by Laura Winter
* * *
I woke up to the familiar buzzing feeling as Nate wrapped his arms tighter around me.
“Oh good, you’re awake. I was getting bored waiting for you,” he said, lifting my hair out of the way to kiss my neck.
“I wasn’t awake. You interrupted my sleep,” I groaned, squeezing my eyes tighter against the morning light.
“Yeah, it’s not as fun when you’re the one getting woken up, is it?” He laughed and brushed his hand over my side, tracing my tattoo with his fingers.
“Yeah, yeah. I get it.” I pulled his hand off because I was starting to get distracted. I wasn’t quite awake enough for that yet. “Why are you in such a good mood?”
He lifted my left hand and scooted closer as he played with the ring on my finger. “Because I can’t believe I get to wake up next to you. Then I realized I somehow got lucky enough to convince you to marry me. And on top of that, I’m just really proud of how you’ve handled the last few days.”
I frowned and rolled over to face him. “What did I even do? I didn’t hear those guys approaching, got knocked out, weakened, and then almost destroyed a shipping container with an outburst. What’s there to be proud of?”
Nate leaned forward and kissed me as his hand slid under my shirt to pull me closer. “You faced the clearing, fought a guy twice your size without having your powers so you could protect Luci, and then punched him.” He pushed his nose against mine. “Oh, and then you used the last of your strength to blow up their secret entrance.”
“I hope he has a black eye from two teenage girls,” I said, pressing my forehead into his.
“I’d be more surprised if he didn’t have a bruise. You smoked him, with your right hand mind you, and then Luci punched him in the same spot.” Nate pressed his body closer to mine as he started kissing my jaw to my collarbone.
“Speaking of Luci, I have a theory about her power. Well, actually Finnley had a theory. She was a friggin’ genius.” I lost my train of thought as Nate rolled on top of me.
“I already knew you were a genius,” he smiled, kissing my lips. He pulled back just slightly. “They can wait a little longer to hear your theory.”
He was about to lean back into me when both our phones went off. I laughed as Nate groaned, rolling his eyes at our always unfortunate timing. He collapsed onto his back and stared at the ceiling.
“Luci and Glitch are awake and have already showered. They want to know if we are planning on waking up and joining them some time today.” I read off the text and held it over Nate’s face so he could see. He pushed my hand out of the way.
“I think Glitch kills the mood on purpose. I don’t know how he always times it just right.” He kissed my cheek before rolling out of bed.
22
Nate
Luci looked tired as she lifted her head up from her breakfast. “Where did you guys sleep?”
“You shouldn’t have asked that,” Glitch groaned, tossing a piece of toast at Luci. “They have this secret sex clubhouse they run away to.”
I rolled my eyes. “It’s not a secret sex clubhouse.”
Clara shrugged. “Well, it usually is, but we didn’t get to use it today.” She went over to get the cup of coffee Glitch held out for her. “How do you feel Luci?”
“A little more tired than usual,” Luci frowned. “I just had a long day yesterday. I still need to recover.”
Clara spit out her first drink and dumped more sugar in her mug. “I think I have an idea.” She quickly chugged the sugar mixture and picked up Luci’s hand, pulling her out of the chair.
“Where are we going?” Luci asked, about as confused as Glitch and I felt.
“For a walk,” Clara replied, not caring that she was the only one with an idea of what was going on.
Glitch jogged to catch up to them before they got to the door. “Outside?”
“No, we’re going for a walk into a lake,” Clara said, rolling her eyes. “Yes, outside you dunce.”
He crossed his arms. “Rude.”
I shook my head as we followed them outside. “Just let her play this out. She’s on a Finnley-level tangent right now. There’s no filter in that head.”
“Finnley-level tangent? Should I be scared?” Luci turned her head around nervously, still being dragged forward by Clara’s grip.
Clara held her other finger up in the air, still moving as she shouted into the air. “Finnley was brilliant, but she was insane. Clara’s just brilliant.”
“Debatable. It doesn’t really help your case when you talk in third person,” I laughed.
“See who’s laughing when I’m right about this,” Clara said, stopping in the driveway. She pushed Luci into a small patch of sunlight, walking around her in a circle and adjusting Luci’s position every time she tried to move.
“Now what?” Glitch asked, watching Clara circle his girlfriend, just waiting for her to explain something that clearly none of us understood.
“Shush,” Clara said, not paying attention to Glitch. He turned to me, offended, but I just shook my head.
Clara paused in front of Luci. “How do you feel right now?”
“Confused?” Luci raised an eyebrow.
“Not what I meant. How do you feel? Like, feelings of soreness and stuff.” Clara walked around Luci again, eyeing her carefully.
“I don’t know. Not as tired now that I’ve been moving around I guess. Maybe I just needed some fresh air?” Luci was still just as confused as the rest of us.
“Clara, can you please just explain what you’re doing?” I groaned. She was brilliant, but didn’t always understand that other people weren’t as smart as she was.
She held her finger over her lips and glared at me. “I said shush. I’m performing an experiment.” Clara gripped Luci’s shoulders and moved her out of the patch of sunlight. She let go and looked back at Luci’s face, which was still frozen in fear, especially after hearing Clara refer to this as an experiment. “Okay, what about now? How do you feel?”
Glitch and I exchanged confused glances, but Luci seemed to understand at least where Clara was generally headed. She cocked her head.
“Different. How…? What is happening?” Luci’s voice rang with interest more than confusion.
Clara pushed her back into the sunlight. “Now what?” she asked, smiling.
“Different again. Maybe a buzzing feeling? I don’t know if that makes sense,” Luci replied, looking over to Glitch. “Do you understand what’s happening?”
“I never understand Clara,” Glitch shrugged, shaking his head.
Clara was too giddy to care. She cheered silently at her discovery.
I held my hands out, still confused. “Care to share with the rest of the class, C? What did you just figure out?”
Clara was dragging out her brilliance for every penny it was worth. She grinned wide. “Luci’s energized by the sun. I don’t know what she can do with it, but it’s a start.” Clara jumped around, speaking fast in her excitement. “The first clue was when we woke up in the dark room. She felt funny, and there was no sunlight. Then when we walked around the Imperium forever before getting outside, we were all exhausted but suddenly she was alert. Sunlight. Then yesterday when she walked in House, she started to feel tired again. No sunlight. That’s right, I’m brilliant.”
“You’re wasting all that brain power being with Nate,” Glitch laughed as he ran up to hug Luci. “So, did you come up with all that out of nothing?”
Clara shrugged. “I think Finnley was kind of creating her own thesis project. She was trying to understand why people got the powers they got. It didn’t make sense why people used the same power source but got different abilities. Excluding her and Nate, she believed that the power sources just contained energy that brought out the abilities already inside someone. In her words, the abilities reflected— Yes, Luci, I usually refer to Finnley like she was a different person—” Clara replied to Luci’s thought, but didn’t break stride in her other convers
ation. “The abilities reflected the nature of a person. My mom was a nurturing, kind person so she got healing. Aidan was manipulative and got that mind fog thingy. Richard was controlling and threatening, just like weather. The Ruby took that to another level with the ‘puppet master’ theory.”
We were all silent as Clara waited for us to process all the information she had dumped on us. She got impatient so just kept explaining, trying to help us understand what she had found out.
“At the time, Finnley didn’t know she had the Cold Soul in her, and thought she got explosive telekinesis because her personality was cold and feisty. After finding out Nate’s ability, she knew he could help her by pulling away her pain and the voices. The black hole power is because he’s always wanting to let us in so he can help us. He wants to pull away our pain. Glitch is just jittery or something, I can’t quite figure that one out… but Luci. She’s bright and cheerful and warm. So, she is sunlight. It’s perfect. Alright, tell me how smart I am now.”
Luci and Glitch had huge smiles on their faces as they stared in amazement. My jaw was hanging open. That was the girl I was going to marry. Holy shit.
“You are my hero,” Luci cheered, jumping over to wrap Clara in a hug. Glitch jumped in too.
“You coming in here Nate?” Glitch laughed. I smiled and ran over to join. I couldn’t imagine going through any of this with different people. We really were an unstoppable group of best friends.
Clara’s voice was muffled from the center of our group hug. “Glitch, stop singing ‘we’re the four best friends’ in your head.”
23
Clara
We were all sweating in the heat of the day. Glitch, Nate, and I were ready to give up, but Luci was determined to figure out what she could do with her new powers. She kept walking in and out of the sunlight, trying new things and waving her arms around to see if anything worked. No one knew what she might be able to do, only that she had more energy when she was in direct sunlight, so we weren’t really sure how to help at this point.
“What do you guys do or think about when you use your powers?” Luci asked, sticking her hand in the light. We waited for a second, but nothing happened.
“I just kind of imagine being in a different location and I end up there,” Glitch said, finally pulling his sweat stained shirt off his back.
Luci thought hard. “Okay, so like I should imagine turning into the sun or something?”
“Maybe don’t turn into the sun…” I blurted, sticking my hand out before Luci tried anything. “Nate, how would you describe the shadows? It’s kind of the opposite of Luci’s new energy.” I looked over at him.
He made a waving motion with his hand and moved the shadows at his feet. “I feel a connection to them. When I move them, it’s like I’m doing the movements with them. The connection is like I’m part of them and they are an extension of me.”
“Wait, ‘extension’. I can work with that,” Luci said, concentrating as she stuck her hand back in the sunlight. We all watched, thinking that might have been the keyword she needed, but nothing happened. Luci groaned in frustration. “I don’t know what to think about. I can feel the light, but it doesn’t do anything.”
“Think of the connection and try to bend the light,” I suggested, lifting the hair off my neck and shoving it into a bun. “When I’m moving things with my mind, the energy reacts like a physical force. It’s less about manipulating objects and more of using the energy around them to make the object do what I want.”
I demonstrated with a stick at my feet, lifting it up and dancing it through the air as I brushed my fingers in the space in front of me. Luci watched, mesmerized as I hung the stick in front of her. I grinned and squeezed my hand shut, snapping the wood in half as Luci jumped. She scrunched her nose, but looked back at the patch of light.
This time when she stuck her hand in the light, she didn’t give up as easily. She flexed her fingers, moving each one separately before mimicking my hand movements from holding the stick. As she brushed her hand back and forth, I felt my jaw drop.
The light was starting to respond to her movements, bending and sending light into spaces that were previously in shadows. Luci froze as she saw what she was capable of. In fact, we all were standing in stunned silence until Glitch finally jumped.
“Careful!”
A patch of light Luci had been bending ignited a small pile of leaves in the middle of the driveway. I reached my hand out and smothered the fire, creating a field of energy around the flames and pulling out the oxygen.
“That was so cool,” Luci gasped, holding her hand up to her face as she admired what her fingers were able to do.
Nate looked impressed. “What did you do differently?”
“A bit of everything you guys do. I kind of focused on the connection, imagined what I wanted it to do, and tried to manipulate the light as if it was a physical thing. It kind of felt thicker through my fingers as I guided it.”
Luci did it again, careful not to keep the light in one place for too long. As she started bending more light, she practiced guiding it around. She passed it in front of Glitch’s feet before moving it over to me and finally in front of Nate. But as soon as the light touched Nate’s shadow, Luci yelped and yanked her hand back.
“What just happened?” Glitch asked, moving toward Luci.
“I don’t know,” Luci answered. “It felt like something ripped out of my hand.”
“Uh, guys,” Nate cut in. I spun around to see him pull his hand off his elbow. Blue blood rolled down his arm. “I think I accidentally pulled some of her power. Don’t take this the wrong way, Luci, but you’re hot.”
He winced as I pressed my hand around the cut. Somehow Luci’s light had reacted with Nate’s shadow. He had pulled her power, but had a decent burn as a result.
“I’m so sorry,” Luci said, throwing her hand over her mouth. “I didn’t mean to do that.”
“How could you have known?” Nate asked, shrugging it off. “I should be the one apologizing for taking your power. At least you didn’t hit my head or anything important with your light.”
I shook my head. “Your powers definitely don’t mix well. A black hole is the absence of light, so I think you two should probably stay clear of each other’s powers from now on.” I started pushing him toward House.
The first aid kit needed some dusting off. We hadn’t used it since the last time our arms and my stomach had been open wounds. My first aid skills still hadn’t improved since then. I finished cutting the tape to secure the wrap and set the roll of tape down, but I hadn’t noticed my hands were shaking. I pressed down too hard and sent the kit crashing down, spilling supplies over my bathroom floor.
Nate grabbed my hands to hold them still. “Hey, I’m okay. It’s just a burn. What’s wrong?”
“I have no idea, I just started shaking.” I could feel my heartbeat picking up as I began losing my breath. “Nate, I don’t know what’s going on. Why is this happening to me right now?”
He pinned my arms to his chest as he wrapped his around me and pulled me close. “Just take a second and focus,” he said, running his hand over the back of my head. “I heard your thoughts earlier. The last time we used the first aid kit was after your dad… that’s probably what you’re feeling.”
“Great, I’m having panic attacks from a first aid kit,” I groaned into his chest, trying to distract myself with humor. It wasn’t really working.
“When was the last time you actually looked at the scar on your stomach? I mean, really looked? You never take off your key, even when you get in the shower.” He pulled my head away from his chest, holding his hands over my cheeks.
I sighed. “That first morning in The Complex… when we woke up and saw we were healed.” I leaned into his hands. “Nate, I shouldn’t be making this about me. You just found out that your powers don’t mix with Luci’s.”
“Clara, I’m fine. We just have to stay away from each other’s power. I’m more worr
ied about you.”
“That seems to always be the theme around here,” I groaned.
“C, I’m always going to worry about you, you know that right? Remember your theory? I pull your pain away. I want you to let me in so I can help you. Always forever.” He ran his thumbs over my cheeks.
“I love you,” I sighed. “I think I’m the one who should constantly be asking how I ever convinced you to want to marry me.”
Nate dropped his right hand around my back and pulled me closer. “I like to think it’s because I’m oddly attracted to troublemakers with purple hair.”