The boy watched the two strangers pick up their things and leave. They each shook hands with first Jay then Pops then finally Momma. Mr. Avery said he would be in touch soon. The boy caught annoyance washing off Jay like lapping water.

“Jay, what you mad about?” he asked when their front door was shut and locked. His eldest brother rounded on him and snarled.

“Stay outta my head.” He stomped past the boy and headed out the back door. His momma didn’t move to stop him, and Pops just sat in his chair in the living room, looking like he was trying to figure out something. His mother crossed her arms across her stomach and sighed deeply. She had been shaking since their guests had arrived and seemed to be finally relaxing. She sat on the couch and smiled at him.

“Bedtime, baby.” The boy just smiled back but didn’t move. He could not sleep now if he tried. He had never met someone that could do the things he could do, and it excited him. The only thing he was really puzzled by was how different Mr. Ulrich’s mind felt. When the boy extended the secret part of him and went into people’s heads, he could feel a warm light and a cold dark. Everyone around him, in fact, had roughly equal parts of both. But Mr. Ulrich, when he had been resisting him, was nothing but a hot, scorching fire. It was like he was being burned by the sun and a fire and a hot iron all at once, but inside his mind. It made him wonder if that was the part of himself that he needed to make stronger. Right now, the only time he felt that same hotness was when he healed someone.

“Bed,” his father said quietly when he heard Jay come back in through the back door a few minutes later. His voice was flat, and he didn’t look at anyone. He didn’t move, just sat there and stared ahead of himself. “Now,” he insisted. The boy and his brothers moved, reluctantly, to their shared room, inadvertently falling in behind the youngest.

While they got ready for bed the boy tried to see into each of his brother’s mind. First, he tried Jay. He was met with a very stern look. He could clearly tell now when the boy was probing where he shouldn’t. But before leaving Jay alone he poked him with a little force and could sense a tenuous balance inside him. The heat of anger was tempered with a chilly calm.

He tried the twins, first one then the other. He was able to slip easily into their heads and see through their eyes. He discovered, while doing so, that they were moderately colorblind. Their minds felt the most level. It felt less like walking through different degrees of light and dark and more like a steady, even medium between the two. He giggled to himself as he watched them thinking similar thoughts, amazed at how easily they synched their conversation.

Indie’s mind was the most different. Instead of being able to easily slip into his mind, the boy felt Indie first resist him and then welcome him. It was as though the boy had knocked, and Indie had answered a secret door. His older brother didn’t look up from tying his pyjama pants but smiled. The boy smiled back, relishing the comfort of being with Indie in such a special way. It felt like being held by his brother, but even safer.

Inside Indie’s head, the heat and the cold were unbalanced. His mind felt chilly and shadowy. There were parts that were lit with a gentle heat but the balance that the boy could feel inside even Jay was missing.

He slowly reached further into Indie’s mind, tapping gently and watching his face for distress. First, he touched on a warm thought of Ella, her blue eyes lit up in joy. He pulled away from that private thought and tapped his invisible finger on a bright image of himself. He looked odd in Indie’s mind. He was covered in light, like he had seen some people portray Jesus in pictures. He looked older but still the same. Was this how Indie saw him all the time? He put the image away and touched another spot.

A jolt of pain ripped across Indie’s face and the boy felt it travel down his own spine. The spot he had touched seemed like a rotten floorboard, like a place that looked safe but was not stable. He used his gift to look around the space and frowned.

“Indie, what’s that?” he asked aloud as he withdrew himself from his brother’s mind.

“Hmm?” his brother asked, climbing slowly into bed. He looked sore and stiff still.

“That place in your mind. The rotten spot.” The boy insisted.

“I dunno know what you mean, Rat.” Indie yawned and closed his eyes. “Just a headache, maybe.”

The littlest brother was not reassured however, and took a deep breath. He went slowly and carefully, trying to keep Indie from noticing him. He made it past Indie’s door and crept across his mind. He touched again, lightly and found the place that was bad. Indie scrunched his face in pain when he tapped it gently. It felt soft, like a rotten piece of fruit. The boy wondered if this was a sore that he could heal, like a cut.

The fire that allowed him to heal sparked into his invisible hand and he brought it near the sick place in Indie’s mind. He hadn’t ever tried to help anyone from the inside. He stopped himself and thought carefully.

If Indie had a place in his mind that was hurt, he might be able to fix it. If wounds of the mind worked like wounds on the skin, it would be easy for him to draw the edges of the soft rotted area closed. But what would he do if this wasn’t the same and he found out he couldn’t help Indie? He didn’t like being uncertain of himself.

“Lights out.” Jay said and strode to the switch by the door. Before flicking it, he peeled the shirt off his back and tossed it at the foot of his bed. Jay stared at his brother and raised his eyebrows at him. The boy nodded and gave a half smile. Jay flipped the switch and a moment later, the boy heard his bed creak. He still had his invisible part inside of Indie’s head. The heat at the end of the incorporeal probe flared as he made his mind up. He touched it to the wound in Indie’s mind.

The first thing that happened was Indie gasped aloud, prompting the rest of the brothers to spring into action. Jay slammed the light back on and the twins leapt from their bunk, naked aside from their underwear. Next, the boy felt a jolt of pain so powerful he wet himself. The sick place in Indie’s mind drew on him and he fell to the ground. The boy fought to pull himself free until he realized that he was healing the sore. He needed to replace the thing he had taken from Indie to fix it. Once he figured that out, he dug deeper inside himself. The cold, electric current he tried to draw from did nothing, worse still: the wound widened. He followed the spark he used to heal, traced it like a cable back to where it came from, deep within himself. The boy found a crack in him that he could push against and the heat simmered up. He punched the spot with force and blasted open a hole. The fire rushed into him, and pushed out, into Indie. The dark spot closed, the edges drawing together finally and the boy felt the power between them ebb.

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“Rat!” Indie shouted, sounding more energetic than he had in days. “What did you do?” he shrieked. Indie scooped up his tiny body and put his hand on his neck. The boy pushed his hand away.

“I’m ok, Indie. I fixed you again. I closed up the hole in you that was making you sick.” He surprised himself by sitting up and pulling Indie to his feet with him. “I feel…” he held his hands out in front of his face and saw they were steady. The boy looked inward and noticed that the river of fire he had tapped into to heal Indie was now flowing unchecked, just as his icy one did. They ran in tandem, winding around each other in a soothing and energizing way. He looked around the room to each of his brothers. None of them seemed to have paid the price. He hadn’t borrowed from them.

“You did fix me; I can feel it. What did you do?” Indie asked in amazement.

“Mr. Ulrich’s mind was fiery. Mine has always been a little cold, like ice. When I take things from my secret place, they’re always covered in coldness. I remembered that I used fire to heal your head and to help Jay with his shavin’ cut.” The boy slowed down so they all could follow him. “I found that tiny fire and I punched it. Just knocked a hole right through it to this big ol’ river of hotness.”

He struggled for the words but noticed that Indie was giving him words, silently, in his mind. “Not like lava. More like golden water. And now I got a hot golden river and an ice river that goes through me. I can touch both at the same time.” He did and felt himself fill with so much lightness he had to look down to make sure his feet were still touching the floor.

“Can you put the fiery water back?” Jay asked him. He seemed to be worried. The boy felt inside himself again. He tried to push the golden river away from him, to pull himself away. Then he had an idea. He pulled the golden stream under the icy one and put it into his hiding place. As he did, he felt his heart trip like he had fallen down some stairs. He pulled the invisible hands out from the current and looked within himself. Yes, he had hidden most of the fiery river, only a faint light shone beneath the icy flow.

“I got it. I hid it. But it hurts my chest like having something big hidden.” He felt the effect of hiding the other part of him as an instant tap on his energy. His knees shook and Two reached out and caught him.

“I think we should sleep,” he said matter-of-factly to the boy.

“Let’s change you first and then lights out,” Toe added. With Indie’s help, the boy removed all his wet clothes and dressed in dry ones. Indie marched him to the bathroom and washed his face with a warm cloth. The boy noted that he looked like himself again and relief washed over him so powerful he started to tremble.

“I thought I killed you, Indie,” he confided. “I thought I broked somethin’ inside you that was makin’ you die.”

“I was feelin’ better every day, Rat. I was just so tired.” Indie calmed him and swept the boy’s hair off his face with a warm hand. “Whatever you did, though, fixed me right up. I feel better than before I got sick. We’re even steven now.”

“If Mr. Avery wants to teach me how to use this thing, I want you to stay with me,” the boy said. He was sure that what it meant for him to be taught was for him to go away with Mr. Avery.

“I will if I’m allowed,” Indie promised him. He turned off the bathroom light and ushered the boy into the bedroom. They curled into their bed together, everything safe and right again.

“He will be given anything he wants to keep him happy while we train him to use his gifts to their maximum efficiency. He will want for nothing.”

That’s what the broker, Mr. Avery, had told him when he had stopped him before they got into their car. Jay let the irritation fester until he could stand it no longer. He threw off his covers and stole from the room.

When he had approached Mr. Avery after the testing, he had intended to get a sense of what they might offer his parents so that he could make sure they were ready with a bigger counteroffer.

“What happens now?” he had asked, stopping Avery in the path in front of their house.

“You will wait for me to discuss the results with my colleagues and then an offer will be made. He is under our protection, temporarily, while we discuss the contract. By nature of this test tonight, he is immune to the kidnappers until your family is given an offer in physical form of contract on paper.”

“What you gonna with my brother? What would happen if you made us an offer and we accepted?” Jay had demanded. Mr. Avery looked surprised and then smug.

“Why, we would take him with us, of course.”

“And then what will happen?” Jay pressed.

“He will be given anything he wants to keep him happy while we train him to use his gifts to their maximum efficiency. He will want for nothing ever again.” Mr. Avery had retorted, and Jay knew without a doubt that he was goading him.

In the kitchen, Jay drew a cup of water from the tap and swished it around his mouth as he looked out into the moonlit backyard. He had to convince both of his parents separately. His mother had to be reassured that this was going to be the best for not only their little brother, but all of them. His father had to be pressured to ask for more than he was offered. And if Avery came at them with something insultingly low… Well, Jay had eyes. He saw how impressed they were with his brother. They wanted him. He could apply pressure there, too.

The night he had fought this with his father, something inside of him had broken. Not just his temper when he had lashed out, but something else that had once kept him from falling into the darkness that he had inside. Now, he felt himself tumbling down the dark shaft into nothingness. Nothing mattered anymore but one thing: to get away, and if he could do it with money beyond imagining, that would be the best scenario.

He dumped the rest of the water down the sink and swallowed the mouthful. Jay realized that the night seemed very quiet, like all the noise that was outside was shut off. He thought of what Mr. Avery had said about his brother being immune from the people stealing kids. Was this eerie silence part of that protection? Things were snowballing around him, events that he couldn’t stop to process, or he would go crazy. He focused on his end goal, the only thing that was real to him.

Escape. Jay reminded himself as he padded back to the bedroom. He threw himself in his bed, forgoing his covers, and put his hands behind his head. His bare chest, a sparse patch of hair in the middle, rose and fell with his breaths. He allowed himself fantastical thoughts of leaving forever, convincing Ella to go with him, for no other reason than to annoy Indie, as he pulled up in a shiny car. Smiling at how angry Indie would be at that, Jay closed his eyes and fell asleep.