Authors: T.M. Franklin
It was exhausting, however. The focus needed took a mental as well as physical toll. The evening after her first attempts, she could barely keep her eyes open, and a pounding headache almost incapacitated her.
“Here,” Caleb said, holding out a little plate covered by gray, gelatinous cubes, similar to Jell-O, but not nearly as appealing.
“What is it?” she asked, picking up one of the jiggling cubes between a thumb and forefinger. “Am I supposed to eat it?”
Caleb chuckled. “Yeah. It’s a rejuvenation cube. We call them R-cubes. They taste like plastic, but it’ll help with the exhaustion and the headache.”
Ava eyed the little cube skeptically. “What is it?” she asked again. “Some kind of super-powered aspirin?”
“No. It’s a supplement,” he explained. “Until you get more experience with your abilities, using them will take a lot out of you.” He picked up a cube, squeezing it a little. “This helps put it back. It’s a blend of vitamins, protein, electrolytes . . . some other stuff.”
“Like high-tech Gatorade?” she asked, sticking out her tongue to lick it and frowning at the taste. “It really does taste like plastic.”
Caleb popped one in his mouth, chewing and swallowing quickly. “Just eat it fast,” he suggested. “I guarantee it’ll make you feel better. I wish I would have had a few of these after the shift to Mabley’s Corner.”
Ava’s shoulders slumped at the reminder of the Jordans, but she fought off the melancholy. “Would it have helped? You were really out of it.”
Caleb nodded. “With more practice, your everyday abilities will become like second nature and you won’t need it so much, but shifting that big a distance takes a lot of power. I would still have been wiped out, but the cubes would have at least helped me function.”
Ava studied the cube for a moment, then took a small bite. She winced in distaste.
“I’m telling you,” he said with a knowing grin, “faster is better.”
Ava shrugged, tossing it into her mouth and chewing it up quickly. She grimaced at the aftertaste, but after only a few minutes, her headache had lessened and she felt more alert.
“Wow,” she said, eating another one. “This is pretty amazing. I can’t believe with all of your superior technology you couldn’t make it taste better, though.”
Caleb laughed. “You get used to it.”
He was right. She did get used to it, even though she hardly craved the unappealing little cubes. After almost a week of nearly non-stop training, she came to rely on them. Ava worried that maybe they were addictive, and she’d become some kind of gray Jell-O cube junkie, knocking over 7-Elevens to buy her next fix, but Caleb raised an eyebrow and assured her that wouldn’t happen. The cubes were all-natural and contained no addictive substances.
She decided to believe him. Mainly because she really didn’t have an alternative.
It was early Friday morning, or maybe Saturday, Ava wasn’t sure. The days kind of blended together at that point, and had, actually, ever since they’d left Allenmore. In fact, she’d only just realized that Thanksgiving was around the corner. She hadn’t planned to go home—it was too expensive for only a few days—but Caleb said they’d figure out a way for her to at least call her parents on the holiday. It seemed like a different world—her life back there—and Ava realized that wasn’t a figure of speech. She’d been immersed in a new reality, one she was only beginning to come to grips with.
She sat on the back deck, wrapped in a blanket against the early morning chill. A thick blanket of snow lay over the backyard, sparkling in the sunlight, and she sipped a cup of hot tea, the steam floating up before her eyes and painting the horizon with a cloudy filter.
“Good morning,” Audrey said, appearing at the back door dressed in a parka and mittens. “Aren’t you cold out here?”
Ava shrugged. “It’s not so bad. The view is worth it.”
Audrey crossed to the table, brushing the snow off a chair before sitting down. “How are you holding up?” she asked. “I know this has been a lot to take in.”
“I’m okay,” she replied. “I wish I was faster.”
Audrey laughed, a bright twinkle in the early morning air. “You’re one of the fastest learners I’ve ever trained,” she said. “Don’t you know that?”
“I just want to be able to do something . . . useful,” Ava said, twirling her tea cup. “I want to be able to help, you know?”
Audrey reached across the table to pat her hand. “You will. Try to be patient.” At Ava’s heavy sigh, she smiled. “You want to try some telekinesis again?” They’d experimented with it several times—as well as manifesting, and even a try or two at shifting, but so far, Ava hadn’t been able to make anything happen. She found it more than frustrating.
Ava bit her lip. “I don’t know if I can do it.”
“Well, you won’t know until you try, will you?”
“I guess not.”
Audrey stood, walking to the edge of the deck and picking up a small rock. She sat next to Ava and set it on the table. “Maybe we need to go about this a different way,” she said, rolling the rock back and forth slowly as she thought, her brow creased. She looked at Ava. “Think back to the hamster,” she said. “What exactly did you do? Step by step?”
Ava shrugged. “I don’t know. I closed my eyes. I saw the bag . . . saw myself reaching out for it . . . and I just . . . knew where it was.”
Audrey frowned. “So maybe you don’t need to focus so much on
moving
the rock,” she said. “And instead, imagine the rock where you want it to be?”
“But how?” Ava asked, frustrated. “I don’t get it.”
Audrey smiled patiently. “Try looking at the rock . . . look closely. See it all,” she said. “Touch it, too. Commit it all to memory.
This was much easier now. Ava did as she was told in just a few seconds, then pulled her hand back down to her lap.
“Good?” Audrey asked.
“Good.”
“Okay, now close your eyes,” Audrey said. When Ava did, she continued. “Now see the rock. See it all.”
Ava pictured the rock as she’d seen it—each dip and imperfection, variations in color—down to the very component structure of the mineral.
“Now,” Audrey said quietly. “See yourself reaching out for it. Wrap your hand around it. Feel it in your palm . . . against your fingers.”
Ava fought down her doubt and saw her hand reaching out before her in her mind. She ran her fingers over the surface of the pebble, feeling the smooth and rough running together before closing her mind’s hand around it, the chilled surface warming against her palm.
“Ava,” Audrey said, a hint of excitement in her voice. “Open your eyes.”
Ava did, taking in Audrey’s smiling face before turning to the table.
The rock was gone.
With a start, Ava lifted her hand, slowly peeling her fingers back to reveal the little pebble in the center of her palm. She stared at it unblinkingly for a few moments. “I . . . I did it,” she whispered.
“You did it,” Audrey agreed.
Ava’s heart thumped in her chest, and she smiled brightly. “Let’s do it again.”
Chapter 12
Caleb frowned at his phone, the latest e-mail from Bel destroying any hopes that the Council was giving up the search any time soon. Although they had followed the cell phone trail to New York—well, at least as far as Pennsylvania before they realized it was a ruse—they had circled back to Allenmore and Mabley’s Corner. Search parties fanned out from both locations, and he feared it was only a matter of time before they got too close for comfort.
The cloak would help, but if Protectors walked up the front driveway, there was only so much it could do. If they passed through the cloak, the house would be visible, and they’d be out of luck.
They would have to move—sooner rather than later—and he only hoped that Ava would be ready. Outrunning the Protectors would be next to impossible even if he were on his own, but he didn’t really see an alternative. He couldn’t let the Council members get their hands on her.
Bel had suggested a distraction in the form of a Guardian named Balaam, who had the unique ability to mimic another’s electric imprint after only coming into brief contact with that person. He could lead the Protectors on a wild goose chase for quite a while, since he also had the ability to shift, and would give Caleb and Ava the head start they needed.
He would arrive in the morning, having to take a roundabout route in order to avoid alerting the Council to his involvement. The Council was aware of his existence, of course, and had utilized his talents on numerous occasions, but he had to keep his dealings with the Guardians secret, as they all did if they wished to survive.
Caleb walked through the house to the kitchen, watching Ava and Audrey out the back windows. They stood in the middle of the yard, as they had been for the past few hours, working on Ava’s telekinesis. After pulling a pebble into her palm from increasing distances, she was now trying to see if she could move something a bit larger. A basketball sat on the snowy lawn a short distance away, and Caleb could hear Audrey’s encouraging voice leading Ava through the exercise. He held his breath, biting his lip as he willed her to succeed. He could feel Ava’s energy reaching out toward the ball and reflecting back to her, to the trees, to everything around her. The electric hum of her power tingled over his skin.
“Come on,” he murmured. “Come on.”
The basketball tilted slightly. For a moment, he thought maybe it had been caught by the breeze, but then it began to roll, faster and faster, across the grass. Ava opened her eyes, watching the ball roll toward her. It bounced once on the grass and flew into her hands. She turned to Audrey with a bright smile, tossing the ball into the air before wrapping her arms around her in a tight hug.
Caleb grinned, walking out into the yard and scooping up the ball on the way. He spun it on his finger. “Nicely done,” he said, letting it fall and catching it against his hip. “You’re really getting the hang of it.”
Ava beamed at the praise. “It seems to be getting a little easier,” she said. “I couldn’t have done it without Audrey.” She paused for a moment as if in thought, and threw a suspicious glance at the woman. “You didn’t help me, did you?”
Audrey laughed, holding up her hands. “No way. That was all you.” She linked her arm with Ava’s, turning to lead her back to the house as Caleb fell in on her other side. “You know that. You could feel the link, right? The connection between you and the ball?”
Caleb watched Ava consider the question. It was a unique feeling he’d heard described by those with telekinetic ability, but since he didn’t have it, he couldn’t truly understand the link. The closest thing he could compare it to was the visualization necessary for a shift, but he often wondered if it was the same.
“I did,” Ava admitted. “It was a like a thread, almost. I could see it—kind of a string of electricity pulling it toward me. I could feel it, too, like it was tied to my wrist.”
Audrey squeezed her arm, pleasure evident on her face. “Yes. Exactly. You’re coming along very well.”
“Good thing,” Caleb interjected. “Because we’ll need to leave tomorrow.”
“What?” Ava asked. “Have the Protectors given up?”
“Not exactly.” Caleb frowned. “Honestly, it doesn’t look like they’re going to, so we have to go to Plan B.”
“Plan B?” Audrey repeated.
“Balaam.”
“Ah.” Audrey nodded. “Well, he is the best mimic there is.”
“Mimic?” Ava looked between them in confusion. “Who is Balaam?”
Between them, Caleb and Audrey explained Balaam’s unique ability and how he could help distract the Protectors long enough for Caleb and Ava to get out of the area. They would have to use conventional transportation—Audrey’s car to the border, followed by a train to Ontario—because any use of power would send an alert to the Council. Caleb didn’t dare shift. Such a use of power would be like sending out a beacon—his imprint pinging on any Protector’s radar within seconds.
“So, he just has to touch me?” Ava asked. “And he can mimic my . . . energy or whatever?” She waved a hand in the air to illustrate her thought.
“It’s a very rare ability,” Audrey replied.
“But will
he
be safe?” Ava bit her cheek nervously as they walked into the house. “What if they catch him?”
Caleb smiled at her concern. “They won’t. Balaam can shift better than anyone. They’ll never get closer to him than he wants them to. Believe me. He’ll be fine.”
“I have to admit, I’m going to miss you two,” Audrey said with a sad smile, patting Ava’s arm as she walked into the kitchen to put the kettle on. “I’ve gotten used to the company.”
Ava blinked hard as if fighting back tears. “Will I ever see you again?” she asked.
Audrey laughed. “Oh, I’m sure you will, dear. Once this whole thing is settled—” Gasping unexpectedly, her eyes flew to Caleb’s and the color drained from her face. He tensed, stalking to the window to peer out at the darkening backyard.
“What is it?” Ava asked.
“How did they get so close?” Caleb said at the same time.
Audrey rushed over to join him, glancing at the little computer pad in her pocket. “I don’t know. The cloak’s in place.”
“Who?” Ava asked, panic rising as she realized the answer to the question. “Protectors?”