Chapter 14

I collapse in frustration, hitting my fists against the floor. "I can't do it." "You did it there." I roll my eyes at his commentary, quite useless.

"Well I can't use it if I don't know what it is." It's just Luke and I. And we're trying to tap into whatever let me kill those people. And I don't even know I'd I want to do this. If I want to know what it meant. But I agree with the others that it's better for me to be able to control it.

After all it would be particularly bad if I lost control of that kind of ability. "Recap." Seriously. Again! I take a deep calming breath to keep from ripping his throat out. Oddly enough, the fact that we have a deep bond of love and all that crap, doesn't mean that I don't want to kill him.

"I see dead people." He sighs and raises his eyebrows. He knows I'm being deliberately unhelpful.

"Fine. I can stop them from coming but I've never tried calling them. One seems to be particularly stuck to me and I have no idea why." He paces the floor of the training room, deep in thought. When he thinks he always has one hand curled into a fist like he can fight his way into understanding a concept.

"Try calling her." I feel instantly stupid but I give it a try.

"Liz!" I call hopefully. I smile hopefully, "I tried?" Luke shakes his head at me and I kick the ground in anger. Honestly I'm just fed up of trying.

"Try harder Aria."

"Oh my god that never occurred to me!" We glare at each other, each annoyed with the other and fed up with being here. "C'mon try." Luke stares at me, eyes begging. He wants out of this room as much as I do.

"Remember how it felt in that house, remember all the guns and dust." I shut my eyes, his words sweeping over me like a caress. "Remember how it felt." And I can see it in my mind's eye. The sparks knitting together and becoming one. The invincible feeling.

"Liz." It comes out of my mouth, not as a word. Or at least not one I recognize but as a deep, guttural, growl. There's a rushing noise throughout the room, and the lights flicker. It looks like something out of a bad horror movie. But my eyes are closed and the second I realize this, they fly open.

"Did you hear that?" I demand breathlessly. "No?" Luke looks at me in concern. He must see the confusion in my eyes because he hastens to explain.

"Nothing happened. You just shut your eyes." I scan the room, and my heart skips a beat.

"Liz?" She smiles, red hair falling around her face. I can tell she's at her true age, the age she died. I'm not living through memory Liz anymore.

"Hey Aria. Long time no see. Nice outfit." She scans my clothes. I look a lot different from the last time she saw me, leather jacket to cover the mark plus a crop top. Clothes I would not be caught dead in at home.

"Ooh Hot guy!" I roll my eyes and try to resist the urge to scream. Liz may be annoying and rude but I still count her as one of my best friends.

"Voila." Luke stares at me in confusion,

"What do you mean?" Of course he can't see her. No one ever can. I was worried I was crazy when I was little for a bit. Now I'm thinking that I am. I'm pretty sure I'm freakin out of my mind. You know, off your rocker. Call the psychiatrist.

"Whatever. You wanted me to summon the dead. Here you go." I jerk my head towards Elizabeth. Who is studying us with far too much interest. Her eyes flicker back and forth between us as if she's watching a very interesting tennis match.

I don't really care about what it means. I am tired and hungry and grumpy. All I want is pizza, possibly candy and sleep. I will worry about this stuff later. I can feel the beginnings of a migraine pounding into my head. It feels like a hammer has started to thud against my skull.

"That's amazing Aria! You know what we could do with this right…" He continues to blab. His excitement is pretty cute but in my state I really couldn't care less.

Black spots are starting to flash against my eyes and Luke's endless drone starts to falter. "Ari!"

"Aria block it!"

"Block the connection Ari!" Two voices are screaming at me but I can't even distinguish who's is who's. Because the black spots are widening and they aren't just black anymore.

Skeletal hands reach out towards me. The room has fallen away and so has my sanity. They moan unintelligible words as they reach towards me. The hands lead to full out human skeletons.

"Leave me alone." I stammer, my voice shakes so much that it's almost impossible to understand me. Empty eye sockets glare at me and that's when I see it. The mark is burned against their bone.

Staining the dirty white surface. The moaning gets louder, Turning to a savage howling. Their hands ever present reach towards me and I run. My heart is pounding as I feel skeletal hands drag me backwards. The empty eye sockets are inches away from my own.

The chant rings in my ears finally translating to English.

"Kill them. Kill them all. Revenge us." Repeating over and over. Burning into my soul. A high scream cuts through the chant. I clap my hands over my ears, hunching over trying to block out the scream. It cuts through, develop into my head. It seems to hurt the skeletons too as they scramble away, fleshed hands pressed to their nonexistent ears as if they hear the piercing noise.

Slowly they are disappearing. Sliding back to whatever hole they came from. The final ones glare back at me through their pain and I hear it snarl, "Revenge the fallen." And then it too is gone and I'm falling, falling.

Falling into darkness. As the high piercing wail cuts off I realize it was me who was screaming.

….

The room swims above me. Colours and shapes blur into one meaningless mass above me. I shut my eyes again, reveling in the complete darkness.

At least my head doesn't hurt anymore. There is a odd stinging feeling on my arms though. "Ari?" Slowly I open my eyes. They adjust to the bright light enough for me to see Luke's face above me. His eyes are filled with concern.

"What happened?" I mutter. My mouth is dry as the Sahara desert. "Here." I feel his arm around me, helping me sit up and a cup of water is pressed to my lips. The water slides down my throat, soothing the dry ache. The stinging pain increases and I glare at my arms in confusion. They're covered by red welts, none too big but many of them.

"You freaked out. One minute you were fine, the next you were screaming at me to make them go away." It comes back in a wave. Liz staring at me. The skeletons.

"Jon has a theory." Jon steps forward from the corner. He looks unreadable but I think I can detect a slight hint of worry in his face. Connor is fully muted, barely even bouncing on his feet.

"I think you reached too far into an ability that you can't fully control yet. And given your special ability, it knocked you out. You have a very strong energy, since you were able to call and control a spirit without having fully unlocked your gift. So basically, spirits with the mark are drawn to you based on the strength of your power. The issue is that the spirits with the mark are pissed off. So they're trying to use you to kill the people that killed them."

Whoah. So dead people want me to kill people. Well to be fair my life was never normal but it's taken a one way street into crazyville.

"So they're trying to use me as a weapon." Jon nods, Connor stares down at the floor and Luke's arm wraps tighter around me. They are acting like someone died.

"Sweet. What's for lunch?" Great now they're all looking at me like I'm crazy. I'm just having the best day…..

"Aria. This is serious. If you can't stop them than you could be putting us and yourself into danger." Jon's voice is strict. Like a parent.

"Look Jon if we don't finish this fight then does it really matter if I'm going insane?" I pause to look at the others expressions. "No. Because I'll be dead and you'll be dead. So for right now, I'll stop them. And we can figure out how to uncrazy me later. Now I am starving and very very annoyed. What time is it?" Luke nudges his watch towards me and my heart almost stops.

"Fuck. I have to get home. Like 3 hours ago!" I scramble off the bed. Bad idea. I almost go down as a wave of dizziness hits me. Luke's arm keeps me standing. "Relax. You don't have to go anywhere."

"Okay clearly you have never met my mother. She will murder me in the most creative way possible if I miss another family dinner."

I've already been here since second period at school. Honestly it's like teachers don't even take attendance anymore. Or its like Jon is hacking into the school system and excusing me from class. Either one I spend most of my days, up till 4 here. Occasionally I can stay longer or I sneak out at night.

"Yes. Or she would if you weren't working at your friends family restaurant for a very very late shift." I shake my head in wonder, laughing.

"You didn't." Luke smirked, looking quite proud of himself. "Oh trust me I did. Which means, that you are ours for about 6 more hours." Yes! I let out a shriek of excitement and throw myself at Luke. I wrap my arms around him in a massive hug. I hate going home. I hate it.

Our family is officially in half of lockdown due to the "dangerous" marked children. So that means everyone's home and everyone's arguing with each other. It's driving me nuts. Plus there's the fact that all anyone wants to talk about is how evil we are.

Surprisingly not my favourite topic.

Any moment I can be at the very uncrowded building with my friends is heaven to me. Plus extra time with my soulfinder/boyfriend. I finally get the appeal of actually having someone who knows you better than you know yourself.

You barely even have to talk to each other. You just understand.

Plus fighting practise and they let me use the cars. Jon taught me how to drive but according to him I suck at it. He claims I speed way too much. I see the speed limits as guidelines more than rules.

"Don't get too excited." I break out into an even bigger smile.

"We've got a job."

"Sweet" Connor and I fist bump. Jon glares at us as if he's about to launch into a lecture about how immature we are. He doesn't have time as We're already tearing down the hall, tripping each other and laughing as we stumble.

"I swear to God they're 4 years old." Jon laments as he follows the three of us.

….

"How the hell are supposed to get in?" The locking system of the house is slightly more sophisticated than we thought. I am shocked that I was allowed to come. Luke and Jon argued against it due to the fact that I passed out earlier that day. Anyways its about 10 at night.

The house in front of us is pitch black. It's occupants, two high ranking Net officials who work with my parents, are out at some party which coincidentally is where everyone else in my household is. I wasn't really supposed to go to the party even if I was coming home.

Apparently it doesn't look very good if the super hero Benedict's bring their little un gifted child with them. Ruins the image of a perfect family. Little blond child with the dark haired 6 foot brothers doesn't exactly look as pleasant as it does when you subtract the girl.

I'm pretty sure that based on what I'm doing now, I have permanently lost the title of Benedict. Connor and Jon are arguing about the lock as Luke and I stand idly by. That is until I notice the half open window on their highest floor.

I jab Luke in the ribs with my elbow and he jumps. "Think I could get through that?" He nods, slowly. That's all the encouragement I need. I duck forward, scanning the wall for possible footholds. There's little to none. At least none I can reach.

"Luke" I hiss. It takes seconds before he's jogging up beside me. "What?" He whispers. "Throw me!"

"No. No way. No. Not happening!" His voice gets a little louder with every no. I shush him frantically.

"Why not?" He looks ready to murder something. Or grab my shoulders and shake some sense into me.

"Because you passed out today!" I shrug my shoulders. "I'm the only one small enough to fit through that without breaking it. Now fricken throw me!" He shakes his head, equally as stubborn as I am. Time to pull out the big guns.

"Please!" I flutter my eyelashes and lean in close, pressing my lips to his neck. "Pretty please." I breathe into his ear, standing on tiptoe to reach it. My hands trail down his chest onto his abs. He let's out a low groan. "You are a highly dangerous girl."

"Is that a Yes?" I whisper against his skin.

"I swear to God you will be the death of me." He sets his hands interlocked on the ground. I set a foot in them tentatively. He starts to lift me up. He makes no obvious signs of protest but I can see the strain on his face. And with one big push, I'm in mid air.

My hands just barely snag the windowsill but it's more than enough. Calling on the training, I pull myself into the room. It's a child's room but I don't linger. I hasten down the plush stairs to let the boy's in.

"Welcome home!" I laugh as they walk in. Because for right now, this house is ours.

…

"That felt almost too easy." It was. I agree with the boy who's side I'm cuddled into. He made me promise to come lie down after that. It wasn't even that hard. Well aside from being tossed in the air like a cheerleader.

But we got in, we took what we wanted and we got out. You could barely tell we were there. And Jon now has a brand new piece of the Empire the play with. We took a memory key loaded with software. Jon wants to use it to manipulate it and make it a virus to shut down the Nets tech.

"Honestly did you see the way you manipulated me out there?" Giggling I stroke his hair out of his eyes.

"I know I'm going to be a very good girlfriend!" He shakes his head, mock despairing.

"What am I going to do with you?"

"Get me pizza and let me sleep." His hand strokes my hair and I relax into his touch. "Your wish is my command." And we lay like that. Just like two teenagers in love. It's nice to pretend sometimes that that's all we are.

Authors Note

Not as many reviews last chapter. Are you guys losing interest?