concealing ➸ tomlinson

xii

| “all secrets lead back to the big secret. to give one thing away means to give everything away.” -andrea cremer |

kris discovered something the night of the door unhinging.

roughly an hour before she told herself she would be getting the deed done, she was messing around with her powers in her room. pick up an object without physical interaction. don't destroy it. put it down in one piece. repeat. kris had pinned down her random soreness to her using of the powers. this was more use than she'd ever given herself before. it made sense.

but even just by small little dosages of practicing, she felt more in control. she didn't have to fear so much about having her power unleashed on people. still not safe enough to venture back home yet, but she was working on that.

maybe four minutes after kris had began her process, the door opened suddenly. she jumped and spun around.

zayn was standing in the doorway. he frowned. "kris?"

it was weird. he was staring towards her, but not at her, if that made any sense at all.

kris frowned as well. "i'm right here."

zayn jumped. after a second of hesitation, he frowned again. "is there any chance niall is right next to you?"

"i highly doubt it."

"alright then." zayn blinked, closing the door behind him. "this is going to sound insane, but... i think you turned yourself invisible." he paused. "and if you're giving me a look right now, i can't see it."

kris stared at him regardless. he had to be kidding; her body was still intact, and 100% visible to her. but this wasn't zayn's sense of humor; he wouldn't joke around like this.

"how the hell did i turn invisible?"

zayn shrugged hopelessly. "i don't know! i thought niall was just playing a joke."

"well he's not, and i have never been able to do this before."

just as kris began to panic, zayn finally made real eye contact with her. "oh. thank god. i can see you again."

kris looked down at herself again, then back up at zayn. "how did i do that?"

he shrugged again. "this is definitely something i'm going to look in on, that's for certain. zayn leaned back against the door and exhaled. "um, well, with niall, he just wills himself in and out of visibility. but before he knew how to do that, he would always turn invisible when he was scared or worked up or whenever his emotions took a turn for the drastic. still happens sometimes." he smiled softly at her. "whenever any of us get worked up, sometimes we get out of hand.

"so.... you were freaked out- by me coming in, i'm guessing- and you turned yourself invisible. but what doesn't make sense is how you did it. no one i know has more than one power."

an unsettling feeling made kris's stomach turn over. things were beginning to snowball into weird and bad. why? having one power was difficult enough, but multiple? what else could she do that she wasn't aware of yet?

"let's not worry about it, ok? not right now." zayn smiled at her reassuringly. "we'll talk to someone and get it straightened out. we can work on pissing off jacob at the moment."

kris managed a laugh, trying and failing to push back her anxious worry.

later that night, she and zayn watched jacob pull his door right out of the frame. worth it; so, so worth it. and kris already began to plan the next figurative punch to his gut.

--

short but sweet

i think.

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