He returns with the terrarium and the process starts again. This time it only takes Elliott a few minutes to get his hands blue and zap the cricket. We sit back and watch. Elliott smiles broadly, enjoying this, maybe a bit too much. He’s beginning to scare me. The cricket stands there. Elliott leans in closer. Then it happens.
The small chirping sound echoes louder and louder until it reaches an intense screech. The terrarium shatters and I’m hurtled into the air. My ears throb as I fly across the room, and I only have a second to brace myself before I crash hard into a wall. An excruciating pain pounds through my ears and skull. I feel something wet stream down my face and wipe my lip. Blood stains my hand. A fuzzy outline of Elliott moves his lips and I realize I can’t hear anything he says. His head is bleeding. His steps over to the table and squashes the cricket. I can’t hear him, but I can tell he’s screaming in agony. He stumbles around, rubbing his ears frantically and accidentally kicks over the box. A pile of dead crickets falls onto the coffee table. I shut my eyes.
There’s a tap on my shoulder and I look up to see Elliott standing over me. His mouth keeps moving, but I can’t understand him. I shake my head and point at my ears. He slows his mouth down, and I try to read his lips.
“Silencer,” he says.
A type of Unsound, Silencers can generate such loud sound waves that they destroy any nearby matter. We were lucky; if the ability had developed any further, we could be dead. Wish I had stopped Elliott’s experiments when I had a chance.
He slumps down next to me, crying. I’m not sure if I’ll ever hear again. My ears still buzz. I point to the pile of crickets on the table, and he understands what I want him to do. He heads over to the pile to clean it up.
The front door opens. It’s his grandmother, back early from grocery shopping. Her jaw drops and she almost drops her bags. Setting them down quickly, she rushes over to Elliott to see if he’s all right before noticing me on the ground. She talks fast with a panicked expression, but I can’t understand anything she says.
She reaches for a phone and Elliott snatches it from her hand. They wrestle over it, and then she stops. From her reactions, I imagine he’s explaining his ability and what happened. His grandmother plops down on a sitting chair. She stares at me, as if hoping for an answer.
I tell her, “You can’t let them know about his power.” Or at least I think I do. I still can’t hear myself.
***
Once she gets over the shock, Elliott’s grandmother turns her attention towards me. She prepares a bath to steady my nerves and I think the steam helps soothe my ears too. It takes a couple of hours, but my hearing slowly returns. I’m now able to understand most of what Elliott says. Given time, I’m guessing my hearing will come back.
Even after the bath, I’m still shaky as I sit down to have dinner with them.
“That was really stupid,” she says. “You might have been killed. What went through your heads to come up with a plan like that?”
I find it hard to defend myself, but I explain, like most idiots, how it didn’t seem like such a bad plan at the time. You don’t think of how dangerous abilities can be, even in such small animals. And we didn’t have much choice, since we didn’t want anyone to know about Elliott’s powers.
“Animals are risky. Who knows what they will do? Humans are more predictable,” she says.
“I can’t go zapping people,” Elliott says. “I was just trying to sort out my power.”
“And have you gotten it sorted out?” his grandmother asks.
“I think so, pretty much,” Elliott says. “At least a good start.”
“Good to hear. I’d rather not come home to blood-stained guests and piles of insect carcasses every day.”She grabs a spoonful of mashed potatoes. “First you storm out of a restaurant, than you shatter glass in her face. You really need to learn how to date properly.”
Everyone laughs. The conversation pauses as we dig into the food, decompressing from the stress of the evening.
His grandmother breaks the silence. “It’s an amazing gift, Elliott.”
He perks up. “Gift? Grandma, it’s dangerous. You saw what happened.”
“Nothing good can come without a little bad,” she says. “Think of what you could do with that power.”
Elliott snorts. “Be wanted by the government?”
“No, you could help people. People like me,” she says as she stuffs some mashed potatoes in her mouth.
Elliott drops his fork. “Grandma. I’m not going to zap you.”
She raises her eyebrows. “What makes you think I was asking?”
“Because I know that look.”
“Well, eventually you will want to find out what happens when you zap a person, right?”
I’m shocked. Apparently, Elliott didn’t tell her about me. I’m happy he kept my secret though.
“I’m not going to experiment on my grandmother,” Elliott says. “In fact, I’m not going to use my powers again, ever.”
His grandmother takes his hand. “You can’t say that, Elliott. How can you know?”
“Because I can choose. And there’s no reason anyone needs to find out,” he says and looks over at me. “Rose, I think your parents might start getting worried.’
He gestures at the clock. It’s 8:30 p.m. Yikes. I only have 30 minutes to get home before curfew. Elliott kisses his grandmother on the cheek as we leave his house and head towards the car. It’s been quite a day, but if anything came from it, it’s that Elliott now has a foundation on the capability of his powers.
I try to start conversations. He keeps giving short responses that end them. I reach over to touch his hand on the steering wheel. He snaps it back.
“Sorry, sorry,” he says. “It’s just, I—I—”
His voice trembles and he keeps staring straight ahead.
“I forgive you,” I say. “You didn’t know the cricket would do that.”
A tear goes down his cheek. “It’s not that. I mean thank you, but—”
“Elliott. What’s wrong?”
“I’m terrified, Rose,” he says.
“You can keep your power a secret. I think that’s a good plan. No one ever needs to find out.”
“No, you don’t understand.” His voice quivers. “W-when I- I-when I took the crickets to the other room I—”
He stops. I wait for him to continue.
He starts sniffling. “Sorry. It’s just—you don’t know what I did to get rid of those crickets.”
His expression tells me I didn’t want to know.
His face shakes violently. “I zapped them. I zapped them again and they died.”
A wave of emotions comes over me and my mind starts racing.
“So if I lose my temper around you, Rose, I could kill you. I could kill everyone.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Mom keeps asking me how my “date” with Elliott went. Beyond the fact that I can’t talk about our powers, I would feel horrible shattering her illusion. Her wide-eyed face when she asks makes me think she’s conjuring up some picturesque romp through the daffodils, followed by a sunset horseback ride. I’m not sure what she imagines, but I doubt it’s a mound of dead crickets and my ears being blasted to smithereens.
My hearing hasn’t returned to 100%, but based on what I can research on my phone, I shouldn’t worry yet. I hope I won’t need to get my ears checked. It would be hard to explain how they got injured.
I sit in class, prepared for another dull day of test preparation. I’ve already convinced myself that I won’t do well enough on the SKT to get into Orbison University. They have an amazing botany program, but demand scores that fall within the top 10%.
We work on a series of math problems, which Aaron breezes through like a champ. I really wonder why I’m friends with him. I seek consolation from Lillia beside me, but she smokes through the problems almost as fast as he does. I’m happy for her, but it’s not the ego boost I wanted.
When Miss Laura’s not look
ing, I reach into my pocket and sneak a glance at my phone, as I’ve done this past week daily. There’s a brief message from Elliott, as usual. His quick messages do little more than let me know he’s alive. I’d push back for more communication, but my mind keeps replaying that ride home. His terrified expression remains imprinted on my brain.
As I feared, I receive nothing from Jex. It’s been a few days now. Aaron thinks I should wait for him to contact me, and that he’ll let me know when he has something interesting. But the wait is driving me crazy.
Between Elliott’s dangerous powers, and my unregistered one, I’m starting to get the feeling that the world is closing in around me. The government will mark us wanted for sure. And I’m not sure I can blame them. After witnessing firsthand what Elliott can do, I’m a little scared.
During our lunch break, a text jolts me to attention. Jex wants me to call him. Must have found something.
About time.
I rush outside and find a quiet spot on a bench. Jex answers the phone with a serious sounding voice. “I’ve been examining the pictures you sent me. It wasn’t much to go on. I was hoping for lists of Unsounds, but it was just people who were scrubbed. I tried going up and down and researching the names, trying to see if it leds me anywhere, but I seem to hit a brick wall every time.”
My heart sinks. I knew the lack of communication meant he hadn’t found anything.
“We’re going to have to try something else,” he says.
I’m about to hang up the phone in surrender, when I spy Shelly prancing towards the school parking lot.
“Did you say names put onto the scrubbed list?” I ask.
“Yes.”
I stand up. “Would one of those names happen to be Shelly Steele?”
“No. Not on here.”
“Can you do me a favor and look her up?”
“Ok, one second.”
I hear the sound of frantic typing on the other end. After a couple of minutes, Jex responds. “Maddock edited it. Just says confidential medical information. But of course, it says that for everyone.”
“But you’re telling me that Maddock entered that information?”
“Yes.”
I start pacing. Sometimes it helps me think. “What if I told you I know of a way to get into the department building?”
“I’m listening.”
“Maddock’s daughter, Shelly, got mysteriously scrubbed on Elevation Day. She’s convinced she’s perfectly healthy and doesn’t understand what happened.”
There is a silence on the other end. I hear Jex’s heavy breathing. “Too risky,” he says. “His daughter? You have to be crazy.”
“But she’s desperate to know the truth.” My fingers grip the phone tightly.
“I can’t let you do it, Rose,” he says. “You could jeopardize everything. One slip up, that’s all it takes. And you, and me, and Elliott, we’ll all be goners.”
Shelly stands at the edge of the curb, arms crossed, waiting for her ride.
“You’re right,” I say. “It’s too dangerous. Forget I mentioned it.”
I finish my conversation, hang up, and plop back down on the bench. My face falls into my hands and I press my feet against the concrete. Shelly sits waiting, her blond hair fluttering in the breeze. She scans the horizon, trying to catch a glimpse of her ride. Then she checks her phone and turns in my direction. Even from here, I can see the despair on her face. Like a reckless idiot, I rise and march over towards her, stomping the grass under my feet.
She looks surprised to see me. “Yes, Rose?”
“What if I told you that I know a way to find out why you were scrubbed?” I blurt out. It’s the only way to ensure that I don’t change my mind.
Her eyes widen. “Tell me.”
“Your father changed your entry, like he changed my dad’s.”
I explain to her what Jex discovered, and how I’m sure there’s more to my dad’s situation. Shelly stands there, soaking in every word. I’m at the point where I’m going to ask for her help. She cuts me off before I even have a chance.
“So I’m guessing you need access to dad’s office?” she asks.
I nod. “Think you can do it?”
“Absolutely, my dad can get me in the building, no prob. I’ll say I gotta get in for a school report or something. He’d believe anything.,” she says. “But we need to time it when he’s out investigating something.”
“I think that can be arranged. Just let me know when you’re set,” I say, turning to leave before she stops me.
“Rose, can I ask you something?”
I tilt my head.
She appears perplexed. “Why do you trust me?”
I step back. “Because we want the same thing, Shelly. The truth.”
She takes my hand and smiles. “Thank you.”
There’s a honk in the parking lot behind us. Shelly waves at her ride and walks away. As she drives off, I rest my head on my folded hands. A sinking feeling surges through my stomach. My dad always told me the truth was power, and now I understand. Shelly has the power to go straight to her dad and hold my friends and me liable for planning to break into a government office. My hands drop to my sides with loud slap. I am far too trusting. With the type of life I have in store for me, I can’t afford to be so naïve anymore.
***
Aaron stands gaping as I tell him about my plans with Shelly. He’s speechless, which is never a good sign.
“And Jex doesn’t know?” he asks in a confronting tone.
I shake my head. “She doesn’t know about Jex either. Thinks this is between you, me, and Zach.”
“And why did you need to drag me into this?” he asks, glaring at me.
“I didn’t think she would believe I did it all myself.”
He sighs and sits down on a bench. He taps his fingers and looks around, breathing hard.
I sit next to him and put my hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
He withdraws. “You had no right. No right to tell her. What if she went straight to her dad? Stupid, stupid move, Rose!”
He stands up and paces back and forth. His pained expression tears me apart. My gaze wanders to the daisies that I often watch through the classroom window. They peacefully sway in the breeze. A tear runs down my face.
Aaron keeps walking back and forth, fists clenched at his side. All I hear are his rapid breaths and his pounding footsteps on the concrete. He paces for a few minutes before plopping down on the bench. He glares at me, lips pressed together firmly.
“It’s done,” he says. “Can’t change it now.”
“I’m sorr—”
He raises a hand to silence me. “It’s done!”
We sit there for a moment, and I listen to the daises rustling in the wind. In the distance, Zach approaches us. He steps with his usual grace and practically floats along the path.
“Why hello,” he says.
I flash him a smile.
“What’s the matter?”
Aaron points accusingly at me. “Rose made plans with Shelly to break into her dad’s place.”
“Really?” Zach says. Then he nods. “Logical.”
Aaron jolts to life. “What?”
“She has access to the treatment center through her father, I imagine,” Zach says calmly.
“Her father, the head of GEMO Control,” Aaron says, emphasizing the word ‘control’ as if describing the grim reaper.
Zach raises his hand to calm Aaron. “She was troubled by being scrubbed. She’ll be a good asset to the team.”
Aaron sighs. “First an Elevated, now the GEMO Controller’s daughter, what next?”
Zach smirks. “Perhaps we could toss in a mutant crab?”
Zach and I laugh while Aaron fumes. Eventually, we force a smile out of him.
***
“I still think this plan is crazy,” Aaron says as we drive into the GEMO Control and Regulation Center parking lot. “How are we supposed to separate ourselves from the tour
?”
“There’ll be an opening, a break or something,” I say.
Aaron groans. “Wish we could’ve gone in at night.”
“I already told you, it’s locked down. They’d track us down in seconds.” Shelly speaks up from the backseat. “A guided tour was all my dad could swing.”
“I suppose the worst case scenario is we get a first class look at how the government stalks everyone,” Aaron says with a sly grin.
“Guess you’d rather have Unsounds blasting your guts onto the road,” Shelly snapped back.
“How about we move the clock back to before GEMO anything?” Aaron asks.
“Good luck with that,” Shelly says.
We exit the car and head towards the building. It shines even brighter today without clouds to block the sunlight. Tall bushes meticulously cut into cubes provide the only shade from the hot sunrays reflecting down on us.
As if to compensate for the warm outside, the inside is the perfect temperature for preserving meat. The floor-to-ceiling windows provide a beautiful view of the nearby hillside and forest. Admiring the view, I notice a herd of deer run over the hill in a choreographed formation. Then flowers spring up rapidly, like in time-elapsed photography.
“Augmented windows,” Aaron says. “Nothing natural. Nothing untouched with these people.”
“Enhancing,” Shelly says.
The windows captivate me. The realism would be completely convincing if I didn’t realize the images were impossible. In the few minutes we wait in the reception area, the hillside shifts through the seasons and into different art styles. Some of the other people waiting with us to take the tour snap pictures. They ooh and ahh when sparkly white snow covers the hillside. Then it dissolves into an impressionist representation of the view just as our tour guide arrives.
“Good afternoon, everyone,” he says. His all white outfit is so well-tailored it’s like a second skin. “I’m sure you have all enjoyed our augmented windows. It’s always fun coming in and not knowing what the view will be like. One day, a few office pranksters decided it would be funny to alter the windows to show our cars in the parking lot being crushed.”
The tour guests snicker.
“Of course, we’ve found a more productive job for creative designers like that.” He leads us through the security doors and into the atrium.
Elevated (Book 1): Elevated Page 12