Consequently
I planned on spending nearly every day of the
summer with Zach, and we were doing pretty well with that plan so far. It was early Mathis, and Zach was coming for supper. With my father.
Mom and I went to the market in the morning for the freshest ingredients, and then Dad helped us prepare the meal.
“Clara, honey? You and Emma go pick some flowers for the table, okay?” Mom asked.
Clara sighed, but followed me out anyway.
“Whose idea was this again?”
“Mine.” I looked over at her. “It’s sort of traditional to ‘meet the parents,’ Clara.”
“Mom’s being all , though! Everything has to be perfect.”
I laughed.
“Oh, just wait. One day, you’ll be in my spot.”
“No way! I’m going to hide him. He’ll be a secret!”
“Dad would find out.”
We knelt by the multitude of flowers.
“Ugh. He would,” she laughed. “I call r—”
“Roses!” I shouted, grinning at her. “They’re my favorite flower, Clara. You go for the tulips.”
She stuck her tongue out at me, but grinned back, and moved around closer to the tulips. I found the right spot on the rose bush and plucked the stem loose. A stinging, sharp pain shot through my palm.
“Ouch!” I exclaimed, dropping the rose.
Clara looked at me.
“Prick yourself?”
I looked down at my palm, seeing the scar look as if it were infected.
“Um, yeah. Guess I wasn’t paying enough attention. . .” I rubbed the heel of my other hand against the scar, trying to ease the pain. “The thorns are nasty this year.”
“That’s why I like tulips. No thorns for me!”
I laughed half-heartedly with her, and continued to get some roses. Each time I got one—or Clara got a tulip—my scars burned viciously. I was almost in tears by the time we were done, and so left Clara to put them in a vase. I hastened up the stairs to my bathroom and ran the scars under cold water. After a few minutes, the pain ceased enough that I was able to stop.
I took several deep breaths before attempting to do up my hair, but I still failed several times. Finally I gave in and put it up with Magic, changing into a dress, as well. The dress was light weight and violet-colored. Upon looking in the mirror, I realized the dress was in need of a long necklace.
By the time I’d finished all this, I had Zach’s voice sounding in my head.
Be there in thirty seconds.
I acknowledged the Path and hurried down the stairs, just in time to open the doors to Zach’s knock. My parents and Clara were right behind me.
“Hey,” Zach said aloud, as he Pathed, What’s wrong?
I restated the greeting before Pathing, I’ll tell you after dinner.
Zach shook my parents’ hands and dealt with Clara’s criticism. I aimed a kick at her, which landed. She crinkled her nose at me, but smiled nonetheless.
“Supper’s all ready, if you’re hungry now,” Mom said.
“Yeah, that’d be great. Thanks.”
Once we were all fed, we retired to the den for tea. Mom let Clara escape upstairs then, so it was just the four of us.
“You probably already know what I’m going to say. . .” Dad started.
“I do. Which is why I want you both to know that I’d break my own arm and pull out my own tongue before I ever hurt Emma.”
The sincerity rang clear, and my parents heard it. Mom smiled at him.
“We know. It’s perfectly clear in your eyes.”
“Still,” Dad started, “I wouldn’t be a dad if I didn’t tell you I’d kill you if you did.”
I smiled at him.
“You can trust him, Dad.”
He sat silent, his eyes trained on Zach’s face, and then he leant back.
“I know.”
****
I walked with Zach to the end of the driveway, so we were out of my parents’ eyesight and hearing range.
We sat on a bench, and I pulled my legs up under me. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Clara and I went out to get some fresh flowers
before you came, and when we were picking them. . . my scars felt like they were on fire.”
His brow furrowed and he took my hand in his.
“There’s always been a light throbbing, but now. . . it’s painful when something in nature is hurt near me.” “Because of them?”
I nodded, and Zach brushed his thumb over the scar. Peace wafted through me so suddenly that I gasped, and Zach tried removing his hand from mine. I locked our fingers together.
“No! Leave it!”
He cocked his head to the side in question.
“It was. . . There was peace. Like you. . . you were what it needed.”
“How?”
“The pain was still there. It wasn’t as bad as before, but when you touched it. . . the pain stopped completely.”
Zach focused back on the scar, gently brushing his thumb over it again.
“I’m here whenever you need me, Em.” He kissed my forehead. “I’ll stop the pain.”
****
I had dinner with his family a week later. He told
me later that his mother “absolutely loves me,” and that his father thinks I’m the best thing that ever happened to him. His older brother, Ian, reminded me of Thalia. He laughed a lot, teased Zach about having his first real girlfriend, but then became very serious and said he wanted me to stick around for a while. His sister, Adeline (who goes by “Addy”), on the other hand, said next to nothing. Zach told me that she was just shy, but that she likes me, too.
Everything was going perfectly, except with Jessica. She and Thalia think I’m crazy for caring about him so much, but I just say it’s real, what we have. It hurts me, though; Jessie’s my best friend, and she doesn’t like the man I’m giving my heart to. But I can’t give him up, not with how much I love him. Because I do, I do love Zach. More than anything.
Well, that was a Godsend
I spent almost every day of the summer with
Zach, but now— school. Back to lessons, back for the first time to where this all started. Back to curious stares, which were bound to be worse now that Zach and I are together. But I can do it, especially with him at my side.
****
I woke up early on the fourth of Duerre and
began getting ready for school. I dressed comfortably and placed a sweater in my bag in case it got too chilly out. Then, breathing deeply, I went and met Zach at the door, right at the strike of seven.
“Ready?” he asked, smiling at me when I opened the doors.
I shrugged.
“I don’t know. It’s going to be the first time I’ve seen everyone since.”
He reached out his hand and I put mine in his, immediately feeling more at ease.
“You’ll be fine. I’ll be right there the entire day.” This was very true—we’d gotten into all the same classes with our assessment scores. “No one’s gonna screw with you.”
I shut the door.
“People do peculiar things, though,” I said as we started walking. Zach leaned over and kissed my head.
“I won’t let them.”
****
We arrived at school nearly fifteen minutes
later and could already hear bustling voices. We simultaneously took a breath, and then continued walking. We stopped outside the front steps to avoid the horde of people moving into the school.
The memories overwhelmed me as my eyes fell on where I’d been. Feeling the scars come, the fear of what Lucas was going to do. . . Being hit. The first burst of the current. The pain.
“Hey.” Zach dropped my hand, moving to block my view and holding my face between his hands. “Don’t. You made it past that, and he’s gone. He’s not getting out of Bolenvare.”
“It’s just the memories,” I told him. “They’re more vivid than they
were before.”
He frowned, his eyes in pain.
“Not just being hit,” I said quickly. “That was where we first felt the current, too.”
He looked over his shoulder, staring at the spot for a short while.
“It’s not so stabbing anymore,” he stated. “It’s just. . . always present.”
I smiled at him, kissing his cheek.
“Thank you,” I told him. “For being there.”
“You really don’t have to thank me for that, Em.”
“Tough. Who knows where we’d be if you hadn’t. . .”
Zach’s eyes narrowed.
“You could’ve taken him out.”
“Or they would have. I’m starting to feel like they have a mind of their own. . .”
The crowd of people was thin enough now that we could go into the building, which we did with our fingers entwined. We ignored the stares we received from people and went to find an empty bench to sit on until school started. We came out into the courtyard, only to be stopped just outside the doors by my leastfavorite fellow students.
Evelyn Polk was standing there with her usual group of lackeys. She had her hands on her hips, a smirk on her face that told me to prepare myself. I shifted on my feet, already fed up with Evilyn.
“Seriously, Fitch?” she started. Her dull eyes flickered over to Zach. “I guess that’s one way to pay him back for fighting your battles for you.”
“I don’t care what you think, Polk. You need to grow up and stop going after me. You haven’t done anything except try and humiliate me ever since we were kids. It’s never going to work. I am with Zach, and I don’t care if every last person in the Galaxies disagrees.”
“C’mon, Em,” Zach said quietly, pulling me away to the right, away from her. “Just ignore her.”
“He’s fighting your battles for you again, Fitch!” she called.
Zach didn’t let me stop walking to yell at her, just pulled me away into an abandoned corridor near the outer edge of the school. The lone hole in the wall was arched and looked out at a field.
“Don’t let her get to you, Em.”
“She just so irritating. Why does everyone think us being together is the end of the world?”
He shrugged, shaking his head.
“I don’t know, but trust me, I’ve gotten plenty of questions about this, myself. I know it’s irritating, Em,” he said, taking my arms in his hands and holding my eyes, “but they don’t matter.”
“I know they don’t,” I mumbled.
“Em, you’re stronger than all of them. You’re— you’re like a lightning strike. You’re brilliant, and irreplaceable. People can’t help but be captivated by you, even though you’re dangerous. . . All they want to do is stare at you, but they’re afraid to get too close because you’re full of this electricity that they can’t figure out.”
He moved his hands to hold my face.
“But I’ve figured it out. You’ve struck through me like lightning, Em, and I love you.”
I stared at him, unable to breathe, and then reached up and pulled his head down so I could kiss him. Not letting go of him, I looked at his eyes.
“I love you, too,” I whispered.
****
My first classes went by easily; the first couple of days in the school year are always just procedure overviews. I paid attention, took the proper notes. . . but my heart was still beating with Zach’s words. Splotches of pink were on my cheeks that weren’t usually present, something Jessica was quick to notice. She asked but I said nothing, just smiled.
I refused to let myself look up across the classroom (girls sat on one side, boys on the other; a long-standing habit) to see him. But then it was break for us, and he met me right outside our last classroom’s door. He took my hand and we went outside, sitting under a tree. We didn’t look away from each other, even in our silence. He reached up one hand and held the side of my face, and then hesitantly he spoke.
“Did you mean it? What you said this morning?” “I wouldn’t have said it otherwise. I love you.” “I love you, too.”
I smiled.
“I know.”
Without another word, Zach closed the distance
between us and kissed me.
A Major Irritation
School has been passing quickly. We’re already
two weeks into the school year, and life is becoming hectic. On Zach’s eighteenth birthday, we had a small get-together with his family out at one of the restaurants on the pier. It was quiet, but Zach said it was what he needed.
We were being tested relentlessly by our professors to see what we remembered from spring and what we knew in general on the subjects, too. One afternoon, following a particularly strenuous testing day, Zach had walked me home before heading home himself. His mother needed some help, so I told him I’d be over later.
I curled up on my couch with a cup of tea, watching the fire crackling pleasantly. I was entranced by the flames, and wondered if I controlled that too. Was it possible to make it do what I wanted?
A knock on my door caught my attention away from the dancing flames and I called them in.
“I have some mail for you,” said Mom, coming in and sitting next to me on the couch. “Two letters. One’s from school, but the other doesn’t have a return address.”
“All right, thanks.” I smiled at her and she placed the letters between us. “Are you going over to Zach’s later?”
I nodded.
“Yes. Mrs. Stone invited me over for dinner, I hope that’s okay.”
“Of course. Don’t be home too late.”
“I won’t be.”
She squeezed my hand and left me to my letters. I set my tea on the table and picked up the unaddressed envelope. The papyrus fell out easily.
Emma, We have unfinished business to discuss. Our last meeting at the courthouse should have gone better, and for that I will get Stone back. You will watch him die before I take your Magic. This time, there won’t be anything either of you can do. Georgeson agreed with me that you and Stone were involved, which will make his death all the more painful for you, and all the more satisfying for me. Thinking I won’t get out of Bolenvare is being ignorant, Emma. I am going to escape from here; it’s only a matter of time. The security is not all it’s cut out to be. So it should not be long before we see each other again, not long before I add your Magic to my own. Tell your father, tell Keenan. It doesn’t matter who knows that I’m planning on escaping. No one is going to be able to stop me from coming to get you when you least expect it. But I want you to feel the paralyzing fear you had the first time we met before I kill you. -Lucas Adler
MaximumSecurity Bolenvare Galaxy Prison
I scowled at his words. If I was ignorant, he definitely was. I Materialized a piece of papyrus and a pen, sitting on the floor so I could write on my coffee table.
Lucas, You’re absolutely insane. Even if you could get out of your cell, you won’t get off the prison planet. It’s impossible, no matter your Level. I won’t let you kill Zach. If you do end up escaping, it will be all over the news and I will hide him so deeply that no one will be able to find him. Especially not you. As for you stealing my Magic: it’s even more impossible than you escaping Bolenvare. I am not going to die, especially not at your hand. You lost, Lucas. I’m keeping my Magic and I’m keeping Zach alive. I refuse to lose him to you or to anyone else. I will make your life a living hell if you hurt him or anyone I care for.
Emma Fitch
After reading through the letter, I sealed it inside an envelope and wrote my address on it before turning it upside down; I didn’t need Mom to see who I was writing to.
Emma Fitch 17 W. Heath Drive Capitol City, e2, Quan 2016
Lucas Adler Maximum Security Bolenvare Galaxy Prison
I put the envelope on the corner of my table, upside down so Mom wouldn’t see who I was writing to. I looked back at the flames, tempted, but then my Zevina sort of telephone but with a larg
e screen to see the caller’s face- rang and I picked it up off the desk.
“Hey, Jess,” I said upon answering.
Her face fizzed into a crystal-clear image. “Hey, Em. How d’you think you did on Kantiu’s
test?”
Kantiu is our history professor.
“Good. . . The material for this test was just
review from the past few years and you know how I retain history.”
“Sponge.”
“Better than letting it go in one ear and out the other like some people.”
I smiled at her and she stuck her tongue out at me.
“I just don’t remember all of it! Those tiny little facts he gives us just don’t stick.”
“Sticking charm.”
She laughed.
“I wish.”
Jessie’s been fine. She also has a boyfriend; a boy by the name of Mark. They met over the summer and became friends quickly. About three weeks ago, he asked her out. I don’t really like him; he doesn’t seem right for Jessie. He has a bad sense of humor and is not the nicest of guys. But Jessie’s Jessie and she will do as she pleases—even if she’s completely wrong.
“So, yeah, I’m bored.”
“Go hang out with Mark.”
“He’s not my best friend, Em. You are. Though you and Zach are pretty close to being best friends.”
“He already is. It allowed to have more than one, you know.”
“I know, I know, but Mark and I aren’t even that close.”
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to hang out with Mark, Jess. I’m supposed to be heading over to Zach’s.”
“Doesn’t he drop you off after school?”
“Yes. . . but he had to help his mother with something, so I said I’d be over later. I’m having dinner with his family.”
“That’s. . . weird.”
“How’s that weird, Jessie? I’ve had dinner there before, and he’s had dinner here.”
“Yeah, yeah. I guess I’ll talk to you later, then?”
I nodded.
“Yes, later. I’ll see you at school. And Jess? Cheer up.”
Starlight (The Lightning Strike Trilogy Book 1) Page 11