To say Keefe freaked out was an understatement. He couldn't even get a word out to Forkle that made any sense.
"Keefe I need you to relax," He said with his Master Leto voice.
"Sorry, sorry I'm just trying to figure out what they could've done to her in the 10 minutes I was gone!"
Mr. Forkle sighed, "Well I know you had to leave, but this is what I was afraid of. Did Abbie see what was in the syringe?"
Keefe turned around to ask her, only to find her sleeping.
"She's sleeping right now."
"Well wake her up, this is important!"
Keefe gently shook Abbie awake, causing a cry that cut through his heart.
"I'm so sorry Abbie, I need to ask you a couple of questions." He whispered, cursing at himself for leaving her.
"It's fine, what is it?" She struggled to sit up and he had to help her, she was burning up.
"Did you see what was in the syringe?"
"I didn't, I just saw the size of the needle, which was huge." She grimaced, obviously reliving it.
Forkle spoke up, "Hi Abbie, I'm sure you remember me." He said laughing.
She frowned, "I'm not sure I've ever seen you before."
It took him a second to realize he was Master Leto and palmed his forehead, "You're right, my apologies. You know me as Mr. Forkle, the creepy scholarship guy," he laughed to himself.
Her jaw dropped, "This is insane, you look nothing like him!"
"I know, but we need to focus. Did you feel like your veins were burning all over when they injected you? And did your head start to feel super full?"
"Yes, how did you know that?" She asked, her eyes wide.
"I'm sorry I can't explain everything right now. I promise you're not dying though. Keefe, I need to talk to you."
Keefe took the imparter away from her line of hearing, "What do you think is wrong with her?"
Forkle ran his hand through his gelled-back hair, "As scary as this is, her symptoms align with someone who has just had an ability activated unnaturally."
"WHAT?" He yelled. If the Neverseen made her manifest as something, it couldn't be good. "I thought only The Black Swan did stuff like that."
"I thought so as well, it seems that the Neverseen have taken a liking to our ways. Which is both interesting and terrifying. But this confirmed my suspicions and I have good news. She should start to feel better in a few hours. This is why I kept Sophie unconscious when I activated her inflicting and when I reset her abilities."
"What about when you activated her enhancing or Marella's pyrokinetics?"
"Those were both natural Keefe. I sped the process up yes, but they were both meant to have those when they were born. Sophie's genetics worked out as well as we could've hoped, even better actually. But she wasn't going to manifest as an inflictor so we had to help her out. But it is a very delicate process to create it so I'm surprised the Neverseen pulled it off."
Keefe had to take a deep breath to take it all in, looking at Abbie he couldn't help but feel awful. "What do you think she's going to manifest as?"
"Have you been informed on what she's already manifested as? That will narrow down a few options."
Keefe listed off all the abilities she has. Forkle took it much more calmly than he thought he would, nodding as he said each one.
"Incredible," He mumbled when Keefe finished the list. "I hate to say this, but she might manifest as a shade or a pyrokinetic. Those would be my best bets."
"That's what I was thinking too," Abbie groaned and it caught his attention. "I'm going to let you go Mr. Forkle. I'll let you know as soon as I know what we're dealing with. I'm gonna take care of her, don't worry."
After he clicked off, Keefe sat on the end of the bed and watched Abbie while she slept. Realizing how weird that probably looked, he paced back and forth across the room. Slowly, she began to regain some color and her breathing slowed back to a normal pace. Eventually, after three hours, she woke back up.
"Finally!" He sighed, "How are you feeling?"
She shrugged, "Nothing is burning anymore so that's good. I'm just really tired." She laughed, "Now are you going to tell me what's wrong with me?"
"Well for starters, nothing is wrong. Like Forkle said, you aren't dying. I can try to explain but I still don't know everything I need to know to help make it easier for you to understand." Pausing for a second, he looked her over again. Blowing out a breath, he gave her a reassuring smile, "Well... what we think is happening right now, is that they attempted to make you manifest another ability unnaturally."
Abbie groaned and covered her face with her hands, "So you're telling me that I now have twelve freaky elf abilities?"
He gave her a weak smile and a nod. She groaned again.
"What is it now?" She struggled to sit straight up and Keefe helped her get settled.
"We have two possible options, and when I say we, I mean me and Forkle."
Abbie frowned, "But aren't there more than two other options?"
"Yeah there is, but we're trying to narrow it down and Forkle thinks the Neverseen is going to target either Pyrokinesis and Shade abilities."
"Those don't sound great," She shuddered, "How can we find out?"
"The only way to find out is to try!" Keefe said cheerily as he jumped off the bed.
She groaned, "What do I need to do? Remember I still feel like dog sh-"
"I'm gonna stop you right there. It's not hard just try and conjure up a fire ball that blows us all up" He said as he smirked.
"Well if it's that easy…" She smiled, rubbing her hands together.
"Maybe don't make a fireball. I don't know much about Pyrokinesis but just try a spark."
Her face scrunched up in concentration but nothing happened. Same thing happened when she tried to manipulate her shadow.
"Marella always tells me about how she can feel the weight of heat and the presence of fire. Can you?"
She shook her head, "I can only feel water, wind, and the cold."
He whistled, "I forget how cool you are. But that means we're back at square one." Keefe mentally sorted through all of the other options. Maybe you're an enhancer! That would explain a lot."
"What's an enhancer?"
"So far, Foster is the only one. It doesn't affect you but you can boost everyone around you, it's how I can give her breezes of cool in her mind to help her relax."
"But can't you already do that to me?"
He gasped and slapped his palm on his forehead, "I didn't even think about that. That year you didn't manifest as anything, I bet you manifested as an enhancer."
"Well that's cool, glad we got that small question figured out. But what about this huge question we need to answer?"
She heard footsteps from outside her door and immediately grabbed Keefe's hand. He was invisible a second later.
"Hey honey," It was her Mom. "I decided to stop by during my lunch break and check in on you. You gave me quite the scare earlier, are you okay?"
Abbie smiled, "Yes ma'am, I'm feeling a lot better. Probably just a weird bug or something."
She sat there sweating, Hoping her Mom wouldn't notice her hand.
Gah what I would give for Keefe to be a vanisher. Her thoughts continued about how that could happen and all of a sudden she felt a sharp burning sensation run through her whole body and into her hand. Yelping, she let go of Keefe's hand without thinking and curled into a ball. Keefe didn't reappear.
"What's wrong?" Her mom shrieked, "What hurts?"
Abbie groaned as the burning stopped, which left her spent and exhausted. "I have a really bad headache, that's it."
"Let me go get you some medicine, I'll be right back." Her Mom rushed out of her room.
Keefe reappeared, white as a ghost. "What did you just do?" He whispered.
She covered herself with a blanket, trying to hide herself from whatever big thing she just discovered.
"I… I don't know. Can you vanish now?"
"Yeah I can." He said shakily as he blinked in and out with surprising control.
She groaned, "What is happening?"
Keefe vanished right as her Mom opened her door. "I really wish I could stay, but I have to get back to work. Here's a few things and call me if you need me!" She kissed Abbie's cheek and hurried out.
"This is insane!" Keefe yelled as he vanished and reappeared all over the room. "I see why Biana does this so much! This is so cool!"
Abbie wasn't celebrating at all. "What ability is that? Can anyone else give people abilities? Did it hurt you?"
Keefe sat back down beside her and squeezed her hand. "This is all new to me, so I can't answer any questions except assure you that all I felt was a little warmth, and then a whole lot of spinning and tingling and I was fine. He sent the cool breezes again and Abbie didn't freak out this time.
"I don't really know what to do now…" Keefe mumbled, still reeling at his new ability. "Can you do that with every ability? Can you take it back?" How was he supposed to explain being a vanisher when they get to go back? Mr. Forkle is definitely going to want to keep this a secret from everyone.
Abbie was sweating as she wiped her brow. "I don't know. I didn't even know I could do that!"
She looked him in the eye and he could tell she was terrified. So he told her the only thing he could think of to comfort her, "We'll get this all figured out together, I promise." Really lame thing to say, but it seemed to give her a little hope.
"I can try to take it back, or give you another ability. What should I do?" Her voice cracked at the last question, and she sounded a lot younger than her sixteen years.
"Why don't you just rest. It obviously took it out of you and we don't need to risk your health."
Keefe could tell she wasn't happy about it. "Before you argue, just take a short nap while I hail Mr. Forkle again. I'll wake you when I have more answers."
Everything he was doing felt too repetitive. Something big happens, call Forkle. Something bad happens, call Forkle. Keefe felt so helpless, he wanted to explode.
"Since it's only been half an hour since our last conversation I'm going to assume you and Miss Gray have discovered something." Forkle said calmly.
Keefe nodded, "I think we figured out something really huge." He paused, unsure how to word this. "Something that could change everything."
Forkle put down the scroll he was reading, "Are you both okay?"
"I'm fine. I just… don't know how to explain this."
"Take a deep breath and try to explain the situation in the easiest way possible. We can figure this out together and I can even get the collective involved if I have to. Do we need to bring Abbie here early?"
"No we don't. It's just crazy, this has never happened before." Keefe mumbled mostly to himself.
"Mister Sencen, I don't mean to be harsh but you need to tell me what's going on."
"Abbie can give people abilities." Keefe blurted out really fast.
Forkle let out a startled sound and shot up. "Are you sure? Because this could lead to something extremely sinister if the Neverseen got her."
Keefe vanished to prove his point and Mr. Forkle ran his hand through his hair and cursed. "Why are you a vanisher?"
"Abbie was holding my hand to keep me invisible and she accidentally gave me the ability."
"Can she take them away?" Forkle whispered, fearing the answer.
"I'm not sure, we're going to test it though. She got really drained after using the ability so I told her to rest."
"I hate to keep waking her but I need to know this immediately, Keefe. Wake her up and try to get her to remove the ability she gave you." Forkle was pacing now, trying not to get overwhelmed by the information.
Keefe slowly woke Abbie up, "Sorry to keep doing this, but The Forklenator needs to see if you can take away my vanishing."
She nodded and sat up, not grimacing as much as she did earlier, which Keefe took as a good sign. She grabbed his hand, closed her eyes, and scrunched her brow. All of a sudden Keefe felt light-headed and dropped to the floor.
Abbie shrieked, "What did I do to him?" She asked Forkle.
"I… I don't know. Check to see if he's okay." He insisted.
She slowly slithered off of her bed and shook him awake.
"Keefe, are you okay? Please get up, I'm sorry." She pleaded, realizing how much Keefe meant to her and she's only known him for a day. Based on what he's told her about Sophie and Fitz, this is what happened with them too.
His eyes shot open and he sprung up, wobbling a little bit. "What happened?"
Abbie and Mr. Forkle sighed with relief, "You passed out when Miss Gray removed your vanishing."
"Oh yeah… that was freaky. Luckily I hadn't had that ability for long because that left me feeling unbalanced. If that makes sense." Keefe rambled, still trying to make sense of the situation.
Forkle nodded, "That makes perfect sense." He looked at Abbie, "This will all be okay, I need to go and talk to some others. But you might be getting brought here sooner than I planned so try to prepare." He clicked off without another word.
"Mysterious as always." Keefe said cheerily. Abbie wasn't cheerful, she was freaking out. Keefe could feel all of her emotions wrecking havoc in her head.
"Hey," He said softly, he had to repeat himself before she looked at him. "It's okay to be nervous but don't spiral. You can already handle way harder abilities like hydrokinesis. This is nothing you can't do."
She smiled softly but didn't respond for a few minutes. "I'm scared, but not so much about my ability. I'm more scared about leaving. I have family and friends here. I run track at school. I have a good life here. What if I can't handle being with all of the other elves?"
He laughed, making her face go red. "Sorry, I don't want to embarrass you. But you are going to love it with us. I promise. I don't know who you'll live with but Sophie hasn't regretted anything. You belong with us."
She sighed and stood up. "I think all of the side effects have worn off, I want to go to school... I need to go to school."
"But I can't vanish anymore…" Keefe said, hoping for the chance to be a vanisher again.
"If you want to be a vanisher just say that, it makes my life a lot easier." She said smiling and holding her hand out.
"Try not to get yourself sick this time."
"Crap you're right. I forgot about that." She paused, "It'll be fine, I'm prepared this time."
"I'm ready when you are." Keefe said as he squeezed her hand.
Abbie closed her eyes and very carefully thought about exactly what she wanted to do. She imagined her taking a small bit of vanishing ability and just letting it slide from her to him. Not as much as last time, but just enough to get the job done. A second later she felt the familiar warmth start, then it started getting hotter. Luckily, it didn't burn like last time. But it drained her just as much, her breathing started to get strained as the last of the warmth faded and Keefe gave her a hug, "You are incredible."
He lept back, "Sorry if that was weird, I know we just met yesterday."
Laughing, she wiped sweat off her brow, "It's not weird Keefe, relax." She slowly stood up, only wobbling a little bit as she made her way down the stairs. "Luckily I was almost done getting ready this morning. Now I can make it in time for my last two classes and track practice."
Keefe groaned as he realized he was going to have to do exactly as Ro does while he's in all of his sessions. He has to sit in the back and try not to sleep, which is hard because he can't even stay awake during his own sessions.
Abbie called her Mom, who then told her she could take her car because she and her Dad rode together that morning.
Squealing, she looked at Keefe "This is gonna be epic!" She hung up the phone, grabbed the keys, and got in the passenger seat. Keefe was freaking out, he heard Forkle call those machines "Death Mobiles."
"Are you sure this thing is safe?" He grumbled, causing a laugh from Abbie.
"Keefe, have you never ridden in a car before?" She joked, glancing at him as he carefully climbed in his seat.
She gawked, "They don't have cars in the elf world?"
"Lost Cities," He corrected, "And no, we definitely do not have cars there."
"Well you're in for a treat! And you can hear people singing with my accent that you apparently love so much."
His face flashed crimson but he hid it with his hands while groaning, "Please be a short trip, please be a short trip."
"It's only a 15 minute drive and there shouldn't be any traffic, so try to retire that wrinkle in your forehead for a few minutes and have fun!"
He had to laugh at that, her accent was something he liked, but he would never admit that. Hearing her speak the enlighten language with the southern twang was pretty great.
"I'll try, just don't kill us and we'll be fine."
They spent the next 15 minutes jamming out to all kinds of country artists, all of Abbie's favorites. Even though the Lost Cities didn't have much music, he could get used to this. Shockingly, he was actually kind of sad that the ride ended when it did, he had never loosened up so much in his life.
"Alrighty, back where we met. You ready for your first ever human classes? You'll be there with me for Biology and Math.
"Sounds good I guess," He grumbled, "I'll try not to snore too much."
"Yeah don't do none of that, my classes are usually silent because no one wants to answer anything."
They continued in silence, because it would be very weird for people to see Abbie talking to thin air.
Hopefully things stay this calm. Keefe thought to himself. But he knew that wasn't true. The Neverseen injected her with that stuff for a reason, and it's going to be bad if they get the chance to utilize it.