The Centerpoint Trilogy (18 page)

              “I guess you’re right…” she murmured in sullen response. The idea bothered her for so many reasons.

              “Okay,” Rhi said softly, trying to crack a smile to lighten their grim moods. “We’ll do this after I go to class, which, you know, I have to do in like ten minutes.”

              After a few more minutes of staring at each other and trying to distract from their worries, Rhi went off to class. She was, of course, no longer in the mood, but her psychology professor took attendance and she could not afford to do poorly in the class at this point. She sat down in the lecture hall in which it was held, and closed her eyes. She was really tired, and she could not help think about her dreams, and what Gen had told her about her own. She knew that they were powerful and obviously meant something, but what, she did not know.

              What could their crazy dreams really mean? Her natural instinct, honestly, was to say that they meant the demented cult that kidnapped their parents as small children and later took them as kids as well, was back, but bow? They had been disbanded a long time ago and their one remaining psychopath was killed by her father years earlier. How could they be back? Who would still believe in their particular brand of insanity? 

              Class began and Rhi really hated how hard it was for her to pay attention. She really did enjoy the class for the most part, but she could not reign her mind back in now that she was thinking about her dreams. She opened up her notebook to take notes and tried her best to listen to the lecture, but her mind was not really processing any of it. She was honestly not listening to a thing, only catching fragments here and there. 
She’s talking about brainwaves,
she supplied to herself, not that it really helped. She gave up on listening pretty quickly.

              She was really worried about how her mother and father were going to react to this. The idea, in fact, made her stomach hurt. The incidents that had occurred, both for Rhi and Gen, had been relatively minor, at least since they were five. Still, their parents had always been protective, worried that the moment would arise when something serious happened again. It had always seemed to be a dark inevitability that something was going to happen to them. Would her parents be terrified when she told them that it was probably happening now? Would something really happen that warranted her parents’ fear?

              Class went by for Rhiannon in a total blur. She honestly wasn’t sure that she could recall two things from the hour and fifteen minute long lecture, once it was over. She honestly only could remember her professor vaguely mentioning brainwaves. Her mind had been elsewhere, but in a sea of students who were half paying attention, the fact that she was completely not there was overlooked completely. Nobody in the lecture hall had noticed one girl with her head in the clouds.

              People rarely noticed other people when they didn’t have to, Rhiannon mused. As a whole, humanity was inherently selfish. That was something she knew and understood completely. People did not care, unless it was something that benefited their own cause. It was okay though. It was just a college lecture hall and here she was getting all philosophical. That was stupid.

              As she was contemplating the nature of humanity, her class was dismissed. Rhi only noticed this because of the fact that people were starting to get up and filter out of the room. She shook her head and tried to dismiss the strange feelings that lingered there, eating at the back of her mind. She gathered her things and went outside. She was eager to see and talk to Gen. Even though her best friend was undoubtedly suffering from the same worries that she was, she knew that she could trust Gen explicitly and, well, she always felt safer and more comfortable when the younger girl was around.

              Gen was still sitting on the quad, but by this time, she was trying her best to do some homework. She watched, with a small smile on her face, as the telekenetic girl flipped through the textbook in front of her. She kept frowning, a tight expression that made her forehead wrinkle up.

              “Can’t focus either?” she called to Gen, before walking up to her.

              Gen looked up and smiled. The smile was laced with relief. It was obvious that Gen was very eager to see her.

              “I think we have to tell them,” Gen said, closing the book in front of her and standing up. She could tell that it had taken Gen the whole time that she was gone to come to that conclusion. It was the eventual conclusion that she had come up with too, unfortunately. Their parents had to know. They had to tell them because they really could not do this alone.

              “I agree,” she said sadly, as she and Gen walked to their car.

              Their car was about ten years old, but still in great condition. They had bought it from one of Gen’s mother’s colleagues. The woman was an older woman and about ready to retire from the small town newspaper where Anna worked. It was her late husband’s car and he rarely drove it before his death. It was something that the girls loved, and they always shared it without much issue. Their parents had worried about the issue of two young women sharing a car, but their worries had been without merit. Their daughters were best friends in the best kind of way. Any dispute over the use of the car was settled fairly and maturely.

              The drive home was a short one, and one in which they were both pretty quiet. Rhi knew that it was because they were both incredibly nervous about the conversation that would follow. Gen drove, thankfully. Rhiannon felt that her mind was far too unsteady in the moment to do such a thing. In what seemed like unfortunately no time at all, they were pulling up at Rhiannon’s house. They had decided to go there first, which was a relief in some way, because she wanted to get it over with in her own home. They’d all Ethan and Anna to the house afterward.

              Rhi had always loved her family home. It was small, with only two bedrooms and a modest look to it. They had moved into it when she was ten years old, just after her parents had been married. It was really a pleasant kind of place and always made her feel safe. She had never wanted to move out, even when she started college, because of the aura of safety that it gave off. She always felt safe when she was home. She was, however, quite nervous about entering it this time. She was so nervous, in fact, that her hand shook a little as she unlocked the door. She and Genesis walked inside.

              “Hi Mom,” she squeaked out, seeing the woman in the living room. Her mother was quietly reading a newspaper. Alicia was a beautiful woman and always had been. She always looked so nice and well put together. She took a lot of pride in her appearance, but was in no way a stereotypical girly-girl. Rhi was more girly than her mother was and she wouldn’t even consider herself girly at all. Alicia smiled at her and put the newspaper down. At first, she seemed happy to see them, but then her brows became furrowed.

              Rhi knew that her mom sensed their unease. Both of their parents were incredibly perceptive, both because of their powers and all that they had been through in their lives. It always amazed her and Genesis both, just how much their parents could sense. It made getting away with typical teenage discretions much more difficult than it was for the average kid.

              “Hi girls,” she said slowly. “What’s up?”

              They looked at each other and struggled to explain. There was no way that they could even begin this without all of their parents here. Luckily, that was the moment that her father walked into the room.

              Her dad was really adorable. His face was a mix of Japanese and Caucasian features. He had a really nice smile. According to her mom, it was the kind of smile that lit up a room. Her mother had married him when Rhiannon was ten years old. The man had saved their lives when Rhi was eight and Gen five. He was a heroic, brave man and she loved her father so much.

              “Hi girls,” he said, repeating exactly the same greeting that her mother had given moments before. They were very alike in their speech patterns, their mannerisms, and everything now. Yes, her parents definitely defined the stereotype of the old married couple and that was great.

              “Hi Daddy,” she said, as she leaned over and gave him a hug.

              “What’s wrong, sweetheart?” he asked, almost immediately. He gave Alicia a look and Alicia, in turn, nodded. Rhiannon could not help curse her parents’ level of perceptiveness in that moment. It was absolutely ridiculous. She knew that they had magical abilities and yes, they were parents, but when you combined those things, well, they were like the ultimate power couple. It was astonishing. She looked at Gen, who exchanged an exasperated glance with her. Gen was thinking the exact same thing that she was. They laughed, both of them, but immediately sobered up when they reminded themselves of what they came here for. Gen sat first and Rhi followed suit. There they were, all sitting in the living room of her house. This was where something big was about to occur. She knew they’d have to call Anna and Ethan, Gen’s parents, first, but she wanted to get the preliminary statements out of the way to save time and energy.

              Rhi decided then that beating around the bush was just going to get them nowhere. “We’ve both had dreams lately,” she said softly. “Bad dreams. They’ve been disturbing us and we know what you guys have told us before about dreams, and the possible meanings they might have. We wanted to talk to you about them.” Well, wanted was an inaccurate word, actually, she thought, but they knew what she meant. Nobody wanted this.

              It felt as though everyone in the room froze. Her parents looked at each other with horror in their eyes. Gen hung her head a little, even though the girl was usually very brave and confident in herself. There was a painful and complete quiet in the room.

Chapter Three

“Calm down!”

Immediately after yelling out those words, Gen felt a blush cross her face. She was not usually so loud, especially in a situation like this, where nobody else was actually saying anything, but the silent horror on her aunt and uncle’s faces, as well as Rhiannon’s utterly horrified slack-jawed look overwhelmed her. She blushed and spoke again, this time, much softer. Apparently she was among those who really needed to handle this much more calmly.

“We need to handle this in a calm, rational manner,” she explained, looking from her best friend, over to her best friend’s parents. “We haven’t really explained what the dreams were about yet.”

“Yes, that’s true,” Rhiannon’s father, Elliot, said quickly. He ran a hand through his slightly balding hair and sighed. His reaction made Gen sigh as well, but hers was with relief. Elliot was always very calm and rational and he worked things out with an intense belief in logic. He was a private detective and that meant that he most often handled things with cold logic and reason, instead of letting himself become overwhelmed by emotion. “What were the dreams about, girls? Explain them, and use as much detail as you possibly can.”

Gen looked to Rhi, who indicated that she should go first by holding out her hand, palm up. “You’re a lot better at explaining things,” she whispered, a sheepish look crossing her face.

Gen understood where her best friend was coming from. She was, indeed, very good at explaining things, but at the same time, being tasked with explaining this one was overwhelming. Both of her best friend’s parents were looking at her with the firm insistence that she start explaining, and now. “We’ve been dreaming about that night,” she said. None of them would question which night that she was talking about, yet she explained anyway. “You know, the night where we almost drowned in that lake. In the dream, that we’ve both been having, we’re there again...but not as little kids. No, we’re like, us, as we are now. I dream that I’m standing there and there’s the woman, but then she’s blonde, and I don’t know if she’s the same...same one.”

She watched as Rhi’s father flinched. Elliot had been the one to shoot that woman in the head. It had been totally justified, of course, but killing her had been undoubtedly hard on him. She had been his ex and he had loved her very dearly at one point in his life.

“What else, Gen?” he asked.

“There’s this big, huge light and it comes down from the sky,” she said. “I don’t know what it means in my dream, but I always seem to wake up with the feeling that everything is going to change.”

“Me too,” Rhiannon added.

“What does it mean?” Alicia asked Elliot.

Oh yes, Rhiannon’s father also used to be a member of a crazy cult called the Celestial Centerpoint, whose singular surviving active member nearly killed them years before. The Celestial Centerpoint was a crazy cult that believed in a load of crazy things, but they had also developed some sort of way to give individuals unique and amazing powers.

The Celestial Centerpoint had kidnapped a group of children many years ago. Those children had included Rhiannon’s mother Alicia and both of Gen’s own parents. They had done some sort of magical ritual that night that infused those children with magical powers. The children had, over the years, developed powers that were beyond explanation. Alicia could shoot out fire with only the use of her mind. Gens mother, Anna, was telekinetic, much like she was and her father, Ethan, was able to communicate using his mind, like she could as well.