Kinetics: In Search of Willow (5 page)

There was no one around and the
monsters were gone. I sucked in a breath and jumped out of the
circle.

I ran, not caring what direction I was
going in. I had to get away from the fire. I only stopped when I
was tripped by a fallen chair that had been strewn haphazardly
across the hallway.

Only then did I realize hot tears were
leaking from my eyes. I jammed the heels of my hands against my
eyes and stopped myself from sobbing.

I had to be strong for Willow. I had
to always be strong.

I pushed myself up and tried to find
my bearings. I was near the media lab, close to the front of the
school. In the distance, under the distant screams and shouts, I
could hear someone speaking.

A girl.

I followed the muffled voice to a
classroom. And inside was the girl, Laura.

She stood in the center of the
classroom with her hair falling over her face in blond waves. With
her hands clutching a chair and her face hidden and shadowed, she
looked more like someone deep in thought or prayer than someone
wreaking havoc throughout the school.

"It's okay. It will all be okay. They
can't hurt me here," she muttered to herself.

"Laura?" I called out.

She looked up at me. Her eyes were
red-rimmed and bloodshot. Her mouth was set in a frown.

"Laura, whatever you are doing, you…
you need to stop." I stepped forward, holding up my hands to show
that I was no danger.

"They've hurt me enough!" she
screamed, throwing the chair she had been clutching. "It's my
turn!"

I was breathing hard, trying to figure
out what I could say to her to stop the screams filling the
school.

"No one's going to hurt you," I tried
to assure her, stepping around the chairs and tables.

"Too late." I felt the invasion into
my mind the second it happened. At the corners of my vision, I saw
fiery monsters rising from the depths of my subconscious. She was
trying to frighten me.

"Stop!" I shouted, pushing away the
vision. I could feel heat at my fingers and didn't dare speculate
what was happening.

She grabbed two clumps of her own hair
and sobbed. "No!"

I forced myself to step toward
her.

"Look, I don't know about anyone else
in this school, but I won't hurt you. I'll help you," I
said.

She glared at me with clenched teeth
and tears flowed from her eyes in streams.

"It's too late," she said softly and
looked away. "I can't go back."

"Yes, you can." I said. I wracked my
brain trying to think what Willow would do in this situation. She
was ten times smarter than I was and she probably would have known
what to do here seconds ago.

Laura shook her head, her eyes dull
and distant.

"Tell me what I can do to help you." I
didn't know what I was saying. But she needed to stop this
terror.

"Make it stop," she cried, looking at
her hands. "I can't make it stop. It's too late."

Suddenly, Willow was beside me. I
didn't know where she came from or how long she'd been standing
there. I never heard her approach.

She touched my shoulder and
smiled.

"It's okay," she said. "I'll take over
from here."

Willow walked to Laura. Not like she
was afraid of her or about to fight, but like she was a
friend.

"I want you to look me in the eye,
Laura," she said, holding her arms open wide. "It's not the end.
It's never the end. You can always come back."

"No…It's impossible." Laura looked at
Willow in the eye and shook her head. "I'm tired."

"I know." Willow reached Laura,
wrapped her arms around the sobbing girl and held her.

"I'm so sorry!" Laura said into
Willow's hair.

"It's okay."

Willow had turned slightly, and I
could see a soft smile on her face and tears in her
eyes.

I saw her whisper something into
Laura's ear, and almost instantly the firewall that I could see
through the classroom windows flickered out, and the lawn returned
back to normal. The screams echoing through the halls receded into
sobs.

But that all seemed unimportant
compared to the sight in front of me.

Willow was glowing. Every strand of
her red hair was bathed in a white light coming from under her
skin. The girl in her embrace was soaking in the glow, and for the
first time since I'd seen her with red eyes and an unhappy face,
she looked content.

Willow let go of Laura and the glow
faded.

I was so stunned that I didn't notice
Harry had come up behind me.

"Did you see it?" I asked.

"See what?"

"The glow."

Harry shook his head.

"The illusions are gone," he
said.

CHAPTER 4

"Sometimes the best course
of action is to hide in plain sight." ~
Marian Powell. A Kinetic

who helped American Kinetics recover
from the Salem witch trials. 1693.

If I thought the past hour with
Laura's nightmares hell on Earth, I was not prepared for the next
two hours.

Stoic men and women in tan jackets and
black slacks had surrounded the school within moments of the
firewall disappearing. No one was allowed in or out. They herded
all the kids and teachers into the gym before leading them out, one
by one. They ignored everyone's protests and questions with an
overly practiced routine that none of us could decipher.

Laura was nowhere to be seen. Last I
saw, she had been carted off by one of the guys in jackets toward
the front of the school, but the effects of her actions remained.
The gym was loud with students and teachers talking about the
shared nightmare. Some were still huddled together, crying over
what they had seen. One of the teachers was sitting at the back of
the gym staring at the ceiling blankly.

No one had come out of this
unscathed.

Willow, Harry, and I were all at the
back of the gym.

Willow had dragged Harry aside, out of
my earshot and was talking frantically to him. I was only slightly
miffed that she hadn't wanted to include me, but I settled with
sulking by myself and kicking imaginary holes in the gym floor.
With every passing minute, the crowd of confused people grew
smaller and smaller.

Willow popped back up beside me and
touched my arm. I looked down at her and smiled. "You
okay?"

She nodded and smiled back. "I will
be."

"Who're they?" I asked, tilting my
head at the people corralling everyone.

"InfoCon," she muttered, looking
around.

"Info…?"

"I told you earlier, let's get through
this, Eugene, and when we get home I'll explain everything. I
promise, but please, for right now…"

Her eyes were half-lidded. She looked
more tired and worn out than I had ever seen her. No piano recital,
no soccer game, no late-night movies had ever sapped her as hard as
today had.

She pinched some of the fabric on my
shirtsleeve and dragged me into the crowd.

"Let's get this over with. I need to
sit down," she said.

I closed my mouth against the billion
questions trying to push their way out and instead followed
quietly. We reached the door, and she pushed me into the hands of
one of the "InfoCon" reaching for a new body to move out. The guy
who grabbed me pushed me in front of a woman who looked ready to
fall asleep from boredom. She touched my head and took one of my
wrists. A sharp feeling like an ice pick spearing from one temple
to another startled me.

"Vunjika. Registered. Alliance. No
power noted," she said to the guy behind her before pulling my
wrist and sending me off into the hands of another woman who pushed
me down the hall.

I touched my smarting temples,
confused.

"Go to the auditorium and nowhere
else," the second woman said before turning back around.

I blinked in shock, walking forward
with no argument. Her voice had too much authority to allow any
room for it. I was dazed, trying to process the words the first
woman had said.

Vunjika? What was that?
Registered? With whom? What Alliance? What kind of
power?

I stepped into the auditorium, where a
few other students and teachers were sitting making idle
conversation with each other. They glanced up at me, but quickly
returned to talking. What little of it I cared to listen in on
didn't make any more sense than the rest of the day.

"…didn't know she was a
Kinetic…"

"…tired of hiding…"

"…probably deserves whatever's coming
to her…"

I stopped listening after that because
Willow stepped into the room and slid into the seat next to mine.
She rested her head on my shoulder and appeared to fall
asleep.

I didn't dare move for fear of waking
her.

It was rare times like
this that I let myself stare at her. Her lashes weren't long, she
had a small nose covered with freckles and the space between her
eyebrows always creased in a funny
'W'
when she was tired. I hated that she hated her hair because I loved
it. It was wild, like her, wild and free, untamed by the outside
world.

I reached out to touch a strand, but
stopped when she adjusted her head a little. I closed the offending
hand under the other and chastised myself for being so daring. She
was my friend. My best friend. Those were our roles. I wasn't
boyfriend material. None of the other girls in school interested
me, so I hadn't even tried to be that for anyone.

My hope lay firmly in the fact that I
wanted to be Willow's and Willow to be mine.

So corny. So stupid.

"I'm so glad it's the weekend," Willow
said, her voice muffled by my shirt.

"Me, too," I said.

We became silent after that, and I let
my mind wander. I looked at all the faces of the people in the
auditorium, but I'd had little to do with most of them. What was so
different about these people that we had to be segregated? And then
I realized that I hadn't seen Harry.

"Where's the nerdy football player?" I
asked.

"I wish you wouldn't call him that."
Willow sat up and gave me a stern look.

I shrugged and grinned. The nickname
bothered her, and I loved it.

She rolled her eyes and sat back with
her head tilted back.

"He's not one of us, so he'll be with
the other group."

"Ah, is that something you'll explain
later?"

"Yup." She popped the last letter with
her lips and closed her eyes again.

I sighed and closed my eyes, too,
waiting for the end of this day to come.

Almost two hours after the illusions
ended, the InfoCon guy guarding the door to the auditorium ushered
in the kids' parents and told the adults they could
leave.

I was surprised to see my parents
appear next to all the other parents. My father’s black hair and my
mother’s brown hair bobbed through the crowd. Dad was in his grey
suit and tie. I cringed inwardly. They had called him from work.
Mom was in jeans and t-shirt from the high school she went to in
California.

Dad grasped my shoulder. "Doing
okay?"

His grip was firm and his lips pulled
tight into a thin line. He was stressed about something.

"I've had better days, but I'm sure
it's not the worst I'll ever have," I said, trying to keep my
attitude light and not let them see how close to tears I was at
seeing them.