The Institute

by Kayla Howarth

  ***

  After what felt like an eternity of muscle workouts, leg pushes, biceps curls, and all of the other things the trainer was telling me to do, I’m sore all over. In reality, it was only about an hour and a half that he had me train for. You’d think all of that hard labour on the farm would’ve made me somewhat fit, but apparently not.

  We’re now sitting at lunch, and I can barely even lift my arms to bring the food to my mouth. I didn’t feel too bad after the post-class shower, but now it’s like my muscles are frozen. Chad sits across from me, smiling every time I wince taking a bite of my lunch.

  “Shut up.” It’s not the most intelligent of retorts, but it’s all I can think of right now.

  “I didn’t say anything.” He laughs, then leans across the table, and whispers. “It’s a good thing they don’t know what you can really do, isn’t it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, if they’re putting you through this level of difficulty of training with what they know, imagine how hard they’d be pushing you if they knew the truth.”

  It still kind of annoys me that Tate told Chad what I can do. I haven’t even had the chance to tell Shilah the truth yet. Tate said I can trust Chad, but I don’t know him well enough to.

  It’s not surprising I have trust issues after what happened with Drew. I guess I should feel the same way about Tate too, but strangely, I don’t. I already trust him completely, so I guess if he says I can trust Chad, then I should. That doesn’t mean I can’t still be wary of him though.

  “Hmm, good point,” I respond with a wry smile. “So you’re admitting it’s hard?”

  “Maybe a little bit,” he replies.

  He smiles again, and as he takes a sip of his drink, I have to remind myself that it’s not polite to stare, even if his smile really is captivating.

  Averting my eyes, I begin to wonder where the hell that thought came from.

  “You know, I can’t help but wonder why you just didn’t pull energy from our teacher.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask distractedly.

  “You really are new at this, aren’t you? Do you keep forgetting that you’re able to borrow from other people?”

  “Well, I guess I kind of do, yeah. How am I meant to know who has what ability, and how to use it? The only one that was triggered without touching was Tate. Well, that I know of anyway.”

  “I think we’re going to have to do some work on building your ability.”

  This confuses me. Build my ability? Why?

  “Why do you even care?” Wow, I didn’t mean for it to come out so harsh.

  “They don’t have you in ability training because you’re already powerful enough to them, and they don’t even know what you can really do. If you can get control over it, you’ll be able to protect yourself out there a lot better than any fitness training could.”

  He’s concerned for me, and I genuinely sense a need to protect me.

  “Tate won’t exactly forgive me if I let you get killed out there, will he?” Ah, not a sense to protect me, a sense to protect himself.

  If I’m sensing Chad’s feelings, that can only mean one thing: Drew’s near and I’m pulling energy from him without even trying. Maybe that’s what I need to do to trigger it—not think about it.

  Glancing around the room, I see Drew’s in line putting food on his plate. Just as I see this, I notice Shilah walk in through the entrance. He sees me too and starts walking towards me but stops at nearly every table to say hi to whoever’s sitting there.

  I watch him as he casually greets everyone. I didn’t realise my brother was so smooth. Could it be that being here at the Institute where Shilah can be himself, the only place he could ever be himself, makes him popular?

  Drew now sees me too and starts coming towards me. I should get up and go over to Shilah, drag him out of here so we can talk—or is that being overbearingly big sister of me again? I don’t want to be at this table by the time Drew reaches it. So when Chad asks if I want to practice before our next class, I don’t hesitate in agreeing.

  We both get up and head for the exit. I turn towards Shilah, standing in the middle of the group of tables. “I’m sorry,” I mouth and nod towards Drew. Shilah immediately understands why I’m leaving, nods once, and sits down with his friends.

  “We best use your apartment, mine’s really tiny,” Chad says as we get in the elevator.

  “It came true.” I just remembered my vision Shilah gave me and the three different possible futures.

  “What came true?” Chad asks.

  “It was a few days ago, my brother, who can see the future—I borrowed his ability, and there were three different outcomes. In one I was with you in my apartment, only I didn’t realise it was you until now. The other I was arguing with Drew, and the third I was talking with my brother in the cafeteria. I chose to come up here with you, so that’s it then, it came true.”

  “Really? Your brother can see the future? Isn’t that a little too voodoo-psychic-science-fiction?” he responds in a mocking tone.

  “Oh, but what you can do isn’t … actually, what can you do?”

  “You’ll see.” He smiles at me again, and it seems like we’re making our way to being friends.

  I could really do with a friend right now, but he needs to lighten up a little. Today hasn’t been too bad, but he’s still all about being angry at the world for being here. I don’t need to be dragged down into that kind of constant hatred right now. I’m halfway there already. We reach my apartment, and as we walk through the door, I ask, “So, how exactly are you going to show me how to control my ability?”

  “Easy, hit me.”

  “I’m sorry? I think I misheard you, you want me to hit you?”

  “Yup, go for it. Anywhere you want … but maybe not the face.”

  “Oh yes, can’t have me messing up all that prettiness,” I say sarcastically.

  “You really think I’m pretty?” he responds with a smirk. “Just hit me, and put some effort behind it,” he says, challenging me.

  “I still don’t understand how this will help me.”

  “Just do it, I can tell by the look on your face that you want to.”

  Well, that’s true. I’m still sore from fitness class, but I manage to lift my arm enough to punch him in the shoulder as hard as I can.

  He doesn’t even flinch.

  I, however, am holding my hand from the pain; it felt like I’d hit metal or rock. As soon as I try to rub the pain away, agony shoots into my wrist. The only thing making the pain ease is if I hold it tight.

  “Sorry, I didn’t think you’d try and hit me that hard on your first go. You’re feisty, aren’t you.” He grabs my hand, “Let’s have a look.” He runs his forefinger and thumb from the top of my wrist down to the tip of each of my fingers, and it’s suddenly not so painful anymore … that is until he stops and says, “You’re fine, do it again.”

  “Again? I’m not in enough pain for you yet?” I ask, looking up at him. He smiles in return. “You’re enjoying this aren’t you?”

  “No! Not at all.”

  I’d believe that more if he wasn’t being so sarcastic and laughing while he said it.

  “Okay, this time when you do it, focus on me, on what I can do.” He puts his hands on my shoulders. “You can do this, just picture your hand being protected.”

  I hit him again and this time, I see a blue spark between my hand and Chad’s shoulder. I don’t hit him as hard as the first time, and it doesn’t hurt as much, but it still stings a little when I connect.

  “That’s better, but you can still do more, concentrate harder.”

  Now I really do want to punch him. Focusing on my hand, on his shoulder, and on his ability to protect himself, I take a deep breath and swing. A bright blue force field protects my hand as I hit him. He still doesn’t flinch, but that’s because he has the exact same blue ring around his shoulder.

  “I did i
t!” I exclaim as I throw my arms around him.

  Oops. I immediately pull back. He runs his hand through his hair.

  There’s awkward silence until I look at the time. “I guess we’d better get back to class. What do we have this afternoon?”

  “Did you even bother to check your schedule? I have ability training, so I guess you have Self-Defence? You’ve already got a jump start on that now.”

  “Yeah, but how am I going to be able to use your ability when you aren’t there?”

  “Study the others, see if they have an ability you could use. Do you at least know where you’re going?”

  “Umm …”

  He sighs. “Come on, I’ll take you,” he says with a roll of his eyes.