Powers (13 page)

My knees fold. I sink to the ground, to the cold, cold snow but what I feel is—

Hot, hot, hot.

She's dying.

“I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.” I'm not sure, but I think I say the words out loud.

I feel her spirit separate. I come back into myself. Look around. Noise. Heat. Water jetting from fire hoses. Shouting. A sickening
crack
as the roof collapses.

None of it matters. She's free now.

Another car. Another person. A man.

“Celina!” he screams. He rushes toward the burning house, but the police hold him back. He yells at them, “Let me go! My wife's in there!”

The police lead him to an ambulance. He slumps over, his face in his hands. He doesn't see what I see. A swirl of light, like tiny fireflies. It twirls and spins, then slows and comes to rest in front of him. She's pure energy, awesome.

He doesn't know she's there.

The apparition moves across the road, a vortex of sparks, stopping in front of me. I hear, clearly, a voice in my mind:
Tell him the pink heart is in the upper right-hand drawer. Tell him he was the first and only.

Yes,
I answer without speaking, without questioning. Her energy loses form, hangs in the air around me. I drink it in and grow strong.

Gwen stands a few feet away. I see myself through her eyes. I'm a living torch, brighter than the flames that consume the house. The Power spills out of me and pours into her. It sings in her blood.

She puts two and two together. Knows there was a person in the house. Knows she died. She looks at me in fear and revulsion.

It rips me apart.

Gwen

I'd felt it. The Power. A rush, a torrent, flowing into me.

The woman died. And Adrian's Power increased. It doesn't take a genius to figure out how.

Enough. Focus on the story. This one could land me that summer internship.

The newspaper office was empty. The only sound was the subdued tapping of my keyboard as I fed the story to the computer.

I've never been high—not drugs or alcohol or anything—but that night I was wired. A writer's high, I told myself. One of those times when the words spill out of their own accord. One of those times when you must write, because the story compels you to write. Only I knew it was more than that.

I was drunk on The Power.

I wrote until two in the morning, then drove home. The moon had set. The night sky splintered into a million shards of light. The stars rained down on me.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 1

Adrian

Cleo bats at my face to wake me. I swat at her instinctively, still spooked from last night. She's not happy with that. I rack up a few more scratches. Feral cat. Should get rid of her. But, hey, she was a stray. She has issues.

I cook up some eggs and check the paper. Gwen's story appears on the front page, complete with color photos. On the third page of the paper is her background story about arson. She takes up half the paper. And she accused me of abusing The Power?

Later in the day, my dad gets the call to arrange the funeral. Flowers arrive, one display after another. I arrange them around Celina's coffin. One memorial, a heavy ring of roses, falls over when my back is turned. I jump.
Celina? Are you here?
But I don't feel her in the room.

The husband, Carl, arrives in time for visiting hours. He feels like he's been hollowed out like a pumpkin, only someone's forgotten to put the candle inside.

Visitors come, say the same thing. So sorry for your loss. A tragedy. Hope they catch the guy who did this. Carl nods. Shakes hands. Hugs. Cries a bit, but not much. He's maybe forty, stocky, short hair.

The visitors go. Carl stays, kneeling at his wife's coffin, praying. I remember Celina, and the message she asked me to pass on.

“Carl,” I say, “there's something you need to know.”

He follows me, obedient as a child, into the coffee room. I pour him a cup of coffee, double cream, no sugar, and hand it over. He's too deep in his grief to wonder how I knew how to fix it.

“I saw your wife,” I say. “After she died. She appeared to me.”

His head jerks up. The dullness leaves his eyes.

“She was beautiful. Like a galaxy of tiny stars.”

“You saw her?” says Carl. “I don't understand.”

“I have a gift,” I say.

He nods, half-believing.

“She gave me a message, to tell you the pink heart is in the upper right-hand drawer.”

He buries his face in his hands.

The Valentine I gave her in kindergarten.

“She also said you were the first and only,” I continue.

Her first love. Her only love.

“And she's waiting for you, on the other side.” That part I make up, but I figure it's possible.

Carl loses it. Sobs like a baby. I touch his shoulder and share his grief.

My father is standing in the doorway. He heard everything. He's proud of me.

Even if I couldn't read his mind, I'd be able to see that.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 2

Gwen

I ran into town first thing to grab a dozen copies of the paper. My photographs were awesome, and my copy, in my opinion, was professional.

I hid the papers, not wanting to field questions from Mom. The rest of the day was quiet. I did homework, read
Crime and Punishment,
had dinner. But all I could think about was the fire. Adrian shining like a hot blue star. Did he feed on death? Was that it? Suck up that woman's soul? What lengths would he go to for The Power?

That night, a dream woke me up. I sat bolt upright in bed.

Adrian, crouching over a dead deer, The Power radiating from his eyes, his aura lighting up the night.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 3

Adrian

Monday comes. I'm hopeful that the link forged in the fire will bring us together.

Yeah. Right.

She's subzero, reciting the alphabet in French in her head until I'm ready to throttle her. We sit together at lunch, Conrad, Joanne, and I, but she refuses to acknowledge me. I place food beside her, like some weird offering to a goddess. She accepts it, eats it—tuna fish on wheat bread, a protein bar, and milk.

I want to talk to her. Explain what happened at the fire. But she won't even look at me.

We're sitting there, Conrad and me talking cars, when a vision comes to her. She tries to suppress it, but my hand shoots out and touches her arm. I lock into her mind and live the vision with her.

Pink house, purple shutters. The address, 10 Talbott Street, is on the mailbox. The front door opens. A man hurries to his truck. The door remains ajar.

A small child walks out, waddles down the drive, waves good-bye as the truck drives away. Behind the child, the front door swings shut.

The toddler tries to reach the doorbell. He pounds the door with his puny fist. No one comes. The child slumps on the doorstep, sucking his fingers, crying softly.

Gwen emerges from the vision, shoots me a poisonous look. But it's too late. I've seen it. So at ten that night, when I feel her getting into her car, I get into mine.

I arrive to find the child huddled on the doorstep, his fingers and toes already numb. I pick him up, tuck him inside my coat, and ring the doorbell. Inside, a television blares. Right as I'm about to bust in, I sense a woman walking down the hall.

“But he was in bed,” she exclaims, taking her son from me. I tell her I was walking by and noticed him. She thanks me, and whisks the little guy away.

And Gwen watches, and does nothing.

Gwen

There was nothing I could do. Even if I saved him, he'd die a few days later. Drown in the bathtub or get hit by a car. You can't cheat death. Ask Mr. Dean. Saved from a train to die in a car accident. Or Mr. Fogerty. I'd called the hospital to check on his progress. He'd slipped away, going from coma to death with a quiet blip on his heart monitor.

I'd tried to hide the vision from Adrian. Wasn't about to let him feed again. But he'd touched me. He'd seen. Big surprise when he showed up at the scene. Maybe hoping I wouldn't be there? Hoping he could wait around until the kid died. Well, of course he couldn't.

I was watching him.

So, he scooped up the kid and carried him into the house. A few moments later, he came out. I could tell how angry he was by the way he walked. He yanked open the door of my car.

“The camera,” he ordered.

“No.” Who did he think he was?

He reached into the backseat, grabbed the camera.

“Hey!”

He ignored me, and deleted my shots of the kid.

“What were you planning to do with the photos, Gwen?”

“Nothing.”

“Then why did you take them?” He slammed the door so hard the whole car shook.

Adrian

Her moral values are seriously in question. That's what I'm thinking as I hit the sweeping curve on Eagle Lake Road. My back wheels skitter on the ice. I downshift, cut my speed. I'm nearly through the curve when—

Wham!

I've hit something. My car spins, slides toward the far ditch. Swearing, I counter-steer, bring it under control, pull to the side of the road.

My front grill is smashed. My hood is crumpled. What happened?

And then I feel it.

Pain, fear, confusion.

A deer. There's blood everywhere. I strip off my gloves, and place my hands on her side. I try to pour my own energy into her. She feels warmth spreading from my hands, moving through her, calming her.

But it's not enough. I know the exact second her life force departs. It hovers around her body, an indistinct pattern of glowing energy. It swirls around me, touches me.

I drink it in. It tastes like cool spring water in my mind.

That's when Gwen drives by. I see myself through her eyes—crouched in the snow beside the deer, my eyes glowing, my aura bright around me, lighting up the night.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 4

Gwen

He had the nerve to put a protein bar on my desk in the morning.

Get lost,
I thought.
Starve, for all I care.

He said nothing, but I saw by the color in his face that he'd heard me.

I couldn't keep my mind on English. All I could think of was Adrian, crouched in the snow, The Power burning through his eyes, his hands stained with blood. Had he deliberately killed the deer? To recharge his batteries? Or had it been an accident? Either way, had he enjoyed it?

I looked over to see Adrian, dead white, dead calm. Drilling into me, seeing my every thought.

Adrian

She thinks I hit the deer on purpose? Recharging my batteries? How can she
think
that?

People believe what they see. I can't win.

I ignore that other question, the one clamoring for my attention. Had I enjoyed it? Don't go there. Don't answer that one.

At lunch, Gwen sits alone, and pointedly ignores me.

Conrad asks, “Trouble in paradise?”

“Nah. Another day in Hell.”

“Want to come over tonight? Work off some energy?”

“Good idea,” I say.

I head over to his house around nine. It's clear and cold, with a wind out of the northwest. A spotlight, mounted on Conrad's house, sends long tree shadows across the ice.

Conrad skates through light and dark, effortlessly, like he was born with blades instead of feet. He gathers himself, then jumps. I don't know what they call it—an axle, maybe—but I'm impressed.

“Hey,” I yell. “Nice jump.”

He comes to a perfect, controlled stop, sheering slivers of ice off the rink.

“Don't tell anyone you saw that,” he says.

“Why not?” I sit down and put on my borrowed skates.

Conrad skates over. “It's embarrassing. My mom made me take figure skating as a kid.”

“But you're good.”

He laughs. “You're such an expert. C'mon. I'll teach you how to use your stick.”

“Uh, Conrad. Figured that one out years ago.”

He swings his hockey stick at me and I duck, laughing. I wobble over to where he's set up a line of pucks facing the net. I line up my shot, pull back the stick, whack it a good one. I miss, overbalance, and fall.

“Well done, Bambi,” Conrad says, grinning. “Now try that shot again.”

This time the puck goes in. I'm lining up for another shot when Conrad says, “So, is it true?”

“Is what true?”

“What Gwen's been telling Joanne,” Conrad says.

I whack the puck. It rebounds off the edge of the net. Conrad ducks to avoid getting hit.

“About what?”

Conrad hits a puck smack into the middle of the net. “That you can read Gwen's mind.”
Whack.
Another puck hits the net. “That you showed up at a fire and sucked up some woman's soul.”
Whack.
“Then you got hungry and killed a deer.”

“Do you believe all that?”

“Not really.” He skates over, retrieves the pucks and nudges them into a straight line with his hockey stick. “But I have to ask myself, why would Gwen make all that up?”

“She's suspicious. Doesn't trust anyone. Prejudges them. She's got two sets of rules: one for her and one for the rest of the world. She'll do anything to get what she wants,” I say.

“Must be like looking in a mirror,” Conrad says.

I've held my anger in all day. Now, it erupts. I launch myself at him, and we land in a snowbank with me on top. He arches and twists, and suddenly I'm facedown in the snow with my arm twisted behind my back.

“Give up?” he asks.

“Never!”

He yanks up on my arm. I grit my teeth.

“Give up?”

“Yeah, whatever.” Snow melts down my neck. My teeth chatter.