After the chaos was settled, the fire was deemed electrical. They told is we could move back in a couple of weeks when the damaged was fixed. Shaw left that afternoon. He told Dad I was too unstable for him to take me but he would be watching. So that night we checked into a hotel. Dad and I sat on our separate beds, crying.
I vowed to myself that night that I would never lose control like that again. I vowed that I would never use my powers again.
For months, I didn't use my powers. I kept them locked deep inside my core. Dad asked me why I hadn't used them and I explained.
"I killed Mom with my powers," I said. "I'm not going to hurt anyone ever again."
That night I heard Dad on the phone. He spoke for a long time, whispering violently into the receiver. Later, he came up to my room.
"Rebecca?"
"Yeah?"
"I need to talk to you."
He walked slowly into my room. My room hadn't changed since the day Mom died. Everything was in the same exact place. I stared at the camera on my dresser. Dad sat next to me cautiously.
"You didn't kill your mother," he said.
"What?"
"You didn't. Sebastian old me that he saw her running toward you to try and save you from yourself. She wanted to try and calm you down. She knew she would be the only one that had a chance to."
"So? She wouldn't be dead if the lightning didn't happen!"
"Rebecca, it's not your fault."
My mind raced as I tried to comprehend. "I didn't kill her?" I asked, almost in shock.
"No." Dad swallowed hard. "She sacrificed herself to save you."
I looked back at the camera and took a deep breath. "I'm sorry. But my powers killed her."
I looked down at my neck and grasped the necklace hanging from it. It was a dark gold chain, not shiny or bright. On the end of the chain was a locket in the shape of a heart. Mom gave it to me for my fifth birthday. I opened the heart. Inside it was the picture Dad took the morning Mom died of the two of us sleeping together. I hadn't taken the necklace off since the day the picture was inserted.
"I know you miss her," he said. "But you shouldn't blame yourself- your powers took over you that day."
"You think so?"
"I know so. You wouldn't hurt somebody if you had control. It's not in your DNA."
I desperately wanted to believe him; to take some of the pain I felt and throw it on someone else. Out of my want to truly believe it, I began to.
A couple weeks later, I had placed all of my blame and anger about my mom's death on Shaw. If he wasn't there and hadn't asked to take me away, Mom would still be here.
I began to use my powers again, but I made sure I trained more vigorously. I wanted complete control so nothing like what happened that day would ever happen again. The lightning never resurfaced, so I assumed that it only occurred when I was in a pure state of absolute rage.
I began to practice again in my backyard every day for three hours. Dad would watch me from the window and wouldn't take his eyes off of me until I came inside the house. Every time I came back inside, he would be dialing a number on the phone. It was the same one every time. It was Shaw's.
This angered me to my core and I wanted to burn all of the phones to ashes. But I stayed in control.
I couldn't do anything about him watching me so I only did basic training when he was around. But after school when he wasn't back from work yet, I would do much more intricate maneuvers.
Late at night on the weekends, around two in the morning, I would sneak out. I figured out how to propel myself with air like a jet pack so I would climb out of my window and float myself just outside of the fence of our yard. Then, I would go to the end of the block where there was a park. Hidden deep inside the park was a large but shallow lake. I would practice water bending there for a couple of hours.
This spy-like schedule continued for two years until I unlocked something major.
