I gulped some air to try to force my breakfast back down. Our house was totally wrecked. Half of it was blown away, leaving the rest of it open to the breeze. 

It was a really bad idea to beg Steven to bring me here. Really bad idea. Still, some part of me had to come back to see if it was real. 

Steven put a hand on my shoulder. It helped me regain my composure, even if it was minute. "Thank you for letting me come back." I stared at the house some more.

He nodded and followed me as I made my way closer to the wreckage. I wasn't allowed to go inside, but I could observe from the outside. Chalk lines seemed to be the new decorations. There were five--no, six--outside.

Steven said they were already done with the crime scene stuff, but I should stay out. "Just in case," he said. 

It was like he thought the roof would come down on me.

I let out a chuckle from the bubble of laughter inside me. Hysteria. "You know this isn't the best thing to let kids see."

Steven looked at me sadly and said, "You'll be okay."

I nodded and focused on the weather vane on the roof. Thunder children were known for mental fortitude and intelligence. In theory, tragedy wouldn't hit us as hard, but that was either a total lie or I was a freak among freaks.

Ryder's room was intact still, but its support was no doubt weakened since it was right next to Saorise's, which was just gone. It was lucky enough to survive after such a close call. . . a lot like him. I rubbed away some of the tears in my eyes and peered in through the window. I had to get what I came for.

The place was all messed up from the people's rampage, but nothing was broken. Everything was just everywhere. Check that, the bed was split and so were the pillows. And the door was broken off the hinges.

"That," I said, pointing at a picture frame on the wrecked nightstand. "It's that one."

Steven went in through the part that was blown away. I messed with the trash on the ground while he fetched Ryder's picture. Glass shards, pieces of charcoal, some pieces of metal all dotted my mom's rose bushes.

I pushed away some leg off a teddy bear into the burnt flowers. Out of sight, out of mind. Hopefully. I picked up a piece of charred ribbon off the floor and stuck it in my pocket when Steven returned.

"Here you go," he said and handed me the photo.

I took it from him, easing it from the dirty frame. Ryder's old parents gazed back at me, holding a smaller Ryder between them. It happened again, they seemed to say. Pieces from the broken glass pressed against my finger.

"Thank you," I mumbled and stuffed the picture into my pocket along with the ribbon. The picture frame I left on the ground.

I walked to the place where the detective people said my parents had fought. The place was black and charcoal, just like the fireplace after the fire had died. Strange splotches of ashes dotted the floor, probably shocks from my dad.

My dead dad.

I picked up a rock and chucked it as far as I could. The anger in me sprung up out of nowhere. Those people had to pay, answer for their crimes. They didn't stop with Ryder's family; they didn't stop with mine; they wouldn't stop.

I was about to throw another rock when I saw an insignia covered by some dirt. My thumb rubbed off the black ashes from the bronze metal, showing the connected crescent moons. It wasn't the army's or my family's.

I stuck it in my other pocket.

The anger I had built up diffused into pain--pain for my parents' deaths, pain for Ryder and my little sister, and pain over my own guilt. I killed people that night.

What'd Dad say if he knew I was a murderer?

Steven led me away from my house and back into the van. Between the gasping and the tears choking my throat, I tried to compose myself before I met with my siblings. It'd make it worse if they saw me like this.

-.-.-.-..-.-.-.-.-.-..-.-.-.--

"What're we gonna do after this blows over?" I asked Steven. At the moment, we were some office organizing files. The one in my hands read Supply Lists at the top.

"I'll take that," he said and put it on the desk. "And to answer your question, we're going to have you kids start training to control yourselves. Your electricity levels are too high to leave alone."

I sorted through some more files. Most were dated from a few years ago as old field reports. "Are we training for the military?"

"If you choose to," said Steven, lifting a box of the trash papers and placing it by the door. "But as your guardian, I strongly recommend against it."

"Why?" I asked.

"You're too young," he said, stacking another box onto the first one. "Besides, you don't need to be in the military to control it. We need to take these to the archives. Get that one next to you."

I grabbed the box and lifted it onto my shoulders. "What about when we're eligible?"

"I'd still say no. But it's your choice," he said as we walked down the hallway. The archive room was in the basement of the square complex, so we had to walk down five floors.

On the third floor, Steven stopped. "Can you get the old medical records from the sixth floor? They need to be moved to the medical archive."

"Yes sir," I said, and he took my boxes.

The doctor's floor wasn't that different from the other floors, aside from the tiling. The fluorescent lights lighted the charcoal tiles and the white walls. It was bare and quiet and way different than a normal hospital.

I remembered that on my first visit here I nearly blew up the computer during my tests. Fun times.

"Excuse me," I asked a passing doctor coming from the testing room, "Where are the old records?"

"What do you need them for?" he asked.

"I was sent to pick them up," I said.

"By whom?" he continued, tapping his foot on the floor. I hadn't even been talking to him for a minute, and he was already impatient.

"Commander Starling, Sir," I replied and hoped he wouldn't get more upset with me. Addressing Steven by his title felt foreign coming from my mouth.

  "Very well then. They're in a box in the office on the right. End of the hall," he said and continued on his way.

I got the box from the office and made my way to the stairs when I caught a glance of my siblings in the testing rooms. The screens inside displayed some pretty high numbers. Saorise seemed to be okay, talking to the doctors, but Ryder wasn't talking at all. The lady inside dabbed at some scrapes and gave them some more of the testing liquid.

I turned away and hurried for the archives downstairs before Steven wondered where I was.

The archives smelled like an old library, lighted by two sets of lights. Steven was in there sorting papers and file cylinders, putting some into one pile and others back into their boxes. I put the box down by the door, knocked on the frame twice, then announced myself. "Where would you like this?" I asked.

He pointed to the right and said,  "In that room please."

The other room was just as paper-smelling as the other one, but more dusty. The only light source came from the rays entering through the open door. I placed the box on top of the stack by the doorway, raising up a little cloud of particles.

They seriously needed to dust the place.

It wasn't totally abandoned though. A few of the boxes were removed from their places on the shelves, and those were just the ones I could see. Someone had been in there earlier.

"Excuse me, Ste--Commander," I said, returning to the room. It'd probably be better to address him by his title while we were here. He looked up at me from his work and waited for me to continue. "Some of the boxes were displaced in the other room, so, um,--"

"Don't worry, that was me." He smiled. "I'll put them back once I've found everything I'm looking for."

"Can I help?" I asked. It didn't feel right to spend the day loitering around, and I had no wish to gawk at my sister and brother getting probed by a doctor. Besides, doing nothing meant beating myself with what happened a few days ago.

"Sorry, but I can't have you going through the files," he said before hesitating. "Everything all right?"

I shook my head and watched him work from the doorway. He hadn't told me to go away yet, so I assumed this was fine. I edged closer to get a better view. Steven kept all the files about the Thunder children or attacks, even though the disputes dealt with different things. 

Some were supply line raids, others were civil problems. One was a car accident. When he opened one of the cylinders, the metal halves split apart to form a hologram between them. 

"How come you don't use the cylinders to store everything?" I gestured to the boxes of papers surrounding him.

"Chael." Steven turned to face me. "You can stay, but you can't read over my shoulder. Understand?"

"Yes, Sir," I said, backing away.

"We use the cylinders to store reports, but we make sure to have a physical copy as well," Steven switched the cylinder out for a folder of papers. "And some of the archives are from before we started using the cylinders."

After a few minutes, he sighed and put one last paper in the "keep" pile. "Would you like to help me put the boxes away?"

"Yes," I said. The two of us put away the boxes in both the rooms then headed upstairs to fetch Ryder and Saorise. "Are you researching into the disappearances of families like mine? You know, with like the lightning powers?" I asked after pondering his choice of papers.

He nodded but didn't say anything else.

With that many papers gathered, there had to be more people who were targeted.

Why'd they choose us? I thought.

Steven went into the doctor's office to get the kids and left me outside. I leaned against the white wall, resisting the urge to smack the gloomy feeling out of my body.

"Chaeell," said Saorise, drawing out my name. She launched herself up into my arms. "I missed you."

Ryder ran over just as quickly, but without all the shouting, and hugged me. "Hi."

"Hi guys," I said and knelt down to their eye level. "I brought you guys some stuff from the house."

"Really?" asked Saorise.

"Yeah," I said and gave her the ribbon, "This was your teddy's, right?" I had cut off the burnt ends with a pocket knife in the van.

"Yeah, thank you," she said and twisted it around her finger. "I'm gonna put it on Mr. Teddy Bear."

I turned to Ryder and showed him the photo. "I got this for you."

He took it from me and clutched it to his chest. "Thank you," he said and finally smiled. "I like this picture."

I smiled back at him and ruffled his brown hair. Then the two of them gave me two, big, slobbery kisses on the cheek.

"Ew, guys," I said, wiping my face dry. The two just smiled cheekily and hugged me again, obviously not guilty about the saliva on my face. Oh well. I ruffled their hair and returned the hugs. "Glad you liked it."

"Love you, Chael," mumbled Saorise against my shirt. "But you're stinky."

I rolled my eyes and ignored the last part. "Love you too, guys."

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

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