Authors: Adrian Howell
“I don’t doubt it,” I said, feeling the wine kicking in. “But tell me about your brother.”
Terry gave me a wry smile. “More prying.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I promised to answer your questions.”
Terry sipped her wine for a moment before saying, “My brother was the only real family I had, Adrian. He was seven years older than me, so he’d be twenty-two if he was alive today.”
“What was he like?”
“Well, he knew more patience than I’ll ever have,” said Terry. “It wasn’t always easy growing up between three uncles who weren’t really uncles, moving from city to city, and knowing that someday we’d be fighting in this war. My brother didn’t exactly help me in many ways, but he was always there. You’d think siblings would fight more, but maybe because our ages were so far apart...” Terry’s voice trailed off.
I looked at her uncomfortably. Terry had promised no misty eyes, but I did catch a hint of a quiver in her voice as she continued, “My brother died two years ago, Adrian. The Angels attacked our town, and he was kidnapped by them along with two others. He wasn’t psionic yet, but he was really good at blocking control. Do you know what happens to people who are taken by the Angels?”
“They’re converted, right?”
“Not if they are as good as my brother at blocking,” Terry answered grimly. “It would have taken forever to convert him, and the Angels weren’t going to bother too much with someone who wasn’t even psionic. They probably didn’t even know whether or not he was from a psionic family. He wouldn’t have told them.”
“So they killed him?”
Terry nodded. “They sent us a picture of his execution along with his right arm in a box.”
I stared at Terry, horrified.
Terry said in a quiet voice, “All we could bury was his arm.”
“What was his name?”
“Gabriel.”
“I’ll remember that,” I said, finishing my glass.
“Thanks,” said Terry.
I realized we had nearly finished the bottle. We were still sitting on the ground, but the whole world seemed to be swaying a little as Terry asked, “So, Adrian, are we even now?”
“I don’t know,” I answered. “I mean, Cindy told you things about me that I would never have told anyone in a million years.”
Terry shrugged. “And I just told you a bunch of things that I would have kept secret too. So are we even?”
“Okay, Terry,” I said, nodding, “we’re even.”
“Good. Now I can ask you my question.”
“Go ahead.”
“Who is Alia?”
“What?” I asked, wondering if I had misheard her. “You met her, Terry. If you want to know more, you’d better ask Cindy.”
Terry shook her head. “I want to ask you. And you promised to answer.”
“Well... Alia is a healer and a telepathic,” I said, uncertain what Terry wanted. “She hates speaking with her mouth because she’s so horrible at it.”
“No, Adrian,” Terry said emphatically, “that’s not what I’m asking.
Who
is she?”
“I don’t understand, Terry. What’s your interest in Alia anyway?”
“I’m not interested in Alia,” replied Terry. “I just want to know what kind of person you’re willing to die for.”
Chuckling, I said, “It wasn’t like that at all, Terry. Whatever Cindy told you, she wasn’t there. She doesn’t really understand.”
“But it’s true that you refused to leave that kid to die.”
“Well, yeah, that part’s true,” I said somewhat uncomfortably.
“And you knew that you were going to die with her. You knew you couldn’t save her, but you stayed behind anyway.”
I scratched the back of my head. “You make it sound like there was a choice involved.”
Terry raised her eyebrows. “There wasn’t?”
“No, there wasn’t, Terry. I didn’t choose to do what I did.”
Terry shook her head. “There’s always a choice, Adrian.”
“I’m not sure I really believe in choices anymore, Terry.”
Terry gave me an incredulous look. “You don’t believe in choices? That doesn’t even make sense.”
I stared down at the ground. “Well, I didn’t choose to become psionic. I didn’t choose to have my parents murdered. And I certainly didn’t choose to die with Alia in that cave. Maybe we can choose what we eat for lunch, but we can’t choose anything really important. You should know that at least as well as I do.”
Terry replied patiently, “I know there are plenty of things that happen no matter what we choose, Adrian, but I believe in choices. Even if they’re not the ones we want, there’s always a choice. I believe we are what we choose, and I think you chose to stay behind.”
I remained silent, unsure how to respond. I watched Terry pour the bottle’s last drops into her own glass.
Terry smiled at me and said, “But you still haven’t answered my question, Adrian. Who is Alia to you?”
I pondered that for a moment before answering carefully, “Alia is my sister. My other sister, maybe, but still my sister. She’s just like your brother, Terry. Like Gabriel. She’s someone who is always there. She taught me how to block your grandfather’s peacemaking. She saved my life more times than I saved hers. I don’t know if I would make the same, um... ‘choice,’ if I had to go through it again, but if you’re asking who I’m willing to die for, then the answer is simple. I’d die for family.”
“Fair enough,” said Terry, standing up. “Here, let’s get another bottle.”
“I think I’m pretty drunk already, Terry,” I said, struggling to my unsteady feet.
“Oh, come on. Just one more.”
As we zigzagged our way back toward the buffet table, Terry said, “Can I ask you one more question?”
“Sure,” I said. The world was beginning to spin a bit too fast for comfort now.
“Did you really wear a dress to disguise yourself last year?”
“A blue frilly one,” I laughed, almost falling over. Terry caught me by the arm and set me back onto the ground.
“You stay here,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”
Chapter 6: Opening Doors
“Quit shouting, Alia, or I might have to kill you.”
“I’m not shouting,”
said Alia, tugging on my arm.
“Cindy says wake up already.”
I slowly got up off our bedroom floor, stumbled into the living room, and promptly fell facedown on the longest couch. As I rolled over onto my back, the early morning sunlight streaming in through the windows burned into my retinas right through my closed eyelids. Every time I heard Alia’s voice in my head calling me into the dining room for breakfast, it felt like my head would explode.
I heard Cindy’s footsteps and turned my head toward her.
“I’m really sick, Cindy,” I moaned.
“It’s called a hangover, Adrian,” said Cindy. “I told you to pace yourself.”
“Will I die?”
“Unfortunately, no,” said Cindy, laughing.
“That’s too bad,” I mumbled. “Where’s Alia?”
“She can’t help you, Adrian. Not for this,” said Cindy as she handed me a glass of milk. “Come on, get up. Your tutor will arrive in an hour.”
“Oh... yeah...” I said, forcing myself to sit up on the couch and sip the milk.
Cindy smiled. “So, how was your date?”
I nearly choked. “Date?”
“Well, you danced. You drank, obviously way too much. You talked too, I hope. Isn’t that a date?” asked Cindy.
Shock was no cure for a hangover. It just made things worse. Yes, we danced. And drank. And we talked. And... kissed?! No, I was pretty sure we hadn’t. Not certain, though. Nothing was certain about last night.
“What happened to your arm?” asked Cindy.
Looking down, I saw a dark purple bruise on my right forearm. Alia had healed all of my dojo-acquired injuries before going to bed last Friday, so I didn’t know how I had gotten this bruise.
“I must have fallen down last night,” I said. “I don’t really remember.”
Nor did I care. My head was throbbing far worse than my arm. Leaving the milk half-finished, I lay sideways on the sofa, pressing my palms onto my forehead and trying unsuccessfully to stop my brain from beating like a drum.
The phone rang, jarring my senses, but Cindy picked it up quickly. I didn’t pay much attention to her, or anything for that matter, but then Cindy said to me, “Adrian? You’re tutor is... um, not coming today. He’s sick.”
“There is a God,” I decided, and stumbled back to my room, collapsing onto my bed.
I woke a little after 1pm, hovering near the ceiling.
Child psionics were known to accidentally use their powers in their sleep. My sleep-hovering was essentially no different from how Alia telepathically mumbled in her sleep, but in my case, being a flight-capable telekinetic meant I risked bumps and bruises whenever I drifted out of my bed. I knew I would grow out of it someday, but meanwhile I could never figure out how to keep from falling out of the air the moment I opened my eyes. Fortunately, this time I landed on some of Alia’s stuffed animals strewn across the floor, so I wasn’t badly hurt.
Standing up, I realized that, while my world was still a bit hazy, I could at least walk straight. I found my sister flipping through a picture book by herself in the living room.
“Where’s Cindy?” I asked.
Alia looked up from her book.
“At a meeting, like always. Are you okay?”
“I’m better. Did you heal my arm?” I asked, wondering if perhaps I had merely imagined the bruise on my right forearm.
“I took care of it while you were sleeping,”
said Alia.
“Thanks. Could you take a look at my head too?” I asked, feeling a mean little bump on the back of my head, just above my neck. I hadn’t noticed it until my hangover receded, but now it was the only part of my body that was still throbbing in pain.
I knelt down so Alia could take a look, and she exclaimed,
“Oh, that looks nasty! Where’d you get it?”
“I don’t remember. Just take care of it, would you?”
“Okay, okay,”
she said, and I breathed a sigh of content as I felt the bump slowly shrink back into my head.
“How was your tutor?” I asked.
“She didn’t come. I don’t know why. Oh, and Terry called. She said your combat training is canceled too.”
“You talked to Terry on the phone?” I asked.
Alia laughed.
“Of course not! You think I’d answer a phone? Cindy told me before she left.”
“You have got to learn to speak, Alia,” I told her, but she just shrugged.
Cindy returned to the penthouse as I was finishing my late lunch.
“Oh, good, you’re up,” she said briskly. “We need to talk.”
I looked up at her meekly. “If it’s about last night, Cindy, I swear I’ll never drink again.”
“Well, I seriously doubt that,” Cindy said with a wry smile. Then she asked, “Did you hear that your combat training is canceled today?”
“Alia told me,” I said. “What’s going on?”
“The subbasement is currently off-limits,” Cindy informed me.
“Why?”
“Do you remember the Angel spy we caught two weeks ago? Well, he escaped.”
I looked at her sharply. “Last night?”
Cindy nodded. “Somehow, the spy got out of his cell, and perhaps used the escape tunnel.”
“What escape tunnel?” I asked.
“There’s an emergency escape tunnel that leads out of the subbasement, but it can only be opened from the inside. Of course, it’s equally probable that the Angel used the elevator, but the real question is how he got out of his cell in the first place. He was constantly drained and couldn’t have opened his cell door without outside help. The only way into the gathering place is down the elevator.”