The Institute (25 page)

We’re now
sitting at lunch and I can barely even lift my arms to bring the
food to my mouth. I didn’t feel too bad after the post class shower
but now it’s like my muscles are frozen. Chad sits across from me,
smiling every time I wince taking a bite of my lunch.

“Shut up.” It’s
not the most intelligent of retorts but it’s all I can think of
right now.

“I didn’t say
anything!” he laughs, then leans across the table and whispers.
“It’s a good thing they don’t know what you can really do, isn’t
it?”

“What do you
mean?”

“Well if they
are putting you through this level of difficulty of training with
what they know, imagine how hard they would be pushing you if they
knew the truth.”

It still kind
of annoys me that Tate told Chad what I can do, I haven’t even had
the chance to tell Shilah the truth yet. Tate said I can trust Chad
but I don’t know him well enough to; it’s not surprising I have
trust issues after what happened with Drew. I guess I should feel
the same way about Tate too, but strangely I don’t. I already trust
him completely, so I guess if he says I can trust Chad, then I
should. That doesn’t mean I can’t still be weary of him though.

“Hmm, good
point,” I respond with a wry smile. “So you’re admitting it’s
hard?”

“Maybe a little
bit,” he replies. He smiles again and as he takes a sip of his
drink, I have to remind myself that it’s not polite to stare, even
if his smile really is captivating. I look away quickly before any
more of those thoughts have a chance to enter my head. I have no
idea where that came from, but I’m putting a stop to it right now.
I almost wish he’d be mean again. “You know, I can’t help but
wonder why you just didn’t pull energy from our teacher.”

“What do you
mean?” I ask distractedly.

“You really are
new at this, aren’t you? Do you keep forgetting that you are able
to borrow from other people?”

“Well, I guess
I kind of do, yeah. How am I meant to know who has what ability and
how to use it? The only one that was triggered without touching was
Tate. Well, that I know of anyway.”

“I think we’re
going to have to do some work on building your ability.”

This confuses
me. Build my ability? Why?

“Why do you
even care?” Wow, I didn’t mean for it to come out so
malevolently.

“They don’t
have you in ability training because you’re already powerful enough
to them and they don’t even know what you can really do. If you can
get control over it, you will be able to protect yourself out there
a lot better than any fitness training could.” He’s concerned for
me, I genuinely sense a need to protect me. “Tate won’t exactly
forgive me if I let you get killed out there, will he?” Ah, not a
sense to protect me, a sense to protect himself.

If I’m sensing
Chad’s feelings, that can only mean one thing: Drew is near and I’m
pulling energy from him without even trying. Maybe that’s what I
need to do to trigger it – not think about it.

I look around
the room and see Drew, in line putting food on his plate. Just as I
see this, I notice Shilah walk in through the entrance. He sees me
too and starts walking towards me but is stopping at nearly every
table to say hi to whoever is sitting there. I watch him as he
casually greets everyone, I didn’t realise my brother was so
smooth. Could it be that being here at the Institute where Shilah
can be himself, the only place he could ever be himself, makes him
popular?

Drew now sees
me too and starts coming towards me. I should get up and go over to
Shilah, drag him out of here so we can talk – or is that being
overbearingly big sister of me again? I don’t want to be at this
table by the time Drew reaches it. So when Chad asks if I want to
practice before our next class, I don’t hesitate in agreeing.

We both get up
and head for the exit. I turn towards Shilah, standing in the
middle of the group of tables. “I’m sorry,” I mouth and nod towards
Drew. Shilah immediately understands why I am leaving and sits down
with his friends.

“We best use
your apartment, mine is really tiny,” Chad says as we get in the
elevator.

“It came true!”
I just remembered my vision Shilah gave me and the three different
possible futures.

“What came
true?” Chad asks.

“It was a few
days ago, my brother, who can see the future – I borrowed his
ability and I saw three different outcomes. In one I was with you
in my apartment, only I didn’t realise it was you until now. The
other I was arguing with Drew and the third I was talking with my
brother in the cafeteria. I chose to come up here with you, so
that’s it then, it came true.”

“Really? Your
brother can see the future? Isn’t that a little too voodoo psychic
science fiction?” He responds in a mocking tone.

“Oh but what
you can do isn’t … actually, what is it you can do?”

“You’ll see.”
He smiles at me again and it really does feel like we are making
our way to being friends.

I could really
do with a friend right now but he needs to lighten up a little,
today hasn’t been too bad but he’s still all about being angry at
the world for being here. I don’t need to be dragged down into that
kind of constant hatred right now, I’m half way there already. We
reach my apartment and as we walk through the door, I ask, “So, how
exactly are you going to show me how to control my ability?”

“Easy, hit
me.”

“I’m sorry? I
think I misheard you, you want me to hit you?”

“Yup, go for
it. Anywhere you want … but maybe not the face.”

“Oh yes, can’t
have me messing up all that prettiness,” I say sarcastically.

“You really
think I’m pretty?” he responds with a smirk. “Just hit me and put
some effort behind it,” he says, challenging me.

“I still don’t
understand how this will help me.”

“Just do it, I
can tell by the look on your face that you want to.”

Well that is
true. I’m still sore from fitness class but I manage to lift my arm
enough to punch him in the shoulder as hard as I can; he doesn’t
even flinch. I however am holding my hand from the pain, it felt
like I’d hit metal or rock. I try to rub the pain away but doing
that sends shooting pain into my wrist. The only thing making the
pain ease is holding it, tight.

“Sorry, I
didn’t think you’d try and hit me that hard on your first go!
You’re feisty, aren’t you.” He grabs my hand, “Let’s have a look.”
He runs his forefinger and thumb from the top of my wrist down to
the tip of each of my fingers and it’s suddenly not so painful
anymore … that is until he stops and says, “You’re fine, do it
again.”

“Again? I’m not
in enough pain for you yet?” I ask, looking up at him. He smiles in
return. “You’re enjoying this aren’t you?”

“No! Not at
all.” I’d believe that more if he wasn’t being so sarcastic and
laughing while he said it. “Okay, this time when you do it, focus
on me, on what I can do.” He puts his hands on my shoulders. “You
can do this, just picture your hand being protected.”

I hit him again
and this time, I see a blue spark between my hand and Chad’s
shoulder. I don’t hit him as hard as the first time and it doesn’t
hurt as much but it still stings a little when I connect.

“That’s better,
but you can still do more, concentrate harder.”

Now I really do
want to punch him. I focus on my hand, on his shoulder, on his
ability to protect himself. I take a deep breath and swing. A
bright blue force field protects my hand as I hit him. He still
doesn’t flinch but that’s because he has the exact same blue ring
around his shoulder.

“I did it!” I
exclaim as I throw my arms around him. Oops. I immediately pull
back. He runs his hand through his hair. There’s awkward silence
until I look at the time, “I guess we’d better get back to class.
What do we have this afternoon?”

“Did you even
bother to check your schedule? I have ability training, so I guess
you have Self Defence? You’ve already got a jump start on that
now.”

“Yeah, but how
am I going to be able to use your ability when you aren’t
there?”

“Study the
others, see if they have an ability you could use. Do you at least
know where you are going?”

“Umm …”

He sighs. “Come
on, I’ll take you,” he says with a roll of his eyes.

***

It turns out
self-defence training is just another name for ‘beat the crap out
of each other class’. I try to do what Chad said, I try to scope
out what other abilities I could borrow from but I don’t know what
to look for. I finally give up and look to the teacher, the same
one we have for fitness, the same one that gave me those back
handed slaps that left me bruised for days. Chad said I should have
borrowed from him in the last class, I’m shocked I am even able to
lift my arms at all after that class. I focus on the trainer,
breathe in deep and I feel more powerful and stronger. It still
hurts like a bitch when I get hit though, but I don’t feel as weak
anymore. I even get a few good jabs in myself. They have paired me
with a girl, I’d say she’s only fifteen. I feel bad for hitting her
but it’s not like she’s not holding her own. In fact I’d say she’s
got me more times than I have her.

I’ve got two
more classes left for the day, Covert Operations – whatever that is
– and Analysis. Chad offered to come and get me from Self Defence
but I told him I need to start finding things on my own and I
really should.

I make my way
through the classroom halls and find Covert Operations without
getting lost more than twice. I give myself silent praise for doing
it, there’s hope for me yet.

I’m surprised
to find my advisor, Lynch to be running the class.

“Wow, and
you’re not even late,” Chad says in a playful mocking tone as I sit
down next to him.

“You know, if
my muscles weren’t so sore, I’d be giving you the finger right
now.”

“Class went
that well then, did it?”

“I just can’t
wait until tomorrow when I get to do it all again.” Now it’s my
turn to be sarcastic.

Lynch starts
off the class by explaining to Chad and I what it is all about. The
others in the class, who have been here before don’t listen to the
explanation; they all have their heads in textbooks.

“Basically what
we teach here is how not to get caught when you’re on the outside.
We have policies and procedures in place to ensure your safety at
all times but we understand things are different when you’re
actually out there in the field. It’s all good and well to tell you
what to do on paper, it’s another thing to put it into practice.
I’ll give you two these books for you to take home tonight and
peruse.” She goes and collects two huge binder folders from the
shelf and puts them on the desk in front of us. “Have fun,” she
smirks and then walks back up to the front of the classroom.

“Gee, I can’t
wait,” Chad mutters under his breath, clearly meant for only my
ears. I however snort, out loud and suddenly everyone is looking at
me. Chad starts laughing too which makes me laugh more and suddenly
it’s an out of control train that I can’t stop. What he said wasn’t
even that funny and yet both of us are having difficulty breathing
because of the laughter.

I finally
manage to stop when Lynch gets angry. “Find something funny, do we?
Would you find it funny if you ended up like this?” She clicks a
remote which turns on a screen projector.

Great, more
slideshows
, I think, but there is something very familiar about
the photo she has put up on the screen. I have seen this scene
before, I was there; it’s a photo from Drew’s car accident. There’s
a bloodied body in front of Drew’s car, but it’s not Jax. What is
going on?

“This was an
accident that happened only a few months ago. See this person
here?” She points to the body. “He was an agent with us who got
found out. The person he was investigating, discovered who he was,
caused an accident and now that agent is dead.”

Uh no, that’s
not what happened at all. I realise I’m looking at more lies, more
ways of scaring these kids into thinking we are our own enemy;
Defective people are dangerous. These people have twisted this
story around so it sounds like Jax was the bad guy, but he was the
one who was killed, not Drew! That’s why Drew is here and Jax is
not. I can’t believe they took photos of this to make examples for
classrooms on ‘what not to do’. This photo was clearly taken long
after the accident and it’s clear that the body in the photo is an
actor, or a lifelike dummy. I’m trying so hard to squash my anger
down right now.

“That’s not how
it happened,” I say just quiet enough for only Chad to hear.

“What’s not?”
he whispers back.

“I was there,
that’s not how that happened at all.”

Lynch addresses
me, “Not so funny now is it, Miss Daniels.”

I am quiet.
It’s far from funny. There is no humorous side to the lies they are
telling us. I sit silent for the rest of the class in fear of
having an outburst that I really shouldn’t have.

Eventually this
torturous class is over and we are let out to find our way to the
Analysis class.

This one is all
about the suspect, ways of finding out if they are Defective and
what their ability could possibly be. Yes, this class will come in
quite handy for learning to borrow abilities. Finally, I find a
class I am interested in. I sit quietly for the full hour and a
half, concentrating, taking everything in that could be of use to
me.

***

Classes are
finally over for the day, but the fact I have to do it again
tomorrow makes me want to throw things in frustration.

We are walking
back to the elevators when Chad says, “Do you want to do more
practice at lunch tomorrow?”