by Lucy Auburn
Levi sounds hurt as he says, "You don't want anything serious."
"I'm not ready for something serious."
Grayson points out, "Your fated connection with us doesn't really give a shit about emotional availability, Ellen. You're going to have to do better than that. Otherwise, we're all dying out there on this mission."
I consider them one by one, holding back on the desire to run away from all this. The truth is, while I named them the Fuckfaces and hated them as we fought, now it's hard to imagine my life without them. We've gotten into a rhythm—heated and toxic as it might be—and they're a part of my daily habit.
"I don't know what I want from all of you," I admit. "I just know that I need you around. Not just because of our connection, either. You get on my last damn nerves—yes I mean you, Levi—but we're stuck together, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Not anymore. So I may not be ready to figure out how I feel or what I want, but I'm not going anywhere. I can guarantee that much. Is it enough?"
Wyatt is the one who stares at me thoughtfully and carefully says, "For now."
"I'll wait as long as I can," Mason tells me, "but not much longer. Especially not if you're going to treat us differently from each other. I don't care if that makes me impatient—I can't sit around forever, Ellen. At a certain point I have to move on."
"I understand," I tell him, even as my heart does troubled flips at the thought of him moving on from me. "Not much longer, I swear."
"I just want you to think of me as something other than the fool," Levi grouses. "Can I get that much?"
"Stop acting like a fool and you won't be treated like one," Grayson shoots back. Looking at me, he adds, "I don't know how many more times I can let go of your hand before it becomes too much, Ellen. But I keep trying, because I know we're stuck together. I can't promise anything except that I'll try until I can't anymore."
"Okay." I take a deep breath, and accept what they've told me. "A little more time. And I'll figure out something other than... this. Our holding pattern. We'll decide together, though. Because you all mean something to me, even if I'm not sure yet what to call that something. Being with you is when I feel alive."
Holding hands with Wyatt and call the birds down from the sky as he tells me stories he's made up. Taking away Grayson's pain for as long as possible, summoning ghosts none of us have ever met who have nothing interesting to say, and watching his face change as the seconds tick by. Letting myself lean on Mason and trying to divine the mundane moments of the future that we see together, avoiding the heavy things, because I don't know where they'll lead. Grabbing onto Levi with ease and hitting every target on the wall with my force field, growing stronger by the day, his touch easy even as I watch his feelings towards me start to change.
We're stronger together.
I have an idea.
"I think we should try something before we leave. Take my hand." I beckon Wyatt back towards me, and Mason as well. Then I motion towards Levi and Grayson. "You two, put your hands on my shoulders."
"What's this—an orgy?" Levi raises a brow. "Because the last I checked, your shoulder isn't—"
"It's an idea," I hasten to interrupt him before he gets another wallop to the face, courtesy of Wyatt. "If we're stronger when one of you holds my hand, imagine what it'll be like if all four of you tap into the Conduit connection. We've never tried it before."
"No one has ever told us to," Grayson points out. "There's probably no difference."
I shoot back, "No one told us the connection gets rid of your weaknesses. Instructor Abarra didn't even seem to think it was real until we showed her. There's so much we don't know about the different ways the Brutus connection can manifest. Besides, what's the worst that can happen?"
As the guys crowd in around me, tension still brewing between them, I admit the worst that can happen in a room full of killers: one of them could pull out a knife and decide to end the others for good. Sexual rivalry isn't exactly a great thing to stoke when the men you're sleeping with—and not sleeping with—all have blood on their hands. But I don't have a better idea, and at least this will force them to shut up for a moment and stand close together without clenched fists and pissing contests.
One by one, their hands connect. Wyatt on one side, Mason on the other, Levi resting his hand on my left shoulder, Grayson leaning his weight against my right. They're so close that I feel almost as if I could count the beatings of their individual hearts: soft hearts, hard hearts, dark and bitter, open and easily wounded. Four slightly broken men, dangerous to the outside world, connected to me in a way that makes us all stronger.
I take a deep breath.
And feel the world tremble beneath my feet.
Chapter 24
I can see everything. Feel it too. Every bit of power is right at my fingertips, which feel suffused with all the strength in the world.
"Wyatt, slide your hand up to my elbow—yeah, like that. You too Mason. I want to see if..."
Holding my palms out, I let the strength of my Physical Affinity pool inside my splayed hands. This is the power that's always come easiest, most instinctually, like an extension of my body rather than something that came from outside of it. Right now, it feels so strong and ready to fire that I almost believe I could make a bulletproof shield.
Instead, I imagine that my force field is going to take the shape of a solider. Putting my palms together, I let energy pool between them, then break them apart like that girl in my Physical Class is always doing.
A creature made of kinetic energy leaps from my hands. The shape of a man, holding a spear in one hand and a shield in the other, he's see-through and made of blue-white light. At my urging, he charges towards the target on the wall, spear out, and destroys it completely.
As he disappears into nothing, energy collapsing, he takes part of the drywall with him, leaving a crater at least a few inches deep and over a foot wide.
"Whoa." Mason sounds impressed. "I didn't know you could do that."
"Neither did I," I admit. "Let's try another."
This time I switch to my Emotional Affinity. While it has never been as powerful as my Physical Affinity, it comes easily enough. Maybe spending so much time with Penny's precocious little self curled up next to me as strengthened my ability to tap into animals' emotions.
I can certainly feel the rapidly beating heart of every vermin surviving in the bowels of Cain University. There are fat rats near the pantry and tiny rat snakes hunting them. Flies, mice, squirrels in the courtyard, birds that flit across the roof—every little creature you can imagine. I feel them all, every single one, and what they want: warmth, food, sex. Really us humans aren't exactly that different in the end.
With all four of my Conduits connecting with me, though, I feel more than just their small desires. I can sense the energy of their souls pulsing with life. And my awareness, when I test it, goes far beyond the campus walls. Somehow I've gotten past where I should be able to use my magic, my awareness reaching up high into the skies and all the way to the edges of this pocket dimension, which is far bigger than the one I was trapped in with the Black Serpent.
There are things in the woods I've never seen, or heard, or sensed before in my whole time here. Wild rabbits that run and hide from the least little movement, digging warrens into the ground. Two female doe whose kind will die out because their stags are all gone. Countless owls, hawks, and foxes. There's even a half-feral dog out there, slinking through the dark, its belly full of the last stag, already hungry again for more to eat.
The minds of the wild animals are curious and simple. They've never felt a human brush up against them quite like I do, and though they resist and jump at my touch, they don't know to fear me.
It's the dog who fears me the most. He shies away from the brush of my mind against his, like a beaten animal cowering from its master. There are memories years past, a wild run through glowing doors, many attempts to catch it, and now this life. Sometimes one of the cooks in
the dining hall leaves scraps out for it, but it never ventures further than the edge of the trees, afraid to get too close.
Knowing humanity has given it a wariness that can only be taught.
I didn't tame Penny. I showed her what she already wanted. And while I've gotten wild animals to dive at people's heads, and other things, I've never actually made a wild thing tame. I've never convinced a mistrustful thing eat out of my hand and follow me willingly.
Taming the dog will prove that my Emotional Affinity has grown stronger because of my Conduits. More than that, it'll be good for the dog. I can feel its gnawing hunger, and the pain settling into one of its paws. It needs food and warmth. One more winter like this will break it, body and soul.
I've been that wild thing.
So I pour my emotions into it, coaxing it with a gentle touch at first, then reaching deeper towards its scarred heart. There's a little bit of warmth there. Memories of a boy's soft hand. Food that filled its belly. Barking into the night sky and howling with stray dogs. Pulling at the thread these memories are connected to, I wake up the tameness in the now-feral dog.
"What's she doing? What's going on?"
"Hush."
"I can't be the only one afraid she's about to rip one again."
"This is the one of us she's currently fucking."
"I was there first. Ow! Well, I'm just saying. Not to be crude."
"Shut up." I open my eyes, which I barely noticed were closed, and level a glare at all four of them. "I'm getting a friend for Penny."
Holding onto the newly-awakened warmth and love inside the dog, I show it where we are, and gently tug on the leash between us. It takes a long time for it to trot towards us, its body hungry and tired, that one paw hurting at it. For years the dog has spent most of its time cowering at the edges of the pocket dimension, and walking through the tight halls of Cain University frightens it, but it makes the journey anyway. For me.
When the doors to the training room are nudged open, I turn my head and stare at it, here in real life and not just a dog-shaped emotional smudge in my mind. The dog is thin and white, with impossibly long legs and a skinny tail that curls at the end. One ear stands up, the other flops down, and its eyes are the warm color of autumn leaves. Taking it in, I realize that it is really more of a he, and give thanks that there's not a she-dog around, because otherwise the woods would be full of feral puppies—no doubt destined to be turned into subjects in the lab.
Not under my watch.
"C'mere." I flitter my fingers at him as he freezes in the doorway, taking all five of us in. "It's safe, Killer."
"Really? That's the name you're going for?"
Mason grouses, "Shut up, Levi."
"I'm just saying. A little on the nose."
Killer trots over to me and tentatively licks my hand. Smiling, I tell him, "We'll get you all the scraps in the dining hall. I think this experiment is over."
Grayson frowns. "You haven't summoned the dead. Or looked into the future. Don't you want to know how our mission turns out? It would be useful. And you could talk to your mom. Get answers from your dad. Hell, summon Hitler and yell at him for all I care."
"No, I don't need to do any of that." I pull away from the guys' hands, unable to admit that I'm afraid. Having telekinetic powers and going all Disney princess with animals is one thing; the dead and the future aren't really two subjects wise people mess with. "We've proven that my powers are even more, uh, powerful when all four of you lean into the connection, and that's—"
My words are cut off by a strangled cry. Grayson goes to his knees, face twisted in immeasurable pain, grabbing onto his left leg like nothing has hurt him more in his entire life. Disturbed, I grab his hand, and he scowls up at me instead of looking relieved at the cessation of pain.
"You did this," he spits out. "You keep shying away from the connection you have with all of us, treating it differently, and it's the reason why my leg hurts more than it ever has in my entire life. Maybe if you'd used your Spiritual Affinity, I wouldn't feel this way."
"I—" Mason's voice interrupts me before I can figure out what to say, as he too cries out, grabbing a shallow cut in his arm that's bleeding suddenly. I look back and forth between the two of them, then up at Levi and Wyatt, who seem fine. "What do I do?"
"Take their hands at least. Lean into the connection." Staring down at his hands, which aren't holding mine, Wyatt seems shocked at the face that his voice is working so well. "My weakness is less since you did that. It's because you used your powers while we were all connected. The effects didn't fade when you let go."
Levi takes a tentative step, and agrees. "I'm not making noise. Our weaknesses got better, but theirs got worse. Stop playing favorites, Ellen. You need to use all four of your Affinities, not just the two easy ones."
Grabbing Grayson's hand tight, I stretch out and connect with Mason, who's crouched on the ground bleeding furiously. Killer, meanwhile, is standing next to him and snapping his jaws at shadows, convinced we're under attack by unseen enemies.
If all I have to do to end their misery is use my powers, that should be easy enough.
Just converse with a big bad dead spirit and look into the future for something meaningful. Even though that's dangerous and unwise. Can't be any major consequences to it.
Grayson makes a sound like a dying animal, and I realize with guilt that I briefly let go of our grip. I immediately rectify that, clenching his hand tight. The feeling of him sagging against me makes me swallow heavily, guilt clinging in my throat.
"Hold on tight," I tell him.
He coughs, bitter amusement in his voice. "Same to you. Or I might just take your hand for myself."
"Hush. Let me figure out a ghost to summon that's... a challenge. Instead of the easy ones I've been summoning."
"You mean you're going to actually use your powers? What a shock."
I ignore him. Grayson is grumpy because the pain keeps coming back over and over again. He'll act less like a wild animal once he's got some relief—just like Killer.
Not that I'll tell him to his face that I think of him as a mangy dog.
Biting my lower lip, I motion the other two close. Levi and Wyatt press their hands to my back and neck, crouching down near me. Mason squeezes hard onto the tiny paper cut on his arm that seems to have turned into a tsunami-sized bleeder. But Grayson is in more pain, and my spirit summoning is my slightly easier power, so I decide to take care of him first.
"Alright, so. Ghosts. Difficult-to-summon ghosts. Angry ghosts. Uh, ghosts that have been dead a long time..."
"Summon your mother," Grayson says quietly. "I don't think it's about how long the people have been dead. I think it's about how much they matter to you."
I swallow. He must be right, because when I even so much as think about summoning my mother's ghost, this terrible pit yawns wide in my stomach and I can barely breathe. We tried to speak to her that day everything went pear-shaped, but it didn't work, because I was afraid of what she'd say. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to face off against her killer if given the chance.
Well, I've got a lot of shit to be afraid of now. So I decide to think about her: the soft smiles she sent me, how she'd laugh at jokes so loud her nose would honk, the nonsense songs she'd sing when she brushed my hair in the morning. She was terrible at making tea and coffee; always too weak or bitterly strong. And when she woke up in the morning, she never made her bed, but always fussed at me to make mine.
Mothers. We all have one, and no two are quite the same. Mine was the best, though. Better than yours, I'm sorry to say. Did yours still love you after you butchered a man?
As I think of the mom-shaped hole in my life, I can feel a new energy fill the room. Silver spirit stuff unspools in front of us and gathers like a cloud forming on the horizon. Taller and taller the cloud grows, until something almost the shape of a person is standing before us, all silvery and see-through.
I take a deep breath, feeling Grayson relax bes
ide me, and think of her until my eyes well with tears. There was nothing more painful than losing her. If I don't give her justice, I don't know how I'll live with myself.
Because the pain is so deep, I pour my anger into summoning her spirit as well. My desire to take down the man who killed her is all-consuming. I've let myself focus on other things, because I know I need to train before I hunt him down and kill him, but it's always there in the back of my mind: avenge mom's death, hunt him down, slash his throat.
The spirit in front of us forms a solid shape that, bit by bit, becomes colorful and almost alive, until a barely see-through version of my mom is standing in front of us, wearing her favorite cardigan and a pair of fuzzy slippers.
"Wow." Grayson breathes in and out, deeply. "When you summoned my family, they didn't look that real or present. There was no color to them, and they were still bloody, like the night they died. This is different, Ellen. You're evolving."
He's right, I am. And I have no doubt it has something to do with the four men with their hands on my right now. I need them, and that scares me, because I don't like needing people. So I focus instead on my mother's spirit, because I don't know how long I'll be able to hold her here with our connection.
"Mom." Licking my lips, I look up into her eyes, and force myself to save the nostalgia and grief for later. "I need to know who killed you. Did you see anything, like his face? Do you know anything? Maybe something you've learned since you died?"
She blinks down at me, her face solemn and still. For a moment I don't think she'll give me an answer. But then she sighs and opens her mouth to speak.
"What I saw that night doesn't matter. It would be useless to you anyway. What I can tell you is that the killer, the true killer, is here in this building right now."
Chapter 25