Out Of Orbit

Chapter 22

JARRYD

"How are you feeling?"

Jarryd shrugged, his head still pounding, still reeling from the shock of seeing Rebecca's full power.

"I'm fine." Besides having the life beaten out of me by a 16-year old girl.

"Sure you are. Trust me, it will take more than 5 minutes to get over that."

Jarryd froze.

"You're speaking from experience?"

All eyes focused on Riley, who finally nodded.

"You knew about this?!" Victoria declared, turning on Riley, one finger jabbing him in the chest.

Riley backed away, hands in the air.

"You can't expect her to sit around and do nothing. Your powers are part of who you are, especially with the way they work. It's a lot safer for everyone if you all know how to manage your powers properly..."

"Yes, we can all see how much safer it was for Jarryd!" Victoria cut him off.

"Victoria..." She ignored Jarryd, her voice growing louder and angrier.

"You really want her to fight in a war? You think that's what's good for her? You don't know anything about her! You're not even human! You actually thought secretly helping her was a good idea?"

Victoria seemed set to continue, but was cut off by Michael's quiet voice.

"Look, maybe Riley wasn't as wrong as you think."

Victoria turned her anger on Michael, who quickly raised his hands.

"Let's just hear his side of the story first, ok? Maybe give Jarryd a few more moments to recover before we put Riley on trial."

Riley nodded and settled down in the grass beside Jarryd, his eyes sympathetic.

"Even if I hadn't offered to help Rebecca, she would have figured this all out on her own. It just might have taken longer. Like all of you, her powers are controlled by a certain state of mind, or emotion. But her power is even more closely connected to her emotions than yours are. Emotions are what give her power. The first time we saw her use force fields, she was scared for me. She didn't want me to get hurt. These emotions formed the force field that stopped that rock from hitting me."

Jarryd nodded and saw Michael and Brian doing the same. Victoria's face was still set in a frown.

"The second time she was able to access her power was during a conversation we had."

Riley paused, glancing at Jarryd.

"About you, actually. We were discussing how she could get you to let her prove herself. The conversation upset her. She started shouting and...the next thing I knew I was flying backwards into a wall. It was her anger than hit me, just like it hit you."

Riley met Victoria's eye and she bit her lip, sensing where the conversation was going.

"Without someone who believed in her and wanted to help her, that anger could have exploded in a very different situation or with someone who wouldn't be able to recover as well. What if she'd lost her temper in the middle of a meal? Many more people could have been hurt. By training with her and helping her to understand her powers and try to control her emotions, I thought I was doing the right thing."

He paused, then added a final comment.

"I still do."

There was a moment of silence as they all considered what Riley had said. Jarryd shook his head, still feeling the after effects of Rebecca's blast of power. She was incredibly strong. Maybe more so than any of them.