Dark Nebula (The Chronicles of Kerrigan) (8 page)

Devon
quickly
faked to the right and
shifted
left.
Julian reacted
as if
he knew exactly w
h
er
e
Devon
was going to go
,
and they
collided.
A split second later,
Devon
jumped over the top of Julian and pinned his arms behind his back.
The boys separated and repeated the
drill several
more
times.

Enthralled,
Rae watched.
Julian’s learned something new with his
tatù
.
It looked like he didn’t need to draw
everything
anymore
, and w
here future events used to
appear
at random,
he
could predict moves before they occurred.
L
ike he
can
pre
read
Devon
’s moves
.

Then
they switched to
a new
exercise
.
Julian grabbed two
long sticks.
They reminded Rae of light
sabers
from Star Wars.
The two boys danced around the room battling back and forth.
Devon
stru
ck a marked hit on Julian. I
nstead of gloating,
he
explained to Julian how he beat his defenses.

“I’ve been thinking about how to get around your ability to predict my moves.
I figured if I considered a number of possibilities at once
,
but followed my gut
instinct, it might confuse you
.”

Devon
crouched again, pointed to Julian’s
knees
and beckoned.
Julian moved, protecting his
legs
. They danced, fighting and shouting as they
crashed
around the room.
Julian jumped when
Devon
scored a marked hit on his heart.

“How’d you do that?” Julian
rubbed his chest
.

Devon
wiped the sweat dripping from his brow.
“I wanted you to think abo
ut covering your right side.
I kept thinking the same thing but let my instinct
aim
for
your
heart.”

“It worked.
My
vision
went blank when your brain wasn’t telling your body what to do.
Great tactic and one I’m definitely going to need to be aware of.
” Julian wiped
the
sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand and grabbed his water bottle
off the floor
. “
I need to focus on how to get around it.”

“Hey, Rae
.
Do you want to try this with Julian?”

Rae jumped off her invisible chair.
“Sure
.” S
he
ran
to
Devon
’s spot and
grabbed
his saber.
Watch
ing the guys for the past forty
minutes
had given
her a good idea o
f
how to mimic their actions
and she was dying to try
.

“
T
ake it easy on her,
”
Devon
warned.

Julian
almost spurted his water out, just managing to swallow it
.
“
You
saying that
because she’s a girl
,
or because it’s her first time?”

“Because if you hurt her,
I’ll
have to kill you.”
Rae sense
d
some seriousness behind
Devon
’s joking
manner
.

Cute…but come on,
it’s me.
“
I’ll
be fine
.
These sticks don’t have points on them
,
and if Julian
somehow
manages to hurt me, I can
heal myself with
Charlie’s
healing
tatù.
.”
She stuck her tongue out at
Devon
and then
pointed the saber
at Julian.
“Just remember, I can’t use
the
healing
tatù
to fix you.”

“Alright
y
,
sweet-cakes
. Your move
.” Julian crouched into
his
ready position.

Hmmm… seems I need a
more casual approach
.
She stood straight, facing right, stick
swinging slightly
in her hand.
She waited for
Julian
, focusing her thoughts on him coming towards her and nothing else
.

He relaxed and sto
od up.
“Hey, are we gonna spa--
”

At that exact moment, Rae
levitated and flew over to him.
She
tapped his
stick out of his hand.
“Gotchya.”

Julian
blinked, stared stunned at her and then at his stick.
Devon
laughed.

“Shall we try that again?” Rae asked sweetly,
patting him on the shoulder before
wal
k
ing
back to her spot.

“Sneaky little git,
” Julian mumbled
,
pick
ing
his stick up and
standing
in the ready position.

Rae focused on
his
tatù.
She began to understand what he
had
learned over the summer.
She
mimicked him, realizing
he was
doing the same
.

“Hey!
You can’t copy my tatù
.
We’ll spend the next ten minutes having you think about me thinking about you, concentrating on me while I concentrate on you.
We’ll be running circles all night
.”

Leaning against the wall,
Devon
rubbed his temples
.
“I’m already chasing circles in
my head with what you just said
.”

Devon
’s interruption cut into Rae’s concentration
,
and she lost
focus on
Jul
ian’s train of thought
.
He must have realized the gap
because he
came
char
ging towards her.
As he aimed to touch her shoulder, she easily leaned back away from his reach.
He swung the stick down and
she
dropped to a lying position, levitating slightly above the ground.
W
hipp
ing
herself around into an upright position,
she touched
Julian’s
back
before he could turn to face her.

“That’s two for Rae.”
Devon
tried coughing to cover his laugh.

“She’s good
,” Julian muttered. “
Better than you.
”

Devon
stepped forward with a
smirk
that
showed off the cute dimple Rae loved.

Unable to resist, she levitated over and kissed
it
.
“Sorry
,
but I gotta
sneak th
o
se in when I can.”

“You’d better g
et them in
now.
After you beat him
and his pride to a p
u
lp, he’s
not
going to
let you.” Julian snickered
, a twinkle in his eye.
“Hey
,
Dev, why not have a go with the freeze-
T
asers
?”

“The what?” Rae’s eyebrows
shot
up
.
That sounds cool!
Bring it on
!
S
he
threw
the stick aside and
squinted
to
see what Julian tossed to
Devon
.

“
These
.
A
re
.
A
wesome
.
”
Devon
held it out so she could see.

“
It
look
s
like a
cordless
razor.”

“Yeah,
but when you hit the button and touch someone’s skin, it freezes them.”

“Like the game
kids play
--
freeze tag?”
Rae
could not
imagine how they
work
ed
or who in the world
had
invented them.

“Yeah, that
’s the
idea.
It immobilizes you for about sixty seconds.
I can zap Juls
to show you.
”
Devon
leapt in front of Julian.

“Hey
!
”
Julian shouted, moving out of
Devon
’s reach.

Taking a
t
aser
, Rae stepped back to her position in the middle of the room.
Devon
stood about ten feet
away, facing her.
She
squinted as she
concentrated on
his
movements but
could not
seem to find a pattern to his actions.
His tatù gave him agility
,
but his brain worked even faster.
He had
her
tagged within thirty seconds.

“
Whoah
!
You got me…I can’t move.” Rae struggled to move her arms.
She screamed at her brain to tell her legs to
run
.
It immobilized everything but her
brain, and obviously her heart and whatever else she needed to breath
e and
stay alive
.
After getting over the initial panic
,
she relaxed.
“
Wow, this is
really
cool
. I’m stuck!” She paused when a thought struck her. “
I’m not going to fall over on my face, am I?”

“No, the freezing
will
wear off in twenty seconds.”
Devon
stared at his watch, slowly stepping back
wards
.

Rae
counted in her head
.
O
ne moment there was nothing and then
,
bam
!
Everything returned like it had never left.
She lurched forward, not sure if her legs might still be frozen.
She chuckled when she realized she was walking around with locked knees.
Forcing them to act normal, she returned to her spot.

They tried several more goes,
Devon
freezing
her again and again,
until
she
started to
see
a
pattern
in his movements
.
He went on gut instinct b
ut started to get careless and step
ped
too close.
Rae
finally
froze him before he got his hand around to touch her.

“Got you
.”
She
danced and taunted
him
as he stood frozen.