Star Gods, стр. 41
Why can’t our abilities include telepathy? “Thanks, Sage.”
Tyce raps his knuckles onto the table. “Zeke, you better start talking, right now.”
I grit my teeth and glare at my twin. “When Levi knocked me to the ground…” I shake my head and drag my fingers through my hair. If I wasn’t so damn tired I’d push to my feet.
“You have to tell them,” Sage says, hovering over me. “All of it, including what you haven’t told me.”
“Dammit, Sage, I don’t even know if it’s real or not.”
“All the more reason to share it with us so we can pick it apart,” Claire suggests. “Zeke, I’ve known you for most of my life. Why are you keeping secrets now?”
I blow out a breath. They’re going to be pissed. “Give Claire and me a few minutes, okay?” I touch her hand and travel us to my room.
“Zeke, what’re you doing?” Claire places her hands onto her hips.
“Look in the top, middle drawer, of my desk.”
“Okay.” She slowly opens it and pulls out the paper on top. One hand instantly covers her mouth as she turns toward me with a terrified expression. “What is this?”
“That’s what Levi showed me when he knocked me down.”
Tears trail down her cheeks. “This is going to happen?”
I grab my box of Kleenex and go to her. “Not if I can help it, Claire. Do you now understand why I didn’t want to share this with everyone yet? I was hoping it’s a false message but I don’t think I can take that chance.”
She drops onto my desk chair, her bottom lip quivering. “We’re all dead.”
I kneel in front of her, carefully turning my drawing upside down on her lap. “I don’t mean to keep things from anyone, Claire. I don’t understand why and how all of this is happening to me, or even what to do with it all. But this,” I tap my drawing. “This is a future event, and it can be changed. I’m going to make sure this outcome doesn’t happen.”
She grabs my hand. “Not alone, Zeke.”
“I promise I won’t do anything stupid.”
She painfully squeezes my hand. “You will not, under any circumstances, think of, plan out, carry out, or do anything without your brothers or sister with you or I swear to you, powerless or not, I will kick your ass.”
“Okay.” I wipe tears from her face while silently hoping she doesn’t realize I didn’t actually promise back. “We need to get your dad here, Claire.”
She looks gratefully to me. “We may have to hogtie him.”
I snicker. “We can do that. It’s going to be hard enough to convince him to close the store for a little while.” I get to my feet, pick up my drawing with one hand, and offer her my other. “You ready?”
She sighs heavily, taking my hand and allowing me to pull her to her feet. “No, I’m not. They’re probably seething out there though.”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“Are you agreeing with me, or can you feel them?”
“I can feel them. Whatever abilities I have, they’re getting stronger.” I travel us into the kitchen. With one look at us, Tyce shoves up from the table and grabs Claire. She buries her face into his chest and sobs. With everyone else staring at me, I place my drawing onto the middle of the table, flip it over, and back up.
No one seems to know what to say, and the lingering silence is deafening. I look away from my drawing to lean forward in my chair and scrub at my tired face. I don’t know where I am in this future event, but I silently hope, if I can’t stop it from happening, that I’m among the dead.
Ashe sighs heavily, flips my drawing over, and stares at the empty back as if he can see right through it. “Although I understand why, you should never have kept this from us, Zeke.”
I look to the floor. “I know.”
“Maybe you thought by not telling us that you were protecting us,” he continues. “We can’t prevent this from happening if we don’t know about it.”
“I know.”
“Now the question is what’re we going to do about it?”
“There’s only one thing I can think of,” I answer, leaning back in my chair.
Ashe sits his hip on the edge of the table. “Does that include Levia?”
I slap my hands onto my thighs while Claire rushes in from the living room where she was trying to reach her dad. “I can’t change what I’ve become, and I can’t ignore it anymore either. That event isn’t going to happen. I’m not going to allow it. You can either stand by me while I tap into Levia and gain more information, or I’ll do it alone. Either way, I’m stopping it.” Claire looks pleadingly at me. “What’s wrong, Claire.”
She nervously shifts her cellphone from hand to hand. “Papa isn’t answering and I’m getting really nervous.”
“It’s three in the morning, Babe, he’s probably sleeping.” Tyce runs his hands up and down her arms.
“He always answers when I’m not at home, Tyce, you know that,” Claire pleads.
“I’m sure he’s fine. We’ll travel to your place, freak him out a little, and bring him back here. Okay?”
“Can we go now, please?”
“Absolutely,” Ashe answers with his eyes still trained on me. “Cesar takes precedence. We’ll finish this discussion after we bring Cesar back.”
Not looking forward to more of a discussion but glad for the distraction, I spread my barrier around everyone and travel us to the Appleton’s apartment. As we appear, I manage to duck just in time from a lamp connecting with my head.
“Get out of here!” Cesar yells looking past us toward the back of the apartment, his hair sticking up in all directions. He picks up a ceramic coaster from the coffee table and flings it.
“Cesar, get down!” Ashe yells.
An unknown ability flies past me and Sage extracts it, holding it in place before it hits Cesar. I turn, bringing a barrier into my hand. Two Assassins stand, one in