H.E.R.O. - Metamorphosis Page 22

I looked in the direction Tina pointed. A semi blocked an intersection, with a group of cars piled up in front of it, some badly scrunched.

  I altered my direction to fly there, holding Tina tighter as we sped toward the ground and traffic. All traffic had halted in the area, causing a large vehicle jam. No police cars were in sight.

  I flipped my legs to slow down; it worked like a charm again. This flying thing is actually really easy. I hope I don't somehow sleep fly … that could be embarrassing.

  We landed, and I asked, “Tina, will you call this in to the police? Mention that a super is on scene and will try to help out, I'm not in the H.E.R.O. program yet, but I've spoken with Captain McCain to get active tomorrow.”

  Tina said, “Will do. Those guys look like they are going to beat the truck driver up.” She pointed in the direction of the semi.

  Sure enough, two men advanced on the man nearest the semi. One held a baseball bat, the other a golf club. I already heard all the mental voices and the nearest peoples' mindviews as I ran through the people standing around their vehicles. I couldn't tell if everyone really was talking and yelling out loud or if I just 'heard' it that way.

  I sprinted over to the men about to fight, and yelled “Hey!” as I got close. They were in the midst of shouting, and didn't hear me over themselves and others making noise and honking horns.

  Damn it. Listen to me. I screamed, “HEY! Back off now!”

  I ... felt ... my shout rip through the minds of every person nearby. Nearly all mental voices went quiet for a moment as my words tore through their minds.

  The men all stopped and stared at me. For that matter, everyone in the area stopped and stared at me, I think. I had about five mindviews of myself. It was distracting losing so much of my vision to them all.

  I said, “Everyone needs to calm down. Just calm down now.” My skin tingled. Yeah, that'll help too, everyone calm down. Loudly, I asked, “Is anyone hurt?”

  Between the mindviews and a deluge of mental voices from those nearby, it got a little hard to think. Strangely enough, everyone seemed quite calm, at least those nearby. My power's working. Oh, this could be a great job!

  The man with the golf club in his hand said, “My daughter is hurt badly. This jerk rammed us in the intersection. She's unconscious and bleeding. I don't think she had her seat belt on in the back seat.”

  I walked with him over to the car; he couldn't get the rear door open. The young teen bled from her head where she was slumped over. I asked for his golf club, he meekly handed it to me. I broke the window near the top with it. If I can lift Lance, I hope I can pull this off.

  I grabbed the top of the door frame from the window area, put my left foot up on the driver's door and pulled hard. The top of the window frame bent outward. Some remaining glass shards cut into my hands, slicing them open. I changed my hand hold, put my other foot up by the rear window and pushed off hard with my legs.

  I was not sure if my flight kicked in from that, or it was just strength, but the door ripped off its hinges, and I flew backward with the door in my hands. My back slammed against another vehicle and I collapsed to the ground. Ow. That hurts.

  I pushed the car door off me and crawled to my feet. The man tried to wake his daughter up. The area was strangely quiet, even with all the mindviews and mental voices. Most had images of me in their head.

  I yelled to him, “No! Don't slap her! You might make it worse!” What kind of dolt hits someone who is injured like that? Wait, someone in a panic, I guess.

  My back hurt, but I jogged over to his vehicle.

  He said, “I can't tell if she's alive.”

  I told him, “Stand back a little ways.” Mindviews seem to be most powerful when I'm close.... I leaned in so my head barely touched the girl. There was ... something there. No active visual or mental speaking, but something. I checked for a pulse and breathing, both were fine.

  “Heart is beating, she’s breathing, and I'm sensing something psychically; she's not dead.” I leaned back out and focused for a moment on each mindview and mental voice in the area. A few were thinking of a minor injury or vehicle damage, but no one else seemed to have a severe injury. A headache had already begun from all the mental noise of so many people, even with most of them at least 20 feet from the vehicles in the accident.

  I heard a siren in the distance. Several minutes for a police car to get here. They'll wait for an ambulance, five or ten more minutes to get here with the traffic jam. Then another five or ten to get to the hospital. That's too long.

  I called out, “Where's the nearest hospital?” I immediately got the image of Metrocity General Hospital's location from several people. Several of them pointed to the north and called out the hospital name.

  I looked at the man, “She looks too young to have a license, do you have an insurance card or something in your wallet I can bring with me? I'll fly her to Metrocity General if you want.”

  He said, “Will she be all right?” He looked worried.

  “I don't know, I'm not a doctor. I'm thinking an ambulance will take ten to twenty minutes to get here and back to the hospital with her. I can have her there in perhaps two.”

  He rummaged through his wallet, found a card and handed it to me. “Yes, please get her to the hospital.”

  I looked at the card, “Todd Woorsten. What’s your daughter’s name?”

  “Gina.”

  I nodded to him. I closed my eyes and thought to myself, Everyone be calm. Be calm. Stay calm for the police. I felt the tingling all over my skin again. The area became the calmest large accident scene I'd ever seen. Peoples' mental voices tended to be quieter when they were calm, too. That was nice.

  I put the card in my back pocket and picked up Gina as carefully as possible. I knew from my first aid training how dangerous a head wound could be if moved, yet I was worried about the time it would take to have her looked at.

  I looked at the man again, “I'll be right back, after I leave her with a doctor. I expect you all to be calm when I get back, okay?”

  He nodded, eyes not leaving his daughter.

  I cautiously used my 'air step' to float up, did it several more times and moved fast toward the hospital in moments. I kept the flight smooth, avoiding any jerky turns or motions. It was very pleasantly quiet once in the air, though I caught a few mental voices here and there, probably from nearby buildings as we flew past. Hearing that many voices wasn't pleasant for me, even with the crowd separate from the area I'd been standing in. It took perhaps two or three minutes to get to the hospital. Once I'd reached enough height to see over buildings I angled directly toward it.

  I flew around the hospital until I saw the emergency exit, and then descended toward it. People outside stopped and stared at my passenger and me.

  I'm so glad my landing is soft. If I were like some movie superheroes that smash down to the ground I'd never try this with the girl having a head injury.

  Someone was quick on the uptake. By the time I landed, an emergency room doctor, a nurse, and a gurney were at the entrance waiting for me. I very carefully put the girl on the gurney, and handed the card to the nurse.

  I said, “She was just in a car accident with a semi. That's her father's information. Her name is Gina. She didn't have her seat belt on and was in the back seat.”

  The doctor nodded, “Who are you?”

  I blinked as I stared at his face. Quick! Think! Mind powers, flight, gold hair. “Psystar, with a y.” I hope that's original.

  “We'll take care of her.”

  Someone behind me said, “Ouch. That looks like it hurts.”

  Their mindview showed me they were looking at my back. I must have cut it on the car I landed on. My shirt was cut and bloody.

  The nurse was keen, she stepped around me to see what the man had pointed at. She pulled the wet shirt away and looked. “You don't have a wound here, but there's fresh blood.�
��

  I said, “It must have happened when I pulled off the car door. I heal really fast I guess.”

  “You want to be checked over?”

  I stretched a bit from side to side, testing my torso for pain. I had none.

  “No, thank you, though. I want to get back to the scene to see if everything is all right there.”

  A middle aged man ran over to us. He looked directly at me, so I assumed he wanted my attention. When he was perhaps five feet away he swung his cell phone up and appeared to take a picture of me. Great picture, I wasn’t even smiling. I smiled at him.

  They wheeled the girl into the emergency room; I turned and hard pushed on my 'air step.' I forgot to angle myself carefully, and as I shot into the air I quickly curved backward and narrowly avoided the hospital's upper floor. My heart raced as I corrected my course, and then sped back to the crash scene. Flying's much easier when I don't have to worry about an injured person. Guess I need to pay some attention though.

  Everyone was still very calm when I got back, this time in under a minute. I landed right by the car that had held the girl this time. I came in slightly too fast and landed hard, though at least I kept my footing and remained upright.

  The police were on scene, questioning everyone at this point. The two men with weapons no longer held them. More people had gotten out of their cars and come closer to see the damage or listen to those involved in the accident. The area was even more crowded now with the addition of those people and many curious pedestrians.

  One of the officers stepped over to me, “Everyone here is saying that you diffused the situation here and flew away with a young woman?” He looked me up and down, and was a bit confused by the lack of costume on a super.

  “Yes, officer. I'm Psystar, with a y. I saw the accident when I was flying around and flew down to see if help was needed.”

  Before he had a chance to ask the questions he was thinking of, I said, “The men were very angry at the semi driver due to both being hit and angry about the one's daughter from being injured. I flew her to Metrocity General's emergency room; they are looking at her now. I pulled the car door off to get to her; it was bent and stuck from the crash. I didn't see the crash though, so I'm not sure who ran the light.”

  “Well, miss ... Psystar. You know just what to answer. A few people are saying that everyone was riled up and angry until you showed up, is that true?”

  “Yes, it is. I, ah, calmed everyone down, I think. Don't ask how, I don't know how I do it.” With the addition of the officers and others who had crept closer, my vision became overwhelmed with mindviews, and thoughts made background noise very loud. I put my hand on my head and said, “Is there anything else, officer?” I could barely even see the officer out of my own eyes my vision was so crowded with mindviews.

  I felt a hand on my shoulder and opened my eyes. I did not recall closing them. The officer stood right in front of me now. I mentally had to push mindviews out of the way; my vision was filled with them. They had a nasty habit of shifting around as people moved.

  He said, “Miss, I asked if you are all right?”

  I said, “You did? Too ... busy here. It makes it hard to think with so many people so close. I need to get out of here.”

  After a short time the thoughts quieted and numerous mindviews disappeared. I felt hands on my shoulders. “Miss, miss. Are you okay now?”

  So many images of myself, the police, crashed vehicles and the crowd. I opened my eyes. Damn it, when did I close them again? It's easier to think now. I glanced around; it looked like one of the officers had asked the people to back up that had encroached on the main accident group.

  “I'm sorry officer. Yes, yes I'm better now. Why do you ask?” Ah, I see in his mindview that I was swaying with my hand on my head.

  He said, “You mumbled your answer, hand on head, swaying. Do you have a fear of crowds?”

  “No! I like movie theaters, water parks, amusement parks, etc. The people being close just makes it hard to concentrate or think.”

  “We really need you to wait for the H.E.R.O. agent. Do you have the ability to move certain vehicles to help us get some traffic moving?”

  “No, but I can go get a few supers who could in a few minutes.”

  “That'd be great, if you promise you'll be right back.”

  “I will.” I looked around for Tina; she was at the front edge of a group of people. Oh great. I walked over to her and said in her ear, “I'm getting the boys and coming right back.” Wow, so many people in such a tight spot. I must have had two dozen mindviews active at once. Several people standing by Tina reached out and touched my arms.

  I stumbled backwards to free myself of the blast of images and voices in my head. I pushed hard on my 'air step,' and launched fast into the air. The voices disappeared immediately with the distance, though I could now see I was headed for a building at high speed. I jerked my upper body away and my path swerved clear of it, missing the windows by a few feet at best.

  I kicked up my knee and the speed shot up. Wow, I might develop a fear of crowds if it stays like that. I quickly flew to the junkyard and found Lance and Rael smashing apart junker cars. More accurately, Lance smashed, Rael cut them apart.

  When I was a few dozen feet up I yelled down to them, “Boys, I have an accident scene that needs your help moving cars, and possibly a semi.”

  Lance looked up, “Yeah! Hero time!" He pointed at Rael and said, "Figure out a name, or it’s Big Kitty!”

  I held my arms down to them and Rael just grabbed one. Lance looked skeptically at me. I said, “Just try it.” He grabbed my other hand with his mammoth sized hand.

  I kicked up to fly fast into the air. The weight of both of them felt ... odd. Not entirely burdensome, but I could feel that they weren't light to me. Other than that odd feeling it didn't seem to affect me much. I started to acclimate to leading with my upper body rather than my hands, and my legs were free to move for slowing down or speeding up.

  It took minutes to get back, even flying what might have been dangerous speeds inside the city. Neither of the boys felt like they would fly out of my hands, though. I again landed us by the crashed car.

  Some people in the crowd actually clapped, when I landed with them. The crowding of voices in my head started up again. It didn't help having the boys right by me as well now.

  One voice spoke louder and was more irate than the rest. I tried to focus on that one. A man had gotten very angry at the long delay from being stuck. He had become downright furious. I figured out the general direction the voice was coming from and walked in that direction while focusing on the voice.

  I approached a buildup of people in that direction, and was assaulted by thoughts and mindviews as I closed my distance to them. I held up my hand to try to ward off the mindviews, but it didn't work. I couldn’t see, my vision was so crowded with mindviews, apart from trying to make sense of over a dozen images floating in front of me. It was hard to hear real voices because of the many mental voices all speaking, they all blended together.

  I dimly recognized that some people slapped my hand, perhaps thinking I was high fiving them. Others touched or groped me, I wasn't even sure. The voices picked up in volume as I closed on them, but the angry man grew even louder. He felt like he was ready to blow with anger. I had a difficult time stumbling through the crowd; it was like my brain was being scrambled.

  A few people followed me, but most didn't, and many of the voices quieted down. It wasn't a clear case of a mindview hovering over a person's real image in my vision, so linking the thinker to their actual position was a bit of a pain. Generally they seemed to stay on the side where the person was located, so I had to stop and turn a number of times to lock down his position.

  I closed the distance enough for his mindview to become clear to me. He held a gun in his hands and was about ready to use it. The rest of those following me
stopped, when it wasn't clear to them where I walked.

  The man sat shaking in his seat. His face was red with rage. I felt the power of the emotion, as I arrived at his vehicle.

  I gently knocked on the hood by his door. His window was down, so I said, “Sir, are you....” That was all I got off.

  It startled him; he hadn't noticed me walk up. He screamed incoherently and shot me in the stomach. My body jerked back slightly with the bullet’s impact. The shot rang out through the area, silencing almost all physical noise.

  His anger must have affected me, with his mindview so significant in my vision and me focused on it.

  I screamed out, “Enough! Calm down!” I believe I said it out loud, anyway. I know that my scream ripped through every voice in my head, quiet or noisy. I'd bet that it was like me yelling at someone at my own table in a restaurant for every single person, regardless of whether their voice sounded more like a murmur from the other side of the room to me at the time.

  He pulled the trigger again. Out of surprise that time, I think. That one hit slightly higher up in my abdomen. My body jerked again. I’ve been shot ... twice.

  I'm not certain what happened next. Rage clouded my mind, I was hurt. I bashed at his mindview, and felt a surge of energy lash out at him. It stunned him; the gun hand fell back onto his lap. I was so pissed off. My skin tingled, as I reached in and grabbed the revolver from him. The barrel wasn’t even warm to the touch. My other hand held my stomach.

  I stumbled backward a few feet. I looked at my right hand; it was red with blood. Oh my god, I’ve been shot. You shot me, you asshole!

  The mental voices that had been nice and quiet for a moment suddenly began to grow in noise and anger. Oh, no. I just made everyone mad. I focused on calm thinking, everyone stay calm. Spread calm. Damn, my abs hurt. Vehicle horns honked in the area, people shouted at each other. It was harder to get the tingle this time, perhaps because of the pain and the lingering anger from the angry man. It took me numerous attempts to focus on calm before I felt the tingling.

  The anger in those around me dissipated.

  I opened my eyes. Rael stood next to me. He turned me to face him, pulled up my shirt and began looking at the bullet wounds. I continued to think of spreading calm, and my skin kept up the tingling.

  He said, “You're doing something, I can smell it.”

  I nodded. The bullet wounds hurt. A police officer made it through the crowd to us. I held out the gun, holding the barrel in my hand. It was obvious who had been shot, only two shots were fired and I had two bullet wounds in my abdomen. He took out a cloth and carefully held the pistol by the body of the weapon.

  “What happened?”

  Oh, shit. If I can't read people's minds how would I know? Hmm. “I could feel that he was getting more and more angry by the moment. I came over here to try to calm him down. He shot me when I started to talk to him. I don't believe he meant to harm me, but he shouldn't have a gun if he's bipolar or can get road rage bad enough to hold that while in traffic.”

  Rael said, “I'll bet that the bullets will pop out on their own. All of those in me did.”

  I said, “Assuming neither of us is armored, and we both heal at similar speeds, and the bullets went into roughly the same density of flesh. It hurts though.”

  The officer said, “Miss, you should lay down, we need to get pressure on those wounds. I'll call in for an ambulance.”

  I waved my hand. “Hold off officer. I'm not bleeding profusely, and the bleeding has slowed already. I've healed from crushed bones fast before, this may be the same.”

  “Well, I guess with you being a super I'll wait a few minutes. Normally, it'd be required. I still have to arrest him though.” He proceeded to get the formerly angry man out of his car and cuffed him. I noticed then that the guy was awake again. At least now he wasn’t angry, my calming aura worked on him as well.

  I ran my clean hand through Rael's hair, “Rael, go help ... Spartan move vehicles. You kneeling here won't speed my healing, nor get this scene cleared sooner.” He didn’t want to leave my side when I was injured, but decided to obey to help clear the traffic scene faster.

  “Okay, yell for me if you need me.”

  He walked back to Lance's location, and I felt movement at my stomach. The bullet worked itself out as I watched. I said, “Officer, do you need the bullets? The first came out.”

  He looked over at me, and the last of the wound sealed over as we watched. The skin became just an angry red bruise area. Within another minute the second bullet pushed its way out of the wound into my hand, and that wound also sealed over. I set the bullets on the cloth he'd used to pick up the gun.

  The officer asked, “Does it hurt?”

  I thought about it a moment, “No, not any more. More of a bad soreness now. Pretty cool, huh?” The wounds still looked like angry red welts, but those faded rapidly.

  “Yeah, that's got to be handy.”

  “By the way, officer. I don't know in a gun shooting if the person has to press charges, but I won't press them against this man. He now knows he could shoot someone, and if that goes on his record then perhaps it will prevent him from owning a weapon. But I startled him when I showed up.”

  “Yes, but what if that would have been another person who saw him getting angry? Or an officer?”

  “So we do just what's needed to keep him from having a gun in the future. If you need to contact me further on it, I'll be registered with the H.E.R.O. program tomorrow under the name Psystar, with a y.”

  “Sounds good.”

  A new voice said, “Are you the super handling the situation here?”

  I turned to see a man in a suit. “Hello.”

  “Hello. I'm Agent Carson of the H.E.R.O. program. Not good enough to just deal with a traffic problem, you have to involve a shooting at the scene?”

  “I came over to him to try to prevent him from raging out, I was too late. At least he shot me instead of someone who doesn't heal fast.”

  “Very true. Thank you for that. I've already spoken with the officer that handled the traffic scene. Is there anything special you have to add?”

  “Not really. The first officers asked me the key points to verify, and I did with them. Listen, I need to move away from all the people here. We can either walk further away, or I can fly you up to a building top or something.”

  “We can walk down the street if you need to.” We walked away from the crash intersection; he took my elbow and pulled me into a small cafe. He intended to sit right by the glass windows, but I pointed to the much less busy back section.

  “Please, it's the proximity to people that is hard.”

  “So, why is being around people hard for you?”

  “I can sense them. It's not bad when there's a small group, but a crowd that starts closing in is rough.”

  “Fair enough.” His mindview told me he knew I was lying. He didn't trust me.

  I sighed. “Fine. I don't want to start off badly with you, Agent Carson. I can talk to other people mind to mind. I'm hearing, ah, static with so many people around.”

  “I'm not new at this Miss. I'm well aware of psionics and telepaths. Why don't you come right out and say you are hearing what people are saying?”

  A surprised look crossed my face. “Oh. Well, to be honest I thought it would freak most people out if they knew that.”

  “I'll have a message sent to Psycom, to see if he's willing to have a talk with you about it. Are you okay with getting a call back from someone in H.E.R.O. or from Psycom directly?”

  “That'd be fine.”

  “Well, I'm not finding a Psystar in the H.E.R.O. system, so I'm gathering that you are one of Spartan's two new partners?”

  “Yep.”

  “Well, with you not in the system I'll fill out the paperwork and turn it in to Captain McCain. He'll have final approval on it.”

  �
��Sounds fine to me, sorry about not being in already. The Captain asked us to wait until Monday to come in to fill in the paperwork.” Wait, he's thinking there's a nice reward for helping with the scene and saving the girl, if she lives. Nice!

  “Not a problem, I think we'll have a number of new superheroes join our ranks this weekend. You three just jumped out and started doing things right away, which isn't common. Unfortunately, others are likely to become criminals.”

  “Yeah, I flew for the first time already this morning.”

  He looked me over closely, and only through him did I realize that I kept touching the former bullet wounds excessively. “Well, if you have nothing else to add, I'll be off. I've already spoken to your teammates.”

  “Thanks for talking to me in here, Agent Carson.”

  “Not a problem. As you mentioned, at least someone who could take being shot was hit, rather than someone it could permanently paralyze, or kill.”

  Interesting, he meant to make a point that supers can help save others, and also that I should take people with weapons seriously. He should have just said that. “Yeah. I'll be out in a minute, I need to get an energy bar or something. I'm really hungry.”

  “You turned yesterday?”

  “Yep.”

  “You may not have discovered this yet then. Many supers eat more than normal. It doesn't seem to matter what you eat, but you need to eat more often. A super's body converts it into some odd energy type it uses for all these abilities. I'm not sure what happens if you don't eat enough though. I don't recall having that conversation with any supers. If you find out, let me know, would you?”

  “Okay, though I guess I'd rather prevent it.” I got up and headed to the counter. The woman behind the counter stared at my bloody tummy. I looked down; realized my shirt was still pulled up, and my abdomen blood covered.

  “Oops, sorry about that.” I grabbed a few napkins and started wiping myself off, it wouldn't all come off cleanly. Sigh. “I'll be right back.” I headed to the restroom to clean up. No chance of saving this shirt. Blood on both sides, plus the tears and blood stains meant the shirt was ruined. Minutes later, I returned to the counter and ordered four energy bars.

  The police had removed the crowd from the street, and the boys almost had a path clear for vehicles to begin traveling through. I munched down my bar and headed out. I focused on spreading calm. Once I the tingling began I walked through the cars down the street.

  Hearing the mental voices calm down as I walked through the parked cars helped to keep me in the zone.

  One of the officers preparing to start traffic moving saw me as I walked down the center of the street and jogged over to me. “Excuse me, ma'am, but you'll have to clear the street.”

  “Give me a minute, officer. I'm spreading calm. It'll help prevent everyone from trying to rush the opening as you guys start traffic moving. Just watch peoples' faces as I get near them.”

  He accepted the explanation, and followed me as I walked. Once I swept through the four streets and the intersection, no horns were blowing, and the boys had cleared out the area enough to begin.

  While the officer started traffic flowing, I stopped over by Lance, Rael and Tina. I gave each of them an energy bar.

  Tina saw my shirt and said, “Like, oh my god! You've been shot!”

  I smiled, “Past tense, I healed it.”

  Lance said, “Perhaps training in a junkyard isn't what we need. You seem to be learning things about your powers right here on the scene.”

  I replied, “Yep, but this wasn't a combat with supers.”

  “You still got shot.”

  “True, but it was still better than having someone chasing me around with a gun or knives looking to kill me.”

  Unfortunately, now that we stood on the corner and vehicles weren't being moved here, the crowd moved in en mass. Images and voices again deluged my mind.

  I mumbled, “Guys, I need to get away from the crowd.” I think that was what I said, anyway. It was very hard to think under the mental noise and mass of mindviews filling and overlapping in my vision.

  After an indeterminate time to me, the voices cleared, leaving my friends’ voices and mindviews. I blinked a few times and looked around. We were in an alley between two stores.

  “How did we get here?”

  Rael said, “You don't remember?” I could see in his mind that the boys had each taken an arm of mine and led me along, while I practically stumbled along like a zombie.

  “Ah, yeah, of course I remember. You two held my hands.” I smiled up at them.

  Tina said, “She was stumbling around whenever she got near the crowd before as well.”

  Damn it. I don't like where this line of talk is headed. Great, what's a good cover story for stumbling around? I was drinking?

  Tina continued, “Why were you holding your head when talking with that first officer, Steph? He suddenly had the other officer move people back away from the accident vehicles ... and you. As soon as people backed off, you were fine.”

  Oh, great, I can see my own panicked expression in their mindviews. Rael moved behind me and slipped one arm around my stomach, the other around my collarbone. He's holding me down.

  My mind ran a hundred miles an hour. I can't tell them about the mind reading; it'll make them all mad at me. Oh, no, I look paranoid in their mindviews too.

  “Not here, I don't want to talk about it in public; you're going to hate me though….” Besides that, I might have heart failure.

  Rael just hugged me tighter to him, and Lance kissed me on the forehead. Rael heard and felt my heart rate increase.

  Lance said, “No we won't. Now, we've got four of us to get home, and you can carry two. I'll jump home.”

  Tina said, “Hello? Like, we drove in Rael's car, remember? It might be a good idea to fly there and drive home. Then perhaps we all go get some lunch?”

  Lance said, “Good idea, I'll meet you guys at the house so you can change out of the bloody clothes.”

  Rael slid around beside me, but never stopped touching me. His mindview showed he could sense my fear, and wasn't about to let me run off without them. I held Tina around the waist, Rael's forearm and stepped up into the air a few times to gain speed.

  I didn't fly us particularly fast; instead I kept us in sight of Lance for a while, so we could see what he looked like jumping around like some kind of human frog. Once he was far enough away toward the house I accelerated toward the junkyard. I had no idea how to tell them that I was stealing their thoughts.

  I stayed quiet on the flight to the junkyard. Rael and Tina were as well, but I could see what they were thinking, and they kept looking at each other and wondering what would be so bad. Rael wondered if I’d figured out that he’d used his new power on me, and if I were mad at him. Talk about paranoid!

  We landed softly at the junkyard. The boys had already cleaned up their mess, so we hopped in the car. Tina jumped in the back seat.

  I was pretty depressed by the time we got back to Rael's place.

  Chapter 23 - Confession

  Stephanie's Viewpoint