s*t*a*r*s (Kindred Series-2)

s*t*a*r*s 3 - pt 42

After a whole day of killing myself with my wife's computer issues - I'm gonna post a chapter -- and I love how pissed I think I got the lot of you :)

 

s*t*a*r*s/J*A*D*E*S

           

            Abby and her mother, Darci walk into another store, hefting their bags as they walk.  “I really don’t ever remember us shopping like this before.”

            “We don’t have stores like this in Maine, baby,” says Darci.  “You know when I was growing up I never had money to do this.  Then, when I became a doctor, I had the money but never the places to go.  Your dad hated going off to Boston for a few days.”

            “I didn’t like to go because you insisted that we fly,” says Abby.  She pauses by a rack of shirts and lets her fingers touch the fabric.  “I like this one.”

            “Buy it,” says Darci off handedly. 

            “I can’t just get whatever I want,” says Abby. 

            “Why not?” asks Darci her hands going to her hips.  “Listen, I didn’t have much growing up, but I did have some.  I want you to have what I didn’t have.”

            “Ah, for the child to be more pampered than the parent.  That’s worked out really well so far, hasn’t it?” mutters Abby.

            “Ah, the drugs,” whispers Darci.  “Amy was pampered when she was a kid, she was a drug addict.  Didn’t know that, did you?”

            Abby shakes her head.  “No.”

            Darci takes in a long breath.  “We should get something to eat, and talk, and you can ask questions?  I don’t know, Abby, I know that what I had with those four girls I’ll never have again.  I know that if I needed them, right now, they’d be here for me.  You will want to build that with the rest of the girls, you’ll want that and once you have that, you’ll never want for anything again.”

            “Except this shirt,” smiles Abby.

            Darci laughs.  “Except that shirt.”

            Abby sets it back down. “I think I’ll let you get me that for my birthday or something,” smiles Abby.

            “Okay,” laughs Darci, swinging an easy arm around over Abby’s shoulder.  She thinks that there is so much she wants to tell Abby.  But, then she thinks that Abby needs to learn things on her own, much like she did. 

            They find a small café in the mall, and sit in a small booth away from the crowd.  “So, ask anything you want to know.”

            Abigail blinks.  She sips the soda at her right hand, then takes a chip, letting all the questions river around in her mind.  “How did you guys meet?”

            Darci smiles.  “We all lived on the same road, Jo’s dad sold my mom the house she lived in.”

            “Jo always had money, right?”

            “Yeah, her father did well, and Jon, well, Jon is rich.  He still publishes a few books a year.  He’s in a wheelchair now, has MS,” says Darci, “and no, I can’t cure him.  I do help the symptoms out whenever I can.”

            “What can each of you do?” ask Abby, now taking a bite of the club sandwich.

            “I can heal people, manipulate things in the body, a lot like you can do but you can do it with objects.  You’re dad has a latent power, and it’s a lot like what you do.  But he can’t actively use it,” says Darci. 

            “Emma does the same thing as Rylee,” says Abby softly.

            “No.  Emma can’t see paths, she sees one future, Rylee can see forks in the road.  Mario can watch a football game and see how a play can be different in twenty different ways.  That’s how he got to be such a great running back.  He could instantly know where to go, what to do.  But his power is latent too, he doesn’t control it.”

            “So Rylee does what both her parents to, and so do I?”

            “I think so,” says Darci.  “Tegan can stop time, which is what her grandmother did.  Dylan has a natural protective force field around him all the time.  Not sure if Tegan has tapped into that yet, has she?”

            Abby shakes her head.  “Nope.”

            “Jo can read minds, that’s her primary talent but when she was your age, she was changed.  Someone, her mother, Susan, infused her with vampire DNA and she changed.  She was stronger when she fed and was, well, miss super hero.  She can also borrow our powers and yours to apparently.”

            “So Spencer just feeds on energy and not on blood, check.”

            “Sydney does just what Shelby does, pops around the world whenever she wants, but Shelby never could pop us to Greece,” says Darci.  “We’ve never been sure what sort of latent power Mike has.  I think him being damn handsome works for him.”

            Abby laughs.  “Does it freak you out sometimes that you were all destine to be friends, that no matter what, you’d have met?” asks Abby seriously. 

            Darci purses her lips.  “It did until I realized that I had a choice.  I could easily have dumped them as friends whenever I wanted.  But I didn’t want too.  I wanted to be with them, wanted to protect them, wanted to face whatever it was together.”  She pauses.  “I guess that’s why I’m still upset with Jo, because she took that choice away from me.”

            “Mom, you know if you’d picked her you’d have had me, but we wouldn’t be here today, right?” asks Abby. 

            Darci’s brow creases.  “Meaning?”

            “If you read Garrett’s book, and you read it really well, Jo never left.  She stays, she raises Spe