Zara’s gaze plummeted to the floor. Maybe she could have been excited about her new power if she hadn’t electrocuted her uncle, the only family she had left. Right now, though, the last thing she wanted was to see those lightning bolts shoot out of her hands again.
“We can’t risk you having an episode,” he said.
“We can talk about this later. When you’re better.”
Uncle Red wouldn’t hear of it. “It’s not going to go away. We have to get started on your training, the sooner the better. Okay?”
“Do you have to be so stubborn?”
“Of course. I’m a St. James.” That made him crack a smile, although it soon vanished as he started coughing.
“You really should drink some water.”
He ignored her. “Listen to me. You have to control this new power. Promise me that.” He took her hand, squeezing it, and Zara knew he wouldn’t let go until she agreed with him.
She swallowed. “I promise, Uncle Red.”
* * *
Once her uncle fell asleep, Zara stayed in his room, curled in a blanket next to his bed with an ice pack lying across her ankle. She tried to get some rest, but she jolted awake whenever her uncle coughed or groaned. After a while, she gave up on sleeping and made sure to check his pulse every half hour, along with touching his forehead in case he had a fever, a sign of shock. His face did feel warm to the touch, not quite fever hot, but she worried about it nonetheless.
The hours stretched by, but Uncle Red didn’t awaken. In the morning, Zara called in sick for work, using up one of her precious leave days, but her uncle’s life was far more important than a handful of reichsmarks. She’d easily give up her annual salary for him to get better. Or at least for a doctor’s visit. She thought about calling Bastian, but she didn’t know his phone number, and she didn’t want to risk having the Colonel pick up.
Around five in the evening, a knock on the front door jolted Zara from her worried daze. She wondered if the academy administrator had come to check on her, to see if she was really sick, but when she opened the door she found Bastian standing on the porch, still wearing his uniform and with his school bag slung over one shoulder. His eyes were red, as if he had been crying.
Zara tensed. “What’s wrong?” Her frazzled nerves made her hands shake. Had someone found out about them being at the courthouse last night? She couldn’t handle that right now, especially on top of her uncle’s wounds.
“It’s nothing,” he said quickly. “I was worried about you. You didn’t show up at work today, so I came as soon as practice was over.” His gaze flitted past her and into the house. “Is your uncle home? I don’t want to intrude.”
“He’s upstairs. He’s … he’s had an accident.”
“Is he all right?”
“It was an electric shock. A fuse must’ve blown last night.” Zara tucked her hands behind her back, not wanting to think about what she had done to her uncle. “Actually, I’m really glad that you came by. Can you take a look at him?”
Bastian stepped into the house. “Did you bring him to the hospital yet?”
“That wasn’t an option.” Bastian could probably figure out by the state of the house that Zara never would’ve been able to pay the medical fees. Shame coursed through her. Most of the cupboards were still broken after the Colonel’s raid, and a sea of water stains swam over the ceiling like ink blots.
Bastian, however, didn’t look at the cupboards or the ceiling. His eyes were fixed on her. “Have you given him any medicine?”
“Only a sleeping draft. He was tossing and turning for hours, so I thought that would be okay.” Tears wet Zara’s eyes as her exhaustion overtook her. She was tired to her very bones, but she couldn’t sleep until she made sure her uncle would be okay. “Will you take a look at him? Please, Bastian.”
His face seemed to soften when she said his name. “Let me get my medical bag from my car.”
“Your car?” Zara peered outside past Bastian but didn’t see any vehicles, aside from her uncle’s truck.
Seeing the look on her face, Bastian explained, “I parked next to the barn. I didn’t want anyone getting suspicious.”
Immediately Zara understood. The barn would obscure Bastian’s car from the road, and she felt a flood of relief at his cautiousness.
Together they headed for the barn, Zara walking with a slight hobble. The swelling had gone down since yesterday, but her foot throbbed if she put too much weight on it. Still, her ankle was nothing compared to what she had put her uncle through.
It took Bastian a few minutes to notice her limp. After they left the house, his eyes had gone all foggy again, like his head had wandered elsewhere. “You shouldn’t be walking on your ankle yet,” he said, frowning.
“I’m fine. I iced it last night.” She glanced up. “Did something happen today? You seem …”
“It’s nothing.” His fingers reached for his dog tags, but they weren’t hanging around his neck today.
“Is it about last night?”
He caught the worried look in her eye. “No, it’s about my mother. She’s … she’s not well.” He continued toward his car. “You should rest your ankle. I’ll get my bag. It won’t take long.”
She matched his pace. “Is your mom okay?” When he hesitated, she mumbled a quick “Sorry, it’s none of my business.”
“No, I don’t mind. You’re the first person today to notice something was bothering me.” His lips formed a sad smile, and his knuckles turned white as he gripped the straps of his backpack. “My mother wandered outside again, and it took us nearly an hour to find her. My father wants to send her to a facility.”
“What sort of facility?”
“For people with brain injuries. There are a few treatments that might help her. Father found a place in Neuberlin.”
“He didn’t discuss this with you at all?”
“Colonel Eckhart doesn’t believe in that sort of discussion. He has already packed her things.” He stepped over a puddle and helped Zara jump over it. “He took Opa’s dog tags, too. Told me I shouldn’t wear anything that belonged to a traitor.”
“What a Schweinehund,” Zara said before she could stop herself. A look of horror crossed her face as she realized that she had called his father a swine. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have —”
“You don’t need to apologize.” He shook his head slowly. “I don’t know what my mother saw in him.”
I don’t know what my mother saw in my father, either, Zara thought. She stared at the fields ahead. They had only spent a few hours last night together, but he was confiding in her as if they had known each other for years. But it didn’t feel uncomfortable, strangely enough. Bastian knew what it was like to have a father he was ashamed of, just like her.
“It feels good to say that aloud,” he admitted as they reached the car. “The cadets and soldiers idolize my father, so I have to keep all of this to myself.” His gaze flitted toward her. In the soft light of the setting sun, the green flecks in his eyes made his irises appear almost hazel. “And they’d never call him a Schweinehund.”
“I shouldn’t have said that. He’s your father.”
“A father who’s a definite Schweinehund.” He laughed, a rich buttery sound that broke through the bleakness on his face.
Bastian retrieved his medical bag from his blue BMW sedan, an old satchel made of worn leather that must have belonged to his grandfather. Once they returned to the house and Zara showed him to her uncle’s bedroom, something shifted in Bastian. His shoulders straightened and a hard determination conquered his eyes, chasing away the earlier sadness. He worked like a battle-seasoned doctor, none of his usual shyness to be seen, checking Uncle Red’s pulse and then his temperature and breathing. But Bastian’s hands paused when he examined the red, spidery marks that snaked along Uncle Red’s chest.
“Is he going to be all right?” Zara said, hovering beside the bed.
“He needs rest and plenty of fluids.” Bastian�
��s fingers fanned across the marks. “These burns should fade after a few days, too. How did he get injured again? An electric shock?”
Zara nodded.
“I’ve only seen these burns once before, at Opa’s clinic, when a little girl was struck by lightning. They’re called Lichtenberg figures.”
“I — I don’t know how he got those. Maybe he went outside last night. There was that storm, remember?” Zara’s mind flooded with images of the ball of lightning sizzling on her hands, making her dizzy, making her clamp her eyes shut. She wouldn’t have another episode. She wouldn’t hurt her uncle again.
“It’s all right,” Bastian said, walking over to her side of the bed. “You’ve had a long night. Can you —”
“I did this to him,” Zara blurted out. She wished she could fold up the memories of last night and toss them into a fire, but she couldn’t. “I never meant to hurt him.”
“What do you mean?” His voice was calm, and because of that the story tumbled out of Zara’s lips.
She told him everything: about her fight with her uncle, about the strange bolts of lightning that had formed in her hands. With every word that she spoke, she waited for Bastian to flinch and back away, but he only stood there, listening.
“So you’re a Dual Anomaly?” he said, looking a bit awed.
Hearing Bastian say those words — Dual Anomaly — finally cemented for Zara what she was. A part of her thrilled at this realization: There were only a handful of Dual Anomalies in the world, after all, but the rest of her quivered at the revelation. She never thought that she could have a second power, much less one as destructive as conjuring lightning. Her first ability usually felt so freeing — flying over the fields, feeling the breeze nibble against her skin — but this new one only reminded her of heat and fury, stinging in her bloodstream to be let out.
“Have you had another incident since last night?” said Bastian.
“No. Nothing.”
They stared at each other, thinking the unspoken. How Zara’s secret was now twice as deadly — and twice as likely to anger the Nazis if they found out a Mischling was a Dual Anomaly.
“I don’t know what to do. Wind I could handle. But lightning …”
“Don’t worry,” Bastian said, his eyes bright as gold. “I think I have an idea.”
At Bastian’s insistence, they headed back to the barn, even though Zara didn’t want to leave her uncle’s side just yet. But Bastian wouldn’t take no for an answer. Once they entered the musty old building, he shut the doors behind them, although shafts of sunlight filtered through the gaps of the wooden slats. The earthy smell of hay filled both of their noses, followed by the sharp scent of gasoline. A tired Chevy truck sat in one corner, left over from Zara’s grandfather and now used for scrap.
“What’s this all about?” Zara said. The two-story barn towered above both her and Bastian, and her question bounced from wall to wall.
“I thought you could try to summon your second power.”
Fear pricked along the back of her neck. “You saw what happened to my uncle.”
“I can sit in that old car. If the lightning gets close to me, I should be safe.”
“Should be safe? What if I set the whole barn on fire?”
“I can’t think of anywhere else we can go, not if we want to hide from the Nazis. We’ll be fine.” He flashed her a grin, the type of grin that lit up his entire face, making him look even more handsome than he did at the academy.
Zara’s gaze plunged to her shoes. She couldn’t think such a thing, not with her uncle lying sick in bed — because of her and her new power. And when did she start thinking Bastian was handsome? She had to stop those thoughts at once. Bastian may not be a Nazi, but he was still German. Besides, he would never, ever think the same thing about someone like her.
But then she thought about last night, how Bastian had helped her home. His arm had pulled her close to him, lingering there even when she could limp on her own. And hadn’t he told her that he admired her?
You’re being ridiculous, Zara thought. She needed to concentrate on controlling her new power and helping her uncle get better.
Bastian hopped into the ancient truck and tucked his backpack by his feet. “You can start whenever you’re ready.”
“What exactly am I supposed to do?” Zara said.
“How do you summon the wind? Try that with the lightning.”
Easier said than done, Zara thought. Both Bastian and Uncle Red kept telling her to control this new ability of hers, but they had no idea exactly how she was supposed to do that. But she had to try for her uncle’s sake.
She released a long breath and stared at her hands, at the spot on her palms where the lightning had formed the night before. Silently, she called for a bolt of electricity, like she always did with the wind.
Nothing.
Zara tried again, then again and another half-dozen times, but she only managed to make her hands boiling hot. After the eighth attempt, she was tempted to kick over an empty milk pail, frustrated at what she was doing wrong. The air had always been easy to manipulate, even when she first manifested. It had heeded her call even when she was seven years old, so eager to please her; but this lightning was another thing entirely. Headstrong. Pigheaded. It may have poured out of her hands the night before, but now she couldn’t muster a thing.
“You have to be patient, that’s all,” Bastian called out.
“I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. It’s being so … stubborn.” Discouraged, Zara squeezed her hands closed, not meeting Bastian’s gaze. He probably thought he was wasting his time with her. “I’m sorry. You probably want to go home and see your mom, don’t you?”
“I’ll see her later tonight. I don’t mind staying.” His shyness had crept back in, pulling his shoulders forward. “Unless you’d rather try this alone?”
“No, it’s not that. I only figured you’d be bored.”
“Bored? You’re a Dual Anomaly, Zara. I’m not bored in the least.”
He had said her name again. Not girl. Not Mischling. Just Zara. A slight smile tugged at her mouth.
“I might have an idea,” Bastian said. “Have you tried harnessing a spark of electricity rather than a bolt of lightning?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, a spark would be easier to create than a full-grown lightning bolt, wouldn’t it? Perhaps you should start small, then build up from there.”
Zara rolled the idea through her head. Bastian had a point. When she conjured the wind, she usually did what he had said — starting with a breeze and strengthening it until it formed a tornado or a gust of wind.
“I could be off base,” Bastian admitted.
“Actually, I think you might be onto something.”
That smile of his returned. “Should we give it a try, then?”
While Bastian climbed back into the rusted truck, Zara studied her hands. Immediately, a breeze picked up around her wrists, eager to follow her orders, but she brushed it off.
Charge, she thought.
Nothing again.
Lips pursed, she focused on the air resting along the skin of her palms. She only needed a spark. That was it. A tiny burst of light.
Charge.
There. A tug at her palm. She urged the air to charge up like a battery, begging for it until her temples ached. A circle of heat fanned over her hand.
Then she felt it. A hum — a seed — of lightning. A tiny ball of particles, burning for release. With everything she had, Zara drew the seed toward her.
Charge!
Zara’s lips parted at what she saw. There it was: a pebble of light bouncing on her hand.
“Bastian!” she gasped.
“I see it!” he said. “Can you try to make it larger?”
Could she?
Zara refocused on her palm. Multiply, she thought, concentrating every one of her cells on this lone command. The seed quivered as its white-hot tentacles stretched farther. Excitement
threaded through Zara’s veins, the same feeling she felt when she first summoned a gust of wind.
The lightning dwindled to nothing, but Zara didn’t care. She laughed, almost giddy.
“That was excellent!” Bastian leapt out of the cab and reached her in four easy strides. He threw an arm around her shoulders. “You’ll be conjuring lightning within a week. I’m sure of it.”
“You helped, too.” Zara grinned. “A little bit.”
“Oh, only a little?” He grinned back.
His arm remained around her, and Zara’s nose filled with the scents of him: soap and sage. She stepped back, scolding herself again for her silly thoughts, and Bastian’s arm swiftly dropped against his side. He fidgeted with the end of his tie, as if he was embarrassed about something, but Zara didn’t know why. She was the one who should be embarrassed.
“Should we try it again?” she said, trying to break the tension.
He glanced at his leather watch and mumbled a quiet “Scheiße.” “I can’t — I have to get going. I told my mother that I’d watch one of her shows with her after the news.”
Zara stilled. The news. Suddenly, it dawned on her: the evening news!
The first Alliance attack, on Camp Hammerstein. It was happening right now. She had forgotten all about it between her new ability, her uncle’s injuries, and Bastian discovering her powers.
“Is something wrong?” Bastian said.
Zara paused. She still hadn’t completely revealed her ties to the Alliance to Bastian. If she told him about the attack, then she would expose herself — and Uncle Red. Her uncle’s caution flared through her one more time, tightening each breath, but she nudged it aside. She trusted Bastian; she was ready to admit that now. He had saved her from the soldiers last night, and he had kept her power a secret from his father. Plus, he was here with her now, helping her harness this new ability of hers. If she couldn’t trust Bastian, then whom could she trust?
She had made her choice. “We have to find a television. Right now,” she said urgently.
“A television? Why?”
“There’s something we have to watch.”
The Only Thing to Fear Page 13