“Have you been to the ocean?” I ask, nodding my head toward the painting.
“Once. A long time ago. I liked it a lot.” He stares at the painting. “Are your walls plastered with posters of hot guys or something?”
“How did you know?”
“Really?”
“No. I actually have a lot of … um …” I pull on my fingers, realizing how uncool I am about to sound and how little he actually knows about me. “Painted words and book pages on my walls.”
“Book pages?”
“Yeah, some are from novels; some are from graphic novels.”
He raises his eyebrows. “Graphic novels? As in, comic books?”
“Yes. But it’s not because I think the characters are cute or anything.” Even though Laila sometimes stares at them with dreamy eyes. “It has more to do with the story lines … usually the parts where I felt the most tense or the saddest. I’ll pin that page on my wall, and every time I read it or look at it, I get that rush of feelings I got reading it.…” Holy crap, this is not normal. Why am I telling him this? “… Never mind.”
“No, wait, tell me. So you’re saying you like to remember certain feelings?”
“Sort of.” I pull up my knee on the chair with me. “It’s hard to explain. In my life, I’m surrounded by people who, no matter if they are trying to or not, can manipulate me. Like my mom. She says she doesn’t use Persuasion on me, but just the fact that I know she can makes me more likely to do what she asks, because I don’t want her to use her power on me. So even though she’s not using it, in a way she’s still manipulating me. I just let her skip a step. My dad too. Since I know I can’t lie to him, I don’t. Does any of this make sense?”
“Yes, of course, but I don’t understand how that relates to pages from books pinned to your wall.”
The desk chair swivels as I shift my leg back and forth once. “When I read, I feel emotion all on my own. Emotion no living person is making me feel. To me, it almost seems more real, because I know that those characters can’t influence me with any power. So I like to remind myself that I can feel without anyone manipulating me.… I know, it’s lame.”
“No, it’s not lame. But you sound like a Naturalist again. You sound like you want to live in a world where people don’t have powers.”
My eyes drift to the view of the mountains out his window. “No. I want to live in a world where people aren’t using their powers against me to fulfill their own agenda.”
“You don’t trust people, do you?”
“I’ve seen a lot of alternate futures. I guess it makes me more wary than most.” I turn toward his desk. “So what are you working on?”
“Are you trying to change the subject?”
“Yes.”
He laughs. “I’m working on college stuff.”
“Oh.” The thought stops me cold. Duke is going to college next year. I’m not. “Where are you going?”
“I haven’t decided yet. I have several options, and they’ve all offered full-ride football scholarships. It’s a hard choice.”
“Yes, I’m sure it is.”
“Well, it won’t be for you. You can just do a little Search, and all will be well.” I sense a hint of bitterness and am not sure what to say. He puts a hand to the back of his neck and rubs it. “I’m sorry. I’m just tired of thinking about it.” He flops on his bed face-first. “Do it for me,” he mumbles into the mattress.
I smile. “Okay.” I pick up several pamphlets from the corner of his desk and slowly flip through them. “Here. This one looks nice. There’s a picture of a tree on the front.”
He raises his head. “Is that how I should decide? Whichever college puts out the prettiest pamphlet?”
“Totally.”
“Well, that school is in California.”
I drop it onto the desk. “Never mind. That one is off the list. Too far away. I still don’t believe you’re leaving the Compound for college.”
“I know, it’s weird to think about.”
“Do you feel like it’s going to affect your ability progression?”
“Sometimes. But I’m committed to keep it up. I’ll practice. And I’m hoping Ray comes with me, so at least we can push each other.”
“That would be good.” I turn back to the stack of pamphlets. “Okay, so no to California. See, this is easy. One down …”
“Twenty-five more to go.”
“Twenty-five? Jeez, you are someone special, aren’t you? I wish you would’ve told me.”
He shifts onto his side and props himself up on an elbow. “Come to my game this Friday.”
“What?” I say, even though I heard him perfectly.
“I have a game this Friday.”
“Home or away?”
“Here.”
“So that means you’re playing one of the other Para teams?”
“Does it matter? I’m playing.”
“Of course I’ll come to your game, if my mom lets me. I can’t promise I won’t fall asleep, but I’ll come.”
He rolls off the bed, lowers his shoulder, and barrels toward me.
“You told me to be mouthy!” I scream, and run for cover.
CHAPTER 18
NORM-vid: n. captured footage with no special effects added to enhance quality “I think guys on Lincoln High’s football team use their abilities even when they’re playing Norm schools.” I hold the phone to my ear while I use my other hand to scrub the grout on the kitchen counter with the rough side of a sponge.
Laila laughs. “You think?”
“But that’s wrong.”
“Why? Are you telling me your dad doesn’t use his abilities in his new job?”
“That’s different.”
“How? He’s using his abilities to get ahead at work. He lives in the Norm world. You don’t think his ability gives him an edge on a coworker up for the same promotion? It happens all the time. Sports are no different. Our football players want college scholarships. They’re going to use their abilities to be the best they can and edge out Norm players.”
“It just seems wrong.” I rewet my sponge and move on to a new section.
“You’ve never had a problem with it before.”
“I guess I’ve never met anyone on the wrong end of an ability.”
“Addie, are you cleaning?”
I pause in my scrubbing efforts. “Yeah, why?”
“Because you’re out of breath. Stop getting so worked up unless my bedroom is the benefactor. Speaking of, it’s a mess since you’ve been gone.”
Is that what I’m doing? Getting worked up? I do feel agitated and annoyed that someone or, more likely, several someones are abusing their abilities like this.
“Who do you think was responsible for Trevor’s injury then?” Laila asks.
I throw the sponge in the sink and walk into the living room. “I don’t know. I guess a Mass Manipulator, for one. They’re the only ones I think who could tear muscle like that.” I pause suddenly as I remember something else Trevor said.
I must’ve gasped as well, because Laila says, “What?”
“A Mood Controller.”
“What? The ones who work the football games? I’m pretty sure they only influence the crowd.”
“No. Not someone on the staff. Someone on the football team.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because Trevor said right before the injury, he was off guard, relaxed. Someone soothed him on purpose, got his defenses down.”
“You think?”
“I don’t know. I’m just trying to make sense of it all. Are there any Mood Controllers on the football team?”
“I don’t know. I just assumed all the guys on the team were Telekinetics.”
“So did I, but they must not all be. How can we find out?”
“I guess I can ask.”
I’m touched that she’d do that for me when I know how much she hates asking people what their abilities are. There has to be a way we can find out without her having to ask every member of the football team his ability (although that might be the only perk for her). I think about it for a moment. “The school has to have a record of it. I mean, when we registered they recorded our claimed abilities. There’s got to be a master list or something.”
“School office, then?”
“Kalan,” we both say together. She works in the front office. She could probably get her hands on a list like that.
“I’m on it,” Laila says.
“I just feel terrible for Trevor.”
“He could’ve gotten that kind of injury whether someone was using an ability or not. Football is a contact sport, Addie.”
“Yeah, I know.” And for now I need to cling to the idea that it was all just an accident blown out of proportion by Rowan’s overactive imagination.
I’m now standing by the TV, holding my dad’s DVD. It must be calling to me. It’s the third time inside a week that I’ve picked it up just to stare at it.
“Hey, I gotta go. I’m on my way to the football game,” she says.
“I swear that’s the only thing you ever say anymore. Are you crushing on some football player? The quarterback? What’s his name?”
“You’re kidding, right? You honestly forgot his name?”
“It just slipped my mind.” I search my memory. “Oh, Duke! Jeez, I thought I was going crazy for a minute there.” I haven’t been gone that long, and yet it already feels like I’ve let a portion of my old life go. This new life fits comfortably.
“Forgetting Duke is the equivalent of losing your mind.”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah, whatever. Well, have fun staring at boys smashing into each other.”
“Believe me, I will.”
I hang up the phone and look at the DVD in my hand. Before I talk myself out of it again, I open the case and put it in the player. “Sorry, Dad,” I whisper as I sit on the couch to listen to the interview.
The screen starts off blue, and then a shot of a Bureau employee and his name card—too small to read, clipped to his dress-shirt pocket—comes into view.
He clears his throat. “The following is an interview of Steve Paxton, brought in as a suspect in the Freburg murder—first murder in the Compound in”—he consults his tablet—“seven years, four months. Recommended course of action upon positive Discernment results: brain scan, incarceration with rehabilitation program.”
My heart is pumping fast. A murder in the Compound was rare and always solved. The video cuts out for a moment, and when it comes back the same wiry guy my dad had been watching the other night sits at a metal table.
“Mr. Paxton, state your full name for the record.”
He runs a hand through his greasy hair. “Poison.”
“Your real name,” the voice behind the camera says.