us. The confusion, the frustration, the hurt, the misunderstanding.
“Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?” she says, gently lifting Lincoln’s arm off her shoulder and setting it on the couch with a friendly pat.
I nod and feel a joy at the sight of them together that makes me feel so light I almost start to float.
I make us all some coffee and we talk for hours. Julia gives Lincoln a CliffsNotes version of her life and struggles. I don’t know if it is because he has already seen her powers or if she feels comfortable with him just because he’s my brother, but whatever the reason, she shares everything.
She only pauses when talking about work, unsure how much she’s allowed to say.
“He knows a little about what I do.” I turn to Lincoln. “Now we’re trying to understand how her powers work. But we’re having trouble getting them to activate on demand in the lab. Then I had a theory that they’re triggered by high emotional situations.”
Julia and I share another look and a blush burns my neck.
“I see,” Lincoln says. Then a second later. “Oh, it’s her! She’s ‘It’s complicated.’” He looks her over appreciatively. “I totally get it.”
She shoves him with her shoulder.
“Well, my abilities definitely respond when provoked. We just need to figure out how to test it without having … using such extreme triggers,” she says. “But I think … I think I might be able to control it more than I thought.” Her gaze goes sort of fuzzy and she looks up at the ceiling. “When I was in that moment with that jerk, I was thinking so hard: just go away. Like, I had to get him away. I think I somehow focused it into my hands.”
“This is very promising.” I try to keep my voice steady but the implications of this are so exciting.
“Oh man, my brother is trying so hard not to lose his shit right now.” Lincoln laughs.
Julia smiles. “I know. Look at him. He’s practically vibrating.”
“We can do so much with this. Do you think, now that you’ve done it, you can control it more?” I ask.
She bites her lip like she’s trying to hold back a smile. “Well, I never even thought it might be in my control. Like I said, I always thought it was a response to stress, not the other way around.”
“But now?” I prompt, feeling excitement building in my
racing heart.
“Now I think I might be able to. I’ve been practicing even as we sit here. Look.”
She sits up straighter and relaxes her shoulders back. Her hands rest on her knees as she slides her eyes closed. I take the opportunity to stare openly at her. Her full lips. Her beautiful heart-shaped face. Her golden skin peppered with freckles.
I glance to Lincoln and guilt flushes over me. I’ve been caught ogling her. He’s shaking his head at me.
“Is it working?” she whispers.
Lincoln and I turn to her. Her hands are glowing bright white. The biggest arteries and veins under her now-translucent skin are all visible. Blueish-white against iridescent white.
“Whoa,” Lincoln gasps.
“Isn’t she incredible?” I say.
She smiles. “Don’t distract me.” She squeezes her eyes shut tighter. “It’s like … as long as I really focus. I can keep it in my hands. Before it felt like as soon as I started feeling this way it would spill over into the rest of me. And then when I pull it back, that’s when I feel sick. I don’t feel bad right now. I feel good.”
Her eyes shoot open. She looks wildly from Lincoln to me. “But are you guys okay?”
“I’m great.”
“Me too,” Lincoln adds.
“No shortness of breath, no dizziness? Sometimes, people exhibit signs of heat sickness when they’re near me.” She stares intently at her hands until the light fades away. Then she presses her fingers to my forehead.
I’m more than fine—I’m in awe—but her worrying over me is nice. I say, “Maybe that’s only when you lose control?”
She shakes her head and laughs. “I don’t know. I’ve never thought it would be possible. What if I really can control it?” Her voice shakes with emotion.
“Are you okay? How are you feeling?” I ask.
She glances up with shining eyes.
“Hopeful.” It’s the most wonderful thing she could have said. She feels the hope I’ve held in my heart since I met her. There’s no way some wonderful person like this strolls into your life without it meaning something. I hold her gaze and feel emotions making my chest swell. Lincoln shifts next to me and clears his throat.
I break my gaze away first and nod to the Quickstop bag on the floor. “So Lincoln, what did you just have to have?”
Lincoln and Julia look at each other and burst out laughing.
20
Nathaniel
Days go by. Progress is made. Work is, for once, on track and Ken hasn’t poked his head into my office in weeks. It feels like things are finally as they should be.
Almost everything.
I tell myself there isn’t time. The contract. Our extra tests in the labs. There is no time to explore what happened with our kiss. Plus, I screwed it up so majorly, I don’t know how to approach her about it. I don’t know how to explain to her that I do want to test her abilities, but I also really want her. Every moment of every day.
Julia and I spend at least a night or two together every week after everybody leaves in the lab. It’s risky, but we’ve gotten good at pretending to be normal during the day. Nobody seems to have cared or caught on.
Today in the lab we set up empty water bottles. She practices knocking them down using her powers. The first time the bottle wobbles her face lights up with a joy that nearly knocks me over. After, we order Thai take-out and discuss her growing focus. Just us two, sitting on the floor, food spread between us. She has her feet on the floor next to me. Even with our heads close, she manages to keep us from ever touching fully.
“As far as I can tell, you are emitting all types of different energy. It’s as though you can take any form of light and convert it.”
“So I can pull from any type of light?”
“I think so. Light waves are everywhere, even if you can’t see them. Energy has a wavelength. It’s always there. In theory, you could pull from anywhere on the electromagnetic spectrum. Not just visible light. I don’t know yet. I mean the power potential … What if—”
I look up to find her watching me with a dreamy expression.
“Was I rambling?”
She shrugs and smiles. “I don’t mind.”
“It’s amazing how you’re learning to control it.”
“Thanks,” she says, pretending to be extra-interested in digging out a piece of chicken from her container. She doesn’t ever want to claim credit for her sharpening talents. She makes it seem like it’s something to be ashamed of or swept under the rug.
She can now summon the glow to her hands without even trying. She’s even able to shoot little bursts from them like an actual superhero. Emotions are crucial to her powers but we can’t force those. I have some ideas of how to provoke her, but I keep my hands to myself.
Exerting little bursts has been keeping her happy and healthy too. She came up with a code to tell me how she’s feeling; she said she and a friend use a one to ten scale. She hasn’t had a day over four on her pain scale in weeks. What’s more is the Lite-Brite tests have been going fine. So while I don’t want her to have any lingering guilt about the previous failures, it’s clear that she was, in fact, impacting them.
We haven’t touched since that day in her house. Not really. But I have noticed her become more free with touching others. Sometimes, she’ll nudge my knee in a meeting or poke my arm as she walks by. It never fails to make me smile.
She catches me staring too long at her as she’s talking. She smiles sadly. I focus on the conversation here and now.
“One time he was in the back of my car,” I say, sharing a story I haven’t thought of in years. “I didn’t realize until I got back to my dorm—three hours away.”
“No!” She covers her mouth as she laughs around her mouthful.
“It was my third year of undergrad and Lincoln was eight, I think. He wanted to come live with me.” My voice breaks off. I thought it would be a funny story but I understand that he must have already sensed what was coming. I clear my throat at the sudden shame.
“Lincoln’s so young,” I say. “I forget sometimes, because he’s so big and so much more mature than I was at his age. I don’t know where his unshakable confidence comes from. I never had that. I was always too …”
I’m not quite ready to share all the darkest moments of my history with her. I don’t want it clouding how she sees me.
“I know where he gets it,” she says. “Don’t underestimate your role in his life.”
I frown. “I should be there for him more.” I don’t say anything about our father. About the bruises. Instead, I say, “He needs to know that he is loved and safe. I need to be that person for him. I need to keep him safe.”
“I think you do that for him.” She reaches across and squeezes my hand. The contact is warm and nice and too quick. When I try to hold on, she pulls away.
“His home life isn’t … great. I just want to be a reliable person in his life.”
“Lincoln admires you so much. It’s obvious.”
I scoff. “I don’t think so. I’m just his chubby, nerdy older brother. He got all the cool.”
She looks at me with pinched features. “Right.” She rolls her eyes.
I must have flinched because she sits up to lean closer to me. “Tell me that is not actually how you see yourself.”
“No. I know …” What do I know about myself? I can figure out complex things. But it never feels like I’m the one figuring it out. It’s team collab. The facts and data are there; I’m not making magic out of nothing. I’m just pointing out what’s already there. I’m nothing special.
“You’re incredible,” she says. “You’re the smartest person I’ve ever met. I’ve seen you solve complicated problems in seconds, unraveling Gordians knot like it’s a roll of tape. You see truths nobody else can see and expertly handle every single type of personality. Everyone around you feels valued. You’re charming and hilarious. And your eyes, I mean come on—”
My fingers are fisted
at my side and I force them to relax as she speaks. She seems to realize how uncomfortable her words are making me because she finishes simply with, “You’re a catch.”
I clear my throat. “Thanks.” I ball up a paper napkin, rubbing it between my palms. “So anyway.”
If she thinks that, why has she kept her distance? Why hasn’t she tried to kiss me again?
Her hand is on my knee, stilling me. She lowers her head to catch my gaze. “You are incredible,” she says. “Tell me you understand that.”
Suddenly, I can’t seem to catch my breath. It shouldn’t be this hard to hear a compliment. It shouldn’t make me want to rage or … God, cry.
I hold her gaze and keep my emotions intact as much as I can. “Thank you.” My voice is rough.
It occurs to me that she has the same issue. She won’t accept the fact that she is literally the most incredible person I’ve met. I wish you could just tell people in the moment how amazing they are, how you feel about them with no risk of hurt or rejection. Not for yourself, but only for them.
But isn’t that what she just did? She lives so fearlessly. Always putting others first. She does it with the team even to the detriment of her health. And she never gives up. She never stops believing that she’s capable of more.
She’s straightening the empty take-out boxes.
“Julia,” I say.
She stills and looks at me over her shoulder, waves of dark hair falling forward. She wears it down a lot more these days. I like watching the curls bounce off her shoulders as she talks animatedly or dances. Even though she doesn’t need to dance to invoke the powers now, she still likes to do it because it makes her think of her family. The first time Lincoln saw her dance at my house, he stared at me and shook his head like, What are you even waiting for?
Now, I think about his question. What am I waiting for?
I clear my throat. She shuffles over on her knees when I can’t seem to speak. She kneels in front of me, our gazes locked. Her full, soft lips are slightly parted in expectation.
The Untouched: THE UNSEEN SERIES, #2 Page 16
