by Jeremy Scott
“Both of them,” his crackling voice replied. Everything about this man was old. His house, his face, and even his voice. I wondered if I might not even see dust come out of his mouth with every word if I hadn’t lost my ability to see as soon as we’d walked in the door. Yes, this was clearly the man we needed because he definitely had NPZ powers, and they were still functioning just fine—and finely tuned enough to encompass just the interior of the house and nothing else.
“You won’t help us?” I asked, sounding deflated.
“No. I can’t.”
“You can’t, or you won’t?” Henry had very little patience on an average day and even less in a crisis. He’d been brought along to talk to Mr. Charles for precisely that reason.
“Does it really matter?”
“Yes,” Henry shot back defiantly.
“Fine, then. Won’t.” Mr. Charles was a man who didn’t like to waste any words.
“Why not?” I asked, taking on more of Henry’s tone than I really intended to.
“I made an oath. I don’t expect you kids to understand. But I … have made decisions in my past that I’m not proud of.”
“We know all about that, old man. You killed Phillip’s grandfather, your partner, in cold blood. We got it. Whoop-dee-doo. We heard it in school, and then we got the unabridged version from Mr. Sallinger. So quit wasting our time.” Henry was on fire.
Mr. Charles seemed legitimately surprised, maybe even stunned, but only for a flash. “You may know the facts, young man, but God willing, you will never know the pain.”
“Pain?” Henry asked.
“The pain of living with your own selfish, evil choices. Now, leave me alone.”
I finally started to get it. “That’s why you live out here alone, and you never do anything or talk to anyone.” I felt James and Henry turn and look at me, no doubt anticipating my conclusion. “It’s your penance, isn’t it? This farm … this town … it’s like an extended prison to you, right? You’re just riding out the rest of your life trying not to do any more harm.”
I could tell he was nodding as he began to respond because his voice slowly raised and lowered through his first several words. “On the day I betrayed your grandfather, I felt instant regret for my actions. Split seconds after I’d completed them, I wanted to take them back, but I couldn’t. It was too late. After a lifetime as a hero, I’d cast myself in the history books as a villain forever. I used my powers to neutralize Artimus and threw him off the roof. I swore then and there that I would never use my powers again for evil or for good. And that, children, is why I can’t help you.”
“That’s a lie,” I said flatly. No raised voice, no outrage, just a calm statement of fact. “You want to know how I know that’s a lie, you old grump?! Because I lost my ability to see what Henry’s eyes can see the moment we walked inside your home, that’s how. You’re using your powers right now, you freaking liar. And what’s worse, you’re using them for self-preservation. You won’t lift a finger or use your powers to help this city or when we’re facing a fire-breathing monster in your cornfield, but you’ll do it to help keep yourself safe. Pathetic! So don’t give me any of this crap about vowing not to use your powers, because it’s bullshit!” I didn’t swear very often, and it was usually a sign of me losing control of my temper. “If you don’t want to help, if you’re too scared, then say you’re too scared. But don’t make yourself out to be all noble and holy, so guilt-ridden that you can’t bear to use your powers anymore,” I singsonged in sarcasm.
And that was the first glimmer of hope I’d had, because when I said this, he lowered his NPZ, and I was able to see again.
“Jesus,” Henry said under his breath, shaking his head and marveling at the old man’s stubbornness.
Mr. Charles obviously felt guilty, which is why he lowered the NPZ when I mentioned it. And I hoped that was the opening I needed.
“You know what I think, Mr. Charles? I think you’re just scared.”
He said nothing and resumed staring at the floor.
“I think you’re scared of everything anymore. Scared to be a good guy, scared to be a bad guy … just scared to have super powers in general. And you know what? Right here in front of you are three little kids, man. Three freaking twelve-year-old kids. You don’t think we’re scared? Scared to get hurt or die or fail? Because we are, mister. We are. But you don’t see that stopping us, do you?”
He looked up at me, which I took as a sign that maybe I was getting through to him. So I continued.
“There’s a very good chance we could all die tonight. But you know what? Some things are more important than life. And I think you’re going to learn that in a very real way if you choose not to help us and instead sit here inside your stuffy old farm house, too afraid to be a hero. You may still be alive, but you’ll never be free, and you know it.” I paused, getting ready to make my pitch. “Now, will you please help us?”
His eyes never wavered from mine, but he took several moments before answering. It appeared to me that he was on the fence about helping us, and maybe he just needed a little push. But he was very conflicted, it seemed.
He finally spoke, but I didn’t let him finish his first complete sentence. “I’m sorry, Phillip—”
“Come on, man, what the hell is the matter with you?! Do you want evil to win?” Henry was aghast.
“No.”
“Do you want my friends and me to die?”
“No,” he said, a little more emphatically than last time.
“What about my dad, the only guy in this whole freaking town that has shown you nothing but kindness and friendship, even though he’s the one guy in this town with a good reason to hate your freaking guts?”
“Your father is a saint and a friend.”
“Then get up off your ass and help him!” I screamed. Trying to change Mr. Charles’ mind was quickly beginning to resemble a typical argument with Patrick. I just couldn’t understand his logic.
“Do it for my mom,” I continued yelling, with a few tears beginning to spring forth, “who cooked you hot meals with her own two hands, invited you into our home, and treated you with grace and respect even though you deserve neither, and who’s now lying under a mound of dirt in the Freepoint Cemetery because of this man Finch.” I started to sob. “Do it for her!”
“I can’t!” he shouted back at me.
It was probably the most honest moment I’d ever witnessed. He obviously wasn’t saying he was incapable of helping physically. He was admitting he was too scared. Too immobilized by fear and years of regret.
I sighed. “James, hand me the picture.”
James reached into his backpack and handed the framed photograph to me, and I turned and plopped it on Mr. Charles’ lap. “Someone in this photograph has been terrorizing us—and me, personally—for the whole year, and now he’s killed or imprisoned nearly every other soul in Freepoint. Now, you may be a miserable, gutless jerk, but we’re going to go out there. I am going to go out there and face this man. And probably die. Since you’re the only person alive who ever knew him, maybe you can tell me something that might be useful to me, even if you won’t lift a finger to help yourself!”
He was looking over the photograph intently, memories rushing back.
“His name is Finch. He’s got a huge scar down the center of his face. That’s all we know. I can’t even tell you which guy in the picture he is.”
“Martin Finch?” he responded quizzically. After a pause to think, he answered. “Well, he’s a blocker, and well, yeah, this is a … a club, I guess, that we started in college.” His voice lowered as he added, “It became something much worse after that.”
“Was Finch the leader?”
He scoffed. “Are you kidding? That man is and forever will be a sniveling little mouse.”
“Are you saying this isn’t the birth of the Believers?” Henry asked, joining the questioning now that the man was opening up a bit.
“No,” he said flatl
y. “Not really. We were just college kids playing around. We took the photo at a party after a little too much wine and philosophy, and that was it, as far as I remember.”
“Well, then, Finch must have been the one who turned it into an honest-to-goodness evil cult,” I concluded.
“I have no idea,” Mr. Charles said. “I never saw him much after that second year of school.”
My shoulders sagged and I sighed. With my final attempt to gain some advantage over the enemy, we’d hit another brick wall.
“But I doubt the man you’ve been dealing with is Finch,” he added as an afterthought.
“What makes you say that?”
“Because Finch is dead. Has been for a dozen years or more. In fact, everyone in this photograph is dead except for me.”
He suddenly tore into the frame and pulled out the photograph, bringing it close to his face and tilting it sideways. Then, without warning, he abruptly ripped a three-inch tear in the photo, again pulling it close to his face for examination.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said as realization dawned upon him.
Chapter 30: Reunion
“Now!” I shouted, praying with all my might that Mr. Charles could hear me from his position.
And thankfully, he could. About one second after I yelled, Mr. Charles slipped from the tree line along the east edge of the school property and turned on his NPZ.
Now, what I didn’t know from the textbooks and legends was that Luther Charles had one of the most powerful and flexible NPZ abilities in the entire world. Much like Finch—or the man who called himself Finch—Mr. Charles could create an NPZ of any size and place it where he wanted with pinpoint accuracy.
Thankfully, my voice carried, and Charles came through. As planned, his NPZ covered Finch and all his men, but not Henry or me. As you might guess, this pretty much instantly changed the balance of power in our direction.
Behind Finch, nearly four dozen men suddenly appeared. They’d been there all along but were finally visible to our eyes thanks to the NPZ.
Before I could speak, Luther Charles decided to say his piece.
“I knew it was you,” he shouted, still roughly a hundred feet away from us. “As soon as he showed me that damn photograph, I knew it couldn’t be anyone else.”
“Luther?” Finch asked, sounding cautious. “Luther, is that you?”
“Yes, Thomas. It’s me.”
There was clearly a history involved, though I was just doing my best to keep up with all the new information flying at me in rapid succession.
“I … I—” Finch stammered. He’d gone so long being known as ‘Finch’ that my brain didn’t yet know how to refer to him in any other way. “I didn’t know you were still around. I assumed you withered away and died off like the rest of them.”
“It has been a while since my last Christmas card,” Mr. Charles said sarcastically.
And that barb of sarcasm seemed to jog Finch from his surprised stupor, and he came back with a jab of his own. “Back to finish the job, then, eh? Fifty years later?”
“I was wrong, Thomas. I should never have tried to hurt you. I should never have betrayed you,” he said, sounding sincere.
And it hit me like a ton of bricks. “Thomas … Sallinger?” My mouth blurted out the words before my brain could stop it.
My grandfather turned suddenly, as though he’d forgotten I was even there. But Mr. Charles beat him to the explanation.
“I’m sorry, Phillip,” he called. “This piece of filth is your grandfather, and he’s a real son of a bitch. I couldn’t risk telling you, or you would have been too distracted to fulfill your portion of the plan.”
“Phillip.” It was Finch—my grandfather, Thomas Sallinger—speaking now, trying his best to sound grandfatherly. “Phillip, my boy. Now do you see why you’re so important to me?”
“I thought it was about my supposed powers,” I argued, not ready to believe everything I was seeing and hearing. “Not a chance to reconnect with your long lost grandson. You want my power for the same reason you want everyone else’s powers: you’re useless without them.”
“But I know you, Phillip. We are of the same blood, and even in just our short time together, I can see so much of myself in you … of your father in you. It’s why I know for certain that I’m right about your abilities … because … we’re family.”
“Leave the boy alone, Thomas,” came Luther’s voice. “You’re finished. Whatever little fantasy you’ve been planning, it’s over. You know I’m not going to let you out of my zone.”
“Well, Luther, you’re definitely the man you always were. So quick to rush into battle that you don’t really think through things too well. You see … here I stand, with fifty of my most gifted Believers … and while you may have me in a no power zone … you’re all the way over there.” He paused and smiled, shooting his eyes right at me. “And we have guns.”
The next few seconds happened quickly, and I relied heavily on instinct.
Finch’s men drew firearms, and though I don’t read minds, it was clear that they all intended to fire on and injure Henry and me. I also instinctively knew in that moment that Mr. Charles couldn’t help. Even if he stood right next to us, he was a frail old man whose power was already being used to its highest effectiveness. Guns aren’t affected by NPZs. It took about a nanosecond for me to do the math and realize we were going to die, and then something happened.
A switch somewhere in my head flipped, and I somehow skipped ahead a few years in the development of my powers. Instantly I knew—I just knew it to the very core of my being—that I could stop them and could control their weapons with my powers. Never mind that I had never come close to that kind of telekinetic strength at any time over the previous year. Never mind that I had never even controlled multiple items at once before. I just knew it, and I may never be able to explain how.
I raised my right arm, hand outstretched toward Finch and his men. I probably didn’t need the hand—I learned not long after this incident that my powers are 100 percent mentally controlled. Holding out my hand toward an object I want to control just looks cooler, I guess, because I still do it to this day.
With my mind, without moving a muscle, I took control of every single gun—all fifty of them, one from each of the henchmen. My eyes closed, I suspended them all in the air and turned them one by one to face their owners—it was like synchronized swimming, an operatic ballet of coordinated dancing guns. After holding a gun in each man’s face long enough to feel sure they were sufficiently scared, I brushed my arm from left to right toward the school, and every gun but one soared over the school’s roof and flew hundreds of yards beyond where the goons stood. It took very little effort on my part.
I zipped the final gun over to Finch’s location, leaving it hanging there six inches from his face. I jutted my left arm out low and slowly raised it. As I did, Finch and all his henchmen were slowly lifted off the ground about a foot each.
I had just disarmed fifty Believers of their guns, gotten rid of the weapons, and lifted every opponent into the air in a suspended physical prison, all without breaking a sweat. It was easy, in fact. Child’s play. If I hadn’t been so high on adrenaline, I would have been impressed with myself.
Something about the prospect of imminent death had awoken a deeper level to my powers than I had ever suspected existed. Something had changed in me, and I could feel an increased strength in my abilities. It was as though my abilities had matured years in the span of a few minutes.
My grandfather noticed and began to laugh as he dangled there just above the charred grass. A few staccato chuckles quickly turned into a more sustained belly laugh.
“Look at you, son,” he said, holding out his finger to point at me. “Look how powerful you are!” he said in wonder. “I told you there was more to you than you thought there was. You just disarmed my entire army with a casual gesture. Do you realize what that means?”
I had to admit he had a point.
With only the faintest of effort, I’d wiped out a fifty-man threat. I barely even had to concentrate.
“It means he’s a telekinetic, Thomas. Stop feeding the boy lies. He’s not your man.”
Thomas raised an eyebrow at that and turned toward his old friend. “You know about the prophecy?”
Mr. Charles just nodded. “It’s not him. It’s not Phillip, I promise. Is that why you’re messing with this kid? Jeez, I thought it was because he was your grandson. I should have known there’d have to be a more selfish reason. You think this boy is Elben?!”
“I know he is,” Finch said, seething. “There’s no doubt in my mind at all. It’s kismet … fate … predestination.”
“Let me save you the trouble,” Mr. Charles said. “If that’s what you think, this is going to end badly.”
“Oh, I’m counting on it, Luther. I’m counting on it.”
***
The “Chelsey” plan wasn’t the only lie we told Chad. We pretty much decided we couldn’t trust him at all since we figured Finch was listening in on everything, and so every branch of our plan had some element of fiction in it.
Such as Bentley’s capture … which had never really happened at all.
In a performance deserving of multiple Academy Award nominations, Bentley, Freddie, James, and my kid brother Patrick had put on a spontaneous old-time radio show for the ages, complete with sound effects, gunfire, and deeper voices. The whole thing was a ruse, all for Chad’s benefit.
So while Finch was led to believe they’d been captured, they were instead carrying on with their secondary mission to rescue the other Freepoint prisoners.
That didn’t mean their job was easy.
The prisoners were being held by two of Finch’s henchmen in the school’s basement—where the detention hall was located. The detention hall was in the very center of the basement floor plan, with a hallway all the way around it and smaller classrooms and closets along the outside. Having been built to corral adolescents with super powers, it was no ordinary classroom area. The outer walls were reinforced steel, and when all the thick plexiglass detention doors were shut, it was more secure than most state prison facilities.