My painkillers helped shorten the trip. I would take one, an hour later I would be a huge, goofy sap. The pills had me high as a kite, and then I was out like a light only two hours later. I only got about four hours of sleep each time, so it was a weird cycle of taking a painkiller, getting loopy, bothering Rebecca, and then sleeping. When I said she was the best for carrying me out of a building filled with murderers, I hadn’t seen the extent of her patience. I was so annoying when the oxycodone hit, and she took it like an absolute champ.
“Whatcha doin’?” I had asked, resting my head against her shoulder. “You smell so nice.”
“Shampoo and conditioner are great things from this time.” I could tell she was trying to hold back little fits of laughter. I was still coherent enough to know that she wasn’t making fun of me. “I’m reading up some words in the dictionary.”
“You find any cool words?” I tried to scan the pages she had open. The worlds were all jumbled and trying to hop off the page.
“I found ‘beau’, for starters.” She patted the top of my hand, something she did every time I asked if she found anything cool. Bless this woman’s patience.
“Can you use it in a sentence for me?”
“Sure can!” She cleared her throat and rested the side of her head gently against the top of mine. “Hmm. My beau is the sweetest and bravest man I’ve ever met.”
“Get a room!” Shelly made a fake gagging noise at us, her eyes darting between her rear-view mirror and the road. After that, she was all laughs.
“They really are cute, though.” Val laughed too. I was glad that she let herself have a little fun with something. “You should have seen her carrying him up the stairs.”
“You carried him up the stairs?” My sister had sounded thoroughly impressed. “Don’t let that one go, Ethan. Not every day you find someone who’d be willing to do that.”
“He saved my life too. And Megan’s.”
After that, the three of them just made small talk. Without Lori there, Val was much more open about chatting. They talked about the weather in Nebraska, entertainment, and some plans for a “girls’ night” that they wanted to bring Megan into. I didn’t know how she’d react to seeing Val, but I was all for them having a fun day together. With Val helping me, and the drugs in my system, I wanted her to join in too.
Every time I took one of my painkillers, I felt like that exact same thing repeated itself. I felt really affectionate toward Rebecca, so I’d lean against her, and then she’d just read out word definitions for me. Then she’d make small talk with the other two women while sleep slowly came over me. Charlie was right about it messing with my sleep, and I wasn’t even sure that the ladies in the SUV were getting any sleep themselves. I definitely lost track of which state we were in or what time it was at any given moment. I gave up trying to figure those things out after the first pill.
When I next woke up, I was pretty sure it was morning. The SUV was stopped at a large gas station off some interstate. I silently stretched, both my arm and collarbone feeling much better. Running my fingers over the ugly scars, I learned those weren’t going to feel better so easily. Just under the touch of my fingertips, it felt like my nerve endings were separated by a thin piece of paper. Even gentle touches made me wince in discomfort.
Looking over, I saw Rebecca sleeping soundly, drooling slightly like she had on our date. It amazed me how beautiful she looked, even when doing something like drooling in her sleep. I shifted some hair out of the way, wanting a better look at her face. When she stirred and mumbled something, I pulled away, content to let the poor lady get some sleep. I knew just how much I had been to handle and how she played along with my games. The least I could give her was the chance to get some good sleep.
As quietly as I could, I got out of the SUV, nudging the door shut. It was cold out. Not as bad as it had been in the mountains of New York, but cold enough that I caught a shiver without a jacket. Spending so much time in a warm vehicle made me desperate to get back. The only thing that outweighed it was the need to stretch my legs out and get some fresh air.
“There’s Sleeping Beauty, finally seeing the light of day.” Shelly was walking toward the SUV with a big cup of coffee in her hand. Her warm attire and drink put a craving for hot chocolate into me. “How’re you feeling?”
I looked down at my scar again and crinkled my nose up in disgust. It was way uglier in the rising sun, warm light drawing attention to the gross colors. “I feel better. Everything is working, so I owe Charlie a big thanks. The scar is still ugly as sin.”
“If it makes you feel better, I’m a big fan of your girlfriend.” We both leaned against the cold metal of the vehicle. She noticed me staring at her. “Yep, I’ve been up driving this entire time.”
“Do you think they’re okay?” I shook my head. “Everyone, I mean.”
“Them? Oh yeah, they’re fine. Luna lost seven people, all of them volunteers who decided to stay behind.” She took a long sip of her drink and looked thoughtfully out toward the interstate, hundreds of cars whizzing by. She tapped the cardboard cup with her pinky, anxious about something. “Their sacrifices let all of the SUVs get out and go to their evacuation spots.”
“The one in Nebraska isn’t the only one?”
“Nope, not even close.” Shelly shook her head. “It’s above ground and it’s made up of full houses, so there’s a space and security concern. It’s a nice neighborhood, don’t get me wrong. It just doesn’t have the advantage of vertical building like the complex in New York did.”
“And that’s where we’re going to make our new homes.” I thumped the back of my head just above the door. “That’s just peachy, isn’t it?”
“Hey, the most secure location they had wasn’t secure enough,” Shelly countered. I just shrugged. She had a point about that. That didn’t mean I could see the benefit of going to an even less safe place. “At least everyone will get actual houses this time.”
I just stared up at the sky, watching it turn into a beautiful blue. Even though we weren’t in Big Sky Country, it looked like something I’d call Big Sky Country. It just stretched on forever in a way that I hadn’t noticed in Oregon or New York. With the soft hum of the cars darting by, I was nearly lulled into falling asleep standing up, and I didn’t have a painkiller to thank for that. To avoid that embarrassment, I shifted the conversation a little bit.
“Do you think I’m going too fast with Rebecca? We haven’t been dating that long, so I was wondering if spending half the trip sleeping on her shoulder might’ve been a bit much.” It felt weird to ask Shelly for girlfriend advice, but it beat dozing off.
“I had two friends from high school. One of them was confident she found her dream guy and she married him after three days of them getting together. Three days, Ethan.” Shelly took another long sip to let what she said sink in. “Another was confident she found her soulmate and married him after five days out from meeting him.”
“That’s insane.” As much as I had been loving my time with Rebecca, I couldn’t imagine proposing to her after only a few days.
“That’s what I said too,” Shelly said with a small chuckle. “One of them got divorced three months into her marriage. The other is still living happily with her husband, nauseatingly in love. They have four kids together.”
“That’s awesome for her.”
“It is, but that wasn’t really the point of the story.” She turned to me and put a hand on my shoulder. Since she was so short, it was an awkward gesture. “When did you get so tall? Anyway, the point is that only you two can decide what’s too fast. Have you kissed yet?”
“What? No!” I felt my face go red and Shelly narrowly avoided spitting out a mouthful of coffee. “Not even close.”
“Then I think you’re doing just fine. I was worried about how you’d deal with holding hands and all that other touching. It looks like you welcome it from her. She cares about you a lot and I can tell you feel the same.”
“You know, they have a lot of healers at Luna,” I said, trying to change the topic again. I was suddenly feeling shy about my relationship with Rebecca, though I appreciated my sister’s views on it. “Charlie was at least the third different one I had.”
“Luna has a good monopoly on them.” Shelly’s back stiffened like she was preparing to give a huge lecture at a school. “Healing is a rare power. Can’t blame them for making sure they could stockpile every kind of healer in that broad class of power.”
“Class? I’m guessing you’re not talking about high school or college.”
“You would guess right,” she told me with a small point. “Apparently, a lot of powers are categorized what they do, and they can br broken down from there. Then you have grades for individual powers in a class.”
“Which class is the strongest?” I was pretty sure I got the gist of what she was saying. You would put a kind of Anomaly in a class depending on what it actually did, some more rare than others. After that, each person would get a grade based off their own personal competence with their power.
“There really isn’t one. There’s individual strength and aptitude with an Anomaly that makes its owner scary.” She hesitated for a second, throwing a glance at the tinted windows of the SUV. “That being said, the Anomaly Manipulation class is pretty strong on its own.”
“What class is that?”
“Just full of questions today, are we?” Shelly took a step forward and jabbed a finger toward the vehicle. “Anomaly Manipulators are people like Rebecca. They have something that lets them mess with any Anomaly directly. Lizzy is in that class too. Both of them have an S grade, meaning they’re top of the line. That being said, everyone in that class has an S grade.”
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“What about me? Which class am I in?”
“You’re in Reality Manipulators.” Shelly winked and gently punched my shoulder. “Sounds pretty cool, doesn’t it?”
“It does, but what does it actually mean?” The class my power was put in sounded vague. Me kicking a rock with my shoe or lifting a box and moving it somewhere else manipulated an aspect of reality. I didn’t need any kind of superpower to do those things.
“Your Anomaly makes it so you can directly influence the real world around you.” Shelly thumped the base of her palm against her forehead. “I know it sounds really weird, because technically Lizzy and Rebecca can do the same thing, and they’re still in their own classification. You create objects with your power, and you can use those objects like they were pre-existing items that were already here. Instead of grabbing a spear, you can just make one. Instead of needing a shield or armor, just whip up your own. That’s what I mean. I will concede this power classification system needs some work.”
“How do you know all that? I haven’t even heard of half the stuff you just mentioned.” It was pretty cool that two people I knew were considered top of the line with their powers, but that didn’t help me understand how Shelly knew so much about them. It sounded like she understood my own power better than I did.
“I...okay, you have to promise not to tell anyone.” Shelly whipped her head around, like one of the cars on the interstate would somehow hear her. With her tired eyes and ponytail flopping around, she looked to be on the edge of losing her mind entirely. “You really can’t tell anyone.”
“I promise, I won’t.” I held up my right hand to swear to her oath.
“Really, I mean it. This stays between us. Lori is the only one you could think about letting in on it. Only team leaders can know.”
“I swear to you, I will not let a single soul know.” She was starting to worry me a bit. “I’ll take it with me to the grave if I have to.”
“Good.” She took a deep breath before getting her voice to a hushed level. “I’m going to replace Mrs. Carmichael as head of Luna in the very near future.”
“I’m sorry, what?” I wasn’t sure if I just misheard what Shelly said or maybe even hallucinated it. “You, Michelle Harper, will become the new head of Luna.”
“Well, it’s not really a head leadership position, because Luna doesn’t really have one,” Shelly said. “She’s just making me her replacement so she can retire soon.”
“That’s incredible, congratulations.” I pulled her into a quick hug, one that was over as fast as it began. “Why you? No offense, I know you’re a smart and hard worker.”
“I told her the exact same thing. That day when she pulled me out of Lizzy’s apartment to talk, it was about this. That’s also why I was doing my hair and makeup. We were testing out possible looks for me when I get the spot.”
“Right, but why you?” I felt like I was attacking my sister by not seeing the same thing that Mrs. Carmichael had been.
“Mrs. Carmichael believes that I’d be the best fit to take over for her,” she said with a shrug and another sip of her coffee. “She keeps saying that the relationships between normal people and people with Anomalies are going to be tested and strained. Maybe even forever. Because of that, she told me that she thought that someone without a power, but who had a close family member with an Anomaly would make for a good fit. She thinks that someone like that can bridge the gap between the two groups. We had something of an informal interview for it. I had some ideas on how I’d like to make Luna more accessible and shine some positive light on it with positive public relations.”
“Wow.” It was all I could say. I couldn’t have ever seen that kind of promotion coming. She deserved it. She’d given up so much to help raise me and get me through to adulthood. If there was any person on Earth who needed a break, it was my sister.
“I know, right? I’m so nervous.” She was never nervous about work. Taking over for Mrs. Carmichael must’ve been a touch more stressful than scheduling appointments for a lawyer in a small town. “Mrs. Carmichael insists that me going back from college to help raise you makes for an approachable and good story to put out there. Then she said I was both stern and kind enough to take the position.”
“The more I think about it, the more I can see why she chose you. You two are a lot alike.” A bird squawked loudly in the forested area across from the gas station, causing me to jump. Weren’t those things supposed to fly south when it got cold?
“After spending time with her learning about how Luna is run, it helped calm me down. Notice how I haven’t been as much of a worrywart about you since then?”
I hadn’t really, but I’d been so absorbed with my own issues that I just wasn’t paying enough attention. “Yeah, I guess so.”
I kept staring at her coffee cup, wanting a hot chocolate more and more with each passing second. The way she kept nervously tapping her pinky against it made it impossible for me to shove out of my brain. I’d just been treated for thirteenth degree burns or whatever, my sister told me she was going to be made head of Luna a month after being there, and all I was focused on was getting a hot drink. Either I was handling everything remarkably well or stunningly terribly. Maybe the needle was rocking back and forth between the two.
“What’s next for us? Lori mentioned she had something to tell me, and call it genius intuition, but I have a feeling it was important.” If it was a task for the team and Mrs. Carmichael really wanted my sister to be her successor, I suspected that she’d have an idea as to what was going on.
“That intuition is on point. Lori told you about people with Anomalies who hid in mountains, right?”
“I can count on one hand the number of times something good has followed someone talking about people with powers who live in mountains, you know that, right?” Honestly, there probably hadn’t been a single good thing that followed those words, but who was really counting?
“Yep, and you might be right. We have reason to believe that a group named the White-Cloaked Sentinels reside near Denver, and-”
“Wait, wait, wait. They’re called the White-Cloaked Sentinels?” I asked. Shelly rolled her eyes and nodded. “What’s with these weird names? I thought Luna was weird at first. Looks like I was only scratching the top of the pretentious name iceberg.”
“I don’t know. Have you read a comic book? Maybe they took inspiration for their weird names from those.” Some of her tiredness broke through and she ran a hand down the front of her face. “Anyway, we have reason to believe there’s five of them and they hide out in the mountains.”
“Great. We’re going to take a nice hike in the mountains until we get lucky like Missouri?” After getting followed there by McLeod’s goons, I wasn’t looking forward to another session of throwing darts at a map and hoping something stuck. The first time had to be an astronomically small miracle. Didn’t like the odds of it panning out twice.
“Uh, no, we’re actually not doing that.” Shelly fidgeted nervously. Caffeine had to have been hitting her hard. “Twice a year, for eight nights in April and in October, there’s a yacht party out on Mustang Lake. That lake is also, coincidentally, located about two hours outside of Denver.”
“We get to go on a yacht party? Count me in. Better than being someone’s knifing practice and having a cave almost fall on me.”
“No, you won’t just be going on a yacht party.” Leave it to her to ruin all my fun ideas. “In the past, those parties have had exceptional numbers of people with Anomalies. Way too many to be a simple coincidence.”
I created a small orb in my hand and tossed it up in the air, starting to get what she was saying. “You think that these mountain people host their semiannual parties to gather up people with Anomalies? Why?”
She shrugged. “Not sure. Maybe for general scouting, for recruitment, or maybe to even eliminate people they think could become threats to whatever their goals are. We know their group name, that they’re very strong, and that, outside of these parties, they’re secretive. Strong enough to possibly stand up against McLeod. That’s why we want to talk to them.”
Strong allies. That made sense. What didn’t make sense is why a group of hidden mountain-dwellers through two parties on a lake each year. If they really used such a public method of recruitment, or even just scouting, I felt like Mrs. Carmichael would have more information on it. It was possible they did, and Shelly just wasn’t telling me all the details she had. That possibility agitated me. I didn’t like to be kept in the dark. I trusted Shelly to tell me if she knew anything. Especially if it involved sending me on a dangerous task.
“Normally, the parties take place through the end of the month. The April one was pushed back to mid-May, due to all the attacks that happened. The other one runs through Halloween.” It looked like she was having difficulty telling me the next part. I did a small rolling motion with my hand to prompt her to continue. “They’re both costume parties. Even the one in the spring.”
“Cool,” I said, as sarcastically as possible. “Halloween in the spring and I get to dress up. Sounds just great.”
“It might not be so bad. It’s not like it’s a party for kids. There’s booze on the ship and you’ll be going with your team. Oh, Lizzy’s team will be joining you too.”
“Her and Lori kind of beat the crap out of each other recently. Is that really the best idea?” Nothing spoiled a party for me like two friends beating each other until they’re black and blue in the face.
“They’ll both put on their big girl panties and be just fine.” She made it sound like their squabble was the dumbest thing she’d heard about. “They’re both adults and they’re both smart women. I think those two will be able to work it out.”
“Let me get this straight.” I started rattling off everything on my fingers. “We go to this place in Nebraska, we get our team together, we make sure we can play nice with Lizzy’s team, we prepare for a spring costume party on a yacht, and then we use that to try and meet with these mountain cloak guys?”
“Almost. The costume party is more of a...think of it as a recon thing. You guys will be ‘gathering intelligence’, or something along those lines.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “A lot of it is a reward for you guys for doing so well with the Tomb. For Lizzy’s team, it’s because she’s done a great job getting them all unified and on the same page. It just happens to be a reward with the end goal of gaining allies that can help us decidedly turn the tides. Also, you have to be invited, and we don’t exactly have invites for you. Both teams will have to sneak in.”
“This ‘reward’ thing is using a loose definition, isn’t it?” I rubbed my eyes with my index finger and thumb, hoping that it would somehow change reality to be more favorable for me. “So, we have to sneak into that party.”
“Probably more than once.” Shelly gave me an awkward smile and held up her hand for a high-five. “Just twice. Maybe. Okay, maybe three times, but we’re really sure that the White-Cloaked Sentinels are the reason behind these parties. It’ll be fun.”
“Shelly, you know I’ll help you out.” I sighed, giving her the high-five she wished for. I pointed toward my arm scar and shook my head. “It does still sound better than this. Does everyone else know?”
“Mrs. Carmichael, myself, Lori, Lizzy, and now you. In that same order, too.” Shelly took the last sip of her coffee and made an impressive throw to get it in the small garbage can about ten feet away. “We’re about an hour out from Allendale. We’ll get our housing figured out, take a damn rest for the day, then tomorrow everyone should get a debriefing on it.”
I think I was just feeling too sentimental from nearly getting burned like a marshmallow back in the Catskills. I pulled Shelly into another hug. Though not unhappy, I could feel how surprised she was by it. I was happy that she got out totally unharmed. “Thanks for driving me out here. Really, congrats on your upcoming position. It’s incredible and I’m proud of you. Also, I’m so glad you like Rebecca.”
“Oh, wow, thanks. If you make me cry right now, I’m leaving you here.” She pulled back and playfully punched me in the chest. “I think I’m gladder that you like Rebecca. I think there will be some good news coming up that you like.”
“What’s that?” I was never great with surprises.
“Hold your horses. Let’s get everyone home and settled in first.” She started to open the door, hesitating before she got in. “Do you feel well enough to stay off the painkillers?”
“I think so. I feel a lot better. Granted, compared to what I was dealing with, that’s a low bar.” I touched the burn scar to see if it was still sensitive, and no surprise, it was. “Why? Was I that embarrassing on the painkillers?”
“I think your girlfriend thought it was cute, but yeah, you were a little loud and all over her like a puppy.” My face fell and Shelly quickly backtracked. “Not that embarrassing. Hey, new state, new slate, right? Hop in and I’ll only make you remember it a few times for the rest of your life.”