Flesh and Bone

Chapter 16: Found You! And I'm Not Gonna Let You Go, No Matter What!

There it is again. That was the final straw for Otis, feeling that nagging sensation in the back of his head that someone was watching him for the umpteenth time in the past week alone.

Cecile had waved off doing anything about it for now. It could be a credible threat, or it might not be anything at all. He agreed with the logic, but the consistency of whomever was stalking them was unnerving him. And even though she had begged off the subject when he'd tried to discuss it with her, the way she spoke about it told him that her own words brought her little comfort too.

Every time he'd asked her, though, it was on the basis of collaborating on a response to this hanging potential danger to both of them. Her Ability was as good as gone right now as far as either one of them knew, but old habits died hard: despite that fact, he still subconsciously looked to her as if she continued to have her great power. If anyone had acted this bold before her incident, Otis had no doubt Cecile would have turned about-face and taught this creep some manners.

Otis was not nearly as powerful as she is— was, as much as that tense pained him to think about— but he decided to defy her if only once. It was the fear of it all that drove him out of his comfort zone again and again, knowing that someone was spying on him. In that empty classroom when he kept an eye out for Cecile and Isen while they sealed their alliance of convenience underneath the bleachers, in the hallways and at the gate in the morning, this omnipresence had finally caused him to act irrationally.

Whoever it was could very well be a high-tier just as Cecile had once been, and they would've given him the beating of a life-time. A high enough mid-tier would've provided the same kind of treatment if they had an Ability that augmented their strength in any way; Otis wasn't born equipped to be a fighter.

But he was given an Ability that he knew for sure would shed light on their predicament. Closing his eyes, Otis felt that presence following him, even now as he walked on his own in the hallways. It had been a part of his plan; he'd hoped that whoever it was that was following both of them would, eventually, follow him when no one else was around. The time had come at last; whatever may come, he decided to run out of cover and take one for the team.

His heart beat a little faster as he activated his Ability. Because of its lack of utility in combat, Cecile had instructed him to keep it a secret from anyone else; no sense in giving away your whole hand if you didn't need to.

Otis felt his hair shift a bit as he fed more and more power into it, hoping to spring it as a surprise on that mysterious presence when they'd least expected it. His skin tingled a bit, the energy coursing through his veins letting him know almost instinctively that the time had come. Letting go of the leash a bit now, his Ability activated in full.

And it was just as clarifying as the first moment he realized what he'd truly had. In the beginning of his life, he once thought he was nothing more than a burden with zero to show for himself.

When Otis was a child, he'd figured his Ability out on his own when he sat in the middle of nature. Whilst everyone else in his grade had a particular set of skills that helped them in combat, gave them an advantage in combat, or at least made themselves useful to those who relished fighting, Otis had nothing of the sort. It vexed him, as he tried again and again to see if it gave him some type of physical advantage like everyone else had. Something, anything to give him a leg up in a world he at that ripe age of eight knew was imminently unfair to anyone who got caught dead being a weakling.

He wanted nothing more to avoid being the odd one out. Which, looking back on it, made him chuckle a bit considering his sexual orientation and society's morals on that subject in of itself.