If the photographer had only been taking pictures of the crowd, it wouldn’t have worried me.
Instead, he’d aimed his camera in Gifford’s direction. Gifford was dancing with a girl I didn’t recognize. Hunter, Courtney, Keon and Camille were dancing nearby. Keith and Zoey were closer to us, but we weren’t that far from Gifford either.
Besides, no one who saw her could confuse the glow of Zoey’s skin with anything but superpowers.
“I’m not sure what power juice has to do with anything.”
Keith tilted his head, and said, “You know, the whole thing where power juice became illegal, making us all technically criminals? Plus, you remember Logan at our prom. He was a total druggie, and then he got into power juice and tried to eat the school.”
I shook my head. “Not an issue. I don’t have any powers, and it wasn’t illegal back then. All this amounts to is secret identities. To continue to have one, I have to keep mine secret. I haven’t told anyone who I am who hasn’t figured it out first. You didn’t figure it out, so I could avoid telling you.”
That brought back memories–at least one memory anyway.
Two years ago, back when we’d begun to get the first inklings that something was wrong with the city’s mayor, and that he might be part of something bigger, I’d flown to Chicago and checked out the house of someone we thought might be his associate.
Dark Cloak had been waiting for me outside, bitterly unhappy with how he’d been treated by the FBI, and warning me that they’d use me and discard me.
I blinked. “That’s going to get awkward. What are we supposed to do about that?”
Haley frowned. “I don’t think there’s much we can do without leaving. I think we should warn Courtney and see what she wants to do.”
Keon rolled away, briefly looking down at the ground. It was all rocks and dirt, and couldn’t have been easy to roll over. Shaking his head, he looked up, and rolled toward the club.
I would have helped, but he started moving before I could say anything, and once he started moving, he didn’t look like he wanted help.
At any rate, he didn’t need it, and he didn’t ask for it.
Plus, Camille stepped out of the van and joined him.
Camille smiled at the group. “Someone talked about going dancing.”
Hunter raised his hand. “That’d be me. My mom has friends who own a club in Denver. It’s called Club 32. It used to be an old factory. We can walk right past the line if we want to. Vincent Sucks is playing, but they’ve got a DJ after that.”
Keon rolled to a stop next to the van. “I’m in. I love dancing.”
I’d been thinking Keon would be my best potential ally for going to a movie instead.
Evidently, I made too many assumptions about paralyzed people.
“Uh… A bunch of us being who?”
“People in my class. I don’t know everybody who’s going, but a lot of first years. I invited Courtney and Camille. Gifford invited me and Hunter.”
She had my full attention. “Gifford? The guy Jaclyn and I took out?”
She nodded.
Then something else occurred to me. “Wait, he asked you? Does he know that we’re dating? He wasn’t um… after you?”
Haley frowned. “He wasn’t asking as a date, but he does like me.”
Izzy looked up at me, raising her eyebrow a little. Knowing how powerful her hearing was (powerful enough that it was actually sonar), I knew that if my heartbeat had risen, she’d heard it.
She might also be able to see which glands were firing off. I didn’t know that, but having experienced her sonar secondhand through telepathy, I could believe almost anything. She could see a lot, and in a lot of detail.
“If you want me to go into detail,” I said, “we’ll have to go someplace more private.”
I read the article on my phone. The dead activist had a name I couldn’t pronounce, attended a university in Turkmenistan, majored in engineering, and had been twenty years old.
That boggled my mind. He’d been only a year older than I was.
According to the regime, he’d been executed for treason.
The article didn’t go into any great detail about what he’d actually been doing except to note that he’d organized students to protest after the regime’s recent actions. Continue reading Burning: Part 8
I wondered if anyone in the program could match Guardian. I’d heard that he wasn’t even limited to this dimension in his abilities. Brooke, his daughter (who I actually knew better) was limited to a few miles last I’d heard.
Last year we’d tracked down Chancy Harris, and even if he wasn’t in Guardian’s league, he appeared to be able to send people hundreds or even thousands of miles easily.
The impression I’d gotten when we met him though was that he wasn’t all that fussy about his customers. Case in point, he’d actually been working for aliens who turned out to be trying to destroy humanity last spring.
Any idea who we’d tell? I continued running, wondering if anyone was noticing the conversation.
It wasn’t as if we were cheating.
Still, there were telepaths out there who could listen in on conversations like this. Even if people agreed with the idea, one unknown listener was one too many.
I felt agreement from Daniel at that unarticulated thought. Then he answered my question.