Golden Hour | Cole Stewart AU

Hide & Seek

ELORA

Five pairs of eyes are trained on me.

“What would you do if someone broke into this room this very second?” I ask out loud. We're all sitting on the ground, legs crossed. It's a hypothetical situation that could happen any day.

“Knock them out!” Carter pipes in immediately. He makes a motion with his hand but nothing flies. He’s gotten a lot better at controlling his powers in the last few months.

“That's good, Carter. But what if they had the white noise?” Carter’s smile fades. I hate reminding them how adults they're supposed to trust can corner them and make them feel powerless.

Just because the camps are gone, doesn’t mean that the white noise is dead too. I don’t know how many of these gadgets are still out in the wild even though they’re now illegal.

Lotus is the first one to respond. “They don't know our color. I would exaggerate how much they're hurting me. And when they stopped playing it, I’d use my powers to break the device.” She's yellow so that could work.

They usually start from the lowest frequency and increase it bit by bit to get a hit. They wouldn't know what color the kids are and none of the kids here are in the database. Frost has erased their identities and given them new ones.

I nod along. “But it won't be easy. You'd have to be careful.”

Someone snorts and my eyes land on Evie. The only one who is reluctant to be here. Her arms are crossed and she looks as thrilled as I've ever seen her. “What would you do Evie?”

“Nothing,” She says bluntly, “Because it's your job to protect us. Isn’t that the whole point of us being here?” Silence follows her words.

“I agree,” I nod to her and she smirks.  “Do you guys remember that story from last week? The one where the boy did everything to protect his camp but it rained suddenly and ruined everything?” I’d overheard bits and pieces of the story when Allison was teaching the kids last week.

They all nod to my question.

“If someone gets in here it means we've royally messed up. Sometimes you do everything you can but things just happen. There are cracks in your plan that you can't see and things don't go according to the way you want.” I explain. “But we're warriors, aren't we? And what do warriors do?”

“Fight back!” They chorus. Carter makes another motion with his hand and it’s intentional. His book rises in the air and makes a downward descent, bumping into his twin’s lap. Callie rolls her eyes, not looking amused at all.

Evie scowls and turns away. I’ve rarely seen her use her powers. She’s been here for a while but still seems to hate it here. Maybe it’s because she was never supposed to be here for a long time.

All the other kids here either don’t have a family or we’re still trying to find them. But Evie? Her mom dropped her off here out of fear. Even when the camps shut down she told us she needed more time. She said she would be back in a month at the most. It’s been a year.

Evie’s just thirteen and her pain takes the shape of bitterness and resentment on the outside. It doesn’t help that her mom bailed on me the last few times I’d reached out to her.

“Alright, kiddos. That's a wrap for today. Go wreck some havoc.” They thunder past me. “Or not. We're on the same side of the court, remember?”

Callie pauses at the door. “Are we in danger?” This girl is way too observant. But she’s also a green so there’s that. We're always in danger. As long as they exist, they're in danger.