Chapter 4: One Of Them

For the longest time the room was silent.

Finally Tancred stuttered, "You.. a b-bloor?!"

A wind started picking up some of the lighter objects in Alicia's room and soon a lot of things were flying in every direction uncontrollably.

"Tancred I-Have-No-Idea-What-Your-Middle-Name-Is Torsson! You better not destroy my room!"

"Wow," he said sarcastically {in a laughing sort of way} "That sounded threatening."

They both smiled, but soon their faces clouded up again.

"So... why don't you live with the Bloors?"

"I wasn't like them and didn't want to be. Eventually, I guess they couldn't handle me anymore. So put me up for adoption. Imagine their surprise when I was adopted by your family."

"You can't just give up your kid! That can't be legal!"

"Tancred, it's the Bloors we're talking about. Just look at what they did to Emma."

They were taken over by silence again for a little while. "So... are we the first family who's taken you in?"

"No."

"How many other families have there been?"

"This is the ninth home I've lived in."

"That's horrible! What happened with all the other families?"

"The same thing happened over and over again. Once the Bloors found out who'd taken me in, they did everything they could to get that family to give me up. They exist to make other people miserable. That's why I didn't want to live with them. I was pretty happy when they gave me up. I thought that would be the last I ever saw of them."

"I don't think I'll ever be able to understand how you're one of them." Tancred said as he shook his head thoughtfully.

"I am not one of them!"

"You've got their blood. You'll always be one of them. That doesn't mean you're like them. But you change the fact that you're one of them and not one of us. I wouldn't worry about it. Manfred's... well your mother is in the same situation."

"I guess so. Maybe I don't mind being one of them. I always thought that being one of them meant being like them. I never thought of them as different things."

"Question." said Tancred as his hand shot into the air.

"What?"

"Did you really love Dagbert?"

"Yes, I did." Tancred groaned. "Hey Lysander wasn't all that fond of Tracy."

Alicia thought back to how she and Dagbert had met.

Flashback...

It had been during her science class. She and Dagbert had been assigned as lab partners.

"You're one of the endowed too right?" she'd asked.

"Yeah. You're telepathic aren't you?"

"Mm-hmm. What do you do?"

"I drown people."

"So you have control over water."

"I drown people." he repeated. That's how it had always been described to him.

"That's not what your actual talent is. That's how you chose to use your power."

Dagbert had left the classroom feeling strange. That conversation had given him something he'd never had before. Freedom.

End of Flashback...

When Alicia pulled herself out of her memories Tancred was halfway out the door. He turned around again. "One more question. Well two."

"What?"

"Did Dagbert know?"

"I didn't tell him. I'm not sure if he knew."

"Is this why you wouldn't go out with Lysander?"

"Yeah. I didn't want to feel like I was hiding something from him. Besides, who would want to date Manfred's sister?"

"Sander would."

Read and Review Please! I put the flashback in there just to prove that the whole DagbertxAlicia thing wasn't completely random. I don't own the Charlie Bone story. If I did Tancred and Emma would have been together by the second book and Tracy would've fallen down a well and broken her neck as soon as she tried to get anywhere near Tancred! :} Review Please!