"You're sick of feeling numb
You're not the only one
I'll take you by the hand
And show you a world that you can understand"


I rolled out of bed the next morning, literally, and fell to the floor with a thump. I could hear Maria's voice penetrating the fogginess that still lingered in my eyes.
"Rise and shine gorgeous," she teased.
"Get bent," I told her, pulling my pillow off my bed and covering my face with this.

"Oh c'mon, Six is up," she urged, "Now's your chance to talk to him alone!"
"Ugh," I groaned, untangling myself from my sheets, "What the hell time is it?"

"Five twenty two," she chirped.
"What the hell is wrong with this kid?" I demanded, getting to my feet and wiping my eyes tiredly, "What could he possibly be doing at five thirty in the morning?"
"Why don't you go see for yourself?" she suggested sounding coy.

"You know, this is why I don't like you watching Ghost Whisperer," I told her, "You're starting to act like one of those cryptic-mysterious ghosts you see on TV."
"Sorry, boss' orders," she said, shrugging.
"Who the hell is your boss?" I demanded.

"Well, my main boss (well, everyone's boss) is God, duh," she said, "But my secondary boss is someone you don't know and can't find." she said.
"You're being cryptic again," I accused.
"You know, while you're standing here, arguing with me," she said, examining her nails, "You're little crush is all alone in his bedroom, just begging for someone like you to grace him with your presence."

"Wait- you think I have a crush on Six?" I demanded; it was true, but she didn't need to know that."I don't think-I know," she said.
"I agree with the first part," I mumbled.

"Shut up . . . and I know that you have the hots for Mr. Three Plus Three, if you know what I mean . . ." she hinted, winking, "Speaking of the number after five, he's all alone in his room right now . . .with that adorable bed head."
"So?" I said, trying to sound indifferent, "I don't care."
"Did I mention he sleeps shirtless?" she added.

Immediatly, I made a dash for the door, and could hear Maria giggling behind me. I whipped around to glare at her. "This proves nothing," I told her.
"Yes it does," she said plainly.
"Yes it does," I agreed automatically, "But still."

She laughed as I left my room and walked into the dim, empty hallway. I went to Six's room, and this time I actually knocked.
"Who is it?" he called.
"Scar . . . we met yesterday?" I told him, keeping my voice low.

"Oh right. . .little goth pixie," he recalled, "Yeah, yeah come in."
I opened the door and stepped into his room. He was sitting on the floor, leaning against the back of his blood red couch. As promised, he was shirtless. He wore only red flannel pajama pants and I noticed something weird around his wrist. It was a thick metal cuff with blinking buttons and lights. I was unable to focus on it though for more then a second, because I got distracted by his awesome six pack (how convenient.) His two different colored eyes had destroyed eyeliner smudged heavily around them, making him look like a raccoon, a sexy raccoon. He was playing with a little box of matches. Yeah, such a pyro. . .

"So, what's up . . ." he wondered, staring at the little flame at the top of the match.
"I just wanted to finish our conversation from yesterday," I said, drifting around his room.

I stopped at his desk and looked at the clutters of pictures. There were a lot of the brunette girl from his file picture. I could've sworn I'd seen her even before that though. There was one picture of just the brunette girl, with the famous pink shutter shades on her head. She had her lips puckered and was making a peace sign; her baby blue eyes crossed. Another showed her and Six sitting cross legged on a lunch table in a school cafeteria with Six's arm slung around her. Another showed the (presumed) happy couple laying together on a pink bed of stuffed animals. There were also a bunch of him and (who I assumed) were his friends. There was one of Six and several hot emo/punk guys making a mock chearleader pyramid. There were a bunch of pictures of Six acting crazy with a bunch of different people; some male, some female; all crazy-fun loving-popular types.

"Which was about . . ." he asked.
"Whose this?" I wondered curiously, picking up a picture of Six giving the brunette girl a piggy-back ride while she wore his DC hat. "You have a lot of pictures of her . . ."
"That's Violet," he said, "She's my girlfriend. . .we've been together since like fifth grade."

"Oh, cute . . .it must be hard . . . being so far apart," I said, trying to sound distantly sympathetic when really my heart was sinking. They were grade school sweethearts, not to mention that they did look perfect together.
"Yeah, it was," he agreed.
"What do you mean 'was?'" I asked.

"She goes to school here," he explained, which explained why she looked so damn familiar.
"Oh . . . well, then why haven't I seen you two together?" I wondered.
"Because she's been out of town the last week . . .visiting her parents," he explained, "She's getting back today . . . so, um, yesterday's conversation wasn't about my love life . . . right?"

"No . . . it was about what your gift is," I told him.
"So um . . . wanna know more about my love life?" he asked, making it obvious that he wanted to change the subject.

"C'mon tell me," I whined, "What do you do? Are you a pyro?"
"Why do you still think I'm a pyrokinetic?" he asked.
"Well, because you made a vase burst into flames," I listed, "Plus I heard that you were arrested for arson . . ."

He groaned. "Oh God . . . who told you? Was it Mel-I mean Melissa?"
Hmmm . . . a chance to get Melissa in trouble with a guy she obviously had some kind of past with. (I mean, c'mon, she always called her 'Mel' and she was totally all over him.) Plus, it was an awesome alibi to explain how I knew about his arsonistic tendencies.

"Uh, yeah, yeah it was," I lied.
He just shook his head. "She was always was a big gossiper," he said, almost indulgently.

"Yeah . . . so . . . are you a pyro?" I asked, "Come on, I really want to know."
"All you need to kow about me is that I'm totally effing physco," he told me, pointing to the electronic cuff on his wrist. I had noticed it before but had been unable to really process what it meant. Even though I already subconsciously knew.
"Oh . . . you got a shock collar? That totally blows," I said.

The real hardcore cases around here wore electronic bracelets that the student body usually called 'shock collars' or just 'collars.' Because, well, the shock collar was a pretty good comparison. If the wearer stepped outside the campus limits the cuff shocked them, and sent an alert to the main office of the break. Not only were they really high tech, but they were impossible to get off. Even when we had a collection of escape artists and cons here; none of them could manage to get the shock collars off.

"Yeah . . . like I said; effing physco," he repeated, pointing to himself.
"Yeah, I picked up on that, now c'mon. Tell me what you can do," I begged, just as someone knocked on the door. This kid was so damn lucky when it came to dodging this question.
"Six?" came a syrupy sweet voice that could only belong to a nurse from the other side of the door, "Are you up?"

Six didn't answer, but got a startled light in his eyes. He backed up against the couch, inching farther from the door, almost like he was scared. It was so bizarre.
"Six?" the nurse's voice came again and she slowly stepped into the room. It was Lisa-Six's nurse-wearing the uniform white scrubs, her blonde hair in a ponytail, and a white duffle bag on her shoulder.

"Come on Six, don't make this harder then it has to be," she sighed, walking over to where Six was cowering against the couch. She knelt down next to him, ignoring me, and grabbing his arm as he tried to squirm away. Somehow, he couldn't break her grip, which surprised me. Just last week he'd nearly bested a group of able-bodied, strong, male workers. He looked kind of wrecked actually, now that I thought of it. Something about him seemed kind of unraveled and stressed. I just couldn't place my finger on it though. Maybe it was the frantic way his eyes darted around the room, or the way he fidgeted around nervously. Something wasn't quite right with him.

"Don't worry honey," she soothed, pulling something I couldn't see out of her duffle bag, "It's just a little needle." I then moved so that I could see the object that she pulled out of the bag was an intimidating looking needle full of clear liquid. So, not only was Six one of the collared students. . . but he was also one of the medicated ones. It wasn't very surprising, really. He did seem a little unstable and bi-polar.

At the sight of the needle, Six got even more nervous and began squirming even more.
Lisa sighed sadly. "Come on Six," she said, wrapping her hand around his shock bracelet, her thumb hovering above the large red button; the one that delivered an immediate shock to the wearer, in case of an emergency. "I don't want to do this to you sweetheart, but if you don't settle down I'm going to have to."

She looked like she was about to hit the button, but chickened out. I wasn't surprised; Lisa was to nice to do something like that. She sighed. "Scar," she said, finally acknowledging me, "Can you go find another nurse to give me a hand. He's being difficult again."
"Uh okay," I said, slipping out of the room and down the hallway. After searching for a few minutes, I found two nurses walking together; Becky and Winnie.

"Uh, can you guys help me?" I asked, "Lisa needs help giving Six his medicine." Well, that's what I assumed she was doing.
"Here we go again," Winnie mumbled.
"We both better go," Becky said, "You know how he gets."

"Good idea," Winnie agreed and we all went back to Six's room, where he and Lisa were in the same position.
"Oh good," she said when she saw us, "Becky get his left arm, Winnie get his right." They both nodded and did as she said. When they grabbed him, he startled to struggled against them a little bit. He started making these sad little noises that sounded like the frightened whimpers of a little lost puppy. The entire thing was truly heartbreaking. He looked terrified as Lisa prepared to put the needle into his arm, just when a girl walked into the room.

She was a brunette, around my age, seventeen maybe. She was moderately tall, with long chestnut colored hair. She had a pretty face and big blue eyes. She had pink shutter shades on top of her head and was dressed in skinny jeans, flip flops, and a purple tank top. It was Violet; Six's girlfriend.

The scene in front of her seemed to upset, but not surprise, her. She rushed over to the little group and dropped to her knees in front of him and put a comforting hand on his leg. I could tell Lisa was trying not to get distracted and just do what she came here to do. She swiftly put the needle into his skin. Although, he didn't freak out like I expected him to. I assumed that he didn't like needles, you know, because they hurt? But he gave no indication that it hurt a lot. So why didn't he want them to give him the shot?

When they took the shot out, his expression changed to one of irritation. The brief vulnerability gone.
"Great, now can you go away now," he snapped at the nurses. Lisa sighed sadly while the others just got up and leave.
"I'll go get you some breakfast," she said, pausing at the door.

"I don't care what you do," he growled as she sighed and left.
"How are you?" Violet asked worriedly, "I've missed you so much."

"Yeah same," he grumbled, going oddly stoic, "Can I talk to you later? I have to get ready."
Violet sighed. "Yeah sure."

When she got up and headed for the door, I slipped out too. Once we closed the door there was a loud crash from inside, and a bang against the door, like something shattering after being thrown against the door. Violet winced and then sighed.

"That was weird," I said plainly, as a few more crashing noises emanating from Six's room.
"You'll have to forgive Six," she said, "He's a little moody now a days."
"And why is that?" I asked, hoping that if Six wouldn't give up any information then maybe Violet would.

"It's because of the damn meds they have him on," she grumbled, "Back at Murciello damn Dr. Karsteel put him on this narcotic antiphyscotic crap. And then the douches at Vermillion kept him on them . . . and I'm going to try to convince the Doctors here to take him off them. He doesn't need them. Six is not crazy . . . he's just a little moody."

"And why is that?" I asked again, even though I'd already gotten more information then I expected.
"It's because of what he can do," she said, being a tad vague.

"And what is that exactly?" I asked, "Is he a pyro?"
"A pyromaniac? Yes. A pyrokinetic? Not exactly . . . he's a mimic. He . . .absorbs the gifts of other supernatural people he comes in contact with . . . he can do what they can do. Only problem is, he can't really control any of them because there's so many. Sometimes he gets visions, sometimes he sees ghosts, sometimes he can feel other people's emotions. It's all very confusing, I imagine."

"Oh," was all I said. I'd heard of power mimics before but never actually met one. They were said to be really powerful but kinda bipolar. So, I'd gotten my answer to my first question, and it explained why the test results were inconclusive. However, it still didn't explain why the spirits were so interested in him.
"Yeah . . . but do me a favor, don't go around telling people that," she said, "Of course, they'll all find out on their own pretty fast. But I don't want to be the one who told them. I'm Violet, by the way, Six's girlfriend."

"Oh . . . it must be hard, having been so far apart for so long," I said, adjusting my previous sympathetic statement to be true.
"Yeah it was, but we made it work. We had to. Six makes me happy and I keep him sane," she said, as if this was the most obvious thing in the world. I felt my heart sink though. Her words had sounded so sincere, so simple, so true and so absolutely in love.

And I would never feel love like that.