Powers

Chapter 13

"Well, well, well, look who we have here," an unfamiliar voice says. I am blindfolded and my hands are handcuffed behind my back. My head throbs, and I am vaguely aware of the smell of blood present in the room. "The girl with the power of domination. I've always dreamt of killing someone with this power," the same voice says. I begin to thrash around, trying to free myself, but to no avail. Suddenly, my blindfold is ripped off, and I am in a metal room surrounded by the twelve council members. "Julia Lancaster, look where your crimes have brought you," a man says. "What are you talking about? What have I done?" I frantically ask. "What haven't you done?" A woman adds. "You are rebellious and uncontrollable, someone so willing to fight back that you disregard the dangers that accompany your choices. You are a monster, and you're about to pay the price," another one says. I want to know what they're talking about, but suddenly, my family is brought into the room. Father looks concerned, mother looks worried, and Allison is terrified. In the blink of an eye, all three are shot in front of me. "NO!" I scream as tears flood my face. Next, Cassia and Susan are brought in, and they look concerned for me. "Julia? What's happening?" They ask. Before I can answer, they are shot as well. "PLEASE! STOP THIS!" I yell to the twelve. Lastly, Peter is brought in. "Julia? Why did you abandon me? I trusted you, and I thought you loved me," he pleads, the hurt in his voice making my heart shatter. "I do! I do love you! Peter, I promise I do! But you have to get out of here before-" I am cut off by the sound of a gun going off, and Peter falls to the ground. "NO!!! WHAT HAVE YOU TWELVE DONE?!?!" I scream out. Suddenly, the Council disappears, and I am left in the room with the bodies of the people I loved. Suddenly, my hands are freed and I stand up, ready to fight the ones that did this. "What do you mean 'what have we done?' Julia, this your doing," the twelves' voices say in unison. "Julia, you've been the evil one all along," one accuses. I feel something heavy in my hand, and I look down, screaming as I see what I held. It was a gun.

I wake up thrashing and screaming. I am sweating, and I become aware of tear stains on my pillow. I am panting, my heart going ninety-to-nothing. "Julia? Is everything ok?" I hear my mother say outside my door. "Yeah...it was...just...a bad...dream," I get out between breaths. "Ok well...I'm here if you want to talk about it," she offers. "I'm fine," I reply. "No you're not," she says. Sometimes having parents with the power of truth didn't always work out well for me. "I really don't want to talk about it," I just say.

My mother opens my door, and she looks a bit frightened by me. I can't blame her; my hair is a tangled mess, I'm sweating, and my eyes expose my look of terror. "I think you do," she says. I want to tell her. Oh, how much I want to tell her about my dream, why I'm so afraid, why my life is at stake now..................but I can't. She will know when I am ready to talk. That day is not today.

My mother says that when people lie, they have a physical reaction: their breath becomes heavier, and their heart-rate speeds up, thus making yourself obvious to a person with the power of truth...aka my parents. However, maintaining all of the self control I have by slowing down my heart and breathing rate, I say, "Mother, I'm fine. Go back to bed. It's too early to be up." Mother nods her head, closes my door, and heads back downstairs. Wow, it actually worked!

Looking out my window, I see that the sun has barely started to make its way over the horizon, it's orange rays starting to illuminate the sky in the faintest of pink. It can't be past 4 a.m.
I decide to try to fall back to sleep, wanting to get in a few extra hours before training. Will the nightmares come again? That I remain unsure of, but I take the chance and slip back into unconsciousness.

This time, I am in the woods. At least, I think it's the woods. My surroundings are nothing but distorted images of green. I still know where I am though. I try to make my way to mine and Peter's spot, stumbling on twigs as usual. I have almost made it when I hear Peter's voice. It's to my left, right, front, back, surrounding me entirely and at the same, almost as if he's in my head. "Julia?" He asks. "Peter? Where are you?" I ask frantically. "Here," I hear him answer. I desperately look around until I see him standing beside a big pine tree. A smile breaks out on my face, and I run to him, my arms open so I can embrace him. He holds his arms open to welcome me into them, but the moment I reach him, he vanishes into thin air. "Peter?!" I ask even more frantically. "Why did you vanish, Julia?" He asks in a panicked voice somewhere. "I didn't leave! I'm right here!" I yell in response. I tear through the trees, desperate to find him. I find him this time by a stream. "Peter, turn around! I'm right here!" I yell. Once again, we try to get to one another, but he vanishes again when our hands have barely touched. "What's happening?!" I yell with devastation. I'm not going to lose him again. This time, I find him once more beside a ledge, and I slowly make my way to him. "Peter?" I call his name. He turns around and faces me. "Julia, it's an illusion. You can't make it to me in this dream," he answers. "This is all a dream?" I ask. He nods his head. "No. Dreams are one of the few things I have control over in my life. I will make it to you," I promise. I start walking in his direction, but I slam into a transparent wall. "See what I mean?" Peter says. Broken and beaten, I begin to scream and beat on the glass, desperate to get to him, to tell him that I will not be abandoning him for the week to come. He has to know that I'm not abandoning him. "Julia, please...don't do this to yourself. Like you said, you control your dreams. Wake up," he says. "You have to know! I won't abandon you, I promise!" I say. "I know you won't, but you have to wake up," he replies. I begin to feel myself slipping out of the dream, and the last thing I hear is Peter say three words: I love you.