Fate's Return (Twisted Fate, Book 2)

Chapter Twenty-Two

After learning the names of what I thought I could do from Mike, I spent the rest of the night researching their definitions. Telekinesis, the ability to influence the physical properties of an object using you mind. Telepathy, the ability to communicate with the power of your mind, a natural ability which can be used to sense emotions, thoughts, health. Even vibes off inanimate objects. Like, if a knife was used to murder someone and a person with telepathy touched it, they could sense that it had been a weapon used to kill. Maybe they could even get images in their own minds from the vibes connected to the object.

So, Mike was right. Parapsychology was a science. Even with the facts I needed, I wasn't convinced it was real. How do you obtain solid evidence for something so intangible? I couldn't touch or see or smell it, and it's not like I knew how to practice either of the abilities. So far, it only happened when I really needed it or when I least desired it to occur.

I searched my computer until nearly two in the morning for studies done about telekinesis and telepathy. Sure, there was tons of information, but each time I found something new it would contradict the last thing I'd learned. Triggered with emotions or finding a 'happy place', only happening in sporadic occurrences without control from the user, activated by casting spells. There were too many articles to read through them all. The only static information about either was that they were considered to be a so-called psychic gift.

I couldn't wait to tell Mike psychics were studied, and he was at least partly wrong.

Climbing under my covers, I turned out the light. It took me almost a half hour to fall asleep. Even then, I couldn't rest as the familiarity of my dreams took hold of my mind. Blocked while awake, it was just as I remembered once my subconscious took over.

The ground appeared endless, soft and white, and impossibly solid. My feet sunk into the fluff all the way to my ankles with each step I took until it became difficult to wade, like I was trying to trudge my way through mud on the cusp of becoming a sinkhole. Every inch felt as though I would fall over the edge and into oblivion.

I kept moving, afraid that if I didn't, I would be sucked down.

The building was so much closer now, and I could see the pillars it rested upon for the very first time. Light shone against the front until the glass walls gleamed, shiny like a pearl I couldn't see into. The back was dark like polished onyx, not a glisten to be seen as the cloud casting shadows from above absorbed any light directed at it.

Light and dark, good and evil. Two sides of the same coin.

"It's almost time."

I turned and saw the boy—the same as I had seen before—standing in the shadows behind me. He appeared clearer now, more distinct, though his face remained hidden except for the piercing blue eyes that shone as though lit from within. Swirling with knowledge of who I was and where we were, they promised truths I knew he wouldn't reveal. But still, the eyes remained familiar, and I found myself leaning forward to take a better look.

He stepped back, narrowing his eyes, and shook his head. The light shining on the bright half of the scene reflected from his gaze, and I gasped, covering my mouth with my hand as if that would hide my reaction. But I couldn't hide it—I didn't want to. I know those eyes.

"It's almost time," he said, and the sound of his voice, unfamiliar but heart-shattering, dug into my mind for future recognition.

"Time for what?" I lowered my hands.

Maybe if I didn't push—if I didn't even ask—he would lift his head for me to see which of the three I knew that the eyes could belong to. Because if I could figure it out here, I just might be able to remember once I woke. Then I would know who I could drill questions into once I knew they couldn't run away or fade.

"The time you've been preparing for."

"Excuse me?" I blinked through the surprise and confusion that widened my eyes. "I haven't been preparing for anything."

"Of course, you have, just like I asked you to." He smiled, the light—what little was left—glittering against his teeth like perfectly cut diamonds in the sun.

Turning my back to him, I studied the building. I remembered it as beautiful, capturing, like the glory of its design overshadowed the perfection that surrounded it. But now the darkness that was steadily eating away at it from back to front eclipsed that, and I didn't know what to think. Was it real? Or was it my dream self-projecting how conflicted I was feeling while awake? Half light and half dark, and a hundred percent lost.

"It looks sick," I said, thinking aloud.

"It is." He sighed, stepping up until he reached my side, and said, "The balance is being shifted as the world continues to change."

I looked up, licking my lips, and saw the pain of loss in his eyes, the blue of a crystal lagoon morphing into turbulent ocean water. He looked... sad. Suddenly, I knew without having to ask: this was his home. I felt like I was watching a victim of a natural disaster during a storm that ripped away their life—everything they owned and loved and cherished. Gone.

"Can we fix it?" I asked, glancing back to the building.

As beautiful as the contradiction was, the shadows didn't belong. If Mother Theresa held a gun, it would be wrong, but separate. She was good and pure, while the gun was dark and evil, yet beautiful for what it could do. Not the fact that it killed, of course, but the mechanics that made it possible. The craftsmanship that made each weapon unique.

He shook his head and tore his gaze away so that when he looked at me, his emotions were hidden, masking the pain. "There isn't anything I can do."

"But there's something someone can do?"

He nodded and the look in his eyes suggested that I didn't want to ask any more questions. The answer wasn't anything that I was going to want to hear. Still, I could see he wanted nothing more than for me to know, and I couldn't hope the darkness away from the building if I was content to remain in it.

I swallowed my hesitation. "W-who can h-help?"

Please, don't say it.

He narrowed his eyes but smiled. "You."