Blackout

8. A New Message

"You're kidding."

"Seriously," said Mae.

Eastwood High's  cheerleading squad was pretty intense, and Mae, with her petite stature,  was always the flyer. Sophie and I went to a showcase last summer, and  the performance was pretty incredible. Every time Mae flew into the air,  I felt terrified on her behalf. How Mae had the nerve to do that three  times a week was beyond me.

"Is the squad preparing anything special for homecoming?" I asked.

"Yep," said Mae. "We  have a new routine for the pep rally. That reminds me," Mae's eyes lit  up. "I've been working on some posters for you."

"Oh," I said quietly.  "Look, I don't know about the whole homecoming queen thing. What if I  don't get a place on the court this year and feel disappointed all over  again?"

"Freshman year doesn't matter." Mae insisted.

"Well," I pointed out,  "Sophie managed to get a spot on the court last year and I didn't. Maybe  she was right about me giving up."

"Who cares about what  Sophie?" Mae asked. "We're talking about the girl who drove us to the  bonfire only to leave us behind the second we got there."

"Sophie's still our friend though." I reminded Mae. "She's the reason either of us is even popular."

"You act like Sophie Kim made us." Mae scoffed. "Didn't you get on Eastwood High News by yourself? That's something."

"I guess so." I  conceded. I paced around the room in thought, and glanced down at a  small trinket on Mae's desk. It looked like a small chess piece. Without  thinking, I picked it up, inspecting its carvings carefully.

"Put that down!" Mae commanded quickly.

I flinched at the unexpected harshness in Mae's tone and dropped the piece instantly.

"Sorry, that was Charlie's." Mae apologized. She walked over to where I was standing and  picked up the chess piece. She turned it in her hands a couple of times  before setting it back down gingerly.

"No, I definitely  shouldn't have messed with that. I had no idea it belonged to him." I  responded. Mae's brother was a very sensitive subject. "Let's just talk  about something else."

"That something else being..." Mae asked, crossing her arms.

"Homecoming?" I suggested. Mae brightened instantly, letting me know that I had given her the correct answer.

"Okay, now that I have you here I can finally show you-" Mae's voice faltered, and her gaze froze at the bedroom window.

"What?" I asked. "Mae,  are you okay?" I waved my hand in front of Mae's face, but she barely  blinked. Slowly, I turned my head to the window.

He was back.

The messenger was  standing in the middle of the street, his gaze turned upwards. It  looked like he was making direct eye contact with Mae. I held my  breath, watching his movements with an overwhelming fear.

"Whatever happens, I  need you to promise me not to freak out," Mae whispered to me. Her eyes  remained calm, focused on the figure in the street.

"What does that mean?" I asked, my breathing shallow. I was already freaking out, and Mae remained unphased.

Pushing me aside, Mae  walked up to the bedroom window and unlocked it. Without even looking at  me, Mae pushed her window up and popped the screen out. The summer  breeze freely flew into the room, eliminating the glass barrier between  us and the mysterious stranger.

Mae's eyes were narrowed  in concentration, and she extended her arm outwards, her two fingers  pointed like a gun. The tips of her fingers darkened, shifting into a  stark black. In lieu of Mae's hand, a gun clicked into place.

"Are you freaking out yet?" Mae asked.

I shook my head unconvincingly.

"You have your I'm-freaking-out face on," Mae commented.

"I don't. I'm not freaking out." I lied blatantly.

Mae gave me a look that  said she didn't believe me before turning back to the window. With her  firearm coldly pointed to the asphalt below us, Mae locked eyes with the  messenger defiantly.

"I'm never seeing you again," Mae whispered, although I wasn't sure I was meant to hear that.

Bang.

I flinched at the noise,  and the messenger vanished completely. It was like he had made himself  invisible. In place of where he had been standing, I could see a white  envelope with a familiar black seal.

"What did you..." I  fumbled with my words as Mae withdrew her arm from the window. As her  hand reverted back to normal, she massaged it carefully, refusing to  meet my eyes. "How did the..." I couldn't even complete my sentence.

First Brianna could  summon lightning, and now Mae can shapeshift into weapons. Did everyone  have superpowers now? I tried to come up with something to say, but my  mind was racing faster than my pulse.

"I guess that's done then," Mae announced, breaking the silence. "Do you want to watch Spellbound now or something?"

"Are we going to forget about the fact that the messenger's back?" I asked.

"He hasn't done anything." Mae tried to assure me.

"Are we going to talk about you, then?" I asked.

"What's there to talk about?" Mae asked.

"How long have you known you can do that?" I asked.

"I don't remember," Mae admitted. "It was probably two or three years ago."

"What?" I shrieked incredulously. "That's way longer than four months!"

"What do four months have to do with anything?" Mae asked obliviously.

"We're best friends,  right?" I asked. Mae nodded. "So, when you manifest superpowers, you  tell your best friend about it, don't you?"

"It's more complicated than that," Mae argued.

I had barely gotten time  to catch my breath from Brianna, and now there was another person with  powers in my life. It felt like the entire universe was laughing at me.

"It's just that you're  the second..." The words trailed off. I was tempted to bring up Brianna,  but out of spite, I couldn't bring myself to talk about it.

"Second what?" Mae asked.

"Mae," I said, jumping to another subject, "look back out the window."

Mae frowned, but peered  back over her shoulder to see what I was talking about. Her eyes landed  on the abandoned letter on the road.

"I'm guessing you want me to fetch that for you." Mae deduced.

"Don't you want to know what it says?" I asked.

Mae didn't say anything,  but I could see the answer in her face. "I'll be right back," she  promised me. I nodded, not trusting myself to move too much. I couldn't  take my eyes off the letter outside, my mind racing with theories about  its contents.

I could hear Mae walk  down the stairs and lie to her mother about the neighbor's fireworks accidentally going off,  and watched her walk fearlessly onto the road in front of her house. Mae  stopped in the middle of her yard to read the message, her expression  revealing nothing.

"What does it say?" I asked the second Mae walked back into her room.

"You might want to read  this yourself," said Mae, handing me the letter. I noticed that her hand  was trembling a bit. It was the most nervous I'd seen her all day.

I took a deep breath before reading the letter.

Claire Carter, the Borderline sends its regards.