Overload

Chapter Nineteen - Face Your Fears

After a couple weeks, June began to warm up to the routine of preparing her body for her specialist classes. Apparently it wasn’t enough to be good at releasing bolts of lightning; her body physically needed to be fit to harness such power.

Just when June thought she’d left physical education for good, she found herself back in a gym, running on treadmills, lifting weights and training with the bot in turn with everybody else.

June hadn’t even noticed the change in her own attitude towards the prospect of using her talents until one night, right before going to sleep, when she’d used them without a second thought.

She’d woken up in the middle of the night for a quick bathroom trip, only to find the room emerged in darkness. Desperately needing a light, June had pointed to her bedside lamp, shooting a bolt of electricity towards its base. The lamp turned on in a flash and June had frozen in surprise.

It was a trick that Gretchen had taught her, when June’s phone had died right before their specialist class had begun. Giving electrical power to appliances was a perk but June had been determined to refrain from using her talents for tedious tasks until that night.

June shook her head, chewing on her lower lip as she waited her turn with the bot in class a couple days later. It surprised her more than anything that she regularly used her powers. Sometimes it was to give Eric or Josh a little shock for teasing her too much. Other times, June used them to power her phone or turn off the lights when she couldn’t be bothered reaching for them.

She tried to push away the thrill of using her talent every time but it was no use; she secretly enjoyed it.

“You’re up.”

June snapped out of her daze and stepped forward, palms raised and flat, facing the bot. Since she was last in line, the others had branched off into their own physical activities. She caught Charlie at the target practise area of the room and Gretchen taking a stroll on the treadmill.

“You’ve caught up quite nicely,” Grimwald commented as she waited for further instructions. “Almost up to speed with Charlie and Gretchen. Well done.”

She smiled in acknowledgement. That meant she was closer to home.

“Now, I know for a while we’ve been learning to keep your emotions under control,” he continued, scrawling something across his tablet. “And all those meditation exercises with the psychologist has helped keep them in check, right?”

June nodded. Ever since the specialist classes had been extended and permanently etched into last period, Grimwald had stepped up his game in teaching. Even though he didn’t fully understand what they went through, there was an inkling of knowledge to the exercises he made them perform.

“Well this time, I want you to let it all loose.”

June straightened, her lips dipping down. “You want me to throw away all my effort, just like that?”

There was a slight tickle across her palms but she reined in the irritation, taking deep breaths to steady herself.

“Don’t hold back, I mean,” he said quickly. “There’s a meter on the bot that measures the capacity of how much electricity you can produce at will. I’ve already tested on Charlie and Gretchen and they’re pretty close to –”

“You want me,” she cut in slowly, “to release all my emotions that I’ve been working my butt off to keep in check?” June stopped herself, counting up to ten and steadied her breathing. “No. I’ve worked too hard just to throw it all away.”

In other circumstances, June would never have disobeyed a teacher, even if they couldn’t teach for their life. June was a quiet student in school but something about Evergreen changed her – and more specifically, her student-teacher relationship with Grimwald was more like a friendly tutor to a peer rather than a superior. Maybe it was his lack of powers that didn’t give him as much respect.