“You know that, when I become president, this town will be exterminated, or perhaps everyone in it will be taken for government testing—you can decide for yourself which fate would be worse. You can threaten me all you want with divulging that precious information to that grease-man and flower-princess—they’ve likely already suspected as much, and there’s certainly nothing they or even Angor Periculy can do about it.
“The population of Regulars is much higher than that of Affinities. Walter Dyer or I will win the election, this town will become deserted, and the terrorist Wackos will be annihilated. Real peace will only come when anyone with a supernatural ability is out of the public eye, and any president will work hard to see that through.”
“And you’re telling me this to…scare me? Intimidate me? Make me respect you?” Calder questioned, unfazed by the man’s warnings. “Because so far, it’s done none of those.”
Emmett voiced no comment to this but instead focused on Calder’s hands, empty of water but twitching at his sides. “Tell me, how did you acquire your ability?”
“Why don’t you tell me how you know so much about Affinities—or, if you know so much, why you pretend to be ignorant to the public?”
“The people are…common, unknowledgeable. If they all see Affinities as a threat, they will have no problem with extreme measures of eradication. If they begin to see Affinities as people—some with the capacity for peace and good—they will not be so supportive of my plans. Some will still want to remove the threat, but others will begin to sympathize with you all. That sympathy will extend to the Wacko terrorists, and the people will begin to side with them, insisting they’re merely people who need help. The democrats and republicans both agree this line of thinking is flawed and that anyone with a special power should be detained. We need the American people to be on our side—either side—until the government can come up with a solution to this national and perhaps international problem.
“It’s nothing personal to you—I find your ability rather impressive. This trip here has taught me that extermination might not be the better option; quarantine and testing might prove more useful to us in the end. I know a few people who would enjoy studying your biological properties. How is it that you conjure water?”
“Magic,” Calder whispered as he waved his hand in front of his face and formed a ball of water that remained suspended in the air. It fell into his palm after a moment, disappearing from sight. “Or some form of science I don’t understand. Go ask Dr. Wright.”
“Dr. Wright,” Emmett repeated, stroking his chin as he pondered. “She knows much of the science behind Affinities?”
“Hopefully, since she teaches it to us.” Calder laughed dryly before adding, “Doubt you’ll get the chance to talk to her before Fraco kicks you out, though. Now that he knows you snuck in here, he won’t be so smarmy. He becomes easily offended when people wrong his master.”
“Yes, Angor Periculy,” Emmett said, as though he knew the man. “Well, I don’t wish to suffer the wrath of the Affinities today. I’ll tell them you apologized, and you’ll be free to go. Enjoy your last few months in this marvelous town. Make sure to vote for me.”
Calder didn’t hesitate to spit on the floor of his cell. “I can’t vote yet, you turd, and even if I could, it wouldn’t be for you.”
“Guess it’s best you can’t, then,” Emmett said, a curt smile spreading on his lips.
Without warning, Calder shot a thin stream of water from his finger, hitting the man in the forehead and causing him to blink furiously. Indignation was inherent in his dark brown eyes, but he didn’t get to unleash his rage before a sly smirk slid onto Calder’s lips.
“See you in January, Regg. Be sure not to come alone next time, though—I know I won’t be.”
20
Perspective
“Um…hey, Hastings,” Eliana greeted as she stepped up to his table. Unsurprisingly, he was alone, chewing absently on grapes and probably blocking out the sounds of students enjoying breakfast throughout the cafeteria. When he finally noticed her, he motioned to the empty blue chair beside him, which she assumed gingerly. His eyebrows jumped dully before he returned to eating and staring.
Hastings had been enduring meals in the cafeteria, rather than outside on the ground, since Olalla Cosmos’s visit two weeks prior, and although they’d spent most of their afternoons together for over a month, Eliana had still hesitated to share a meal with him. Today, however, since Adara was over at the buffet bar, demanding the cooks serve cake for breakfast, Eliana had seen it as the perfect opportunity to join him without the overbearing annoyingness of her roommate.
“So…did you do the science homework?” she asked as she spooned her cereal.
Hastings’s eyebrows shot up beneath his messy hair as he glanced at her sideways. “We did it together last night.”
“Oh, um, right…”
“Did you finish that drawing you started in the library last night—the one of the dying bird?”
“Oh, you saw that?” Heat surfaced in her cheeks as she toyed with her spoon. “Um, no…I didn’t finish it. It was making me sort of sad, so I stopped.”
“Have you ever known a person who died?” he asked, not accusingly but curiously.
“Well…not really. Have you?”
He stopped chewing as a pensive gleam overtook his features. For the first time, Eliana could sense that he wanted to reveal part of his past to her, but then Seth plopped down into the empty seat on his other side, quelling their conversation.
“Hasty, Ellie,” Seth greeted, nodding to both of them as he chomped on a sausage. “What’s crackin’?”
Hastings spared him an agitated glance before fixating his eyes on his fruit bowl. After sighing, Eliana forced a smile at Seth and then started silently eating her cereal. No sound except Seth’s obnoxious munching was made until Adara slumped into the chair next to him with an exaggerated groan.
“It’s as if they don’t want anyone here to eat sugar,” she complained, slamming her tray onto the table and sending her plate full of bacon everywhere. “Who on Earth only eats cake after dinner? No one. If you say you haven’t eaten cake for breakfast at least once in your life, you’re just lying.”
“It’s smart that they don’t listen to your diet advice,” Tray said as he chose the seat beside Eliana, rather than Adara. “It’s a miracle—or more likely just lucky genetics—that you don’t already have type 2 diabetes.”
Adara’s only response was a careless shrug as she bit into a frosted donut.
“Hey, everyone,” Ackerly said as he sat down next to Tray. Quiet contentment characterized his expression as he dug his fork into a plate of what appeared to be broccoli.
“What’s got you so chipper, Greenie?” Adara inquired, eyeing his food with distaste as she gnawed on her nearly-finished donut.
“Oh, well, I asked the chef if he could serve more veggies at breakfast, since it’s mostly sugary carbs, and he gave me a bunch of fresh greens. Cool, right?” Adara’s mouthful of donut dropped open, utterly appalled. Eliana stifled her amusement by focusing on her cereal. “How was, uh, detention last night, Adara?” he asked before she had the opportunity to rant.
“Bo-ring,” she droned as she threw the last bit of her donut onto her tray and then picked up an oversized piece of bacon. “Floretta made us do her dumb meditation for the whole freaking hour. At least I wasn’t the only one there; Acid Attack was, too—claimed he accidentally sneezed in some kid’s face and burned him with acid, but I think it was on purpose. Oh, and the Pixie Princess, too. She admitted to purposely drenching Kiki for trying to flirt with Nero. I think I’m starting to like her—as much as one can like a human being who chooses to date Nero, that is.”
Seth’s eyes had wandered longingly in Kiki’s direction, where she sat at a table alone, reading a magazine as she pretended not to care about her lack of friends. Eliana knew otherwise—she knew Kiki’s emotions ran deeper than the superficial act she displ
ayed. Kiki was cruel, maybe, but she was also lonely. There was no sense of belonging for her at this school and in this town—especially now that she’d alienated herself from Seth and his friends. Of course, Eliana was the only one who seemed to care. Even Seth had turned back to the others, all Kiki-related emotions forgotten.
“What did you do to deserve detention, Stromer?” Tray questioned before biting into an apple. “Refuse to do your homework?”
“Pft, no. It was something way more badass than that,” she assured him through a mouthful of bacon. When she noticed they were all staring expectantly at her, she added, “None of you are cool enough to know about it.” Adara shot a dark glare in Eliana’s direction, since she knew that was exactly why her roommate had gotten detention.
As Tray began to pry and Adara snapped back with lies, Eliana was suddenly hit with a string of words that were in no way related to the conversation.
Well, since Adara’s distracted, I’ll just snag a bit of her bacon… Mm, bacon…
Jolting upright, she found Tray and Adara still bickering while Seth discreetly reached over to steal a piece of bacon from her plate. As he quietly chewed on the greasy meat, Eliana was overwhelmed with every one of his overly-detailed thoughts about how delicious it was. Disturbed, she pushed her tray of food away and slumped lower in her chair, trying to avoid everyone’s eyes.
Hastings was the only one to notice her sudden shift in mood, and he glanced over at her and asked, What is it? Her mouth opened to reply, but then, after a long moment, she realized his mouth hadn’t opened when he spoke—he’d just conveyed a verbal thought to her through his mind, and she had understood it. When he saw the realization on her face, his lips curled mildly, and he thought, You can finally hear me, can’t you?
Where there had been blankness before, there were now clear words and even a clear tone she could fully understand. After nodding to him, her eyes roved the table, where she focused on each individual to read not just their emotions but also the specific thoughts that ran through their minds. Tray and Adara still argued, so everything they thought was then said out loud only a second later. Seth still idolized a piece of bacon while Ackerly chewed on broccoli and thought about how much he missed his gardens at home.
Reading emotions had been useful, and it had always bugged Eliana that she couldn’t extract thoughts, but now that she could, it almost felt…invasive. Before, she would have felt Ackerly’s longing, but now she heard him thinking about his days spent in the dirt, weeding and harvesting, sometimes even alongside his mother, who he was now thinking about and missing, as well, all as if he was speaking to her in a conversation. This wasn’t a conversation, though; this was her intruding on his private thoughts when he didn’t even know it. It felt vile to infringe on their rights to privacy in this way, especially when she considered them to be almost like friends.
“Okay, okay, fine,” Adara caved as she flung her tray of food across the table at Ackerly. Eliana felt Seth’s internal sadness at the departure of the bacon he’d been thieving. “I got detention because I didn’t do my homework. Are you pleased now, Nerdworm?”
Tray’s head cocked to the side as he ruminated for a moment. “I am, actually. The fact that I made you admit it is even more satisfying.”
Quietly mimicking his voice, Adara glanced around until she locked eyes with Eliana. “What’s wrong with you, Mind Reader?”
“I, um, well—I…I just read my first thought, I think.”
Tray, Seth, and Ackerly all looked up from their food, and Adara raised her eyebrows. “First thought, aye? Well, what was it?”
“Uh…” Eliana’s gaze darted warily toward Seth. “I, um, heard Seth thinking about bacon…”
“Oh, I am so glad someone actually heard that,” Seth said. “I’m pretty damn poetic when I think about bacon, aren’t I?”
Eliana scrunched her nose but chose not to reply.
“Well, roommate, now that you can hear specific thoughts, you’re going to have a blast listening to all of my cynical internal ramblings,” Adara mused with a menacing smirk.
“You have more cynical thoughts than the ones you already voice aloud?” Tray questioned as his face twisted with disgust.
“Oh, as if you’re not the most pessimistic person alive. Let’s test this out, Mensen. Tell me if you can hear what I’m thinking.”
Eliana nodded before honing her attention on Adara. Once the thought crossed to her own mind, her lips curved into a frown. “Can you, uh, think something that I feel comfortable saying out loud, please?”
Tray snorted, shaking his head. “Of course Stromer thinks nothing but vulgarities…”
Adara’s eyes flickered at Tray in a scowl before she turned back to her roommate, who swallowed before refocusing on Adara’s brain. After a moment, Eliana caught her words and began to repeat, “How about this? You’re a p—oh. That’s not very nice.”
Adara burst out laughing, clutching her stomach and falling back in her chair. “Sorry, sorry. Just kidding, roomie. You know what I thought, though, don’t you?”
Eliana pursed her lips. “Too well…”
“We can all assume it was something crude,” Tray said, his eyes slivering in Adara’s direction. The blue of his irises was now almost completely engulfed by brown, as though someone was slowly repainting them from the pupil outward. Eliana thought it might be fun to actually paint them, but then she remembered Tray’s potential crush. “Maybe,” he continued, “to be polite to your roommate, you should be a bit more conservative with your thoughts.”
“Maybe, to save your own ass, you should stop trying to impress the girlfriend of a guy who grew up in prison.” Adara’s triumphant grin surfaced as soon as Tray’s cheeks began to redden. Eliana was just as embarrassed, but she tried not to let it show by pretending to look for something in her pocket. Hastings’s expression was as impassive as usual.
“Uh…why don’t we talk about, um, what we learned in science on Wednesday?” Ackerly suggested in a lame attempt to diffuse the tension. He fidgeted with his glasses as all five of them pivoted to look at him. “You know, Affinity mitosis? Dr. Wright said we’d be learning about how Affinity chromosomes are affected during reproduction soon, so that should be…cool?”
“Very cool, Greenie,” Adara agreed, but her challenging gaze was still fixed on Tray, who refused to look at her.
“You know what was actually cool?” Seth asked smoothly. “That almost-brawl Avner and Nero got into during training yesterday.”
“Wonderful, now we’re on the subject of my brother,” Adara grumbled as she stood from her chair. “Greenie, let’s go. I need you to teach me this mitotis crap before our quiz.”
“Mitosis,” Ackerly corrected as he jumped out of his seat to follow her away from the table.
“Don’t bore me with details, Greenie,” she said as they exited the cafeteria.
Adara’s absence was a relief to Eliana, and she assumed Tray would feel the same, but he was already violently pushing his chair away from the table to stalk after Adara and Ackerly with an arm full of books.
“Don’t be intimidated by Tray,” Seth said breezily…to Hastings, Eliana realized. “He’s not charming enough to win over any girls—especially not pretty ones.” Hastings raised one eyebrow. Eliana purposely dropped her spoon in order to hide herself under the table. “I’m not really into the quiet ones,” Seth added in a whisper, but Eliana could still hear him, even from beneath the table. “I like girls who are more authoritative and demanding—and funny, in a bitchy way. Like Kiki…or Adara—but not Adara, because we’re just friends… Good talk.” He clapped Hastings on the shoulder before springing out of his seat, and Eliana nearly yelped when he poked his head beneath the table. “Wanna come, Ellie? It’s not anything romantic—don’t worry. I just have to talk to Av, and your sister’s there…”
“Uh, sure,” Eliana agreed, even though she would have rather not. Extricating herself from beneath the table, she shot Hastings an apol
ogetic wince before following Seth’s swaggering strides across the cafeteria.
Have fun, Hastings’s tantalizing voice echoed through her mind. She barely resisted the urge to cast a playful look over her shoulder.
Avner and Zeela were seated at a table of quaternaries with their friends, Jamad and Maddy. Eliana had met Maddy for the first time a few weeks ago, since she was Zeela’s roommate, and her demeanor was quiet, even though her mind was always brewing with ideas. Until now, Eliana hadn’t understood the full complexity of her thoughts, nor the depth of Jamad’s.
Growing up, Jamad had been like an older brother to Eliana. He’d lived in the same town as the Mensens and had been best friends with Zeela, hence their luck in discovering they both had Affinities. When she’d first arrived in Periculand, Eliana hadn’t even recognized Jamad, since his hair had always been inky black, not icy blue; it was jarring to look at. Still, she smiled as she chose to sit beside him after Seth slipped into the empty seat next to her sister.
Hello, Zeela’s voice weaved through Eliana’s mind, shocking her with its directness. I assumed you’d finally heard some specific thoughts, based on your aura of accomplishment.
You see a specific aura for that? Eliana wanted to ask, but the mind reading only went one way. Zeela seemed to understand, anyway, for she nodded in response. It was weird that she just…knew—that her eyes could see things no one else could. There were a lot of things about her sister that she was still trying to get used to: the sunglasses she always wore to cover her white eyes, the paleness of her hair, which had once been dark, and the fact that she could read people as well as Eliana—sometimes maybe better.
“Seth, hey!” Avner held his hand up to high five him over Zeela’s head. “You got my note this morning?”
“Yeah,” Seth affirmed, leaning closer to Zeela to speak to Avner in a hushed tone.
Eliana found she didn’t need to move to hear; even if her ears couldn’t decipher it, her brain could.
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