“Calli, wake up.” Clara’s voice pulls me out of my sleep. “It’s time for lunch, after which we’ll pick back up in my office.” She turns and leaves the room.
I rub my eyes with my palms, and realize I’ve slept for three hours. I stand and walk over to Beth’s full-length mirror to make sure no unruly hairs are standing straight up on my head. I study the face looking back at me in the mirror and run my fingers through my short hair to fluff it a little. Even though I don’t look any different on the outside—my green eyes are the same, I still have the same high cheekbones, straight nose, and normal-sized ears—on the inside I have changed dramatically. According to Clara, I have superhuman powers.
I feel an unusual need to enhance my physical attributes before going down to lunch. I dig through my bags and pull out the makeup case buried at the bottom. I apply a bit of mascara to my lashes, then stop. What am I doing? I have an epiphany. No amount of makeup will improve the cranky attitudes and opinions of the other Runners. If there’s any respect to be earned, I want it to come from my achievements, not my looks.
I head downstairs and take my place at the end of the lunch line, behind two guys. They glance over their shoulders at me, frown, and turn forward. Up ahead, several girls chat quietly, and I read their lips. They are talking about me. One says I lit into Beth as soon as our bedroom door shut, and the other says Beth told her I was bitterly cruel with my words and was probably a spy. They both make eye contact with me and then turn away, giggling. Idiotic female jocks.
A different girl, who’s standing nearby, talks to her friend about Chris. She’s infatuated with him because he touched her arm. The other girl informs the first that Chris’s heart is already taken. He said so himself, she says. The first girl refuses to accept this information and admits to actively pursuing his attentions.
Oh, brother! This is the kind of stuff I can live without!
A group of guys, with Chris in the lead, enters the dining hall in a tight V formation like a flock of geese. A boy next to him whispers in his ear and points in my direction. Chris looks at me as he passes. His stare is deeper than innocent eye-to-eye contact. I can’t tell if he’s curious or upset, but his lingering gaze tells me something’s on his mind. I smile at him hoping he might smile back, but instead he diverts his gaze back to the food line. His group inserts itself into the front of the line, and nobody seems to mind. I wonder what the point is of having a line if there’s no order to it.
On second thought, I would let him cut in front of me. I’ll admit, being the girl that I am, I’m willing to recognize undeniable attractiveness, even if it belongs to a jock. The fact his heart is already taken, like that other girl said, means I can look all I want.
The lunch menu includes some kind of disgusting cold soup—which could be mistaken for raw sewage—more fruits and vegetables, and broiled fish. I hate fish. What I wouldn’t do for some sandwiches or a hamburger or fries—or ranch dip for that matter. The only dip available is hummus. Yuck!
“You’d better get the soup,” a male voice says behind me. “It’s called Muck Soup, and they made it just for you.”
“Because I’m a muck?” I answer without turning around.
“Bingo.”
“Be careful, or I might start thinking you care.” I glance over my shoulder to find the guy I ran into last night.
“The soup is made from enchanted herbs and energy-boosting vegetables. You should eat it because it helps you run faster—and because it’s good.”
“Are you sure? It looks like . . . muck.”
“Exactly,” he says with a diabolical sneer.
An equally good-looking, dark-haired guy smacks his arm, “Hey, Justin, you’re not supposed to be talking to the newbie.”
“Shut up, Will!” Justin looks at me once more and walks away with Will.
I accept my serving of muck soup and take my barely-filled tray to the table with the younger kids. They all stop talking as I sit down, and some of them turn around to see if they can move to another table.
I angle my head slightly to the left and see Beth, Justin, Will, and some other girl sitting at a nearby table, laughing—probably at something to do with me. Beth catches my eye and the smile falls from her face.
At a table to the right sits the flawless exemplar of manliness, Chris, who I can only assume is the best of the best, the Runners’ king, the top dog. He’s listening to the conversations at his table. I admire his stunning profile, and feel an incredibly strong attraction to him. His head turns in my direction, with his gaze coming to a halt when our eyes meet. His neutral expression turns to a grimace and he shakes his head a fraction of an inch. I don’t know if his head-shake is meant for me or if he’s responding to the table conversation. He redirects his gaze to the guy sitting across from him.
The others must have noticed his attitude change because a couple of them look over at me. One guy turns all the way around in his chair to find me. Their expressions are unmistakably negative.
My heart thuds in my chest. I look away so I don’t have to feel their disapproval.
Why are all jocks such jerks? I’ve never been one to like the arrogant athletic type, and that’s too bad for me because I am now surrounded by both female and male jocks.
The look on Chris’s face, the whispers of other Runners, and Beth’s constant icy stare sparks something inside me—a rebellious burst of energy. Beth warned me not to show off at the time trials, but I say to hell with her and all these egotistical jocks! I’m not scum! I’m a damn fast athlete, and everyone will find out tomorrow morning. They all hate me anyway. Why not bask in the glory of earning their hatred? I’ll shake everything up and sit back and watch as they scramble to normalize.
* * *
After lunch, I head to Clara’s office and she then ushers me down the hall for medical testing. Clara introduces me to Suki Kimura, yet another beautiful woman with dark brown hair and flawless skin.
Ms. Kimura explains the procedures I’m about to go through will take roughly three hours and are standard. Everyone undergoes them, she says. She draws my blood, x-rays me, hooks me up to all kinds of monitors, and places electrodes on my scalp to make sure I have a brain.
Good to get confirmation.
Clara moves me to another room. She attaches wires and electrodes to my chest and plugs them into a machine, then she flips a switch. A shrill noise echoes around the room and the thumping of my heart sounds as if it has been hooked up to a rock band’s bass system. Startled, Clara jumps, then stumbles quickly to pull the wires and flip the switches off.
The door opens, and a middle-aged adult male with a name tag identifying him as Mr. Evans hurries over to Clara and shouts, “What did you do, hook a human up to the machine?” His eyes travel to mine and back to hers.
Ms. Kimura pushes her petite frame past Clara. “Clara, did you forget how to run the machine? Here, let me help.” She proceeds to do the exact same thing Clara had already done. Again, terrible screeching and super loud thumping and swooshing sounds fill the room before Ms. Kimura unhooks the cords. “Well, clearly we have some damaged equipment. Bring her into my office and I’ll evaluate her.”
“I don’t think that will be necessary,” Clara says calmly. “She passed the rest of the exam. We’ll address the heart evaluation later. Calli, come with me.”
She ushers me out into the hall. We walk in the direction of her office.
“What was that all about?” I ask.
“I don’t know. The machine worked fine last week.”
Another woman approaches us. She looks to be older than anyone else. She says to Clara, “A group of Readers are here to see you. They say it’s urgent.”
“Thank you, Abby.” Clara turns to me. “I’m sorry Calli, I must excuse myself. Go outside and get some fresh air. I’ll find you later.”
“Sure,” I reply.
I could easily spy through her glass door to investigate what is going on, but I resist the urge to eavesdrop and head outside.
Ah, the outdoors of the Big Sky State. A spectacular view of the snow-tipped Rocky Mountains encompasses the giant compound/school/hotel/freak-show. I wander around the perimeter of the building and find some basketball courts and a large manicured lawn. Several teams of boys and girls spar off on the courts. Far off, near the tree line, I see a row of four small cabins with manicured lawns and trimmed bushes. They remind me of the ones at summer camp where the counselors slept.
I continue my walk around the backside of the compound, noting many exterior doors on the ground level and a large veranda on the second floor. Way down at the opposite end I find an indoor swimming pool. I didn’t even know there was a pool. Cool.
I round the final corner and run smack dab into Chris. My abrupt appearance startles him, because he reaches out and takes hold of my arms to steady himself. I know he doesn’t recognize who he’s holding because I witness the realization hitting his brain with a boom. He lets go of my arms as if I’m contaminated with the deadly Hantavirus.
“Why are you here?” He clears his throat. “I mean, shouldn’t you be with Clara?” he asks me with unjustified irritation.
“She’s meeting with the Mind-Readers. They arrived a little while ago. I guess they have urgent business.”
He opens his mouth to say something, but nothing comes out. Instead, he stares into my eyes for a few seconds, then looks away and steps around me.
“Talk to you later, Calli,” I mutter under my breath as I rub my arms where Chris touched them. Oh great, now I’m like the ditzy girl in the lunch line, all goo-goo over a simple touch. His scent hangs in the air, and I can’t help but take a deep breath. Regardless of anything else, his smell is darn near irresistible. His confused expression, however, makes me wonder if he wants to accept me into the clan or kick me out.
I make my way back into the building and up to my room, paying close attention to my surroundings to avoid running into anyone else. I’ll wait for Clara to come get me.
* * *
Clara never came to my room.
However, Ms. Wood visited and told me to wear something nice tonight. Apparently, when visitors join the clan for dinner, we dress up and eat in the formal dining hall on the second floor. After she left my room, I heard her continue down the hall, giving the same message at each door, as well as a reminder to remember their manners. I wonder if that means being nicer to newbies. Probably not.
My seat at the little-kid table gives me a view of the entire dining hall and its occupants. I stick out like a sore thumb, being sixteen and sitting among kids whose voices haven’t even begun to change. I feel as if I could be their babysitter.
As much as I stand out, the Mind-Readers stand out more. They look like a couple of pigeons amongst a flock of swans. I find it amusing how the adult Runners are hesitant to sit too close to the Readers, and they seem to not make eye contact with them either. Perhaps they’re more like chickens than swans.
I glance around and discover Chris is staring at me. This time, he averts his gaze and continues talking to his friends. At the table next to Chris sits Beth, Justin, and Will. I’ve seen Justin a couple of times since last night. Each time he sees me he mutters the four-letter M word. I ignore him. I’ve come to the conclusion Beth and Justin are an item.
My attention is pulled away to the main doors where food carts are being wheeled into the dining hall. Instead of the cafeteria-style lunch line, servers bring us our meals—but the food selection isn’t any different. Nuts, nuts, and more nuts, plus fruits, vegetables, and fish. The Mind-Readers merely push their food around on their plates. They probably don’t eat foods like these at their compound, if they have a compound.
I catch Chris looking at me on several occasions throughout dinner, and it makes me extremely uncomfortable. I wonder if he can see my cheeks heat up. Hopefully not. But a couple of times I peek in his direction and see him talking and laughing with his companions. Their topics of discussions don’t include me, for once, but are about something funny that happened out on the basketball court earlier in the afternoon. Will makes a hand motion of something hitting his face, probably a ball, and the table bursts into laughter. Chris smiles a little, but he seems too distracted by his own thoughts to laugh aloud like his friends.
“May I have everyone’s attention?” Clara stands and speaks loudly. “As some of you are aware already, three of our comrades are missing. Dirk, John, and Macey never reached their delivery destination three days ago. Our guests here tonight bring word of three of their own missing clan members, and the Seers and Healers are also missing three.”
Alarmed and worried murmurs echo through the crowd and begin to grow in volume.
“We’ve yet to receive a ransom request and have not been given an explanation as to their whereabouts, but we will continue to investigate until we find them and bring everyone home. Please continue to use extreme caution when out of doors, and if you pick up on any suspicious activity, report it at once. Thank you.”
The kids at my table start talking to each other, excluding me from their conversation, of course, but I sit and listen to them and gather as much information as possible.
“It’s got to be the Death Clan behind this,” one girl says.
“No, it’s the CIA. They’ve been staked out, spying on us. They even have insiders here at the compound,” another girl says.
A boy to my right exclaims, “You’re crazy! Our Seer or Mind-Reader would have rooted out a spy.”
“Not if the spy had really good blocking abilities,” the first girl spits back at him.
Another boy, sitting across the table from me, points his finger at me and says, “Maybe she’s the spy.”
They all turn and look in my direction. “What?” I laugh. “Maybe all of you are the spies.”
That gets them going. The bickering and name calling begins and grows rapidly until Clara has to come to our table and put a halt to the commotion. I can’t help but laugh—until I raise my head and find Chris glancing in my direction again. What is his problem? I wish I knew.
“Please excuse me,” I say. Not that anyone cares I’m leaving. I walk out to the floodlight-lit veranda. The sun is still low in the sky.
Beth comes out behind me and closes the door behind her. “Calli, you better not do anything stupid at the time trials tomorrow.”
“Or what? You’ll make my life even more miserable and make sure everyone talks bad about me behind my back? Oh, wait, I remember, you’ll beat me up.”
Her tone takes on a threatening edge. “This new assignment is most likely related to our missing friends, and if you go and beat out the fastest, you’ll be placed on the team. You don’t know crap about our world, so don’t go screwing it up by being a showoff!”
I don’t answer her. I just turn my back and wait until the door closes. The cool night air, along with the pure and fresh smell of the pine trees and cut grass, revitalizes my senses. Four adults, probably tutors or hired clan members, walk across the lawn to the four cabins. I turn back to the dining room, where almost everyone has filed out, except Chris. He stays in his chair, watching me.
Clara comes out to the veranda. “Are you okay, Calli?”
“As good as I can be, I suppose. When will you show me the Shadows?”
“Not for a couple more hours. The sun has to go all the way down before the Demons come out.”
“Sounds like a bad dream.”
“You don’t know how right you are. Meet me in my office after dark, and bring the shirt you were wearing earlier.”
* * *
I walk the well-lit deserted hallways down to Clara’s office. Her door is closed, so I peer around the edge of the glass window of the door. She sits at her desk, talking to someone on the phone and, unabashedly, I read her lips.
“I’m not comfortable with that. This will put our slowest in too much danger. Yes, he’s right here, hold on.” Clara extends the receiver toward what looks like an empty room. From out of my range of vision, Chris pops up and moves over to the desk. His back is to me as he speaks on the phone. Clara spots me through the glass and holds up a finger to indicate, “Wait a minute.”
I move away from the door and rest my back against the wall. Soon the door opens and Chris walks out. He seems stressed. I look up at him and smile a little. His eyes lock onto mine for a second, then he turns and walks past me. I enter Clara’s office as she pushes her arms into her extravagant coat.
“Calli, good—you remembered your shirt. Most kids forget and I have to send them back up to their rooms. Come with me.”
I follow her out into the main foyer, where she turns and says, “It’s vitally important for you to follow every direction I give you.”
“I will.”
We exit the front doors into the bright floodlights and crisp mountain air. She leads me toward what appears to be a toolshed at the edge of the property, where we stop beneath another floodlight.
“Calli, the Shadow Demons are found in absolute darkness after sunset. They are drawn to people with powers because they themselves once held powers. For some reason they are trapped in a suspended state of, well . . . hell. These lights are the only thing keeping us safe. Around the corner it’s completely dark. That’s where we’ll find the Demons. Stay in the light,” she admonishes, checking my face once more to be sure I’m taking her seriously.
We walk to the edge of the shed, keeping beneath the bright floodlight.
I peer into the darkness. “I can’t see anything.”
“Regardless, I know they are there. Many people with powers have been devoured by them. Now, I will demonstrate what happens if you wander into the shadows at night. Hand me your shirt.”
I give my shirt to her and watch as she pulls out one of her own and wads the two together as if forming a snowball. She then tosses the wadded shirts into the shadows.
I gasp in terror at the sight of the unnaturally suspended shirts being shredded in mid air. The only thing I can hear is the woven cotton being ripped apart. The eerie sound reminds me of when my mother tore old sheets into rags. I stare in utter amazement as Clara’s shirt is ripped into a small pile of confetti-sized pieces of cloth, which glide softly to the ground. My shirt has been torn into a few long strips and is already on the ground.
“What was that?” I cry out. “Was that a trick? What happened to our shirts?” No logical explanation can account for what I’ve just witnessed.
“Our scents on the shirts were enough to provoke the Shadow Demons to attack. Lesson number one: stay out of the shadows, or that will be the last thing you do. Oh, and that pile of shredded cloth is more than what would remain if they got their claws on you.” She looks intently at me, appearing satisfied that I’ve gotten the message. “Let’s get back inside.”
She doesn’t have to tell me twice.
Once inside the safety of her office, she begins to tell me more.
“A Runner’s ability is the only power that surfaces during puberty, and is the only power-emergence a Seer can foresee. The other superhuman abilities can show up at any point in life and sometimes manifest slowly. We try to have a representative of the Runners’ Clan present when a new member’s power emerges. I was there for you. Other people with powers are not so fortunate, and aren’t taken under someone’s wing and taught about the Shadow Demons and how to avoid them. However, one consistent element with all people with powers is they are afraid of the dark. It’s as if they can sense the danger awaiting them. Their instinctual hesitation actually saves their lives, but sometimes incapacitates the individual, leading to the development of nyctophobia—a severe fear of darkness. There are therapists, who are also people with powers, who help the patients by introducing them to their appropriate clan.
I think to myself for a moment, wondering about my mother. Many of her patients are deathly afraid of the dark. Wait! Does my mother know about the superpowers and Shadow Demons?
“But Calli, there’s another reason I was present at your track meet. I was there to prevent you from being kidnapped.”
“What? Kidnapped?”
“There’s a splinter group that broke away from the Healers who call themselves Immortals, in reference to an ancient legend of clansmen who couldn’t die. Almost everyone else refers to them as the Death Clan, due to the fact they can bring about your death merely through thought. Some call them the Death-by-Thoughts or DBTs. As a group, they constantly heal each other’s infirmities, keeping each other alive longer than nature’s laws allow. They can’t heal themselves, the same as a Healer cannot heal himself, so they need to have another Death Clan member around to make sure if anything happens they will live on. As for bringing about the death of others, they have one major restriction to their abilities: they need to see you to be able to kill you.”
“Are they really immortals?”
“That’s a matter of perspective, I suppose. Most of their group is over two-hundred years old. Try not to confuse the definition of immortal with invincible. I think they could be killed if they were separated from one another. Well, if they didn’t kill you first,” she amends.
I ask, “Why would they want to kidnap me?”
“The fact is, the DBTs have a history of capturing emerging Runners and forcing them to be their slaves—to use the Runners’ abilities as if their powers were their own. When another person with powers holds hands with a Runner, the running ability is passed on to the tethered person. We’ve lost more than a few clan members to the Death Clan and also to the Hunters.”
“Hunters kidnap Runners too?” I ask. “Why don’t Runners just run away from the Immortal-Death-Dudes or Hunters?”
“The captives are restrained to prevent escape, and are killed if they try to flee. Quite often they are threatened their loved ones will be harmed, so they stay put to save their families. You would obey, too, if you thought one wrong move would threaten your parents’ lives. The Death Clan also kidnaps people from the other clans, using whatever emotional control they can find to keep them from fleeing.”
I nod and a tight knot forms in my throat.
“We employ other people with powers, as do the other clans. We don’t kidnap them and force them to do our bidding. Their abilities are respected and they’re compensated for their help.”
“So you were there at the track meet because I’d been ‘seen’ ahead of time?”
“Yes.”
“You prevented me from being kidnapped and protected me from the Shadow Demons?”
She nods her head.
“Thanks for that.”
Clara smiles.
I have to wonder how many times she receives thanks for the job she does. I change the subject. “Clara, what exactly do you do around here?”
Her perplexed expression tells me she doesn’t understand the question.
“I mean, generally speaking, normal people get up and go to work, or go to school or something. Their lives revolve around jobs and schedules and events. But what do people with powers do?”
Clara sits all the way back in her chair and rests her head on the plush headrest. She takes a deep breath and exhales. “Well, they live life as they know it, the same as anyone else. You have described what normal life is to you, but what do the members of the aboriginal tribes of Australia do from day to day? How about the African tribal communities—what do they do? Consider the people in Thailand or China or Norway. What do they do every day? Are you following me, Calli? Your question is a matter of perspective. What’s normal for you isn’t normal for others.”
“Oh.” Wow. I’ve never thought about life from that perspective before. I guess I’ve never really looked outside my own narrow world. Caught up in my own life and viewpoint, as Clara so eloquently points out, my life naturally feels normal for me. I decide to be more aware of other human beings and their daily struggles. The discussion brings a different question to mind. I say, “What do you think the percentage is of normal humans to people with powers worldwide?”
“At present, it’s estimated there are around one million people with superhuman abilities.”
“That’s a lot!”
“No, not really. With seven billion individuals populating the world, people with powers averages out to be only one in every seven-thousand. I believe seven thousand is around the population of your hometown. Imagine if you were the only person in your whole town with powers. Our clan is the only one that can keep an accurate count of new members because of the fact that Seers can foresee when someone’s power will emerge. For whatever reason, we’ve seen stagnation in the number of new Runners over the last ten years. I fear we’re on the decline. But that’s beside the point.”
I say, “Clara, you said you’re a Runner. Do you ever go on assignments?”
“I don’t run assignments anymore. There’s still new blood coming into the clan, younger blood who can run the assignments. I chose to help at the compound. I’m an instructor and administrator along with the other adults. At some point you’ll have to make the personal choice to step away from the elite group of Runners and either help here at the compound or return to the life you knew a few days ago, forever keeping your ability a secret.” Her voice doesn’t hold any enthusiasm.
I don’t want to press what appears to be a sensitive topic for Clara, so I change the subject. “What does your husband do?” I ask.
“I’m not married.”
“You’re not? I’ve heard people call you Mrs. Winter—” The realization hits me that she must be a widow. Oh terrific! Open mouth, insert foot.
“I was married, but he discovered my ability and left. I keep the name because we never officially divorced. So, I guess I am technically married.”
I pick up on her bitterness. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t my place to ask.”
“No, it’s fine. I guess my advice would be that if you decide to get married, find someone with abilities in order to avoid heartache later. It’s hard enough to stay married without the extra challenge of having powers.”
“I bet. Marriage is a long way off for me, but I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Sometimes it’s closer than you think, Calli. Many girls your age have already met the guy they will eventually marry.”
“Well, I’m not the kind of girl who goes looking for guys, and they certainly don’t come begging for me,” I scoff at myself with a chuckle.
“I don’t believe you. You’re a beautiful girl, Calli. You’ll be fighting off the boys with a bat, but I need to remind you that promiscuous behavior at the compound is not allowed.”
“I can totally imagine myself smacking boys with a bat,” I laugh, “but not because they’re interested in me. And as far as promiscuous behavior goes, well, you don’t need to worry about me.”
“Good. Now I’d like to tell you what to expect tomorrow. Whenever we are given a delivery assignment, a leadership trio is selected to carry out the task. Time trials determine the fastest and the slowest of the clan, and then those two decide together who the third member of the team will be. My approval of the trio is needed. Often a team of protectors or running companions is selected to go with the trio if the mission is dangerous. There will be an accompanying team with this mission because of the fact our last trio came up missing. The fastest and slowest from tomorrow’s competition will hand-pick the team. No breakfast will be served before the trials, and once the trial is completed, the selected team will be quickly outfitted and sent off.”
I figure she’s telling me this because she knows I will be the fastest and will be going on the assignment tomorrow. I appreciate the heads-up. “Clara,” I say, “some of the others suspect this delivery is connected with the missing Runners. What do you think?”
“The timing is right. Anything’s possible.” She stands, giving me the cue our session is over for the night. “In the morning, dress in the workout clothing Stella will give you. The trial begins at eight o’clock sharp.”
I stand as well.
“Calli, do you still want to go home?”
“Not at the moment.”
“You’d better go on up to bed to get a full night’s rest.” She smiles knowingly.
Yep, she knows I will be on the delivery team. I leave her office and head straight up to my room. Beth is already asleep, fortunately, so I don’t have to endure the torture of her attitude. Thank God.
Tomorrow will bring a new adventure my way. Like my parents encouraged me to do, I am going to go down this road and see where it takes me.
* * *
The next morning I awake to find Beth gone. I hurry and dress in my training outfit and look myself over in the mirror.