The following morning, Zaire showed up to school in a completely different car… not his Hummer and not his newly acquired Jeep.
The Jumper parked the car and extended the seat as far back as it would go; then, he proceeded to brush white powder and stray leaves off of his clothes.
Bringing Patty to Peru had not gone as well as he had hoped; though, the job had been concluded either way.
Whatever tattoo Patty might have had – she definitely didn’t have it anymore and Zaire had to remind himself to go and check on the island in a couple of days.
“That will be off schedule though…” He muttered.
Even as a Jumper, Zaire wasn’t confident about his chances of surviving on the island, not without the natives… and as per the deal, he could only visit the island once a year with their protection.
Any more than that and he would have to do so with his own skill – such a thing would be easy of course, but as a cautious man, Zaire preferred to get to know more about the island first.
Knowing he would soon be spiraling into thoughts that should be left to simmer, Zaire decided to focus on something else.
“I hope Henry likes her gift…”
The Jumper hopped out of the car, slamming the door behind him… had it been his car, he wouldn’t have been so rough but in the end, he didn’t buy this particular car for himself.
It was a downgrade from his usual tastes.
Zaire opened the back door and slipped on his school bag – it had almost nothing inside but he thought it best to keep up appearances.
That’s when another car slipped into the lot next to his. Of course, it was Jenna driving Henry to school.
Henry was the first out of the car, meeting Zaire’s eyes as he leaned against her gift… though, there was no way for her to recognize the gift as yet.
“Don’t…” She raised a hand, signaling she was unwilling to listen to whatever excuses he could conjure.
“Henry…”
“Zaire,” Henry took a deep breath, marching forward so Zaire could see the small bruise on her cheek – it had healed nicely in the past two days. “You hit me, Zaire… I had to hide from my mom!”
There was a sacred solemnity to her statement, almost as if she was saying ‘I have protected you’.
Zaire frowned. “And I said I was sorry.”
“And you sneaked into my room,” Henry growled. “Who does that?” She questioned. “You hit me, then you made it up to me by sneaking into my room?”
Jenna had been spectating thus far but when she saw Henry’s shout garnering attention, she tried to intervene. “Henry, maybe you should—”
“None of your fucking business, Jenna!” Henry was annoyed, especially since Zaire seemed to have gotten his claws in Jenna somehow.
And, though she would never admit it, somewhere inside all the resentment she was feeling for Zaire was jealousy… not a normal type of jealousy but jealousy nonetheless.
As well as she knew Zaire, Henry was sure he didn’t spend his time thinking about what he had done… far more likely, he had been partying and sleeping with girls.
That irked her all the more.
“Breaking into your room is not how I plan to make it up to you,” Zaire interrupted, shooting Jenna a stern look – this was not her battle to fight.
The girl was quickly silenced, though not without a snide remark of ‘I was just trying to keep her from killing you’.
“I am not giving you the weed back…” Henry quickly blurted.
While the graffiti on her bedroom wall could use a little more work, Henry was touched by the fact Zaire had gone out of his way to find weed that would help with her episodes.
‘And he rolled it too!’ Her mind protested.
Sadly, he was one roll short of absolute forgiveness.
If it was any other boy, they would be definite husband-material if they rolled her weed but when it came to Zaire, there were only two options – happiness now and pain later, or pain now and awesome sex later.
‘And I definitely don’t want the sex…’ Henry chuckled internally.
Zaire smiled. “You have already forgiven me, haven’t you?” His eyes narrowed. “It was the white widow weed, right?”
Henry smirked, some of her anger dissipating. “That fucked up art you left on my wall covers the white widow exchange. So, there is no surplus forgiveness to give,” She snorted.
Jenna’s eyes wandered the parking lot until she noticed the familiarity of the car Zaire was leaning against. “Uhm, Henry?” She gestured to the car. “Isn’t that the vehicle your mom sold to Bill Boone?”
Henry was frightened… the very same car she had to return in secret two days prior?
Then, she realized Zaire was leaning against the car while playing with a keychain in his outstretched hand – everything immediately clicked.
“You didn’t?” Henry almost squealed, caught somewhere between excitement and resurfacing fears.
Returning the car after Clay’s incident had been difficult, especially since Henry knew she would need the car if Clay talked to the police and she had to run from Reston.
Zaire tossed the key to Henry – she snatched it out of the air. “That is how I apologize and ask for your forgiveness,” He stated matter-of-factly.
‘First things first,’ Henry thought. “Did you steal it?” She questioned.
Such questions could be ignored in any other friendship but when it came to Zaire, Henry knew she had to ask precisely the questions nobody else would ask.
‘Saves me a lot of time…’
Jenna leaned forward, similarly curious about the answer.
Zaire shook his head. “Bought it—”
“Oh my gosh!” Henry threw herself into his arms.
The Jumper allowed himself the small enjoyment, lifting Henry and spinning her for a couple of seconds… he enjoyed the bland smell of her damp hair.
Henry wasn’t aware of it herself.
Before the first Jump, Jumpers tended to have minor spasms that pulled the world towards them… and that resulted in complex scents depending on where they had been.
“But you have to pay me back,” Zaire quickly corrected whatever idea was running amok in Henry’s mind.
“Of course,” She slipped out of his arms and proceeded to check out her car. “Is that a new stereo?!” She yelled.
“And you pay me back by helping out at the restaurant and cleaning my house…”
Henry rolled her eyes. “I’d spend more time smoking your weed than cleaning your house so it’s a neat gig,” She waved her hand dismissively. “Where are you shacking up right now? Everyone knows Patty and Brenda burned down your cottage.”
“Got a new house on The East Side mountain area…” Zaire voiced, meeting Jenna’s eyes as she stood awkwardly. “It has this perfectly little stream at the back that I know Jenna will like…”
Jenna’s eyes shot up – she did have a childhood memory about a stream… and there was someone else in that memory but like all her other childhood memories, it was clouded.
Henry slipped into the car, starting the engine to make sure everything was working… Zaire admired this particular trait of Henrietta – she trusted nothing until she had tried it herself.
“You know the cops are looking for you, right?” Jenna questioned, noting all the students standing around and staring.
They were likely waiting for Zaire to get arrested but it had been five minutes and nobody showed up… the police station definitely wasn’t that far away.
“My lawyer took care of everything,” Zaire voiced.
“You have a lawyer?” Jenna quirked a brow. “How could you afford that?”
“A favor of a friend who owed a favor to get a favor of a favor,” He replied.
Jenna rolled her eyes – that was such a Zaire-like response.
Henry gushed over her car for another five minutes.
In the end, Zaire was forced to slip his hand around her waist, snapping the girl out of any delusions of driving the car right away.
Henry was stunned at first, then she calmed upon recalling just how much Zaire liked to surprise her with unexpected snuggles, and then she shook free of his arms.
It was a familiar comfort to recover their friendship to the state it was a week ago but a lot of things had changed since then…
‘Zaire had changed since then…’ Henry realized.
And she had yet to decide if it was a change she was comfortable with but at least for the moment, she was no longer as put-off by his presence.
…
Jenna led the way while Henry and Zaire lingered a bit behind her.
Zaire and Henry pretended not to notice how Jenna was trying to keep a healthy distance from them.
“I wouldn’t want to be lumped into our clique either,” Henry lazily voiced.
“I thought she was more mature than this…” Zaire shook his head in disappointment.
“She still wears kitty-cat underwear,” Henry revealed, causing Zaire’s eyes to drift to Jenna’s swaying hips.
“I like that cat…” He muttered.
A timely elbow from Henry kept Zaire’s darker urges in check.
A vibration captured Zaire’s attention and while his body tensed at first, he quickly realized it was coming from the smartwatch on his wrist.
The Jumper read the notification. “Apparently, Clay Boone was attacked and is now cripple and in a coma?” He spoke with a fixed frown on his face.
Henry fidgeted uncomfortably as they approached their lockers. “Yeah, a wild night. It happened around the same time your cabin was blown to bits,” She revealed.
“Hmm…” Zaire shrugged. “I guess the son pays for the sins of the father.”
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Henry paused a few steps from their locker. “What do you mean?” Her heart was beating intensely in her chest.
“I mean Reston is gonna have its own minor gang war,” Zaire's voice held a dark mirth. “Honestly, I thought someone would put Lucas into the ground before Clay but…” He shrugged. “—the order doesn’t matter to me.”
Henry felt her breath growing heavy… she could understand the words coming out of Zaire’s mouth but she couldn’t, for the life of her, decipher their meaning.
“Henry… Henry,” Zaire placed a hand on her shoulder and he tensed when she recoiled from his touch.
The Jumper was angry for a split-second, then he was confused for another second before Jenna similarly placed a hand on Henry’s shoulder and the girl calmed.
“I’m sorry?” Zaire questioningly said.
Whatever it was, he knew enough to know that Henry didn’t have that reaction to him… after all, he had touched her earlier in the parking lot and she didn’t flinch away.
Unless…
‘PTSD after I hit her?’
If that was the case, Zaire was determined to step away from Reston and never return.
“It’s fine… this isn’t about you,” Jenna quickly spoke. “Henry and I just need to... talk privately for a while.”
Jenna escorted Henry away and Zaire was left staring at his hands, trying to recall where he had seen reactions similar to the ones Henry had just displayed.
His mind understood what had happened but at the same time, he didn’t acknowledge it.
He shook his head. “That’s impossible…” The Jumper internally snorted.
…
The first three sessions passed uneventfully.
With Patty and Brenda away, all the girls in the school breathe a little easier.
Zaire took advantage of the fact that Brenda and Patty weren’t around to makeout with Claire and Wendy in the back of the chemistry class.
What better time to experiment?
Biology saw his one and only session with Zach and a quick Bluetooth connection between Zach’s phone and Zaire’s smartwatch told The Jumper the latter had sold him out.
Of course, anyone could see one of the guys in the locker room had recorded the fight but Zaire never suspected it would have been Zach.
‘Does he like Patty or Brenda?’ The Jumper questioned himself.
Admittedly, Zaire was not bothered by the fact that Zach had leaked his relationship with Patty and Brenda – he was more disappointed in the brilliant girls who started a fire in his house, right on top of unstable bombs.
‘Not really their fault…’
In the end, Zaire was happy with the fact that the girls had survived the ordeal… had he been a second later, then Patty and Brenda would be black crisps on an examination table.
The explosion had already garnered the interest of the FBI – Jason had notified him of such.
The bell rang to end the third session.
“Heading to the locker room?” Zach questioned, sliding into a stride matching Zaire’s. “You’re starting in the game later now that Clay is out of commission.”
Zaire smirked. “You mean crippled, right?”
“Don’t talk like that…” Zach leaned in closer, whispering into Zaire’s ears. “Some people think you did it so just keep your head down.”
Zaire was not surprised by the piece of information… he would have been concerned about such rumors reaching Bill Boone’s ears if Sheriff Dale hadn’t already cleared him.
The duo chatted as they made their way to the locker.
Every corridor brought cheers and shoulder pats, heightening the pressure Zaire and Zach were already feeling.
Clay, as much as an asshole he was, was actually a gifted player and someone Zaire could fall back on whenever he would eventually be double-teamed in a game.
…
Zach pushed open the door to the showers and Zaire entered behind him with careful strides, just in case someone was waiting behind the door to ambush him.
The possibility was small but Zaire would rather be paranoid than be caught unexpectedly.
“You’re jumpier than usual,” Zach commented, sliding out of his pants.
Zaire was just about to take off his shirt when he felt something… something that shouldn’t have been possible and almost had him Jumping home to grab a grenade and gun.
‘This… this… this is…’
The Jumper felt suffocated by the spatial ripples.
It was imperceptible to ordinary people but as a Jumper, Zaire could feel the pull and subtle shaking of the entire school building… and at least half the building was going to be pulled through.
Once at the temple, Zaire saw a Jumper capable of Jumping fifteen cows at the same time, without them touching… this felt like that moment.
It was a moment when everything Jumped, even the air.
Before his mind could even form conscious thought, Zaire dashed out of the locker room and into the hall… he ran as quickly as his legs could carry him.
If he could, he would have Jumped to the location and killed whatever was causing the spatial fluctuations but he couldn’t overpower the pull…
And even if he could push his Jumping abilities to their limits, chances were that only half of him would show up anywhere.
Zaire pushed a student out of the way with a tackle that would have made him a star of the football team, and then he banged the corner and ran shoulder-first into a locker.
Many eyes trailed him as he ran down the corridor.
Thankfully, the students of Reston had seen members of the football team peeing in lockers so Zaire running crazily was nothing too groundbreaking.
The Jumper felt his breathing tightening further as he slid down the stairs using the metal bars.
‘This is the floor he determined…’
It took one more corridor before the spatial fluctuations rammed into him as if a herd of bulls stomping their hoofs in unison… they were about to ram.
Zaire had to stop the ramming, lest everyone in the school die… actually, it would be more along the lines of Where is the school?
“Where… where? Where?” The Jumper bit his thumb, drawing blood in a panic.
His eyes were chaotically monitoring anything and everything, trying to find that one abnormality that would allow him to save himself and everyone else.
“Where what?” Someone questioned – it was Townes. “Are you looking for Henry? She’s in the girl’s bathroom…”
‘Henrietta?’ Zaire wanted to kick himself in the head for not noticing it earlier.
With his little knowledge of The Impulse series, Henry wasn’t this powerful but this was reality, not some movie or television series.
Obviously, Henry was more than the TV series could convey with the limited special effects budget.
‘Fuck television!’ Zaire internally roared, kicking the door to the female’s bathroom open – he was resolved to never trust another television show ever again.
Immediately…
As soon as Zaire was inside the bathroom and the door shut behind him, The Jumper’s knees were forced to the ground so hard that it cracked the tiles.
In Zaire’s eyes – the eyes of a Jumper near the peak of his ability – fine, spatial cracks almost as thin as thread were beginning to spread throughout the bathroom.
“Jenna, get back!” Henry yelled.
That was when Zaire realized there was someone else in the immediate blast radius – Jenna.
“JENNA, STAY WHERE YOU FUCKING ARE!” Zaire yelled. “DO NOT MOVE!”
“Za… Zaire?” Henry’s breaths came with panting, and The Jumper could hardly makeout his name being spoken.
The mirrors were cracked…
The paint was beginning to flake off the crumbling walls…
Clumps of rubble started swirling in the air…
The bathroom doors were being bent in all directions…
The lights flickered on and off and occasionally, lightning sparks danced in the air slower than the pouring water…
And at the center of the catastrophe was Henrietta Coles.
Luckily, upon realizing Zaire was present, some part of Henry’s mind was comforted by his presence… subconsciously telling her body to calm down.
It didn’t work… at least, not all the way.
The pressure lessened enough for Zaire to stand and he did so regardless of his bleeding knees.
“What the heck—”
The door opened and shut behind Zaire but he had no time to inspect who had entered – he only hoped the person was not sliced apart by the spatial threads in the air.
Jenna could not see the danger, no non-Jumpers could see spatial abnormalities, but she could sense it… so, she didn’t move an inch.
“Henry, focus on me…” Zaire spoke with his most alluring voice and it worked… he captured Henry’s attention.
The pressure lessened once more as Henry’s eyes stared into his… his calm enhanced her calm but the buildup of spatial energies was already too turbulent.
It needed an outlet.
Zaire clapped his hands together, a subconscious tuning suggestion as his Jumping abilities activated in full force but instead of trying to move away from his current location, he was anchoring himself to his current spatial coordinates.
It was a simple technique, akin to a human digging their feet in the sand to weather a storm… only, Henry was a fucking tsunami.
The spatial threads running through the air became thinner and the shaking of the bathroom stalls and shattering mirrors slowed.
“Zaire?” Jenna and Henry were both surprised.
They could tell Zaire was doing something… something similar to what Henry was doing but much more controlled and directly counteracting whatever was happening to Henry.
Still, Henry’s breaths came hurried and with each panicking seconds, she gripped more and more of the available space.
“Henry… Henry, listen to me…” Zaire inched his way closer to Henry – his feet cracking the tiles with every step. “I need you to release The Jump…”
“I… I don’t…” Henry started to panic more. “I… can’t… I don’t know…”
“It’s fine… it’s fine,” Zaire comforted, trying to keep her calm as he made his way toward her. “I just… I just need you to extend your hand and try and walk toward me, okay? I need to touch you… I need to ground you.”
Henry nodded her head… the blood vessels behind her eyes were rapidly becoming visible.
Zaire could imagine Henry exploding into a flood of blood and spatial energies… how she could survive after having already pulled so much space into her was a miracle.
She extended her hand and took a step toward Zaire, and he did the same… as The Jumper passed by Jenna, he placed a hand on her shoulder and pulled the girl into his chest.
That would keep her from facing the worst of the spatial pressure.
Though she was not aware of it as yet, Zaire knew that Jenna’s organs had been ruffled enough that minor internal bleeding was the least she could expect.
Henry pulled… everything started to crumble anew…
Zaire pushed… space returned to normality for an instant… then, Henry would pull again, completely overwriting whatever changes Zaire had tried to make.
Needless to say, Henry was countless times stronger than Zaire.
“I’m scared…” Jenna whispered into Zaire’s ear.
“I am too…” He freely admitted with a similar whisper. “But what scares me more is failing you and Henry… so trust me when I say that I have this under control.”
Another step closer…
Zaire tossed his body forward, pulling Henry into his embrace, and as if a dying woman on her last lifeline, she dug her nails into Zaire’s back with all the strength she could muster.
The Jumper pulled all the chaotic spatial energies from Henry, imagined the lake in Reston as an outlet and an instant before Henry’s Jump pulled them through, Zaire redirected his intentions to another lake… any lake but the lake in Reston.
Going there at the moment would be like throwing their bodies onto a spatial bomb.
WHOOOOOOOOOSH
The ground cracked…
A long crack extending from the north wall to the hall outside the bathroom…
The doors were ripped from the bathroom stall, and a pulse of concentrated shockwave stirred inside the bathroom.
It would have been less damaged if two grenades were tossed inside… such was the damage an unstable Henrietta had done.
………………
Henry felt the cold embrace of a lake, but not nearly as cold as the one in Reston.
Zaire tugged on her hand and she opened her eyes… she was somehow a couple of feet beneath the water.
He gestured upward.
Henry understood… she was doubly comforted when she saw Jenna snuggled into Zaire’s embrace, holding her breath for all she was worth.
There was someone else clinging to Jenna but Henry, for the life of her, couldn’t tell who it was.
With two powerful kicks, Zaire broke through the surface of the water with Jenna in tow… Henry followed nearly a second later.
They had all made it.
Panicked coughs followed by large mouthfuls of air followed their miraculous rise to the surface.
Then, the cold hit them all at once…
Zaire shivered. “Put your hands on me,” He urged. “I will take us to the shore…”
They were currently in the middle of the lake… a hidden lake where there would be no one to help them if they got a cramp at a critical moment.
Zaire’s knees were already aching so he wasn’t willing to take the risk that came with swimming… last he checked, there were no alligators in the water but he wouldn’t bet his life on it.
Paranoia had served him well thus far.
Zaire felt six hands cling to his body… two arms too much but he didn’t pay it any mind.
WHOOOOOOOOSH
…
Space churned and the group Jumped a mile onto the shore of the lake.
Henry and Jenna shuffled forward, tossing their body on the nearest patches of grass… a third person followed, and Zaire recognized the boy who had told him where to find Henry–Townes.
‘I guess he followed me into the bathroom,’ The Jumper shrugged.
It had been a long Jump and though Zaire didn’t care about Townes, he was still happy the boy was alive.
‘Probably bleeding internally like Jenna…’ The Jumper groaned. ‘I’ll have to fix that…’
“What the fuck was that?” Henry cursed.
“More importantly, where the fuck are we?” Jenna cursed in a rare showing of her uncultured side.
“Definitely not in Reston, I can tell you that…” Townes replied.
Unlike Jenna, Henry, and Zaire, Townes remained standing and he seemed more fascinated than terrified of instantaneously appearing in a lake and avoiding death marginally in the earlier bathroom spatial abnormality.
“Why are you even here, Townes?” Jenna was aghast.
“You grabbed onto Zaire and he hugged Henry and I grabbed onto you,” Townes shrugged giddily as if it was no big deal, then he pointed to the sun that was setting. “I can tell you from the position of the sun that we are halfway across the world.”
Jenna, who was prepared to argue and relieve some of her frustration, immediately paused as her eyes widened… she was just as smart as Townes so she could tell he was right.
“Must be that new shit I smoked,” Henry chuckled, still disbelieving of the previous events. “I mean… people just don’t appear halfway across the world.”
“They do if they are Jumpers,” Zaire replied, sitting up and sliding out of his shirt to squeeze it dry. “As for where we are specifically, it’s called Hintersee. It’s in the Bavarian Alps near Berchtesgaden.”
“You mean Germany?” Jenna hopped to her feet, staring at Zaire in the eyes. “You mean we are in fucking Germany?”
“Okay, I need a drink or a smoke… or a dick,” Henry murmured.
Zaire almost raised his hand to volunteer but as if reading his thoughts, Henry narrowed her eyes in a way that said ‘I dare you to say something!’.
“It's ironic, coming to Germany,” The Jumper shrugged his shoulders. “We couldn’t go to Reston’s lake because it has been compromised by Nazis…. Ironic I would bring us to Germany, right?” Zaire chuckled at his own remark.
“Did he just say Nazis?” Townes asked for clarification.
“Yup, it’s definitely the new pills the doctor prescribed,” Henry voiced, nodding her head to agree with her own conclusion. “How else could this be possible… how else can Zaire bring us halfway across the world?”
“I didn’t bring us halfway across the world…”
“Then who did?” Henry shot up, stomping the ground to show her frustration. “—did Jesus fucking bring us halfway across the world? Did Buddha sell us out to the Nazis?”
“Henry…” Zaire’s voice grew solemn. He stood, exceeding Henry’s and Jenna’s energy. “I didn’t bring us anywhere, you did… I picked the destination at the last minute but getting from point A to point B was something you did!”
Henry was stunned. “I didn’t…” She trembled. “I don’t even know how…”
“And that’s what we’re here to rectify,” Zaire interrupted whatever Jenna and Townes were planning to say.
His words were currently reserved for Henry and Henry only.
“I need to know you have control before I take you back to where people are… where children are,” He stated. “because next time, I may not be able to stop you from taking the building… next time, you could be taking the block instead.”
The words rang in the air.
Jenna and Townes knew the bathroom had been shaking but they never suspected the entire school building was at risk.
Henry was doubly stunned… the words building and block echoed in her mind.
She clutched her head and fell unconscious.
There was only so much she could take.