Meena slowly took her arm off the girl, reading her thoughts in case she was going to run away again. She was really excited about this new power, but she kept a straight face while she kept her stern gaze on the girl.

  "I take it you didn't just make a withdrawal," she stated the obvious aloud. The young girl shook her head, still keeping up with the deer in headlights expression. Meena sighed at her. "We're not police so calm down."

  The girl scoffed, relaxing a bit. "Yeah, like it's the police I'm worried about." She gestured at Niko with a heavily-burdened hand that gripped a duffel bag. "That guy is Chronos trash, right?"

  Meena turned to Niko, who was busy calming himself down after the mix of terror and excitement, a few feet away. She rolled her eyes and nodded, turning back to the blonde girl. "Yeah. But he's the most oblivious creature that I've ever come across in my life."

  The girl blinked in surprise and laughed. "You must be running from them too, huh? Your power is crazy. What was that? You can, like, use someone's power when you're touching them?"

  Meena shook her head and grinned. She reached out her arm and quickly pulled it in and out of the building they were standing next to. "Nope, it's more of a catalog. I have every power I've ever come into physical contact with, but I need an idea of what it is and I can only use three abilities at a time."

  The girl's hazel eyes went wide in awe. "Those are your limitations? You're still strong as hell! Wait, why are you with this guy then?" She looked at Niko with a corner of her mouth pulled up in distaste.

  Meena's cap disappeared and she ran a hand through her dark brown hair, sighing heavily. "I think I'm stuck with him. He's currently being targeted by some mobsters and I think… I might need him later, unfortunately. He can be really useful, though! He can control minds." It felt like Meena was trying to convince herself as well as the girl. She hoped that her voice didn't reflect the doubt she had in her own words.

  Niko was finally shaken from his daze when he heard the words 'control minds'. "Uh, it's not mind control. It's just an order. Like… planting a thought. I can tell them to do something. But I have to keep track of the orders because if they contradict themselves, they'll cancel out. So I have to break off an order before I say the new one. And I have to be specific or they'll find a loophole. And it's only three people at a time, I'd have to break off a mind link before I can start a new one to order."

  Meena tapped her chin while the girl raised an eyebrow. "Sounds more complicated than I thought. But the listening-to-other's-thoughts part seems pretty limitless," Meena said. Niko shrugged and nodded. Meena clicked her tongue. "That can be annoying in crowds but at least I can shut it off. I feel bad for you."

  Niko laughed, sounding somewhat forced at the idea of being pitied. "Well it's not entirely limitless. They have to be in very close vicinity if I haven't touched them yet. It's not like I can pick a person from anywhere in the world and listen to their thoughts. I also can't walk into a room full of people and pick out individual thoughts among the rest unless I've already touched them before. And some people are aware of themselves enough to close their mind off to others, but it's quite rare and most don't know how or realize the need to."

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  It was silent for a moment, then the young girl turned to Meena. She gestured from herself to Meena saying, "So, clearly we're natural-born power holders, but isn't it weird that the Chronos trash dude is too? Wouldn't he know something about--"

  Realizing that the girl had just robbed a place and they'd been standing there chatting for a while, Meena held a finger up to her lips and looked around the alleyways. "Let's talk about this somewhere else, yeah? You have a brother hiding somewhere?"

  The girl's mouth fell open. "How did you...?! OH, right. Mind-reading thing. Got'cha. Yeah, we're staying in some abandoned hotel. I'll take you." She gripped the duffel bags tightly and they followed her down the spider's web of back alleys for about ten minutes until they reached a metal, grey door with rusted, peeling paint. The girl walked right through it with the bags and Meena followed behind. The girl was about to walk up a set of hazardous looking stairs when she stopped at the sound of the door handle jiggling behind them. "Oh. Right." She turned around, handing Meena a duffel bag, then pushed open the door to let Niko in. Apparently the door was always locked on the outside, not atypical for a hotel. She led them up to the third floor and opened the first room's door on the left.

  Sitting on a dusty bed was a young man around Meena's age who looked very similar to the girl. He had the same long, golden hair that was parted to the side and buzzed on the other side. He had the same hazel eyes but they were not as big and his light brown eyelashes weren't as heavy as his sister's. Also he was very well-built, like he worked out regularly. As he stood up quickly, Meena noticed that he was much taller than his sister as well. The young girl was only about 5'4" while her brother stood at about 6'1".

  The man's face showed immediate shock, then his eyes narrowed in contempt. He strode right past his sister and Meena, then wrapped his hand tightly around Niko's neck, teeth gritted in anger. "What the hell is this guy doing here?!" his voice thundered throughout the quiet building as he attempted to squeeze the life out of Niko.

  'Let go of me.' Niko commanded in a strained mental voice. The man's face twisted as he tried to fight the order, but his hand released Niko's neck and stayed in the air. Coughing, Niko took a step back and stepped around the man into the room. The man's hand fell and closed into a tight fist as he silently raged.

  The sister set the duffel bag down on the second dusty bed in the decrepit room as she answered nonchalantly. "He's harmless. He's on the run too, apparently." She shot her brother an amused smile before she plopped down next to the duffel bag and was instantly engulfed in a cloud of dust from the bed. She coughed and waved her hands around her in an attempt to clear the air.

  The brother, presumably Adam, sighed in frustration. "And who is this?" he gestured at Meena.

  Meena held out her hand for him to shake but was promptly ignored so she pulled back and set the bag she was holding next to the other one on the bed (very gently). "I'm Meena," she said simply.

  Niko scoffed and sat in a dusty arm chair in the corner of the room, rubbing his sore neck. "Oh you tell HIM your name..." he muttered to himself. She had never actually told Niko her name, she realized. At first she thought he was the leader of her enemies. But that obviously wasn't the case. Then she was trying to hide it for when they parted ways and she wanted to remain unknown. But evidently that wasn't happening any time soon.

  Meena shot him a look while continuing, "And this is Niko."

  "It's Nikolas."