Return To Pandora: Book 1 in The Pandora Series (11 page)

On break I sat alone, as I watched Zack with his father. They looked to be deep in conversation and as tempted as I was to go to him I didn’t want to interrupt. So I sat alone and watch everyone.

Olivia didn’t ask me to join in on training the second half either and I sat and watched everyone and their various stages of training. Everyone had gotten their powers to work now, whether they were good at using them was a whole other topic. They have time.

Zackary was using swords with his dad and he looked like he was wining.

Then we had Josh and Leah. They were facing off with their powers and Leah looked to be a little more confident with her abilities than he did. I took a long time studying them. That’s when I realized that Josh was most definitely holding back. Leah gave her all and he looked cocky as if he knew he could defeat her, but didn’t want to.

I knew he was already against us. I just felt it in my bones that something wasn’t right with him. I thought Zackary’s name really loudly in my head as if I was yelling it. I was hoping he was staying in tuned to me like he naturally was.

He stopped mid swing and dropped to his knees in pain. I immediately got to my feet. He stood back up and looked me in the eye. I went to him knowing that no one knew about his ability to hear thoughts to stop any ones curiosity.

“Are you ok?” I asked him as I got to his side.

“I’m fine. What did you do to my head?” He asked as he took a seat on a fallen tree beside the fence.

I looked at him in question. “What do you mean? All I did was yell your name in my head,” I said perplexed.

“I don’t know. I heard your voice yell my name, but there was something else in it that caused a pain so severe I thought I was going to die.” He said looking distraught. “It felt like my head was being stabbed repeatedly and I didn’t know how to stop it. Then as quickly as it happened it stopped.”  He looked up at me and just stared into my eyes, studying my reaction to what he just told me.

“I don’t know what I did,” I said honestly. “I won’t yell your name in my head again if it’s going to hurt you,” I said trying to make a mental note not to do that again. “What are we going to do about this?” I asked and realized my question had a double meaning now. The first was about Joshua and the second was about his head and what I may or may not have done to him.

He looked up at me and shrugged his shoulders. I don’t know what I expected of him anyway, we are in way over our heads here and we can’t do anything to stop it.

“Let’s just get through the rest of this training day and we can go over everything when we get home,” he said getting to his feet and walking to his father. He bent down and grabbed his sword and started fighting with John again.

I didn’t say anything, I just watched as they fought. Then after a few minutes, I walked back to where I sat the whole day and sat back down. I don’t know why but I felt like something went drastically wrong the moment I sat back down. It’s almost as if time slowed and I was watching everyone in slow motion.

Zack was lifting his hand with the sword in it and it was moving so slow there is no way that John couldn’t move out of the way before it got to him but as he was coming down with the sword John was bringing his up to stop the strike in midair, it took what felt like five minutes for the whole process to be complete, when it should have taken ten seconds.

I turned my head to look at the others and they too were moving in the same slow motion speed. Olivia trying to extend her arm to use her powers and Liz trying to block them.

“What the heck is happening?” I asked myself as I stood up and walked towards Olivia. I was right in front of her as her hands were almost at the correct height to send Liz flying back, and I waved my hand right in front of her face. “Hello! Liv can you hear me? Olivia?”

Nothing. Not even a blink of the eyes to show she recognized I was in the way.

I did the same to Elizabeth and still nothing. “How am I the only one moving normally and they can’t even see or hear me?” I asked, walking towards Josh and Leah.

Leah was about to throw the “fatal blow” which if she was going to actually kill him he would die, but in our training we don’t go that far. I wonder what got to him. How did he turn into this? How can I save Leah? I thought to myself as I looked into his eyes. He didn’t look scared or defeated he looked as if this was his plan. Does he get her to like hurting people in order to get her on his side?

I didn’t even think it through I moved Leah’s arms so she wouldn’t hurt him. As soon as I was done moving her everything sped up and the excess of her powers that were originally facing this direction knocked me down. Leah looked at me in question and all I did was shrug my shoulders and acted as if I didn’t know anything either, in which case, I don’t know much of anything except that I interfered with what was happening.

“Training today is done. We will convene tomorrow at the normal time and if need be we will stay later,” I said to everyone. Then I turned to Olivia, John and Zack and said, “You three are to come to my house with me, right now.”

I walked away to grab our things and started our walk home.

When we got there I went in and grabbed cold drinks for everyone and called to my mother. Isabel and my mother came in from out back and they looked a little worried when they saw all of us at the table already.

“Alright, let’s not waste any time, we need to go over a lot of stuff and we don’t have time to waste,” I said looking everyone in the eye to show I meant business.

“What is this about?” My mother asked not knowing anything except my dream that I denied having.

“Well first, the dream I told you I didn’t have, I did have and the feelings and emotions that came with that dream are too overwhelming to deal with. Second, I think we have time to save Leah, but Josh is a lost cause, he’s already gone. I saw it in his eyes today during training. Next this thing happened today, where everyone slowed down and I was able to move normal speed but you all couldn’t, I even managed to move Leah’s arms so her blow to Josh would miss him completely. But that’s not all.” I said stopping them all as they were about to comment on what I just told them.

“When I moved towards each of you, you couldn’t see me. I waved my hands in front of your faces and I called out your names, but you didn’t even acknowledge that I was there. It wasn’t until I moved Leah that everything caught up and started moving normally again.”

They all looked speechless as if they had never heard of this happening before and that may be so, but we need to figure something out about it.

“Oh yeah one more thing, I was yelling Zack’s name very loudly in my head to get his attention and it knocked him on his ass, with a pain so severe it felt like he was being stabbed repeatedly in the head,” I said. I was saying what I knew he was neglecting to say.

He kicked me under the table and I knew then that he really wasn’t going to say anything.

“You see when I heard her voice it somehow amplified as if it was coming from a speaker. I heard her say my name and as soon as she was done the pain came. It was so horrible I thought I was going to die,” he said confessing to them what he already told me.

Olivia spoke up and she looked a little shocked and unaffected by what she was told. “She has similar powers to you, which is why it echoed so much in your head, she has to acknowledge that power exists for her as well in order for her to get any signs of it at all. It’s a rare ability, but she has so many rare abilities I’m beginning to think that she will be the most powerful of our people since the beginning of time. We don’t have any recording of anyone having so many abilities. It’s usually just the ability to move things and then you get the occasional added benefit. But you, you have every added benefit.”

She sounded so passionate about our history and it involving me, it was hard not to want to go to our home and give it a shot. Not that I had much of a choice anyway, but Liv made it sound better.

Everyone was quiet for a few minutes while that sank in and I was trying to tell myself that I could hear other peoples voices in my head and how cool it would be to hear them. But I still couldn’t hear them so I let out a huff in frustration.

“Ok, so if I can get this mind reading power of mine to work, how is that going to affect our communication? I mean seriously if I knocked him on his ass by yelling his name are we going to have to block each other out so we don’t blow up each other’s minds? I don’t know if I can control that all the time, what if it comes at the wrong time? Like in the midst of a battle, or while I’m trying to sleep like his did?”

Everyone just stared at me. Olivia was new to finding out that he could read minds, but she had the same dream so obviously she knew before we went to Pandora that he had the ability. But in my dream I didn’t have that ability. So each added ability should give us more of a fighting chance. But at what cost?

“You remember when I passed out from using my healing power? Will that happen to me every time I use too much of my power? Because I don’t feel like that when I use my normal abilities, but with the healing, I do.”

I don’t know what I was expecting, but no one had an answer for me. Of course no one really knew about the mind reading thing or the healing thing, they just knew what they had and most of them had nothing but normal abilities.

“I know that none of you have any idea what I am going through. I am overwhelmed and now you guys are telling me that I may die if I use my powers that are the very thing that is supposed to save all of our lives and our kingdom. How do you think I am going to react to all of this? What do you expect of me? Do you honestly believe that I want to go into a battle with someone and be guaranteed to die weather I kill Christina or not? I don’t think I have the ability to see things differently than that and I don’t think I want to help you all win this war if it means my death no matter what I do!”

With that I got up and left the table. I was going to head up to my room, but I grabbed my iPod and headed outside instead. I needed to run. I put it on shuffle and listened to the various artists that I had on it. Starting with Thompson Square, Are You Going to Kiss Me or Not? As I made my rounds around the block I went through Nsync and Britney Spears, then I heard Rihanna, and Sean Paul.

When I got to Hunter Hayes I stopped and took out my ear buds, because I swear someone was talking to me. No they were yelling at me. I looked around and I didn’t find anyone out on the street with me and it made me question my recent thoughts that someone was trying to get my attention.

I continued to walk down the road instead of running. I was about two blocks away from my house and I wasn’t ready to go back, but I didn’t want to go around again.

“I hate how she does that,”
a female voice said and I jumped at how loud it sounded. I turned around and found no one near me.

That is so weird, she was right near me. I heard her loud and clear. Oh my God, I can hear people’s thoughts! I was excited and nervous all at the same time.

What if these new powers only signal my upcoming death? What if everything I work so hard on ends up being for nothing? I finally have Zack the way I have wanted him for so long and I don’t want to die before I can experience everything I’ve wanted to for so long with him.

“You are not going to die. Stop thinking like that,”
I jumped
.
He sounded close, but when I turned around I didn’t see him either. I wasn’t near the house how is he doing that?

“How do you know?”
I thought in my mind and I felt foolish, because, hello I’m talking to myself.

“If you were going to die, I would die with you, I don’t ever want to know a day where you are not a part of my life. Whether we are friends or more than friends I can’t lose you as much as you can’t lose me.”

This felt so intimate, how do you have a conversation with someone who is nowhere in sight and there is no phone with you either?

“I don’t want to try. I’m scared. I just want to run away, never look back. I know that sounds so selfish, but is it bad that I want to live a normal human life without the worry of dying or protecting a bunch of teenagers from being killed?”
 

I was sitting on a bench a few houses down from my own when I saw him coming closer to me. Did he follow me on my run? All I wanted was for this all to be just a dream. Why do I have to be the savior? Why couldn’t it be Zack? He came and sat down beside me and just sat there without saying anything. Is he reading my thoughts? Should I let him see what I am thinking? He’s probably heard it all already anyway, but I leave my mind as open as possible.

“It’s not selfish,” he said startling me. “I want a normal life too, but it is something we can’t have, at least not yet. When we defeat Christina we can have a normal life. Go to school and make new friends, maybe even come back here. But until we take care of the bigger problem we need to focus on our powers and use everything we learn that the carbon copy has to help us defeat her.” He really is wiser beyond his years.

“I don’t know if I want to come back here after we take care of our problem, there will be no one to talk to. We would have to hide our powers and act normal. I won’t be able to do that after we kill someone, or more than one person. Especially if our powers are connected to it. I would have to stay there where I can practice my powers openly and freely without worrying about people seeing me. But it doesn’t mean I won’t miss my life here, no matter how empty it felt.”