“For thousands of years?” I finished for him, incredulous. “Wow… you are freaky old! How have you not found the stone yet?”
He narrowed his eyes, looking irritated again, but not necessarily at me. “I need to be within one kilometer of the stone to feel my powers returning. I can assure you I have searched every inch of dry land on the entire planet. I have searched a fair amount of the ocean floor as well. And still nothing.”
“Whoa. That’s crazy. Do you think the thief still has it?”
“I have searched diligently for her, I assure you, but have not found a trace. I realized over the centuries that I could search so much more effectively if I had another Starling to help. Cover so much more ground at once. That’s why I waited so anxiously for the meteor shower.”
“So, you knew the comet was going to drop meteorites right here near Tucson?”
“Yes,” he replied. “You see, the comet….” He paused. “Wait. You said meteorites? Plural? More than one meteorite landed here?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I think there were actually three.”
“What?” His eyes widened. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Well, I didn’t think you—”
“—Take me there!” he demanded.
“What?”
“Take me to the impact site! Where you found your stone!” He was nearly shouting, looking overanxious.
“I don’t understand. What’s the big deal?” It was just a small hole in the ground. Why would he be so interested in that?
“Just take me! I’ll explain more when we get there.”
I was taken aback by how adamant he was. “Fine…”
The next ten minutes were too awkward to describe. Flying became weird when you had to carry another guy with you. I had to pick him up like I would a girl, and… needless to say, we flew out of the city to Red Knoll, the cactus-littered wilderness where my friends and I almost got hit by a meteorite, and where I found my red Star Stone. I flew Mark to the crater next to where we had the bon fire, happy to drop him off.
He looked at the crater, and back at me. “This is where you found the Draco stone?”
I nodded. That was a little over a week ago. It was amazing how much my life could change over the course of a single week.
“You said there were other meteorites?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I replied and pointed behind him. “One was over there. And then there was another one farther in the distance; I think it’s over there.”
“Take me to the closer one.”
I did so, reluctantly. We flew through the dark, looking carefully for a crater. It was interesting to note that Mark could see in the dark like me even without his stone. “There it is!” he shouted over the wind.
We lowered to the ground and observed the crater. It was a little smaller than the other crater, but it looked like it was hit by a similar meteorite. A blanket of black rocks covered the bottom of the hole in the ground.
Mark jumped in and dug frantically around the black rocks. He seemed anxious about something. “You think there’s another Star Stone here?” I asked him.
“There should be!” he snapped as he picked up a black rock and threw it in the distance, the same way an angry golfer would throw his defective club into a lake. “But it isn’t here! Why didn’t you tell me there were other meteorites nearby, Ray?”
“Seriously?” I said with my hands in my red hoodie’s pockets. “You’re blaming me? You never asked! Besides, I’d thought that the comet dropped off only one Star Stone.”
“No, it dropped off dozens.” Mark was still speaking through his teeth, obviously frustrated. “And there should be one in this crater. This crater is much too small to catch public attention. Do you know if anyone else knows about these craters?”
“No, just my friends that were with me that night,” I answered. “And they were all too chicken to go looking for any other meteorites. Besides them there was just…” My stomach sank. “Stoner,” I muttered.
“What?”
“Michael Stone,” I said. “And that crazy new girl, Angela, was with him that night. They were right around here when the meteor shower started.”
“Then,” Mark said as he finally stopped picking through the rocks and stood up, “one of them must have the Star Stone.”
That was a disturbing thought: Stoner having powers like me? Or even New Girl? She wanted to put up a fight with me last time we were here. Now, if she had powers like me, she’d be able to hold her own. Why did it have to be those two? Of all people! Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe a random Boy Scout troop hiked through here and found the glowing meteorite.
“Where is the third crater?” Mark asked.
I pointed to the south. “I’m not sure, but I think that’s where I heard it.”
He nodded. “Let’s go.”
I picked Mark up again and flew with him to the south. We scanned the area carefully, flying in circles several times. I wondered why Mark was so anxious to find these craters. If another Star Stone were inside, what could he do with it? He already had a stone of his own. Yes, it was lost, but it was still his.
“So, if I’m Draco,” I said while flying, “then who are you, Mark?”
“I am Polaris,” he replied as he continued to scan the desert floor for a third crater. “The North Star. The Pole God. Basically everything revolves around me.”
I chuckled out loud, thinking he was joking, but he was dead serious.
“I’m also Ursa Minor,” he continued. “The Little Dipper, as you know it, but it literally means little bear.”
“Little bear, huh? That’s lame. Why couldn’t you be the big bear?”
“Because someone else was Ursa Major.” My questions seemed to aggravate him. His focus was no longer on the ground, but on the dark horizon, as if he were lost in a memory. I imagined that if he were thousands of years old, it would take a while for him to recall the right memories.
“There it is!” I shouted over the wind. “The third crater!”
Mark snapped out of his daydream. “Hurry!”
We landed at the edge of the crater. Mark jumped out of my grasp and into the bottom of the crater. It was only four or five feet deep, about the size of the others. At the bottom rested another pile of black meteorites.
Mark dug through the rocks as fast as he could. I was about to jump in and help, but Mark held up his hand to stop me. “No!” he snapped. “I’ve got this!”
“Whatever,” I said, placing my hands on my hips.
The longer Mark searched, the more frantic he appeared, tossing rocks out of the crater with a fury. “No,” he muttered. “No, no, no… NO!!!” He screamed at the top of his lungs, and then he fell to his knees, looking defeated.
“Man,” I said sympathetically. “That’s how I felt when the Cardinals lost the super bowl.”
He ignored me. “It’s not here. The third Star Stone was taken!”
Chapter 24
Michael
I had a hard time paying attention during Mr. Gerald’s science class. All I could think about was last weekend when I’d saved Mary Sanchez. It seemed too surreal. Me? Saving people from gangsters? Getting shot and surviving? Blocking bullets with my bare hands? And now I was sitting in a classroom going over simple high school physics?
“Hey,” said a voice to my right. It was Angela, sitting in the desk next to me, the same desk where we’d first met. “Is this what you got for question five?” she showed me her paper.
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “I’m still on question two.”
She glanced at my paper, noticing all the doodles. She looked back at me. “Something on your mind?”
I rocked my head sideways. “Yeah… you could say that.” A part of me wanted to just spew out the truth to her, but I knew I had to keep my superpowers secret if I wanted to keep saving people.
We stared at a knot on the corner of my desk for a moment, silence between us. The room was moderately noisy. Most students wer
e working together on the in-class assignment Mr. Gerald had given us. “Has your dad come back yet?” I asked.
“He’s flying in today,” she said.
“Oh, that’s great.”
We both stared at the knot again for a while.
“Well,” Angela said with a smile. “Would you like some help with your assignment?”
“Uh…” I muttered, looking away from the knot and at her. “Yeah.” I turned the paper back over to the front. “Sure.”
“Alright.” She scooted closer to me. “What are you stuck on in question two?”
“I uh…” I was conscious of how close we were. “I still haven’t read the question yet.”
“Well, that’s a good place to start.”
Chase Whipple, the new soccer captain who sat in front of me, turned around. “Hey Michael,” he said. “Can’t wait to have you back on the team in a couple weeks, man.”
I nodded, returning my gaze to the knot on my desk. “Yeah, me neither.”
“Dude, have you seen this?” He showed Angela and me his phone. I froze.
It showed a news article that had a sketch of a guy dressed in jeans, a light jacket, and a motorcycle helmet covering his face. A few lines were drawn in behind the guy, making it look like he was running extremely fast. The title of the article said, Missing Girl Rescued by Superhero: Calls Himself Orion. There was a second picture in the corner of Mary Sanchez. I sunk down in my seat.
“Orion?” Angela mused. “Like the constellation?”
“Guess so,” Chase said. “The article is just an interview of the missing girl telling her experience. She said this guy could run faster than cars and stop bullets with his hands.”
“Wow, that’s crazy!” I said a little louder than I’d intended. I forced a laugh, but Chase and Angela just gave me funny looks. I stared back at the knot.
“Some think she was hallucinating,” Chase continued. “Some people think he’s Ray Simmons with a helmet on. But, do you want to know what I think?”
“Yeah,” Angela said, intrigued.
“I think there are multiple super humans.” Chase paused for a moment, as if waiting for objections, but none came. “Orion is one of them. And so is Ray Simmons. Well, maybe. I’m still not sure about him. But there are others.”
He swiped a few times on his phone and then showed it to us. It was another news article; this one had a picture of the sky with a fuzzy, dark dot in the middle. The title read: Flying Person, Multiple Eye Witnesses Claim.
Angela gasped when she saw it. “He can fly?”
“No,” I said flatly. “People can’t fly.” I was pretty sure about that. I’m a superhuman and I can’t fly.
Angela glared at me, as if I’d just claimed Santa Clause wasn’t real. But, then her expression slowly morphed from angry to suspicious. I subconsciously slid my hand into my pocket, feeling the blue stone there. Angela knew I had the stone. She knew something was very peculiar about it. She had already put the pieces together that Ray may have powers because he may also have a stone. I avoided eye contact with her, trying to look innocent.
“She is in California,” Chase explained. “Most eye witnesses thought she was a woman. And there’s more! A couple banks in Seattle have been robbed; the vaults appeared to be ripped open, and nobody knows how. And last week, a forest fire in Nevada suddenly stopped burning, the trees somehow drenched in water, and it hadn’t rained in months!”
Angela and I listened in silence, taking it all in. I couldn’t believe it. More super humans? More than Ray and I? Did they all have stones like me? Did the meteor shower reach all the way up to Seattle? Or were they mutants? Or aliens? Or maybe I was really the only super human and people were trying to make up stories, including Ray’s story.
I started when the bell rang, yanking me out of my stupor. Chase put his phone away and stood up. “It’s just a theory, though,” he said. “See ya.” He walked out of the classroom along with everyone else.
Angela and I were a little slower to leave. “So, what do you think about that?” Angela asked as she slid on her backpack.
“Huh?” I said. “Multiple super humans? I don’t know. Maybe they—”
“Not that,” she cut me off. “The Orion guy. Another super human right here in Tucson.”
“Yeah. Interesting. I better get to class.” I pulled my backpack on and scuttled out of the classroom, trying to distance myself from Angela, but she kept up with me.
“You want to know what I think?” she said sternly.
“Um…” I walked faster through the hallway.
“I think Orion is either Ray Simmons, or… someone else who touched a glowing meteorite.”
I stopped walking and looked back at her, my breath caught in my throat.
“Now let me think…” She looked me straight in the eyes. “Who else do I know who has touched a glowing meteorite?”
“Look, Angela,” I began. She folded her arms and leaned on one hip, narrowing her eyes. I gently placed my hands on her shoulders. “Believe me. I am not…”
“Michael!” It was Zack. “Michael, I've got to show you something!” He pulled me away from Angela. “Sorry, new girl! Michael and I need to have a cousin-to-cousin talk!”
I followed Zack, but looked back at Angela. She just frowned at me as I walked away. I wanted to console her, but knew that she would pry the truth out of me. She had basically figured it out on her own already. Maybe it would be okay for her to know the truth. She could keep a secret, right? Maybe, maybe not. I didn’t know what to do anymore! I felt so confused! I hate keeping secrets!
“There’s something crazy I’ve got to tell you, but first you gotta see this!” I hadn’t noticed that Zack was still talking to me until he showed me his phone. It was the news article about Orion that Chase had showed me and Angela earlier. “Look!” Zack said, trying to keep his voice down as we walked into the school plaza. “We’re famous!”
There was a light sprinkle of rain falling, so we headed to a corner under a tree. “I’ve seen it,” I stated.
He seemed a little stifled by my lack of enthusiasm. “Dude, this is awesome! You saved that girl! Imagine what we could do next, together! Team Orion fighting crime and saving the day!”
I shook my head somberly. “I can’t, Zack. My secret isn’t safe. I need to be more careful. Stop using my powers in public.”
Zack moaned. “Come on, man! Are we seriously going to go through this again?”
“No. Because it’s over. No more Team Orion.” A part of me really hurt as I said it. I wanted to use my powers to help people. But, right now… I felt so confused. Angela almost discovered the truth. Other people might make the connection between Orion and me. I could end up like Ray with the press always on my heels. And to learn that there might be more super humans out there was just mind boggling.
Zack glared at me. “I’m sick of this, Michael. I’m done motivating you. It’s because of people like you that corrupt politicians get elected and wars begin and never end. People who are good, but who are too afraid to stand up and do something good. People who have power, but don’t do anything with it.”
“Look, Zack. It’s not like that…”
“It’s exactly like that! And I’m through with it! Team Orion is over!” He tugged on his backpack and walked away.
I stood there, in the corner of the plaza, unsure of what to do, wishing I could just scream at the top of my lungs. Why did my life have to instantly become so much more complicated? Why did I touch that stupid stone?
I slunk into a nearby bench, watching the students walking through the sprinkle of rain. They meandered to the parking lots and bus stop, heading home now that school was over. I heard thunder in the distance, a storm was brewing.
Zack didn’t understand. He didn’t have to worry about keeping his identity a secret! He didn’t have to worry about keeping a never ending lie between his closest friends and family! He didn’t know what it was like to suddenly have powers and
be expected to save everyone! No one else understood that! Well, except for maybe…
“Hello, Stoner.” My heart skipped a beat. I turned and saw Ray Simmons sitting next to me on the bench. “Or should I say… Orion?”
Chapter 25
Ray
His look was priceless. Stoner always took things so seriously. That’s why he was so much fun to tease. But this time I wasn’t joking, and that made it even better.
Michael just stared at me, catatonic. I laughed, enjoying the moment. “That’s right, Stoner,” I said. “I know who you are. I know about the meteorite in your pocket. And I know that you’ve been having fun running around the city rescuing missing girls.”
His mouth hung open.
Last night, when I’d seen the news article of the superhero, Orion, I knew it had to be Stoner. Mark said that he wouldn’t teach me the Second Degree unless I brought Michael (unconscious and alive) and his stone to him. I didn’t understand why Mark wanted that, and he wouldn’t explain why, but I wasn’t about to turn down an opportunity to beat up good ol’ Michael Stone. Learning how to control my fire powers in the Second Degree was just a perk.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Ray.” Stoner stood up to leave, but I grabbed his arm.
“You’re like me, Stoner. We’re Starlings.” His eyes glazed over. I smirked. “Now you don’t know what I’m talking about.”
Stoner tried yanking his arm away, but my grip held firm. “Let go of my arm, Ray.”
“Not Ray anymore. Call me Draco.”
He looked at me for a while, registering what I’d said. Then, he pulled his arm free from my grip, and started to walk away. I shot up from the bench and stood in front of his path. “Going somewhere, Stoner?”
He tried walking by me, but I pushed him back. I could see a flare of hatred go off in his eyes. I laughed. I knew he wanted to fight, but didn’t want to do it here. He was still scared of revealing his identity as a super human. Still a wimp.
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