Lightning In My Wake (The Lightning Series) Page 3

  I’d met Ari at an arcade by my house. Two games of Galaga and one shared cotton candy and we were best friends. She was homeschooled by her parents. My parents hadn’t known we had Lucents that close to our home. Good thing Ari had a super big mouth. She’d gotten angry at her mother at a family dinner and flashed from the table to her room. Her mother gasped and her father lost all the color in his face. I simply smiled, clapped and responded, “Ari can flash too?”

  “Where are you gonna be,” I asked both of them. Between Ari and my mom, someone had to take inventory. I was the most responsible of the group and that was really saying something since, in general, I was mostly selfish and wild.

  “I’m going to the alley behind the hotel,” my mother reported like I was the parental and she was the teen queen.

  “And I’m flashing to one of the lifeguard posts on the beach,” Ari answered in turn.

  “Okay, Mom, you go first and I will be right behind you. Then we can all check in and get some sleep.”

  “You already made reservations,” my mother thought the whole thrill of our gift was flying by the seat of our pants. But what did an advance reservation hurt?

  “Yes, we all have cabins out on the water. Are we ready?”

  Ari was gone before she could answer and her crystal clear golden wake told me she’d arrived without trouble. My mother was next and her wake, pale purple, like a beauty queen’s dress, resembled pixie dust—a good sign.

  I was next.

  It was a simple process. I visualized the place I wanted to go, and I was there. I didn’t understand the physics of it—nor did I care. The physics of it would probably take all the fun out of it. I just knew that I could get into Sacs in the middle of the night or was able to see the sunset in every time zone in the world—all on the same day. It wasn’t necessary for me to have visited the spot before, just to have seen pictures or video.—the beauty of a cell phone with internet was incomparable.

  I felt the familiar tug of time and space plunging me to my desired destination and before I knew it, I was next to my mother in the alley behind a tropical Belizean paradise.

  No time was wasted—I knew Ari’s game. The last one in the ocean after arriving at a destination bought breakfast the next morning. After checking in quickly and paying a fee for our odd arrival time, I slipped my maxi dress onto the floor which revealed an ivory crochet bikini. I loved the cabins in Belize. Why people stayed in hotels overlooking the best view in Central America, when they could stay in these huts, hovering atop the ocean, was a mystery. I booked the same cabin every time, no matter what.

  As my toes wrapped around the edge of the porch surrounding my hut, I heard a splash and knew that breakfast would be on me. I dove in after Ari and from that time until the tangerine sun began to peek over the horizon, we played and swam like children.

  It wasn’t often Ari and I were free like this. One would think that, with our gift, we could go anywhere, anytime. But Ari was in the same kind of specialized delivery business as I was. She and Sway had taken the medical side of it. They flashed from place to place with vials, samples and God only knew what else.

  Except Sway had been stripped of her ability.

  Ari was tired from the travelling, so she suggested we go ashore. We leaned back, side by side on the shoreline, the tide caressed us as it rose. I closed my eyes as the first rays of the sunrise hit my face.

  “Is it a gift or a curse, Bee?”

  Ari had called me Bee since we were kids. I knew what she was referring to, but acted ignorant, as I always did. The right or wrong, the blessing or curse question of what we could do, never went away.

  Yet, I still had no answers.

  It hid behind the thick red curtains on the stage of my life. Everyone could see its form behind the material, and the curtains swayed this way and that letting us know it was there and trying to get attention.

  I didn’t know the answer.

  If there even was an answer.

  “What?”

  “Flashing.”

  Leaning back on my elbows, I threw my head back. Ari counted on me to soothe her worries. I tried my damnedest to fulfill that role. What could I say this time that would placate her?

  I began, “The first time we flashed to Jeju Island, I spent three days there, just taking in the scenery, these two older men were arguing. Theo was with me. Our parents had all travelled together. And of course…”

  She groaned, “He speaks Korean.”

  “Yeah, so he starts translating for me. They were in one of the most majestic, serene places on the entire planet and they were arguing politics. So, I looked at Theo and I said, ‘I don’t understand.’ He answers, ‘There is no perfect gift. Every good comes with bad—every blessing carries its own curse.”

  She made a gagging noise. “He makes me sick when he’s right all the time.”

  I cracked up at her blatant disdain for Theo. Ari and Theo’s picture was next to the phrase ‘love/hate relationship’ in the urban dictionary. Theo could drive her completely into the ground with anger—but if anyone batted an eye wrongly in her direction—he was on them in a heartbeat.

  “Me too.”

  “I miss his smug ass, sometimes. I bet you just miss his ass.”

  I pretended not to hear her, while cupping a handful of sand and then I stuffed it into her hair. Instead of reciprocating, she flashed out into the ocean, past the breakers and flipped me off.

  “I miss him so bad it hurts.”

  Chapter Five

  Theo

  Those who marry a Lucent female must include the hiding of her abilities into their sealing vows.

  By the time Collin stopped pulling down the books he could find on Eivan, the day was already gone. Thursday and Friday, I’d gone back, with his permission and studied everything I could cram in—which wasn’t much. The thing was, Collin wouldn’t actually let me touch the books. Even he handled them with rubber gloves on and it took him a full seventeen seconds to turn each page. Once, toward the end of the night, I leaned in too close and he clothes-lined me, nearly taking out my larynx.

  Apparently breathing on the books was a no, no.

  Friday night, I flashed to Belize. My parents had booked us a hotel room instead of our regular cabins. I didn’t exactly know if my presence would be welcomed by Colby.

  I landed unceremoniously on the bed, toeing off my shoes before the shrill of my mother’s yell startled me.

  “Theodore Romero Ramsey, you come in and don’t even let us know!”

  I looked in the direction she was coming from, the bathroom. It was just like my mom to give me no personal space. Even at twenty years old, she thought an adjoining bathroom was a good idea.

  “Mom, I’m exhausted. I would’ve called in a few minutes.”

  Her stern face didn’t faze me.

  “I know. Come on, let me see you.”

  That was mom speak for let me squeeze the life out of you while simultaneously not-so-coolly checking if I’ve lost weight or suddenly stopped bathing.

  “Son, don’t give your mother a hard time.” My father’s voice beckoned me to motion.

  “I’m not. I’m just tired.”

  I made my way over to them, endured the sniffing and measuring of my mom and the back-clapping embrace of my father. I didn’t know if I passed the test with my mom, but I was sure my arms had gone around a lot more of her this time. My parents had me late in life and after my mom had turned fifty, she began having trouble flashing long distances—and now she could only flash once every few years and short distances. Out of boredom and frustration she’d taken up cooking, and it showed. Even my dad, who’d once been a stickler for exercise and health, now sported a peach cobbler belly.

  “Hazel, let’s leave him to rest. Son, we’re going shopping. We have our phones. We will see you tonight at dinner, right?”

  “Yes, Dad. Does she know?”

  “No,” Mom answered. “Sable knows, but not Colby.”

 
I nodded in reply and yawned.

  They left me to my thoughts—which always strayed back to her. I walked over to the sliding glass door and looked out onto the beach, searching her out with my eyes. Instead of searching for journals and texts which only held obtuse bits of information, I should’ve been honing my seeking skills. There had been seekers before. It was a common secondary gift for females. Some stories said they could pinpoint a person down to the specific room in the place where they were. So far, I only knew the general area people were in, and in which country.

  Right now, scouring the sea of bodies on the beach for hers, would be a perfect time to have sharpened that skill.

  I chuckled to myself at the girls on the beach. Hundreds of them lounged on the sand hoping to perfect their tans. If I knew Colby, and I did, she’d be under an umbrella praying for the Almighty to give her the power to block out UV rays. Her mom and her grandmother were the same way. Her grandmother, though seventy years old, could pass for someone in their forties. Her skin was nearly wrinkle free and without a blemish. Sable and Colby wished for the same thing and so followed they’d elderly woman’s strict advice: avoid the sun, it was made to heat the Earth, not bake your skin.

  After almost giving up, I saw the biggest umbrella on the beach featuring some bottled beer with a Spanish name. I press my fingertips to the glass, trying to touch her. Though I could only see her legs, I knew them by heart. She was ingrained in me—intermingled with the cells in my skin. I would know her in a sea of people. I could recognize her form in an ocean of clones.

  Just because she denied it, didn’t mean she wasn’t mine.

  She scissored her legs using one leg to scrape sand off of the opposite foot. She liked the warmth of the sand as it cradled her body while she lay in it. There was something, she always cooed, about how the sand was so close to the ocean, yet so far away, that called to her. She loved the beach. No matter what country, ocean or time zone, she had an equal opportunity beach obsession.

  I’d once imagined our sealing to be held on a beach of her choice.

  With her in a simple white dress, her hair caught in the torrent of the ocean’s gust.

  Colby shot up to a seated position and looked directly at the hotel. There was no way she could ever see me all the way in the Penthouse, but I ducked behind the cover of the wall anyhow. I knocked my head against the hotel wall, completely dumbstruck again by her beauty. Soon, she relented and relaxed once more under her protective shade.

  The first time I ever saw Colby was in Kindergarten. She was wearing rain boots on the sunniest first day of school with lime green leggings and a hot pink dress with black polka dots. My first thought was to ask her why she was dressed like a slice of watermelon. The teacher made us all introduce ourselves by standing at our desk. We had to state our name and then our favorite thing to do. I said my name was Theo and that I loved to play checkers. She stood, said her name was Colby, pointed her glare in my direction, and then declared ‘My favorite thing to do is not play checkers.’

  She earned my heart with her checker-hating, watermelon-outfit-wearing spunk. Even at that tender age, all I wanted to do was jump up and kiss her pink lips.

  Those days seemed like ages ago.

  And there I was, no longer in love with checkers, but still in love with her.

  I dressed for dinner in dark washed jeans and a button down white shirt. It was a beach, after all, so I passed on the Chucks and went for the flip-flops. I stepped in front of the mirror and took a deep breath. This appearance tonight was going to give it all away—the secret of my newest gift. Best bet: she would think I was amazing and throw her arms around me, accepting me and my ever growing bag of tricks. Worst case scenario, and the one I most expected; all of this would make things worse and our only communication, my unanswered e-mails, would be trashed instead of read.

  These were the stupid things I did—taking wild chances to get her back.

  Arriving a little late had been my plan all along. I wanted to see her face. Her expression told me everything. I knew every crease, every dimple, every twitch of her eye and the definitions that went along with them.

  So when I walked in and saw surprise, followed by concern mark her face—it made me more worried than ever.

  I placed the customary kisses on the temples of my mother, Ari and Sable. Such was our custom. I never even knew why until Colby explained it to me when we were little. She told me the story with bright eyes and a bold smile—she loved the story of Xoana—a woman, who, I imagined, had much of the same spirit as Colby. When Xoana had cursed her father to the heavens and was struck by the bolt of lightning, she was struck on her temple. So her father would kiss her temple daily as a symbol of his acceptance and awe of his greatly gifted daughter.

  And so we greet our females with a kiss to the temple—honoring their gift.

  “Theo,” Colby whispered before I kissed her, confused with a pained expression.

  “I will explain later.”

  She nodded. I felt the motion against my hovering lips. Her smell was incredible—the perfect mix of woman and ocean. She always smelled of the ocean, no matter where she was. She could be hidden in Siberia and her hair would carry the memory of ocean to me through her scent.

  I took my seat next to my mother. Colby and I did an excellent job of pretending everything was okay. The conversation centered on banal things, as nothing about what we were could ever be discussed in public.

  “So, where have you been…doing business, Colby?” My father could make travelling sound like an exciting business trip.

  I stabbed my chicken, pretending not to be hovering on the edge as I waited for her reply. I knew every place she’d been. But when the answer didn’t come immediately, I glanced up to find her gaze stuck on me. My face heated under her stare. To have her look at me again was priceless. I would travel in any condition, to any place, just to see her look at me.

  “Colby,” Sable saved her daughter.

  “Oh,” she said, breaking free from whatever she was thinking about. “I’ve been to Japan, lately.”

  “And Finland,” I added.

  She cocked her head at me with a squint, “Yes, and Finland. I love Olavinlinna in the Fall. I sit on the top and pretend to be a Viking Princess.”

  That caused the table of people to chuckle as a whole. Colby had been reprimanded more times than I could count for travelling to Scandinavia with her craving for all things Viking. During her pre-teen years, she was obsessed with them. She read out of her league Viking romances and studied their history with more gusto than she did our own history. We’d go in her backyard and pretend to be Frey and Freya—or whatever couple she wanted to be at the time.

  Our parents had always been privy to Colby and me and the love we shared. They’d encouraged our friendship when we were children with sleepovers and play dates. Then later they’d done their damnedest to stop our sleepovers and knew that our dates were nothing even close to play.

  She blushed at the attention and turned it on me.

  “So, Theo, how is New Zealand?”

  “It’s beautiful. It’s been interesting. I’ve learned a lot.”

  She looked shocked. “But you’re not in school.”

  I met her gaze with my own. “You don’t have to be in school to learn things, Colby.”

  She shrugged. It was a habit of hers. Whenever she was perplexed about something or I’d bested her in an argument, she would shift into an attitude of ambiguity.

  But I knew better.

  “I need to go swimming,” Ari proclaimed.

  “And we should get to bed early,” my parents followed.

  They left the table one by one. I paid the bill after my father gestured in my direction before his departure.

  Colby opened her mouth, leaned over the table to secret something to me, “Not here,” I stopped her in her tracks.

  “Okay.”

  She made me wait that night. I didn’t grow impatient. I knew she’d c
ome in her own time.

  Chapter Six

  Colby

  Lucent histories must be preserved by the Synod.

  How could it be? I’d felt him, in New Zealand. He was there, but it was fuzzy, like static on an old television set. It had felt that way since early afternoon. I didn’t question it. In fact, I reveled in it. Maybe it meant my power was waning. I welcomed less power.

  I was about to find out what the hell was going on.

  I flashed straight into his room after asking the people at the front desk which room he was in. His parents always seemed to get the same adjoining rooms or cabins, no matter how old Theo was, but I asked anyway. He stood on the balcony, in jeans—his shirt flapping in the ocean wind. I could no longer differentiate between habit and desire with him—my feelings were blurry. I swayed in his direction involuntarily, but stopped myself. We were no longer together—I’d made sure that I’d stayed away from him so the Resin, the Synod and the government were all away from him.

  Because they were constantly on my trail.

  “Took you long enough,” he remarked, still facing the beach.

  I blew out an emotionally loaded breath, “I needed time to think.”

  “And to what conclusion did you come?”

  Leave it to Theo to sound cavalier at a time like this.

  He turned around and my breath caught in my throat. His dark brown hair was gelled in a completely clean cut style out of another time. Even as a child, he emitted an air of vintage class. He wore suspenders at the age of ten. In high school, he wore button down shirts and slacks in exact opposition to the other boys with their sports jerseys and ragged jeans. He was James Dean meets David Gandy but with glassy blue eyes. He was my every desire and it pained me not to run to him and bury myself in the security of his embrace and let him tell me it was all going to be okay. It was not going to be okay. So many suspicions and insinuations were flitting through my mind. And none of them ended well.

  “I don’t even know, Theo.” My voice cracked as I said his name. It showed my weakness for him.