2. Show me what you see
My face darkened as I walked next to Max and felt the full force of the wind. It called to me irresistibly, bringing me the scents of the coming storm. Wet fog, swishing grass, the smell of rain. My favorite smells. I clenched my teeth stubbornly. I would not give in. I would not give in.
Max wrapped an arm protectively around me as we walked wordlessly towards the car. His dark blond hair blew in the breeze, his blue eyes worried.
We reached my car quickly and I climbed behind the wheel. It was a trim, glossy dark red Porsche, expensive and showy, with perfect shining paint and an engine that could hit two hundred fifty miles an hour without a stretch. The feel of it yawning under me was like the purr of a gigantic cat.
I waited for Adelaide to come running out of her second-to-last period Physics class. Addy was pretty. Her striking purple eyes were an uncommon color among the humans; they stood out in sharp contrast against her white face. I was sure she would have gotten some admiring looks, except it was clear that she belonged with Max. And everyone was afraid of Max. He was a big guy, beautiful but tough-looking, scary even when he didn't mean to be. I knew him, probably better than anyone else, and there was nothing intimidating about him. He was very protective, though. Annoyingly so, in some cases. Even Addy admitted it, and she loved him most of all.
The two of them were perfect together. You only had to look at them together to know that they loved each other above all else. They belonged together, inseparable, forever.
She walked out slowly, her spiky black bob tousled by the wind, her graceful saunter turning into a speedy run the moment she cleared the last of the school buildings. Her hair flew out behind her, and the wind lifted the edges of her gray coat, sending the fringe of her dress floating on the breeze.
I pulled away as soon as she had hopped in. Max, sitting in the passenger seat, cranked up the music. Heavy metal shook the suspension. He hummed along, drumming on the dashboard. Addy's window was rolled down so she could stick her head out. We didn't bother with seatbelts–a car crash wouldn't even put a dent in us. And I made it a point to never crash.
I sped down the narrow road that led from the school to our house, going at almost eighty. We were also notoriously fast drivers. The thrill of speed was something you could actively pursue when you were indestructible.
The woods grew close to the road here, surrounding us with lush green leaves. This place, Bluff Creek, had been Yvonne's choice. Every decade or so, when we had to move on, a different one of us chose the new place we were going to live. We'd gone from a mansion in Rio to this tiny coastal town. But I couldn't fault Yvonne. She loved green places like this. They made her happy.
Yvonne grew things. Her dark green eyes glinted with the secret joy of slow life, and she spoke to plants in a language only they could understand. She helped them grow and in return they adored her. I vividly remembered every time we'd gone running, when the trees themselves would reach out leaves to hug her. She liked it here. I had no great love for this place myself. You couldn't see the sky for all the trees. And I loved the sky.
The new house, as I still thought of it, was around twenty minutes away from the high school. Just enough of a commute to be inconvenient. I turned off the main road and onto a well-paved drive.
Yvonne had exercised her powers here–the trees were set back from the road, surrounded by vibrant green grass and tiny pale wildflowers. Thick ferns and grass carpeted the ground in between the trees, forming a soft floor. There was not a single dead flower; everything was radiantly green and lovely. A few paper lanterns hung in strings in the highest tree branches, marking out the entrance to the road. It looked like something from a story, too impossibly fantastical to be real. The drive went on for nearly a mile and a half.
I had to admit, even if the location could have been better, the house itself was beautiful. It was three stories tall, painted a faded white. A long perfect lawn stretched down to the border of the trees, which were ancient and gigantic, like monolithic pillars of living wood. There was a garage off to the side, partially hidden by the forest. It wasn't as good as living on the ocean, where the sky was always vast and visible, but it wasn't as bad as I'd originally feared.
I parked the car inside the garage. We all got out. Max was about to keep talking, but Adelaide covered his mouth quickly. She knew there was something wrong.
"Tell me, Cassie," she complained. "You don't know how I suffered today, wondering what was up." I shook my head.
"You can just wonder some more," I laughed. We began to run. The ground seemed to melt under me as I sprinted flat-out, far ahead of the others.
We raced to the front door and into the living room, where Yvonne was perched on the couch, sketching on a pad of newsprint. A small plant with red and yellow leaves sat on the coffee table before her. Her dark brown hair hung loose over her shoulders, and her mouth was turned up in a little smile. Her eyes were half-closed in concentration. The plant held itself a little bit taller, its leaves brightening proudly. She put her work aside and watched us, her face calm.
"Hello, Cassie, Max, Adelaide," she smiled. "How was your day?"
"Fine," we all said in unintended unison. Addy began pulling me up the stairs impatiently. Yvonne's grin widened, and she returned to her drawing.
I let Addy lead me up to her room on the second floor. Max followed us out of idle curiosity. I could tell he wasn't deeply interested in the pathetic events of the day, but we usually stuck together, at home as well as at school. Old habits stayed with us no matter how we tried to let them go. Addy turned the knob quickly and pranced inside.
Her room was decorated with graceful furnishings, faded ornate antiques, which I avoided as usual. I lounged on the floor, staring resolutely at the pale blue walls. Max had drawn a maze of delicate branches and fluttering birds over the original paint. The tall windows that ran down the side of the room were curtained with blue velvet drapes.
Addy sprawled beside me, stretching out luxuriantly. Her violet eyes were intensely curious. I could tell what it was costing her to keep her questions contained.
"Cassie." Max frowned, raking a hand through his spiky hair. He leaned against the windowsill. "What is she talking about?"
"Leonard Lee wants me to join the royal table," I scowled. Max chuckled.
"Of course he does. You'd be the best in his collection, after all." he stretched lazily. "Nice insults, by the way. Real zingers–did you get them from Alex?"
I shook my head. Max grinned appreciatively, and I watched the amusement in his eyes.
"Those were all mine. I can be mean too, you know," I informed him.
"So what about the new boy? He couldn't take his eyes off you," he laughed."Definitely one of the interested ones," Addy agreed, and I made a face. How well I knew it to be true. I was torn between laughter and scorn. Addy wasn't torn at all, she was laughing hard.
"Don't laugh, this is serious." It came out a little more petulant than I'd planned. "He's in my Chemistry class. My lab partner. I don't know what to do. He's too interested…I don't know if I can get rid of him," I said, wrinkling my nose. Addy leaned forward, fascinated.
I couldn't believe I'd been so reckless. I was sure I'd feel terribly guilty about it later, but I couldn't manage the right feeling yet. I was glad I'd talked to him. I kept my face pleasantly blank, refusing to let Max see how I felt. He was the most cautious of us, the most dedicated to seeming normal. He wouldn't like this at all.
"Cassie," Max said disapprovingly. "Are you sure that this is a good idea? You're pretty conspicuous already…" Adelaide cut him off, throwing a withering look in his direction.
"Don't listen to him, Cass. If he seems nice, you should get to know him better. As long as you don't give anything away, I don't see why you shouldn't be friends. You did say you have chemistry…" she laughed, a wicked grin spreading across her face.
I swiped at her, and she burst out laughing. "What? You said…"
I shook my head. Addy gave good advice, but she was so aggravating. I sulked quietly, stung by her assumption. The fact that I couldn't keep my mind off him didn't mean anything…did it? We he just interesting, or something more? I didn't know. She quickly relented.
"Sorry, O Great Leader. That was a bad joke," she chuckled.
"Have some respect for your elders," I mocked. I was a full one hundred-fifty years her senior, after all.
"Of course, Grandma–you want me to help you down the stairs?" she was really laughing now.
Max watched us banter, grinning indulgently. He knew better than to intervene. After a few more minutes, though, insults were flying, and we were rolling on the floor in helpless laughter. Addy started in on Max, and our combined efforts soon reduced him to a hysterical heap. It felt good to laugh again, to release the stress, and for a few lovely minutes I was able to forget the impending storm and the strange new boy. Nate.
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We played Addy's version of Monopoly that afternoon to pass the time. It was much more interesting than the regular rules, I had to admit. Addy demanded she be the sports car, even though that was always me. I was the shoe instead, and consequently I lost. She hit upon twelfth base after about twenty minutes, awarded Max a worst player medal, claimed all the paper money for herself and insisted that she'd won. The one good thin about her games was that they were always over fast. She didn't have the patience for more than this. Max and I laughed, going along with it like we always did.
We didn't mind letting her play without rules, because Addy of all people needed an outlet. It was hard to stay under control when the world was smoking around you and all you had to do was let it burn.
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As soon as night fell, Max ran with me and Addy into the deep woods, to a clearing where we always came to practice uninterrupted. It was far enough away from town that we had next to no chance of being seen. I stood on the top of the little hill, my hands curled into fists at my sides.
"Ready?" I asked, looking down to the base of the hill, to the tree line, where Max and Addy stood. They were both wearing raincoats. His was dark blue, and hers a vivid orange.
"Yep," they yelled back enthusiastically. This was a spectacle for them. It was pretty fantastic, though they'd probably seen it a thousand times. It never really got old.
I grinned and let my hands unclench, the clouds rolling forward at last.
They were thick, misty banks of fog, water hanging in them. The first drops of rain spilled forward onto my outstretched palms. The great weight of water was lifted off my shoulders.
And the rain came down like clockwork. Within a second, it was pouring over me, soaking through my thin green t-shirt, making my skirt stick to my legs. Addy cheered, bouncing up and down as the rain drenched her. Max smiled, applauding me.
I felt the rhythmic tick of lightning, the heavy pendulum fall of thunder in the distance. I grinned in savage satisfaction. This was what I was made to do. The storm was rolling towards me, a steady flow of wild purple clouds. It was all wires and cogs and metronomes, tiny factors that added up to the giant force.
And the rain was so thick that I couldn't see, and it was covering the grass. My shoes were wet. I kicked them off impatiently, standing barefoot, soaking. The constant cracks that followed the lightning shook through me. And the lightning lit up the sky like a strobe light. Everything moved in slow motion, each swift burst looked like day. I could feel the clouds gathering around the spot where I was, in the eye of the hurricane. Trees were whipping around, loose branches flying.
I sucked in a deep breath and let it all go free. It curled lovingly around me for a moment before heading out like a giant battleship, out to sea. The last thing I caught was the eager joy of soaring miles over the waves and never looking down, just forward. But it was no longer part of me.
I glanced down at them. They were spattered with mud, soaked to the skin. There was a twig stuck in Addy's hair. A wet leaf was slapped across Max's cheek. They didn't mind, and I grinned. The whole world was wet, steaming quietly.
Addy's smile was wide and blissful. It was her turn now. She stepped forward, chewing her lip in concentration. Addy was born the latest out of the three of us; she hadn't had as much time to work on her talent as I had. It was still somewhat unpredictable, hard for her to control. I always had to be ready to put out a fire. Luckily rain had long since become second nature to me. It had a voice all its own, just like the wind.
She took my place on the crest of the hill, looking around until she found a suitable tree. A branchless trunk sagged against another healthy one. It was covered in lichen, partially rotted. Addy smiled darkly, her eyes filled with fire, and the moss that covered it began to smolder. Thin trails of smoke rose from the wet wood, curling upwards like frail arms reaching to the darkened sky. But Addy wasn't the patient type. She gestured insistently, and the tree exploded into flames, a burst of red-orange light and heat. The resulting wave of warm air was strong enough to blow my soaking hair backwards.
I watched as her flames grew higher, nearly clearing the treetops. The center glowed white-hot, too bright to look at. It threw our features into sharp relief. We watched it burn.
The remnants of the trunk were crumbling to ashes when Addy waved towards me. I quickly wrung more rain out of the omnipresent clouds, extinguishing the fire before it could spread. The water spattered down with the collective hiss of a million little drops. The fire quickly went out, and the night closed in around us, becoming seamless in the shadows. She nodded her thanks, but her hands were shaking from the cold. There was a pile of charred remains where the proud tree had once stood.
Truly, fire was a beautiful gift, but it could only exist by feeding off another. I didn't know how it would feel to be filled of something that lived to destroy.
"From the ashes, a phoenix rises," she quoted, smiling sadly at the heap of gray dust like it had once been her friend. Max rubbed her arms. I pretended not to see when he kissed her neck.
We all began to run.
I wove through the dark trunks of the trees, easily keeping track of Max and Addy. I was out in the front, the fastest among us. Running was another thing I lived for. My slight frame was built to go faster than the others, and I enjoyed the feel of incredible speed, of the ground racing effortlessly by. My mood lightened, becoming full of the euphoria of boundless energy.
"Better?" Max asked as we sprinted through the dark woods.
"So much better," I crowed. I was glad the pressure was off. My head felt clear again.
We reached home, barreling through the front door just as Alexander was crossing the hall, knocking him over with our combined force. He growled as he got up off the floor.
"Sorry, Alex." I grinned unapologetically. I didn't really mean it.
"Next time, why don't you just roll a 747 over me? I'm sure it's less painful than being trampled." His stare was blisteringly sarcastic. I nodded seriously, considering it. Max and Addy brushed past us, heading up the stairs. Addy shot him a scathing glance. She hated him, for no reason I could understand. I mean, sure he was annoying, but it was nice to get in a little insult practice. We shared the same grudging respect of two expert ego-cripplers.
"Heard Leonard Lee asked you to the prom," he grinned. I cocked one eyebrow, giving him my best scary face. He recoiled in mock horror. "My God, what a hideous face. Hope it doesn't stick like that."
"It was nothing I couldn't handle," I teased him as he loped off down the hall and I followed.
"I'm glad to hear it. I'm going to kill him myself if you don't soon. You know how many questions about you I have to deal with already?"
"What you don't want to say is that you were hoping I'd go with you." I meant it in jest, but he cringed slightly. I had the suspicion I'd hit home.
"Listen, I'm going to go upstairs. Yvonne wants to show me her new plans." He rolled his eyes. I smirked. Yvonne liked to force us into critiquing her newest landscaping efforts. She had started a gardening business when we came here, and she said she could always use a fresh point of view. That meant presenting us with thick stacks of blueprints, and making us look at each of them in excruciating detail.
"You know how she is. I could be a while," he said without enthusiasm. "We'll do something later, though. If I'm not stuck there all night."
"You wanted the girl; you have to take what comes with her. It's a one-package deal." I grinned ruefully and he went upstairs.
I settled onto the sofa for another lonely night. I wasn't bitter, but I felt so alone sometimes. Didn't I deserve someone to talk to?
I stared at the television screen with unseeing eyes. And though I hated myself for it, my thoughts were on the new boy. I was wondering what he was doing, where he was. I had no idea what pulled me to him so hard, what made me see him more than anyone else. He was something special. That was all I knew. It was no use wasting my time with empty conjecture, I told myself stubbornly.
I whiled away the night watching movies with Alexander, who came back down after a few hours. I asked him how it had gone and he made a face. We didn't talk further except to critique the scenes that passed across the screen, some of them better than others. He seemed to sense that I wasn't in the mood for bantering.
Around three, though, he went back upstairs to Yvonne. And I sat, feeling empty. I found myself longing for the morning, so I could go to school. This was odd in itself; I hated school with the burning passion that comes from centuries of sheer, crushing boredom. But I was looking forward to it, and I knew why that was.
It was him.
He was new, and interesting, the only human I wanted to talk to. I was just as obsessed as he was. I realized this now, after I had been unable to stop thinking of him all this time. It seemed obvious in hindsight. As I lay curled on the couch, I wished he were here to talk to me, to keep me company. I wanted to hear his heart beating, hear him tell me new things, things I couldn't have guessed. I wanted him to tell me about himself. I wished the morning would come so I could have what I wanted.
And because I wanted it to speed up, the time seemed to pass impossibly slowly. I padded to the kitchen to check the clock at least ten times. I was so impatient I felt like screaming. But eventually the first rays of dawn crept across the sky, and I smiled in anticipation. I would see him soon.