Elevated (Book 1): Elevated (14 page)

Lillia pushes my arm off. “You don’t have to make me feel better, Rose. I’ve learned to live with my situation.” She says it bravely, but her face shows how conflicted she feels. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She turns away and heads down the hallway.

Aaron shakes his head. “You shouldn’t give people false hope.”

“False hope? We don’t know—”

“We don’t know, that’s right. But the odds are stacked against her. Most Undetermineds at this stage won’t develop an amazing power.. Maybe she has some sort of weird ability that hasn’t come up yet, but she needs to focus on the now. On the SKT. We all do,” he says.

“I don’t believe in giving up.”

“And I don’t believe in living in a lie.”

I sigh. This conversation will only get worse if I continue. Aaron can be so stubborn.

I change the subject. “Have you heard from—”

“Jex?” Aaron responds. “No.”

“I was really hoping that—” I stop myself mid-sentence. Aaron smiles too broadly. There’s that false hope again. I can’t stand the sight of him anymore. I quickly turn and head out of the school. My phone buzzes. It’s a text from Elliott:

“Want to help me practice my power?”

Thrilled to have something to distract me from my frustration at my lack of progress, I text back to pick me up from school. Mom’s bound to be excited that I’m hanging around someone besides Aaron.

I know I am.

***

Even if I didn’t know Elliott lived with his grandmother, his house would give it away in an instant. All the furniture dates back to a quainter time, before GEMO was even a thought in the world. A dusty collection of wood-carved animals line the mantelpiece above the fireplace.

“Next time,” Elliott says as he places an empty terrarium on the coffee table, “tell me before you decide to become a felon.”

I prop my feet up on the table. “I didn’t want you to get in trouble. Besides, I doubt that Jex would appreciate having someone around who could zap him into a mutant.”

Elliott pushes my feet off. “I don’t appreciate Jex sending you on a mission like that. Why doesn’t he go?”

“He thinks the government is after him.”

“Wonder why. The man is a kook.”

I open the box of a hundred crickets and pull out a few to put into the terrarium, then seal it shut. “He’s been very helpful.”

“But what’s in it for him?” he asks.

“He wants to help me find my father,” I say.

He places a lid on top. “You sure that’s all?”

“Probably thinks he can get a good story for his blog or something. Government cover-up and all.”

“Hmmm.”

I turn towards the terrarium. “I thought I was over here to help you practice your powers.”

“Right. Up until this point, I’ve only been to zap things when I’ve been angry.”

I nod in agreement.

Elliott pauses. “So make me angry.”

“What?”

He laughs. “In the interest of science, of course.”

“I can’t make you angry on purpose.”

“We have to figure this out.”

I don’t know how to begin. I can’t remember the last time I consciously set out to make someone angry. Except Mr. Roberts. I try to make him angry a lot. But I doubt Elliott would be that upset if I put his shirts in the wrong color order.

I try my best. “You, you eat like a pig.”

Elliott stares.

“You’re too worried about what your grandmother says. Kind of a wimp actually.”

Elliott still has a blank expression. “That’s all you have?”

“Sorry.”

“What happened to that feisty jerk who insulted me back on Elevation Day?” he says with a wink.

I giggle. There must be something I can do. I look around his living room. I need something to work with. I see a pennant on the wall. “What sports do you watch?”

“Spikeball mostly. Lynxes fan, through and through.”

“Lynxes? Ha. Must be embarrassed after last season. You guys got slaughtered. It was awful. I’ve seen cheerleaders tougher than those sad excuses for men. And that stupid color combo, what are they thinking? Orange and fuschia?”

“Can you stop?” he asks.

“Why, getting mad?”

“No, I’m trying not to laugh. You’re terrible at this.”

“I’m trying my best.”

We need to think of a new strategy. Clearly, making him angry isn’t something I can do on cue. Thinking fast, I take off my shoe and throw it at his head. It smacks him in the face with a thud.

“Ouch!” he yells. “What was—”

I point to his hand, which is now glowing. “Elliott, your hand!”

He stares down at his glowing blue hand.

“Focus on the energy,” I say. “Being angry pumps up your adrenaline, which brings up your power.”

He takes the lid off as a burst of light comes out of his hand. We’re both blasted onto his couch.

He picks himself up and rubs his head. “That really hurt.”

“Sorry,” I say as we approach the table. “Picked the wrong day to wear my boots.”

We watch the crickets in the terrarium. Their small size makes it a little hard to see abilities, but at least they’re bigger than ants. And every other animal in the pet store was far too cute for our experiment.

As we observe them, I wonder how long it will take us to notice an effect. But it doesn’t take but a few minutes before we see our first Elevated cricket. His jumps have multiplied tenfold and he keeps bouncing off the walls. Another cricket develops bird-like wings similar to a Flier’s. Another glows bright green. The other few crickets have no noticeable change. We watch them for a moment, moving around. Elliott has a big smile on his face. There must be something rewarding about having that much power, manipulating animals like that.

“What next?” I ask.

“We have to get rid of this batch first.”

As much as I hate crickets, his tone seems callous. I cock my head. “Get rid of them?”

“Sure, can’t exactly have crazy crickets roaming around. Somebody might notice.”

I can’t argue with him. We don’t know anything about the last few crickets. Who knows how their powers might develop. To release them into the wild could have major complications. And might lead the government towards our secret.

“Just do it out of my sight,” I say.

Elliott nods and takes the terrarium out of the room. In a few minutes, he returns with it empty.

“Can we load in one this time?” I ask. “No need killing a bunch of crickets if we’re practicing your power.”

“Better make it two, just in case,” he says.

Two is better than nine, at least. I place them into the terrarium, feeling guiltier this time around.

Elliott closes the lid. His breathing gets more rapid as he tries to pump himself up.

“Why not try jumping jacks?” I suggest.

“Good idea,” he says.

He begins doing jumping jacks. He reaches around thirty-five when his hands start flashing blue again. Elliott’s face contorts into a pained expression, probably from trying to force the energy into his hand. He lifts the lid and a blast of blue light bursts out. This time, the energy wave is more contained, and we keep ourselves upright, though it knocks us a few steps backwards.

Elliott replaces the lid and we lean down at the table again to study the crickets. Nothing happens for a few minutes.

“Maybe that wasn’t a strong enough charge,” Elliott says.

We keep watching and eventually we see it. One of the crickets knocks into the other, which glows bright with embers. It’s a Sparker like Mr. Roberts. It immediately zaps the other, who falls dead. I turn away.

“Whoa,” Elliott says, fascinated by the carnage. “He got disintegrated.”

“Yeah, with electricity.” I think about turning my head back, but my stomach reminds me not to look.

“No, I mean the electric cricket disintegrated. The other one must have like acidic blood or something. They’re both dead now,” Elliott says, as if commentating a sporting event.

I keep my head facing the sofa. “Can you clean it please?”

“Sure thing,” Elliott says, picking up the terrarium and taking it over to the other room. “Oh no.”

Reflexively, I snap back, and squint in fear of what I can see. The terrarium now has a mound of black mush that I’m guessing is the former crickets. Thankfully, it’s not distinguishable as much of anything. Elliott points to the table, where a small hole burned through the wood. I glance back up at the terrarium and see the same size hole in the base.

“It burned through,” he says, holding it away from his body to avoid anything from the bottom that might seep onto him. “That’s some scary stuff.”

There are still a lot of crickets left. Hope he’s not going to keep this up much longer. “You know, I’m not sure this is such a good idea.”

We had thought that something as small as a cricket couldn’t pose much of a threat, but abilities become much more dangerous in uncontrollable animals, even tiny ones.

“A few more times?” Elliott asks. “I’m not sure how I can develop the power otherwise.”

I nervously agree and he loads up the terrarium again. This time, I only allow him to put one cricket inside.

Elliott starts his jumping jacks and after a few seconds, his hands glow again. “If I speed up my breathing, it goes quicker.”

He lifts up the lid, zaps the cricket, and quickly closes it. By now, I’m no longer excited to see what will happen. I’m terrified. We wait a few minutes. Nothing. This one is probably a Lesser. Elliott takes it into the other room and disposes of it. I have no idea what he’s doing in there, but I hope it doesn’t involve his grandmother’s kitchen sink.

He returns with the terrarium and the process starts again. This time it only takes Elliott a few minutes to get his hands blue and zap the cricket. We sit back and watch. Elliott smiles broadly, enjoying this, maybe a bit too much. He’s beginning to scare me. The cricket stands there. Elliott leans in closer. Then it happens.

The small chirping sound echoes louder and louder until it reaches an intense screech. The terrarium shatters and I’m hurtled into the air. My ears throb as I fly across the room, and I only have a second to brace myself before I crash hard into a wall. An excruciating pain pounds through my ears and skull. I feel something wet stream down my face and wipe my lip. Blood stains my hand. A fuzzy outline of Elliott moves his lips and I realize I can’t hear anything he says. His head is bleeding. His steps over to the table and squashes the cricket. I can’t hear him, but I can tell he’s screaming in agony. He stumbles around, rubbing his ears frantically and accidentally kicks over the box. A pile of dead crickets falls onto the coffee table. I shut my eyes.

There’s a tap on my shoulder and I look up to see Elliott standing over me. His mouth keeps moving, but I can’t understand him. I shake my head and point at my ears. He slows his mouth down, and I try to read his lips.

“Silencer,” he says.

A type of Unsound, Silencers can generate such loud sound waves that they destroy any nearby matter. We were lucky; if the ability had developed any further, we could be dead. Wish I had stopped Elliott’s experiments when I had a chance.

He slumps down next to me, crying. I’m not sure if I’ll ever hear again. My ears still buzz. I point to the pile of crickets on the table, and he understands what I want him to do. He heads over to the pile to clean it up.

The front door opens. It’s his grandmother, back early from grocery shopping. Her jaw drops and she almost drops her bags. Setting them down quickly, she rushes over to Elliott to see if he’s all right before noticing me on the ground. She talks fast with a panicked expression, but I can’t understand anything she says.

She reaches for a phone and Elliott snatches it from her hand. They wrestle over it, and then she stops. From her reactions, I imagine he’s explaining his ability and what happened. His grandmother plops down on a sitting chair. She stares at me, as if hoping for an answer.

I tell her, “You can’t let them know about his power.” Or at least I think I do. I still can’t hear myself.

***

Once she gets over the shock, Elliott’s grandmother turns her attention towards me. She prepares a bath to steady my nerves and I think the steam helps soothe my ears too. It takes a couple of hours, but my hearing slowly returns. I’m now able to understand most of what Elliott says. Given time, I’m guessing my hearing will come back.

 Even after the bath, I’m still shaky as I sit down to have dinner with them.

“That was really stupid,” she says. “You might have been killed. What went through your heads to come up with a plan like that?”

I find it hard to defend myself, but I explain, like most idiots, how it didn’t seem like such a bad plan at the time. You don’t think of how dangerous abilities can be, even in such small animals. And we didn’t have much choice, since we didn’t want anyone to know about Elliott’s powers.

“Animals are risky. Who knows what they will do? Humans are more predictable,” she says.

“I can’t go zapping people,” Elliott says. “I was just trying to sort out my power.”

“And have you gotten it sorted out?” his grandmother asks.

“I think so, pretty much,” Elliott says. “At least a good start.”

“Good to hear. I’d rather not come home to blood-stained guests and piles of insect carcasses every day.”She grabs a spoonful of mashed potatoes. “First you storm out of a restaurant, than you shatter glass in her face. You really need to learn how to date properly.”

Everyone laughs. The conversation pauses as we dig into the food, decompressing from the stress of the evening.

His grandmother breaks the silence. “It’s an amazing gift, Elliott.”

He perks up. “Gift? Grandma, it’s dangerous. You saw what happened.”

“Nothing good can come without a little bad,” she says. “Think of what you could do with that power.”

Elliott snorts. “Be wanted by the government?”

“No, you could help people. People like me,” she says as she stuffs some mashed potatoes in her mouth.

Elliott drops his fork. “Grandma. I’m not going to zap you.”

She raises her eyebrows. “What makes you think I was asking?”

“Because I know that look.”

“Well, eventually you will want to find out what happens when you zap a person, right?”