CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

The distance from the school gates to Caden’s car has never seemed so long, so wide. Even in the mass of students, I still feel as though any second could be my last, as though those people are about to jump out and finally finish what I presume they came to start.

But we make it to the car without any incidents, without any more sightings, and I get the horrible feeling that they want us to get in the car, that they want us to feel trapped by four walls of metal and glass.

Before I step in, I scan the crowds for Lauren and the women who had been watching her, but the woman’s gone, and Lauren is surrounded by friends. Maybe the lady had been looking at someone else. Maybe she had just wanted me to think she was watching Lauren.

I really hope so.

I get into the passenger seat, Sarah slipping into the back, and Caden puts the car into reverse. It’s strange that I’ve become so accustomed to his blatant breaching of the law. Someday, It’s gonna backfire and I can only hope that I won’t be there when it happens. The police hate me enough already, I don’t want to give them further reason to throw me out of the country.

We’re out on the road and have left the school behind in no time. The streets quickly start to empty out, becoming less and less filled with cars and people as we head deeper into the jungle of quiet residential streets and further away from the crowded main roads and congestion accompanied with peak hour traffic.

We turn onto a particularly deserted street and Caden says, “I think we must have left them all behind.” He doesn’t need to expand – we all know what he means.

I hear movement behind me, and I turn to see Sarah looking out the back window. “I think we did,” she says. “I mean, I can’t see any cars following us and I can’t imagine they could’ve kept up on foot.”

“What if they can teleport?” I ask, remembering Patrick’s ability.

“Let’s just pray they can’t,” Caden says, and our eyes catch as he turns his head. “For all our sakes.”

Caden and I are so focused on each other that we don’t see the man until Sarah screams, “Watch out!” And suddenly, everyone’s eyes are on the road – on the man dressed in a dark jacket and jeans who has calmly stepped out in front of the car. Caden slams on the breaks. Sarah yells. I squeeze my eyes shut.

The car jerks to a stop, then silence. Cautiously, I flick open my eyes. Somehow, Caden has gotten us to stop a few metres before the man, and now the world is filled with a before-and-after kind of silence, where our breaths are loud in the sudden quiet, where our heartbeats still throb like drums, where our eyes are latched onto the person before us.

He takes his time to meet all our eyes, and I can feel the seconds slowing down, turning into minutes, into hours, into days.

He raises his arm. A bird chirps in the distance. The breeze is blowing gently, a large hand caressing the world. Caden’s squeezing the cushioned car seat. I’m trying hard not to ignore the instinct telling me to run. But like time, I’m frozen, trapped in this endless moment as the man’s arm gets higher, his hand unfurling like a blooming flower to reveal his forward-facing palm, and the bad feeling inside of me grows, pushing at my instincts, nudging me closer and closer towards an edge – an edge that borders the timeless world of shaky heart beats and frozen limbs, and the place of movement and action.

And then, something orange and glowing starts to form on the man’s palm, a bright growing eye in the centre of his hand. I’m conscious of Sarah saying, “What is that?” but only barely. I can hear the gears turning in Caden’s mind as realisation dawns on him, but only just. And then, suddenly, Caden’s shouting, “Get out! Get out!” and he’s jumped over that edge and into the realm of movement. He practically throws open the driver-side door and I can’t help but follow him, my instincts taking over as I yank off my seatbelt and shove my own door open. I don’t have time to grab any of my things – my phone, my school bag – all of it remaining inside the car. I don’t have to time to make sure Sarah gets out. I don’t have time to see how far Caden gets from the car. I don’t even have time to think. Everything is just one foot in front of the other, one movement before the next. There’s nothing else. There’s no before and after, no today and tomorrow. I’m breathing and I’m here and I have to make sure it stays that way, I have to make sure–

And then the world seems to explode around me. There’s a scorching heat on my back, a burning light in my eyes, the sound of a million bombs detonating at once filling my ears. It’s raining, and the rain hurts, cutting into my skin like no other rain has. A voice tells me not to look up, not to look back, and I don’t, not even as I finally collide with the snow-dusted ground, the concrete bitting at my body, searching for any available skin and tearing at it with razor-sharp teeth. I hit my head hard, my arm igniting in something akin to pain but stronger, much stronger, and roll across the road, sharp things imbedding themselves in me along the way.

When I finally come to a stop, there’s a ringing in my ears and my arm feels as though it’s been set on fire. Breathing hard, I push myself up on one my left hand until I’m sitting, my right arm hanging limply by my side. I don’t attempt to move it.

With blurry vision and dizziness clinging to my mind, I finally look at the scene before me, trying to take it all in. The white ground is covered with fragments of glass and metal, some still on fire, tiny flames poking out of the snow like burning patches of grass. The car sitting maybe six or seven metres away has been reduced almost completely to a blackened husk, a massive flame eating away at everything it contains, the metal in some places glowing red-hot from the heat.

I squint, searching the ground for signs of Caden, but I can’t see him anywhere. I can’t see anything except fire and metal and a burning, burning, burning, and–

It’s then that I spot the dark blurry figure slowly approaching a pale lump on the floor. I strain my eyes until, through the heat, I can make out blonde hair, a grey school uniform, and the face of someone who is beyond terrified. She crawls backwards as he walks forwards, and the two get further and further away from where I’m sat with every passing second.

I watch as Sarah’s back hits the fence bordering a silent, empty house across the road and realise she’s trapped. The man must realise this as well, because he stops and raises his arm once more.

I don’t give him time for his palm to unfurl, nor do I allow for the glowing orb to form and grow. The second I see his rising arm, I’m all instincts. Without even thinking about, I draw my left arm back and with all my might, I push the air before me. The air seems explode before my eyes, become a massive, living thing that launches at the man, travelling faster than a bullet.

It hits, and he’s flung to the ground, skidding until his back hits the fence with a solid thud. He doesn’t get up and I look back at Sarah to see her staring at the spot the man had been with wide, terrified eyes.

Cradling my arm, I stand and hurriedly make my way over to the man. My knees wobble and my legs threaten to collapse at any second, but still I walk, pushing on through the pain and the exhaustion that’s resulted from using my powers.

Time has sped up again, but it still takes what feels like a lifetime to get there, and when I reach him, I find that all I can do is look down at the ordinary and unfamiliar face. He has the sort of face you’d see at a supermarket, the sort of face you’d see walking down the street or having lunch with friends. He looks like a normal man, like someone I could have walked right past a hundred times without realising it.

The thought scares me. What if there are more of them then I thought? What if they’re always watching? What if it’s the man walking his dog or the woman taking her child to get ice-cream? What if the old man by the bus stop is only using his cane to pretend he has a limp?

I feel like I’m going to throw up. How many times have I thought I was safe when I really wasn’t? Why did it never occur to me that they’re smarter than just hiding in the bushes, than lurking in the shadows, than wearing dark clothes that make them stand out? I’ve been thinking too much like the child I am and I need to start realising that these people – they’re adults. Adults who have had twenty, thirty, maybe even forty more years of life than I have. They’ve had more experience and more training – they’ve set more goals and achieved more goals than I have. And here I am, fifteen going on sixteen, expecting to understand their methods and minds.

I have nothing on them. They have powers just as great as mine, they are just as determined as I am, possible even more so, and they have the added benefit of numbers. There’s more of them then there are of me and my friends. They probably even have more experience than all of us combined.

So how in the world am I expected to overcome this? From the very start, everything has been wishful thinking, hoping and praying, crossing my fingers again and again in the hope I’ll actually get through this. But I don’t see how it’s going to happen, not when I have them watching me twenty-four seven. My aim is the same as it’s always been: hopeless.

And, as if to prove my point, the man’s arm twitches and moves, and his eyes flutter open, latching onto the first thing they see: me. My heart beat is back in my chest again, beating, beating, beating – pushing up against my lungs until my breathing mimics my speeding pulse. I watch, horrified, as he gets to his feet, and all I can do is stand there, frozen in fear, my mind begging for me to move but my body refusing to budge.

When he’s back on his feet, he starts his advance, and Sarah shouts, “Melissa, move!” That’s when I finally start taking hurried steps backward, walking further and further back the way I came, cradling my arm loosely. He starts to speed up, causing me to half-walk, half-run away from him. I nearly trip over a large piece of metal in my haste, causing my heart to pound so loudly that I swear the whole world can hear it, and my panic starts to spread across my face like a disease taking root under my skin.

Smirking faintly, the man stops walking and, lightning fast, he raises his arm, sending a ball of fire straight to my heart. I jump to the right but not fast enough and a searing force hits me in the shoulder, knocking me to the ground. A scream rips from my throat, my shoulder igniting in a pain so incredible that I forget how to breathe, how to think.

I grit my teeth and open my eyes in time to see the man raising his arm once more. Terror has me crawling backwards, faster than should be possible with a broken right arm and a burned left shoulder. However, the man doesn’t move, instead watching as my back hits the short brick wall bordering a property, a mere four metres away from where he’s standing. I realise then that I’m trapped, much like Sarah was, except this time, there’s no one coming to save me.

The glowing orange eye begins to form in his palm and grows – grows until I’m positive that it’s large enough to incinerate me upon impact. I squeeze my eyes shut. And–

Nothing. I hear the sound of something burning, but it’s not me, and I open my eyes to see a continuous stream of air shooting out of my palm, my extended arm – an arm I do not remember extending – initiating a new wave of burning pain in my shoulder. The air hits the man’s continuous stream of fire half-way between us, burning up on impact but somehow manage to hold him off.

Despite the temporary moment of relief at not being incinerated, my fear manages to hold on to me with a firm grip, especially when I feel my reserves starting to dwindle. I know I won’t be able to last much longer before I either collapse form exhaustion or pass out, and the thought frightens me.

Slowly, the stream of fire draws nearer and nearer as my own stream of air shortens and weakens, growing thinner and less forceful with every passing second. I start to feel the heat from the approaching flame on my hand and the heat only grows, getting stronger and stronger until I swear my hand must be on fire. Sweat trickles down the side of my face, my breathing becoming gulps for air instead of small breaths. I can feel myself giving up, my body aching for sleep, for the cool and calm blackness associated with rest. Or death.

But just as I’m about to give up, something collides with the man, seeming to have appeared out of thin air, and the stream of fire evaporates as the man topples to the ground. It takes me all of two seconds to realise that that something was actually Caden, and I watch on in shock as he wrestles with the man on the ground. The element of surprise has given him the upper hand, but not for long, and soon the man’s managed to knock Caden onto his back and has wrapped his hands around Caden’s neck.

As I watch Caden struggle, I realise that this fight was never going to end well. He’s losing strength too quickly, his arms uselessly pushing at the man’s chest, fighting against the man’s impossible strength. The door of one of the nearby houses opens, revealing a young woman, frightened by the scene that confronts her, and in the moment that her eyes meet mine, I know what I have to do.

My eyes flick back to the car and I clear out my mind. My mother told me that in order to use my powers when I want to, I need to have made connections – connections to the moment, to the subject I’m trying to control and to my emotions. But the connections are already there, and I can feel my emotions swirling in my gut, poking and prodding while they wait for me to take advantage of them. Focusing on the car, I project the mixture of anger and fear I have at my disposal forward and a loose piece of metal is yanked from the cars frame, hovering in the air. Out the corner of my eye, I spy Caden, the fight draining out of him at a terrifying rate, and I do the only thing I can think of: I fling the piece of metal towards the man.

The metal moves fast – faster than anything I’ve ever seen. I squeeze my eyes shut at the last possible moment, but I don’t miss the sound that’s made as the car fragment lodges itself in the man’s back. Someone in the distance screams and I hear a door slam shut. At the same time, there’s a strangled cry, followed by a resonating thud.

Silence descends, and a sense of finality hangs in the air. I open my eyes to see Caden next to the man’s limp body, staring up at the sky with a hand on his chest, his breathing laboured, and Sarah, getting to her feet in the distance. She jogs over to us and all I can do is stare at her, wondering how she could have any energy left to even move. But of course, she didn’t use any powers – she doesn’t have any powers.

“Are you guys okay?” she asks, worry written plainly on her face. I nod weakly and she rushes over to Caden, pulling him to his feet. I notice he’s covered in blood and has burns on the backs of his arms. He mustn’t have gotten very far from the car before the explosion.

I somehow manage to get to my feet, the pain in my body so severe that I go numb. I watch as Sarah takes a look at Caden’s wounds, all the while feeling as though I’m losing my hold on reality. Sarah’s muttering something under her breath as she examines a burn on the back of Caden’s neck, but I can’t really see her. My vision blurs and dizziness starts to take over, causing me to sway a little on my feet.

“Melissa, are you okay?” It’s Caden’s voice, but I can’t completely hear it and the words don’t register in my head. Everything is muted and dulled, and I’m so tired. So, so tired.

“Melissa?” This time, I don’t even recognise the voice, because suddenly, everything is falling – there’s a faint whoosh of air, a brief moment of weightlessness and then something hard smacks up against my back. I can hear voices, but not words – can see colours and movement, but not shapes.

Something touches my arm; there’s a word in my ear: stay. And then everything goes dark.