Powers

Chapter 33

Julia's point of view:

Thinking of it now, I probably shouldn't be trying to talk to people in their dreams. There's no telling how much pain I've caused Peter now by ending the dream, but I had no choice. Without anyone teaching me the powers, it takes ten times more energy to do them when I don't know exactly what I'm doing. But I just had to know; I had to know if they were making a plan to save me. And now that I know, I can at least have some peace of mind.

I miss them all terribly. This place is so lonely; my only companion being my prison guard, someone who's not a member of the Council and actually cares about my well being. Her name is Willa, a middle aged woman with the power of elements. When no one is around, she'll give me tips to help me master that power. It's actually helped, except for the first few times when I tried to break out by trying to burn the walls, which of course became useless as I can't use my powers to escape.

Nonetheless, Willa is still someone who has shown me kindness here. She reminds me of my mother a little bit, always checking on me to see if I'm ok and trying to make my life easier. Still, she'll never be my friends or my family. I wonder how my parents are holding up, not knowing where I am or if I'm even alive. I wonder how Allison is doing. Is she worried sick like my parents? Or does she block it all out by reading her books? Probably the latter. I do hope they're all ok, and that they still have hope in me.

"Julia, you have people here for you," Willa says, a sound of caution in her voice. Excitement begins to form inside me as I hope that maybe my friends have worked out some sort of deal with the Council to get me back, but I should know better. The minute Willa unlocks my cell, my excitement dies on the spot as I see Henley and James outside my cell. "What do you two want?" I spit out.

Henley laughs menacingly at my comment, but James just glares at me, probably remembering our last encounter. "It's been a long time, hasn't it James? I've been meaning to ask, how exactly did that feel, you know, when I smashed you through that wall during our rescue mission for Peter?" I taunt.

James starts forward, probably ready to rip me to pieces, but Henley intervenes. "Stop," she orders, and James does not move a step further. She's gotten better at her power since the last time I faced her.

"What do you want?" I demand. Henley smiles cruelly and says, "Such bold words from someone who only has days left to live. The Council and I have come to the conclusion that since your powers will die with you when your time comes, we need to extract them from you."

Initial disbelief rises up in me as I begin to protest. "What? No! You...you can't do that!" "Funny, I thought you never wanted them in the first place," Henley points out.

She's not wrong, but they've allowed me to communicate with my friends while I'm away. They've actually been a way to keep myself occupied in these prisons.

It is then when I realize that I don't want to lose my powers. I mentally scold myself for all the times I almost gave them up, for I never truly realized how much I needed them. "Well it seems I've become attached to them at the moment, so deal with it," I fire back.

"Oh, I do intend to deal with it. Kiss the powers goodbye, Julia. There's no point in wasting them on you when you won't be around to use them," Henley laughs. James becomes free of Henley's mind control, comes up to handcuff me, and then he leads me down one of the long hallways with Henley following.

Then, a realization hits me. "You've done this before, haven't you?" I question. "Many, many times Julia. How do you think people get their powers? They're not that easy to come by. When people die or encounter one of our unfortunate 'accidents'," she says with an evil smile, "Their powers disappear with them. So whenever someone is about to be executed or their time of age is nearing, we take their powers with them. Then, we save them for someone's Day of Choice. Remember Gwyneth? Before she was killed, they took her powers away and kept them safe until they were ready to be passed down to the next unfortunate person. And now, that person is you. You have Gwyneth's powers," she says.