The Real Ram

Chapter 50

 "Zoe, do you have any advice?" Shawn begs.

"Why are you asking me?"

"Because you seem to get your new ability better then any of us," he explains.

I wish I could tell him it wasn't me that upgraded my ability, but I can't. I just say, "I'm still working on it. There's no point in asking me anyways. Invisibility is not my speciality."

"You do tend to understand abilities better in general than the rest of us," Beast points out.

"Why do you think that?"

"You figured out a stance for me, and helped me figure out how to sense better," Trish argues.

"Those are concrete things though, within a standard of an ability. I can't just create—"

"Yeah," Trish says cutting me off, "concrete to my ability."

I look away and say, "Still, it doesn't mean I get your ability."

"Well if your task called for spreading your ability to objects, what would you do?" Shawn asks, clearly tired of this argument.

I shrug, "Spread the ability?" Trish scoffs at my sarcasm, but Shawn's eyes brighten.

"I get it," Shawn says with a smile.

"Shawn, I was being sarcas—"

"Flame!" Shawn shouts while he starts to run to him. "I get it! I know how!"

Flame frowns and asks, "You do?"

"Yeah, I can do this. I know how to turn other things invisible."

"Very well, go stand in the center and be prepared to play my version of dodgeball."

Trish, Beast and I walk over to the sidelines and Nix meets us.

"What did you say to him?" She asks.

"I don't even know," I reply softly.

Flame walks to the center with a small cloth bag that probably contains objects he's going to throw. He asks, "You ready?"

Shawn closes his eyes, inhales and exhales, then says calmly, "I'm ready."

Flame starts by throwing a pen. I watch in slow motion—literally— as the pen makes its way to Shawn. It reaches a foot away when Shawn opens his eyes and catches the pen.

"What?" Trish remarks. "Where'd it go?"

I turn my eyes back to normal as Shawn throws the pen back. Flame shoots his hand up suddenly making me jump. He looks and there's the pen, but he didn't seem to see it flying in the air. "Very good, I didn't expect you to learn this so quickly."

"It's easy. I just spread my ability," Shawn says smiling. He glances at me and Beast nudges me a bit.

"He actually figured it out based on what you said, Zoe." Trish laughs, "You're brilliant!"

"No. He is," I say, watching Shawn catch things and throw them back to Flame. He's pulling tricks and fakes that probably look cool if you couldn't see the objects. I guess there's one downside to having my sight. I can't see anything that Beast and Trish are freaking out about.

Finally Flame stops throwing things and says, "Alright, good job." He turns to us and I get a look at his injury that I caused for the first time. It's a dark reddish bruise that trails his forearm. I know it's not that bad, but the fact I caused it makes me ashamed of myself. "Let's get going and see if you all learn your new abilities," Flame announces. He catches me staring but decides not to say anything. Flame leaves me alone as he follows Trish to check up on her.