One (One Universe) (6 page)

But I still can’t come up with an answer, not one that sounds normal anyway. So I glance over at Elias.

He jumps in, saving me. “Leni, can you show her your, uh…”

“Wait, what? She’s a One?” She turns her head up to look at me. “That’s a late transfer.” She’s still smiling, but her look is even more knowing now. I’m in some club of secrets that I really, really don’t want to be in. Even if it does mean, for the first time in my life, that I’m — well,
in
.

He eyes me meaningfully. “I didn’t say she was a One. But she’s spent all this time at Superior as a Normal and come out relatively unscathed. And now she’s here.”

I raise an eyebrow at him. This is what he thinks “unscathed” looks like?

“And she thinks I’m creeping on her, but really I’m just trying to be nice.” Did I see his cheeks flush red?

“But, um…” I interrupt. “I am. A One. My parents…or I thought…maybe a second would show. Obviously it didn’t.” I try to keep my face from falling. “No big deal.”

Except that it’s the biggest deal ever.

“Oh. Yeah.” Leni nods knowingly. Her eyes aren’t sparkling quite so much now, but still she turns around, unzips her hoodie and lets her shirt dip down off her shoulder an inch. An ugly, puckered, white and pink scar, about two inches wide, snakes from her neck, across her shoulder, and down the back of her arm.

“What…” I ask, my head shaking, suddenly feeling sorry for this bright girl I hated only seconds ago.

“I have combustibility. But not indestructibility or regeneration. Or that skin-oozing-plasma thing that some combustible Supers have. Even though that’s slower, it would have been… Anyway. Learned that the hard way in second grade,” she explains, her smile the same sad smile that Elias first gave me a few days ago when we first met. The idea of flames ripping through my flesh, and it not healing or protecting itself… I fight against a horrified shudder.

“Whoa,” I say, a lump rising in my throat. The question’s out of my mouth before I can keep myself in check. “How do you keep from — you know — ” and I make a flaming motion with my hand in the air. “When you’re upset, or whatever?” I finish in a lowered voice.

“Oh,” says Leni, “You know. Antidepressants. They tend to, uh…dull things.”

Everyone’s quiet, watching me.

Daniel starts the round of nervous laughter, changing the subject. I wonder how often he comes to her rescue like this, how many times he’s saved her from comments by jerks like me.

“Are you the only three?” I ask.

Now Leni’s mouth turns down even more. “There are other Ones, but they won’t admit it. We’re the only Ones we know of around here who have kept trying.”

A wave of intensity throbs through my chest. I’m not the only one who hasn’t stopped practicing my One in my free time?

I turn to Leni, asking the question that I don’t want to put words to. “Wait, so you…you still can…”

“Yeah.” She smiles, and there is a glisten to her eyes. She kind of rubs her fingers together, then flings them open. I see the hint of a dancing orange glow hover above her whole hand, centered on her palm. One second later, she winces, sucks in a breath, and claps her hand shut, putting out the fire. She shows me the redness of her fingertips and the scald in the dip of her hand. “Still hoping the Second will manifest kind of. I really don’t have any fingerprints left. So, if it never does, I can always turn to a life of crime.”

“That’s my girl,” says Elias, and her eyes turn from sad to grateful.

Yeah. I hate this girl, even if I really, really like her.

I shake my head, trying to distract myself. “So, wait,” I say, looking over at Daniel, who’s sitting on the floor against the wall, absorbed with something on his cell. “What can you do?” I silently scold myself for talking about these Ones like they’re a freaking parlor trick. I would have spit at anyone who suggested the same to me.

“I’m indestructible.” The tone in his voice is weird, and I’m not sure if he’s trying to make a joke.

“Really? But nothing else?” Every kid I know who’s indestructible also has super-strength or could combust or was super-fast. If Daniel’s telling the truth, his One is like a Second — the physical traits that make the Ones possible.

“Yeah. Pretty lame, huh? I’ve cut myself more times than any of the depressed emos or cheerleaders here, and nothing.” He stretches out his arms, insides up, to show me. He’s right. His skin is completely flawless.

“Shut up about the cheerleaders,” Leni says. Her eyes dart between the floor and her hands, which she twists and untwists over and over again. I can tell that she’s torn between fitting in and being a One, between being loyal to her Normal friends or to this ragtag group of Ones. Whether she wants to take a natural place in the world or fight to make her own.

I’ve never done anything but fight, never even imagined another option. But then again, I’m not like Leni. I’m not beautiful or sweet or smiley. Even if I should be on antidepressants, I’m not.

I’m just Merrin. And my only option is to get that Second. Because the only way I’ll ever be worth anything is if I figure out how to fly.

We don’t study any calc. When Rosie announces, “Fifteen minutes till dinner,” the three of them flip open their readers, and their styluses fly across their tablets, working the problems. I follow suit, plopping myself down on the floor.

Daniel switches off his reader no more than 10 minutes later, and I’m next to finish. He grins up at me, eyes flashing again, and I can’t help but smile back. “Brought us a genius, here, man. And you said she’s a sophomore?”

Elias snorts and looks up at him, his eyes darting to me first. “Your ego’s so huge you don’t think it’s possible that an underclassman is smarter than you?”

“No,” he says, still smiling. “Just because she finished almost as fast as me doesn’t mean she got the answers right.”

“He probably hacked his tablet to work the problems for him,” Leni says, flipping the cover back over her reader.

Daniel snorts. “Please. I could do that, but then I’d have nothing to do while you losers take your sweet time.”

Well, I’m impressed. It took me days to hack one thing about the ID file on my cuff, and I’m not sure it wasn’t a mistake.

Leni smiles at him with an unmistakable fondness, then hoists herself out of her chair and looks down at Elias, who’s still scribbling. “Gotta go,” she says. “Family game night.” She rolls her eyes and smacks Daniel on the head. “Coming, genius? Or are you going to make Merrin drive you home?”

Daniel gives me one look and says, “Nah, she’s had enough of me for one night. And maybe the extra few minutes will keep you from the ‘pick a Monopoly piece’ drama.”

She laughs, the sound of it like a bell. Real, not like the stuttered laugh she gave off at school.

“See ya, Elias.” She throws a glance at him over her shoulder on the way out.

If they’re letting themselves out, they must be here all the time. This is the Nelson High crew of Ones. And they’ve just let me in.

“Glad you were here,” Elias says, jotting down one last answer before finally closing his reader and sliding it onto the bed next to him. “I was really starting to feel like a third wheel.”

Did he just read my mind? “What are you talking about?” I ask.

“Len. She’s been crushing on Daniel for ages. Somehow my room turned into flirt central last year. I think you helped.”

New visions of friendship with Leni flash through my mind.

Mrs. VanDyne’s voice rings through the staircase and into his open door. “Elias? You still have someone up there? I have dinner for you two!”

“Yeah, Mom,” he calls down. “Be right there.”

He stands up and reaches down for my hand, and I give it to him without thinking. His hand is so huge that his fingers and thumb overlap a good inch when they wrap around mine, and he hoists me up with no problem.

“After you,” he says, motioning me down the stairs. I try to think of an excuse to get out of there, back to the safe familiarity of my car, but Elias’s mom is standing at the kitchen island, and when she smiles at me, it’s too late. She presses a button, and the counter opens and pushes up two huge, gorgeous, incredible-smelling homemade pizzas. His mom pulls a giant green salad out of the fridge and throws on what must be the last of the season’s tomatoes.

“Thanks for dinner, Mrs. VanDyne,” I say.

“It’s no problem. Rosie made it. And you can call me Dierdre, sweetheart.”

Sweetheart? No adult’s been that affectionate with me for ages, not besides Dad, anyway, but somehow this presumption, coming from her, doesn’t bug me.

“Okay. Um, thanks, Rosie.” I look up and around, uncertain of where to say it.

“Elias, honey, I’ve got some things to finish up. You two going to be okay here?”

“Yeah, fine,” he says.

She makes herself a plate and heads off to another room, picking up a leather ladies’ briefcase on the way. Elias sits on one of the stools at the island and pulls out one for me.

Elias puts a piece of pizza in front of me, and I start on it right away. Hopefully my chewing means he won’t try to talk to me for a few minutes. I wrack my brain for anything we’ve already talked about, anything I know for certain we have in common.

The kitchen is lit up, but the house has an open floor plan and I can see that the rest of it is dark. The living room sits pristine and empty, and the two hallways leading off of it are dark too. There’s a spot of light from some French doors at the corner of the living room, which must be Dierdre’s office.

We always feel cramped at my house, especially now that Michael and Max are shooting up so quickly, but it never feels empty. I’d rather feel full than empty.

“Is it weird without them here? Your sisters?”

Elias still chews on his first piece of pizza, even though I finished mine a while ago. He puts another one on my plate, and I pick it up to take a bite. He puts a napkin to his mouth and wipes his fingers too, and finishes his mouthful before he speaks.

“Yeah. Yeah, it is. I mean, I expected them to be gone for college anyway, I guess. They didn’t get into any of their top choices, of course — Normal Ivy Leagues. I wasn’t surprised when they took the option to spend the year at the Hub. But they don’t call.”

“Never? Are you guys close?”

“Never. And, yeah. Really close. They’re awesome. They never treated me like I was an annoying little brother, even though I was, you know?”

“Yeah, I know.” I smile. “I try to treat my brothers that way, too.” I can’t imagine I would ever leave them without word from me for that long.

Elias’s eyebrows furrow. “I haven’t gotten an email from them, even. Should see them at the Symposium, though.”

I had almost forgotten about the Symposium. Every year, the hob-nobbiest Supers flood Superior to check out all our advances in Supers’ biotech. I’d always wanted to go to check out what it is exactly that Mom and Dad do. But you only get to go if you work there or if you’re rich or important. Then I remember. Elias’s family is all three.

I clear my throat. “I’m jealous,” I say, smiling.

“I’d trade places with you in a second,” Elias says. “That biotech stuff bores me to death.”

My stomach twists. He has no idea how lucky he is, but I’m not going to hold it against him.

My eye sweeps along the living room walls and catches on a photo on canvas, a huge one. It’s a portrait of the three VanDyne kids hugging each other and smiling. The setting sun kisses Nora and Elias’s blond and Lia’s brunette hair with gold.

“My brothers are too young to be that close to,” I say, nodding toward the picture. “I’m still training them to do simple things, like take showers and pick up their damn dirty socks. And be nice to girls instead of picking on them.”

Elias laughs while chewing, puffing air out of his nose. He swallows and says, “Their wives will appreciate it one day.”

“Guess so,” I say, reaching for a third piece of pizza.

Elias raises his eyebrows at me. “A little thing like you can put away that much pizza?”

I don’t like being referred to as a “little thing,” but he looks at me with admiration, so I let it slide.

We eat in silence for another minute. Then he says, “It’s mostly the quiet, you know? They used to freak me out by teleporting into my room, and I always threw something at them. Scared the hell out of me and reminded me that I couldn’t do the same thing.”

I grin. That’s what I do with the boys when they cruise across the water — use them as targets for pool darts. I never hit them, but sometimes I get close enough for them to catch one and bring it back, dripping water all over me. Punks.

“It’s weird, but I’m still kind of…I don’t know…expecting them to show up one night, you know?” Elias continues. “But they never do. One reason I’m glad you’re here.” He looks at me, puts his napkin on his plate. I swear I see his cheeks flush, and he stares at the napkin. “I mean, Len and Daniel, too.”

I look at his face, and I understand him. He’s jealous of his sisters, but the love is stronger than the jealousy. We’re the same.

Suddenly, I’m afraid to look at him, afraid he’ll see something in my face that I’m not ready for him to see. Fondness. Sadness instead of anger.

I don’t want him to see that we’re the same even though I think he already knows.

I stare out the glass kitchen wall. The sun’s setting earlier and earlier as Nebraska moves from summer to autumn. Thinking of it, the warm familiarity of it, makes me feel comfortable in my own skin for the first time in a long time.

I feel a rush of bravery, enough to make me look over at Elias again. “Why didn’t you show me yours? Your One?”

Elias lowers his voice and says, “Mom doesn’t know I still practice.” I can’t keep myself from smiling for a second. His shoulders lift once, then drop again. “And I didn’t want you to feel alone.”

Affection for Elias creeps into the corner of my mind. He’s not a showoff. He didn’t use his One to impress me, and because of that, he really doesn’t have to. I’m impressed with him. Just him.

Elias slides our plates down the counter and on top of a large square section built into it. He taps the counter twice and says, “Thanks, Rosie.” The panel flips, lowering the dishes to below counter-level and sliding a perfectly clean surface in their place.