When I shut the door, everyone was there, waiting. Something in me collapsed when I saw them all. Until that moment, I hadn’t realized how scared I’d been, how tense and desperate and how utterly and completely relieved I was. I sat down hard on the floor in front of the door and put my head in my hands. No one was hurt. We were safe for the moment.
I was shaking. Why was I shaking? I didn’t know if I was laughing or crying. I heard Ben start the story, but Colin walked past him and knelt in front of me.
“Jemma,” he whispered. “Jemma, are you ok?”
I looked up at his weary face. His dark beard needed trimming. I was laughing. “Yes. I’m sorry. I’m fine. I did it. They left.”
He was smiling wearily. “I know. And now you need to get some sleep.”
I completely agreed. “Give me a hand?”
He helped me to my feet, and we all went into the library, everyone talking at once. Conversations were started and interrupted and restarted by someone else. Despite what I'd said about sleeping, we talked over every detail. No one was thrilled by the idea of giving Agent Knoll permission to come in the house, but Ben’s continued assertion that I had done something close to a miracle in getting her to leave, and that she had been telling the truth about trying to find a peaceful solution, swayed everyone in the end. But there were so many questions, details had to be rehashed repeatedly before everyone was satisfied. It was full daylight before silence finally fell.
“Well,” Colin said as he walked back from the bar. “Jemma, I would say we owe you a great deal of thanks. This is all very encouraging, but I still think we should take shifts watching the house. Just in case.”
Kennedy groaned. “Come on Colin. It’s daylight. They wouldn’t be stupid enough to come back now.”
“No, he’s right,” David said. “We have to be careful. They could just be waiting for us to relax before they come back.” I agreed with him, but I was also exhausted.
“Alright,” Colin stood up and walked around the room, “I’ll take the first watch so you all can get some rest....”
“No.” Anna had been quiet during most of the discussion and strangely looked no happier now that the threat was gone. “I’m the only one who has had any sleep. I’ll watch first.”
“I’ll stay with her.” Now why had I said that? I’d been nodding in my chair for the last hour, my eyes felt gritty, and I was having trouble concentrating, but it felt like the right thing to do. ”I might as well watch now while I’m awake. Once I get to sleep, you’re not going to wake me up for a while.” I stood up and stretched. Hopefully, these would be quick shifts.
“You don’t have to do that.” But Anna looked grateful all the same.
Colin agreed that working in pairs was a good idea. He ushered everyone to bed and promised he would be back in a couple of hours to relieve us.
Before leaving, Nate joined Anna and I. “Jemma, you did great.” He couldn’t seem to find anything else to say after that.
“Thanks.”
“Well. Yeah. Good night.” Anna looked sad as she watched him go.
I put a hand on her arm. “Come on. We might as well get to watching.”
We entered the dark AV room. Anna found a chair, but I knew sitting in the dark for long wouldn’t go well, so I wandered around the room looking for a light switch. I found plenty of switches, but none of them did what I wanted. I managed to retract the big projection screen and shut off an entire section of the monitors though.
“Sorry, sorry!” I frantically turned the switch back on and gave up looking for the lights, but still didn’t want to sit. I wandered around the room, fidgeting with the equipment and looking longingly at the big cushy chairs.
“This is going to be a long few hours if you don’t talk to me.” I’d made my way back to where Anna was sitting staring at the sunlit yard and gardens.
“Sorry. I just don’t feel much like talking,” she answered quietly.
“Please humor me. I really need to talk. Anything. Hey you know what would help? Music. Do you know how any of this stuff works?”
“No, sorry. I would love to have some music, though. You’ll have to ask Colin.” She gave me a little grin. “I could barely turn on my DVD player at home.”
“Me too! I was forever pissing off the IT department at work. I could destroy a computer in minutes.”
She looked up at me from her chair. “You must miss it, being a nurse. It must have been great helping people and stuff.”
I sat down next to her. “Actually, I hated it.” She looked a little shocked. “I was a paper pusher because I was never cut out for the whole caregiver thing. Not that I don’t care about people, of course. I just wasn’t very good at knowing how to connect with them, I guess. I imagine you would be much better at it than me.”
“Me? What makes you think that?”
“I don’t know.” I spun around and around in the chair. “You just seem like the kind of person who is good at making other people happy.”
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
“You think I am? I guess I have always wanted to see my friends happy.”
“Did you have a lot of friends? Before, I mean?”
She shook her head. “Not really. We moved a lot when I was a kid and I was kinda shy. And people just seem to move on. Nobody stays around for long.”
“Yeah. Although I had this boyfriend once with the amazing ability of never moving on.”
She laughed. It was good to hear. “So do you...or did you before...you know, have a boyfriend?” Anna asked.
“You mean when I changed and all? No. I gave up on finding a decent guy ages ago. I like the single life.”
“There are good guys out there, I think.” She looked distant for a moment, “But I was never very good at relationships either. The couple of times I tried, at least.”
We sat in silence for a few minutes. I occupied my time by watching the monitors. It looked peaceful and sunny and warm outside. My eyes fell on the garden. “I really want to go out there sometime.” I pointed at the screen that showed the walks and benches.
“I’ve been out there a few times. It is very pretty. Celia’s always complaining because the gardener left, and she doesn’t have time to keep it up right.” She looked sad again. “Jemma, do you think we will ever be normal again?”
“I don’t think we will, no. The change is probably permanent...”
“That’s not what I mean. I mean, will we get to have jobs or houses or walk in a garden... have real lives?”
She looked desperate. I knew she was looking for comfort, for someone to tell her she would do all those things and more, but I couldn’t. It didn't seem right to lie to her now.
“I don’t know, Anna.” I slid my chair closer to her. “But I know we will be alright. I have spent my whole life disconnected from everything and everyone, but I don’t feel that anymore. I feel closer to the people in this house in a week than I ever have to anyone. Before the change, I felt like I was missing something, something I couldn’t find. But I don’t feel that anymore. The change caused that. It woke me up and I am grateful for it. No matter what else happens.”
I hadn’t realized I felt that way until it all came pouring out. I’d lived more in the last few days than I had in my whole life. Anna was staring at me, her beautiful face full of sadness and confusion. There were tears in her eyes again. Damn, I was trying to help. This was why I sucked at being a nurse!
“Hey!” I hopped out of the chair. “Are you hungry? I bet Fletch is in bed. I could nick us something from the kitchen. I make pretty mean toast.”
Anna gave me a weak smile, “yeah, I am. Thanks.” She turned back to the monitors. I bolted for the door before she could start sobbing or hugging.
Turned out, I was right. I found the kitchen empty and had to search for a while before I even found a loaf of bread. I was searching the huge refrigerator for butter when I heard a noise and spun around to find Sean standing in the back doorway.
“What the hell Sean. You scared me.” I let the fridge door shut. “Announce yourself or something next time.” He moved into the kitchen. “What are you doing?” I asked suspiciously.
“Same thing you are, looking for food.”
“Why aren’t you asleep?”
He started opening cabinets along the back wall of the kitchen. “Couldn’t sleep.”
“You’ve been up for 24 hours. You need to get some sleep.” I gave up on butter and started searching for jelly instead.
“Yeah. I’ll get there. Why aren’t you with the beauty queen? If you need a break, I could go spend some time with her.” He gave me a wink.
“Why are you so horrible?”
“What’s the matter angel, jealous?”
“Yes, I’ve always dreamed of catching an egotistical, misogynistic alcoholic. I can hardly still my pounding heart.”
“But I have superpowers, and so do you.” He moved closer and gave me a look that really would make a woman's heart pound. “Imagine what we could do…”
“I would really rather not, thanks. And everybody in this house has abilities, so not really a selling point.” I scowled at him.
“Don’t tell me you aren’t enjoying it. Waking up one day a superhero.” He put a hand on my hip and moved closer.
“We’re not superheroes, Sean. We’re people that something really shitty happened to and now we’re just trying to stay alive.”
“Shitty! Are you kidding! This is awesome! We could do anything we wanted.” I turned away and walked to the other side of the kitchen, more to get away from him than in the hope of finding anything useful. But he followed. “Just think about it, Jemma.” He looked off dramatically as he leaned into me. He was wearing a v neck shirt and I could just see the dip of his collarbone. I willed myself to stop looking. “We could rob a bank and move to a little island.” He moved his hip against mine. “Have the locals build us our own mansion. Hell, we could take over an island if we wanted. Our very own island,” he finished wistfully.
I slammed the cabinet I had been searching. “You’re what people are afraid of. You’re the reason we have to hunker here in fear. Because people are afraid all of us are like you.”
“You like the power. I see it. You like what you have become. You want to use it.”
What he said disgusted me, but that was partly because he was right. It made me feel dirty and angry at him and myself. I slammed another cabinet just because and left the kitchen.
I realized, walking back to Anna, that I hadn’t actually found any food. But I wasn’t going back to the kitchen, so she would just have to wait. When I walked into the AV room, Anna wasn’t alone. Mel was there. She didn’t look up when I came in.
“I was just telling Anna I would take over,” Mel said.
“It’s only been an hour, Mel. Are you sure you’ve had enough sleep?”
She shrugged her slender shoulders. It was amazing how a person so small and pale could look so hard. “I don’t need as much sleep as I used to. I haven’t slept more than a few hours a day in weeks.” She looked up “I’ll be fine.” She did look well rested. Better than Anna and I, at least.
“Colin said we should work in pairs.”
She turned back to the screen in front of her. “Yeah, so one of you didn’t pass out. I can manage. Besides, he’ll be here soon.” I was too tired to argue. Anna didn’t seem ready to put up a fight, either.
“Ok. Well, thanks.”
Anna and I made our way to the upstairs hall. The bright light from the big window hurt my eyes. Anna mumbled something about sleep and went to her room without looking back. When I reached my bedroom, I was relieved to see that the curtains still pulled. I slipped my jeans off and was asleep as soon as I closed my eyes.