by Tenaya MKD
“You up for a game of Flash?” he asked, showing me a deck of cards that he’d pulled out of his pocket.
“How do you play that?”
He smiled. “I’ll show you.”
We played on the soil-dusted cement floor, with plants surrounding us. I’m pretty sure he made Flash up. I didn’t win a single hand, and I still don’t understand the rules. But I had a good time anyway. It was something normal. I’d needed normal.
After that first day with Wyatt, I only ever worked in the garden with Eric. I suspected that he was trading days with other people, in order to get the same ones as me. That was fine by me though.
Neither of us were particularly morning people, or natural gardeners. So things always took longer and were a little half-assed. We had fun though. Everything we did became a race or a bet. And if I’m totally honest, his flirting was fun too.
“I bet you my dessert tonight, that I can plant this whole box before you finish watering,” he said, at the beginning of our third work shift together.
I laughed. “You’re on!” Dessert at the facility was always delicious.
I ran around the garden as quickly as I could, only stopping to switch hoses when the one I was using wouldn’t reach any farther. But despite my effort, I lost by a full minute.
“All you had to do was water!”
“Watering in here is like watering a damn forest! There are so many plants!”
He laughed as he put his tools back into the shed. “I’m gonna eat well tonight!”
I sighed. “It better not be pie. I love the pies.”
“Well, I might be willing to feed you a bite or two—in the right circumstances.” He winked.
I laughed, shaking my head. “Enjoy your pie.”
If Harper and Eric were still spending time together in private, I didn’t know about it. I didn’t care to. In fact, if it lessened the chance of her turning into a lion and ripping my face off, then I hoped they were. I liked hanging out with Eric, but I liked my face a hell of a lot too.
Every time she saw us together, she tried to light me on fire with her eyes. Lucky for me, that wasn’t her superpower. But I made an effort to never spend too much time in the same room as her—just in case. The image of Quinn’s shredded leg was still fresh in my mind. If that was what she did to people she liked, I wanted to stay out of her way.
Zane quickly took to following me around the facility, asking me questions. It definitely got on my nerves at first, but before I knew it, I had developed a soft spot for the kid. I have no idea what made me so interesting to him, but he seemed to really like me.
“Do different bodies feel different to you?” he asked, at the beginning of my second week at the facility. We were on the long walk down the hall to the locker-rooms, after a lunch of faux BLTs and fries.
“Not really. For the most part, they feel the same from the inside.” A memory of Jim’s face in his dirty mirror crossed my mind. “Except the one day I was a man. That definitely felt different.” I shuddered, remembering the way his joints creaked when I sat on the ground.
Zane’s face lit up. “You’ve been a man? That must have been so weird! How did that happen?”
“I really have no idea how the power works.”
His eyes were bright. “It seems like it could be so interesting!”
Zane had a certain level of positive enthusiasm for everything. It was equal parts exhausting and inspiring.
After a couple of weeks of interviews, I considered Zane a friend. I found myself asking him nearly as many questions as he asked me. His favorite food was spaghetti, he teleported for the first time on his eighth birthday, and he’d lived at the facility for seven years.
“Wow, that’s a long time! How often do you get to leave?” I slurped up another spoonful of noodles and broth. He usually left me to eat dinner with Cayde, in favor of sitting with Lily. But on this day, Lily was training with Quinn, and Cayde was meeting with Chief Markham.
“Not very often. I don’t mind though. Everything I care about is here anyway. And there is plenty to keep me busy.”
“You don’t miss your parents?” The moment the sentence left my mouth, I regretted it. He dropped his eyes to his bowl, and his jaw clenched. “Shit. I’m so sorry, Zane. That was a really stupid question. I feel like such an ass.” I wanted to comfort him, somehow. To reach out and hug him, or pat his back, or something. But I didn’t know what to do. My hands ended up folded in my lap.
“No, it’s okay,” he said. “You couldn’t have known.”
“I could have guessed…”
“The truth is, I don’t miss them all that much anymore.” He brought his eyes back up to mine, and I realized that what I’d seen before as sadness was actually more complicated than that. It was guilt.
“That’s okay. Sometimes people don’t deserve to be missed.”
He nodded, and when the motion brought his gaze back to his hands, he kept them there to stare at his fidgeting fingers. “I don’t know how I should feel. I still don’t understand exactly what happened. My mom disappeared one day. Left for work and just never came home… My dad wouldn’t explain to me what happened, no matter how many times I begged him to.”
His brows creased together. When he spoke again, his voice seemed to have aged years. “I knew that something was wrong, but he ignored me for days. He wouldn’t even look at me. Then he took me to a bus station and left me there.”
“He abandoned you?” If Zane’s dad had been in front of me, I’d have decked him and hoped for a broken nose.
Zane sighed. “I don’t know what else to call it. He dropped me off, gave me Chief’s description, and told me to wait for him. That was the last time I saw my dad. Chief found me hiding in a bathroom stall, three hours later.”
The hurt in his eyes was too much. It was the last way that such a kind-hearted kid deserved to feel. If I could have scrubbed it away for him, I’d have done so in a heartbeat.
“Fuck that guy, Zane! You don’t need to miss him, or even think about him! I’d be a shitty parent, but even I couldn’t put a kid through that. I’m so sorry.”
After a moment of zoning out on his hands again, Zane shook his head as if to wake himself from the memory. “It’s given me a good life though. I’m well-trained, I’m healthy, and I’m happy.”
His positivity, being applied to this situation, only angered me more. “You’re too good for this world, kid.”
I would have expected a teenage boy who had been abandoned by his parents and stuck in an underground facility to be pissed off about it. Zane didn’t have that in him though.
He was smiling at me when Lily came up behind him and put her hands over his eyes. “Guess who.”
“Well, if it isn’t Lily, someone has stolen her tiny hands.” She nudged his shoulder playfully and he laughed. I was relieved to hear the usual Zane in it.
She sat down beside him, and the tension that had been holding him rigid melted off of him. I wasn’t about to look, but I was pretty certain they were holding hands under the table. I smiled into my soup.
Lily was nice to have around. She wasn’t what you’d expect from a fifteen-year-old girl—for more than the obvious reasons. The grace she carried was far beyond her years. I didn’t know what she had been through to make her mature so quickly. But whatever it was, it didn’t harden her. Lily was the epitome of sweet. A perfect match for Zane, in my opinion.
“How was your training with Quinn?” Zane asked her.
The white light I’d seen her generate during my first training session had been a force-field. She was training with Quinn extra in order to learn how to project it away from herself to protect other people.
“It went well. I could push the field out ten feet tonight. I couldn’t get Quinn inside it with me, but she thinks I’ll get there soon.”
“You’ll get it,” I said, trying my hand at an encouraging smile. “I wish I could figure out how to do anything with my power. I’m sick of going
to bed with my fingers crossed, hoping that GWNN doesn’t glitch.”
“Why don’t you work on it with Quinn? She could help you figure out how to control it,” Lily said.
“Maybe…” I’d honestly forgotten about Quinn’s promise to train me. Knowing her better now didn’t make me feel any more comfortable with the idea than I had been the day we met.
“Ask her,” Zane said. “I think she’d be happy to help you.”
I sighed and scooped up a heaping spoon of soup. “As long as she doesn’t use her damn whistle.”
17
I let another week pass before talking to Quinn. I’d been holding onto the hope that I could figure it out on my own. But I didn’t even know where to start. Fear of what she might put me through, combined with my sheer unwillingness to ask for help, made going to her really unappealing. But I was starting to see that I would never learn if I didn’t.
She was kicking the crap out of a heavy bag when I found her. “Can I talk with you for a minute, Quinn?”
She threw a powerful push-kick at the bag, sending it swinging. Then she caught it to bring it to a stop. “What is it, Nova?” But she didn’t take her attention away from the bag. She bounced on the balls of her feet, throwing rhythmic jabs at it.
“Umm, so, I’d like to start working on controlling my ability.”
She finally turned to give me her attention, leaving the bag to swing. Her face was coated in sweat. “I’m glad to hear that.”
“You said you could help me?”
“I can.”
My jaw clenched.
Do I really have to spell this out?
“So… can we start?”
“I want to start working on my power too,” Cayde said, from the weight rack where he was lifting dumbbells. I hadn’t noticed he was there until he spoke, but once I saw him, he had my full attention.
He was lifting shirtless. His jumpsuit was unzipped down to his waist and held up only by his belt. I’d known he was well built, but knowing and seeing are two different things. Seeing was definitely more fun.
“I thought you were still denying you had a real ability?” Quinn said.
He must have noticed me glued to him, because he smiled coyly. “I’ve changed my stance on that. It’s not a power I want, but that just means it’s even more important that I can control it.” He glanced over to me before turning his focus back to the weights, still smiling.
“We can start tonight, if you’re up for it,” Quinn said. Her face was lit up with what seemed to be pride.
“I am,” I said, finally forcing my eyes back onto her.
Cayde nodded. “I’m in.”
Cayde and I walked into the training room together with full bellies. We’d had a stuffed acorn squash for dinner that blew my mind. Whatever we were going to be doing, I hoped it wouldn’t involve much jumping.
Quinn was already there, waiting for us. She was sitting on a pillow in the center of the crash pad with her legs crossed, back straight, and eyes closed. The lights were dimmed, and two pillows were set up next to her. As we got closer, I could see her chest rising and falling with her deep breaths.
Her relaxed state made me feel tense.
Maybe jumping around doesn’t sound so bad…
“Come sit down,” she said, without opening her eyes.
I shot Cayde a nervous look, but he smiled reassuringly. This scene didn’t seem to surprise him. I situated myself on the pillow, making an effort not to slouch.
“I am glad that you approached me. This is something that can’t be forced on you. You have to want to do this work,” Quinn said. Her voice was much softer than usual.
Cayde sat like a model student, copying Quinn perfectly. His posture was straight and his breath was immediately even. I, on the other hand, was stiff with shifty eyes, obviously very wary of where this was going.
“What exactly is this work?” I asked her.
She opened her eyes, “Our abilities are a part of our DNA. They will function within us, whether we want them to or not. Like breathing, or your heart beating. Your lungs will take in air without you telling them to. However, you are able to hold your breath if you choose. Your heart will beat rapidly when you are scared. But with practice and awareness, you can calm your heart—if you choose. You can control your powers in a similar way. With practice.”
I tried to keep my skepticism from my face, but my eyes narrowed before I could stop them.
She sighed. “Do you know how GWNN works?”
“I think so. Sort of.”
“Well, what I want to teach you is how to influence the buildup of gamma wave energy that your powers use, just like GWNN’s crystal does. Your powers use that spike of energy, so to keep yourself in your body, you will have to be able to stop that energy from building up.”
“Sounds easy enough.” I thought my sarcasm was evident, but Quinn acted like she didn’t notice.
“It is.” She re-situated herself on her pillow and softly closed her eyes. “The first step is simple. You need to listen to your mind. You need to know your mind, in order to navigate it.” As if sensing the frustration that was on the tip of my tongue, she looked directly at me and said, “If that doesn’t make sense to you, then you need this all the more.”
“I just don’t understand how to do what you’re asking.”
“Just do it.” Her eyes closed again. “You don’t have to understand.”
I had to make an effort not to scoff. Cayde immediately closed his eyes and found a steady rhythm of breath. My mind was too busy to even notice my breath.
“Try to focus on nothing other than the blackness of your eyelids. Whatever thoughts come up, dismiss them, and return to the darkness,” Quinn said.
Suddenly, I was trying to figure out Wyatt’s card games. Then, I was picturing myself back in Thinker’s Coffee enjoying an Americano; which led to thoughts of meeting Cayde for the first time. Then, I was thinking about peanut butter cookies, wondering if they were my favorite cookies, because I really wanted them, but I didn’t remember what they tasted like. And then…
“You are so distracting!” Cayde said.
“I am sitting here silently!”
“But your brain is so loud! You might as well be yelling at me.” At first, he’d really seemed annoyed. But, after seeing the frustration on my face, he started to laugh.
“I’m trying! This is hard for some of us.”
“That’s really good work, Cayde. If you’re hearing her thoughts, that’s progress already,” Quinn said.
“It’s more just feelings and static than her actual thoughts.” He turned to me with a smirk on his face. “Were you thinking about something embarrassing?”
I looked down at my shoes to avoid answering. Apparently, him getting better at using his ability would have downsides.
“Keep going. I want twenty more minutes,” Quinn said.
“I’m sorry, did you say twenty?” I asked, hoping I’d heard her wrong.
She only had to stare at me with her intense, round eyes to encourage me to close mine.
Twenty minutes of silence. I guess I’ll probably live through that.
18
Quinn’s silver whistle assaulted my eardrums for the hundredth time this month. “I want you to pair up with similar weight classes. Remember people, this is an exercise in hand-to-hand combat. No powers!”
A whirlwind of motion broke out around me while people found their partners and claimed their spaces. When it settled, Oliver and Wyatt had teamed up, Zane was with Lily, and Eric was standing with Cayde. In seconds, my only option for a partner had been whittled down to Harper.
She and I realized this at the same time. And while I probably looked a little scared, she was grinning—showing her teeth in a way that unsettled me.
Are those sharper than they should be?
She walked over to stand next to me without saying a word. I looked across the sparring area to see Cayde looking at me with a creased brow—pres
umably fearing for my life like I was. Beside him, Eric was looking at me too, but he was stifling a laugh behind his fist and a fake cough. If I could have reached him, I would have hit him.
“I want everyone to focus on defense today,” Quinn said. “Take turns attacking using the moves I showed you last week and defending against them.” She blew her whistle—again. I was more than ready to throw the thing off a cliff. If it had belonged to anyone but Quinn, I would have.
Harper and I stood to face each other. Only a few steps separated us.
“I’ll go first,” she said, still grinning. She stepped into me, grasping my shoulder. Then she used her leg to swiftly kick my opposite ankle out from under me. I landed on my back with a thud that forced the air from my lungs. Then we reset.
Each time she threw me down was a little harder and faster than the time before. When I pushed myself off the ground for the third time, my ribs were sore, my neck was kinked, and my lungs felt like they were too small for my body. But I hid those things as best I could, refusing to give her the satisfaction of knowing she’d hurt me. With tightly clenched fists, I faced her again.
“You need to take a break?” she asked, smirking.
I wiped the sweat from my forehead with the back of my wrist. “Bring it on.”
She did. When I hit the floor this time, I involuntarily gasped. It was a struggle to pull in any air at all for a couple of seconds. But as soon as I was able, I rolled myself over and pushed myself back up.
I wanted to stop her foot so damn badly—to at least be able to keep myself standing, if I couldn’t take her down. But every time I reached for her arm, or tried to block her leg, she easily knocked me away.
She was holding nothing back. And on top of having a lot more training than me, she was innately stronger and faster. She was super. And I was just me. That fact didn’t make the situation piss me off any less, though. My pride was hurting. And with each time I hit the ground, the fire in my gut burned a little hotter.