A re you sure she's okay? She looks like she's in pain." It was Alley's voice I heard, only barely awake. I don't know when I fell asleep, only that I had.
"Yeah, Damien. Maybe you should wake her up," Anne agreed.
I could hear the smile in Damien's voice when he said, "Kat already is awake. Why you keeping you're eyes closed, huh?"
I couldn't help but smile slightly, slowly opening my eyes, and then grabbed my head. Like the day of the storm, my head was killing me. I remembered Damien saying something about me having a really bad headache when I woke up, and I did.
"How bad is it?" Damien asked me, looking at me with eyes full of worry.
I finally noticed we were no longer flying, but instead we were on the couch. The other Armstrongs were staring at me with about as much worry as in Damien's eyes. "Why're we back on the ground?" I asked Damien
"Well, you were started to squirm a bit, plus your face was getting a bit hot, so I brought you down for two reasons. One was so I wouldn't drop you while the other one was to get a wet rag on your face."
I nodded.
"So, are you happy to know the truth?" Max asked me, smiling. "Now you know what happened."
I put a fake smile on my face and nodded. "I feel better now," I lied, feeling like I was about to cry. I felt responsible for my mom's death, but I wasn't going to let anyone know that. I'd wait until I went to sleep that night and then bawl my eyes out. I looked at Damien, and it was clear he didn't believe me for one second. He seemed really good at reading my emotions. "What time is it?" I asked Damien.
Damien thought for a moment, looked at the clock, and then said, "It's eleven p.m. in two minutes," he replied. He smiled. "You still tired? I could just tell you everything so you don't fall asleep during school."
"I guess so. I'm really tired," I said, looking away from him. It was obvious he didn't believe me. I stood up and walked to the guest room I'd be staying in, realizing that it was the same room I'd stayed in when me and my mom came here. I entered it, looking around. It was the same way I'd left it three years ago. I shut the door behind me. I walked over to the bed, forcing the tears back. I slid under the covers, curling up on my side, and then grabbed one of my pillows and held it against my face so it muffled my cries. I didn't want anyone else to hear them. It was my fault my mom was dead. That thing that had happened to her heart that had been unfixable happened because of me.
"Kat," I heard a voice say, making me look at the door. Damien was standing there, staring at me with pure worry. Crap. He'd caught me crying.
"Damien," I said, my lower lip quivering. I looked away, and then the next moment Damien was suddenly at the side of the bed. "Leave, please."
I was suddenly pulled into Damien's arms, him somehow managing to slide under me. He held me to him, his arms making me feel safe and protected. "It's okay, Kat."
"No it's not," I disagreed. "It's my fault my mom died. If I hadn't run away, she'd still be alive."
"It's not your fault, Kat. I promise it's not," Damien murmured, his face buried in my hair. "You didn't kill your mom, no matter if you think you did."
I pulled back to look at him. "What makes you say that? The energy came from me, so it is my fault she's dead." I have no clue why I was arguing about it being my fault when I should want it not to be, but I was. I closed my eyes, feeling a fresh batch of tears filling my eyes. Apparently it wasn't a good idea to think of what happened.
"No, Kat," Damien disagreed yet again, pulling my head back down to his shoulder, slightly rocking me back and fourth. "I know you told your dad that you were sleeping by yourself, but I think he'd make an exception for this particular moment."
I couldn't say anything I was crying so hard, reliving the moment at the hospital when my mom died, hating every minute of it. I don't know when, but I fell asleep in Damien's arms for the second time in my life, knowing nothing could half made me feel more at peace than being near him. Except if I was close to my mom.
"So your dad is going to be where again?" Damien asked as he drove to my house after school. He was maneuvering through traffic with ease.
"He's going to the hospital in Ohio to see one of the old members of his team. He was diagnosed with cancer last week," I replied, watching as the trees flew by. I was still slightly queasy about everything that happened yesterday. It was a lot to take in on one day. Damien was going to my house to explain more about all of this.
"So he shouldn't be back for a while?" he asked me, turning so we got off the interstate. We'd gone to get cat food and other cat things in Clarksburg, which was why we were even on the interstate. When I nodded, Damien said, "That's good, because I'm not exactly sure if this will take a long or short time."
"So, where are the twins and Max?" I asked, remembering that the Armstrongs all arrived in one car. The very car we were driving in. I'm surprised I hadn't noticed earlier.
Damien smiled slightly. "They ran home," he said simply, shrugging.
I felt my mouth fall open. "They ran home?" I asked, completely dumbfounded. How could they run home. That's when I remembered Damien saying Super Humans have super speed, so I guess it could be possible.
Damien smiled even wider. "Talking to someone who has no idea about Super Humans is so fun." I looked away, eyes narrowed, making Damien laugh. "What? Come on, Kat. If you were me, you'd think it was funny," he said.
"Well, I'm not you, so I don't think it's funny," I snapped, glaring at him, which only led to him laughing more. I hate how people think it's so easy to pick on me, even if I knew Damien was just being silly. He'd seemed really happy when I'd woken up (still in his arms).
After about a minute, we arrived at my house. Damien pulled into the driveway, putting it in park before getting out. Then something strange happened. Well, he didn't open my door, nor did I. Yet, somehow, my door flew open. Eyes wide, I looked at Damien to see him smiling at me, his eyes violet. When I looked back, I noticed that the door had a purple aura around it. He was doing that strange power thing. Oh yeah. He'd said he was psychic.
"So, you want to talk in my bedroom or what?" I asked, walking toward the door.
"Wait, Kat," Damien said, grabbing my wrist. After I stopped, he slid his hand down into my hand and nodded toward the Buckhannon River that ran behind my house. "I have a better idea," he told me.
He led me over to the river, watching me as we walked. We passed the few trees between the river and where we were. When we got to the river, I looked up at the place like a second porch above us. Whenever someone walked to the porch, if that person went to the right so they could see around the house, they'd see some steps. If they went up them, they'd come to that second porch like area. It was by one of my two windows, right across from the one that allowed me to look out at the road. I enjoyed climbing out that window, sitting on the swing, and listening to the water.
"Watch this," he told me, his eyes turning purple. I followed his eyes, watching as one of the rocks from far off started shaking. A violet aura surrounded it, and it, as strange as it sounds, seemed to quiver. Then again, everything that was happening to me sounded strange lately.
"Watch what?" I asked him, raising an eyebrow.
Damien glanced at me, and then back at the rock. "You'll see in a moment." Even as he was speaking, the rock started shaking a lot harder. Damien's eyes narrowed, and then it very slowly began to rise. It dripped water as it crept toward us, dropping in the water about six feet from the edge. Damien let go of my hand and stepped behind me, wrapping his hand around my waist. My face felt so hot I wouldn't have been surprised if it was purple. My face didn't turn purple, but a purle aura did surround us. Damien and I started to raise, and then we were over the water.
"You like to fly like this?" I asked, looking back at him. I blushed when I realized how close his face was to mine. Yes, I know I blush easily, but I'm pretty shy when it comes to things like this.
"I'm not sure if you'd call it flying, but yeah, I love to fly like this." Damien smiled when he noticed me blushing. We got to the rock, which was a lot bigger now that I was right beside it. It was about the size of a two seat couch, only sideways. He let me down first, helping me sit before he did the same. "It's so much easier to make you blush now, you know?" Damien said, grasping my hand. He started to making swirling patterns with his thumb, looking at me while he did.
"Have I really changed that much?" I asked him. I thought about the memories he's shown me. Yeah, I'd changed. I'd acted a bit more like a teenager then than I do now. I thought it would be the other way around.
"Yeah. You've gotten a bit more..." He pursed his lips, thinking. "Well, you're a lot shyer about things like this. You feel comfortable with this stuff, but you get embarrassed by it as well. Before, you didn't really mind most things like, well, other teenagers," Damien said.
I considered on whether or not to take that as an insult, and decided it was okay. "So, about these Super Human people that you....." I paused, remembering something. "Wait," I said. "In my memories, you said-"
"Yes, Kat," he said before I even finished. "You, like us, are a Super Human."
I took in a deep breath, letting that sink in. I was just like Damien. I was a Super Human, whatever that was. Could I lift rocks, too? Or make earth hands like Max? And should I be more shocked about this than I was? Maybe it just was in my blood or something, and it simply felt right.
"Well, I already told you about the scientists, right?" he asked. When I nodded, he continued. "I told you that they succeeded, but it was completely by accident."
"What do you mean by accident? And what is my power. You're psychic, but what am I?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. Would I have some super cool power like Damien?
"You're an absorber," he told me, making me raise an eyebrow.
"And that would be?" I asked, gesturing with my hands for him to continue. I was an absorber. Okay. But what the heck was an absorber then? I watched Damien look at the sky, thinking.
"Well, I can only tell you what I read from books since I'm not an absorber, after all. The only absorber I even know beside you was your mom. So, the only information I have is from everything I've read."
I shrugged. "That's fine," I told him. "I just want to know what you and I am. I want to know what my mom was hiding from me, even if it's hard."
Damien looked at me for a moment, considering. "Are you sure. I can erase your memory right now-"
I raised my hand, and Damien stopped. "Don't even go there, Damien. Just you saying that sounds completely and totally wrong," I told him. "Anyway, I want to keep my memories. Like I just said, I truly want to know what I- I mean, what we are."
Damien took a moment to think about this, and then sighed. He put his hands behind him, letting his palms rest on the rock's surface. He let his head fall back so he was looking at the evening clouds slowly travel across the sky. "You know why this is so, well, difficult for me to do, and why I even asked about erasing your memory thing?"
I shook my head. I was totally clueless.
"The truth is, when I saw your mom die trying to protect you, I realized just how dangerous an absorber's life in the Super Human world would be, being the most rare power and all." He smiled when my eyes widened. "Everyone would want to use or kill you. That one person who was after you before almost did so, and we're ninety-nine point nine percent sure it was because of how dangerous an absorber can be. Nobody even knows the extent of their powers because they all seem to die so early."
"So my mom knew about all of this? Is that why she left dad?" I asked. "To keep him out of this world?"
Damien nodded. "Exactly." He smiled at me. "She really hated separating you from your dad. She told me so herself." The wind started to blow, making my hair get in my face. Damien, almost absent mindedly, reached up and brushed the hair out of the way. "After that, I promised I'd never let you come into this world because I didn't want what happened before happen to you again. I wouldn't be able to watch you go through that pain."
"That's why you treated me so awful," I realized. "You wanted me to stay as far away from you as I could."
"Yep," he clarified. "That was until the storm that caused you to have a headache." He met my eyes, grasping my hand. "That pain made me think about what could happen if you came into the Super Human world. I had to keep you away from that, but-" He shook his head. "But they found you, and I had to protect you. The only solution I could figure was to become your friend, but that was harder than I'd expected. I guess I should have known you wouldn't just let me be your friend after what I jerk I'd been."
"Wait a second, Damien. Who, exactly, found me?" I asked. I raised an eyebrow, trying to find out what exactly the girl who had been chasing me was. Complete blank. My mom didn't seem like the time of person to have enemies, so I couldn't think of anyone who would want to hurt her.
Damien pursed his lips. "Well, Kat, you must understand that Super Humans haven't been around that long. I'm part of the third generation, and, as stranger as it sounds, my mom is first generation while my dad's second. The rest of my family are like me in the third generation. My mom and dad have always tried to protect humans, but all Super Humans weren't like that.
"As you may have guessed, power can go to people's heads. That includes Super Humans. A lot of the Super Humans decided that, since we were so powerful, we didn't have to follow normal rules. Some didn't follow any type of rules at all. Their stupidity is what caused all of this to even begin."
I listened intently, just like I would if this was any other normal school lesson. It was history - my history. I needed to know this stuff, even if my mom hadn't wanted me to, and if Damien still wasn't sure on whether or not to tell me.
"When Super Humans existed for less than fifty-five years old, the Super Humans all gathered and made an agreement - we were out of control . We made a law that we were not to use our powers unless we needed to. A lot of people disagreed. My parents were some of the ones who never abused their powers, and they are now really respected for helping to make this law. The Super Humans decided if anyone broke that law, they'd be punished.
"A couple months before this law had even been made, though, the project already began. Some scientist kidnapped one of our kind. How did mere humans do this? They found our one and only weakness: blood. We're not sure why it makes our powers useless, but it does.
"These scientist experimented on him, studying the chemicals in our DNA, and then altered their own. These people knew about us, but nobody believe them. They declared that it was pure sci-fi. They decided they needed to stop us, even if that meant killing us. Some random people who had their own suspicions even joined them. We call these people Hunters.
"Hunters only have our increased speed and strength. They're powers, however, are received differently that ours. Super Humans are born with it, but Hunters steal it. I know you'll think this is gross, and it is, but they actually drink our blood to steal our powers."
"Is that how the vampire thing started?" I asked, interrupting him. I almost expected him to say that was ridiculous, but he just smiled.
"Exactly, Kat. You're pretty smart."
I'm not sure if that was so true. It should've been obvious to anyone hearing the story. You just had to think a little, and you'd think about that. The whole blood thing should've been a big give-away.
"Anyway, we believe that a Hunter was chasing you, trying to kill your mother. They consider absorbers the most dangerous. If they understood your type's power a little more, though, I'm sure they wouldn't be so eager to kill you.
"The thing you thought was a storm was a bit more than that. They have certain Hunters who can locate Super Humans by searching for energy. It's a bit backwards, but nobody else noticed. Thunder started first. The thunder told your brain to send out a signal, and then the lightning absorbed the signal and reported it to the Hunter who did it. That's how they found you. I knew they did because of the daze you got in. You have to have somebody to knock you out of it or you'll just tell the Hunter where you are. They only do that with powerful ones."
"Wait. You mean that one thing where some person asked me where I was?"
"Correct again, Kat." He smiled. "Now that you know about everything, it's about time I explained your powers," he said. "You see, everyone has an aura, even humans. The only difference is humans have thoughts in their aura while Super Humans have energy in theirs. That's how you can hear Gracie speak, and more than likely, you can hear people's thoughts. That's because you're absorbing it from their aura."
"Isn't that an invasion of privacy, though?" I asked. I felt bad now that I knew what I was doing. "Can all absorbers do that?"
Damien shook his head. "Only those who have psychic energy in them," he began. "The last energy you were ever around was mine before I blocked your energy."
"How'd you block it?" I asked. I was extremely curious, and this was somewhat like reading an interesting book. "My energy, I mean."
"Well, let's just get to how you're powers work, okay?" he said. When I nodded, he continued. "Well, you're able to absorb the energy in people's aura and use it as your own. Apparently you can also put it into people, but I'm not sure if that's only other absorbers or not. It's just like with Hunters" - my face instantly paled - "except you don't have to drink blood."
I sighed in relief. "That's good," I said. "I would've been sick to my stomach if I had to drink anybody's blood." I shivered, easily imagining that. I hated how well I could imagine things. Damien laughed, which led to me glaring at him. "It's not funny. It would be seriously gross."
"It wasn't that that was funny. It was just your reaction," he said. He raised his hand. "So, you want to try and absorb some of my energy?"
I thought for a moment, and then pointed out, "But you said I already had some of your energy inside of me."
Damien smiled, nodding. "My bad. You'd expect me to be the one to remember that stuff since you're the one in the dark, huh?" He thought for a moment. "Okay, then. I'll have to tell you how to release energy, huh?"
"That would be smart," I remarked. "And useful to me." I wondered if I could use more than one power at a time, and then voiced my curiosity.
Damien sighed. "First of all, one question at a time. Second, you can if the person whose aura you take it from has more than one power. Can I continue now?" he said.
I smiled sheepishly. "Sorry," I told him. "I can't help but be curious about things I should've known my whole life but didn't." I looked down, playing around with a loose string dangling from my sleeve. After a moment, I ripped it off. After that, I turned to look at Damien. "Then again, curiosity killed the cat."
He squeezed my hand. "Don't even joke about that." Surprisingly, he sounded angry. Apparently he could imagine that as well as I could imagine me drinking blood. "That will never happen." I figured he meant the dying part. "I promise you that." After looking at me for a few more minutes, he finally said, "How about we talk about the whole releasing energy thing?"
I smiled and nodded. "I'd like that subject just a bit better," I told him. I looked back down at my, no, our hands, intertwined. It felt so right to hold his hand. I was happy to know why he'd truly been mad at me. I knew he'd just been able to protect me. I watched as he slowly started to rub my pointer finger by my knuckle where a lone freckle was.
"Well, you have to have a good imagination for this. Imagine your veins passage ways, carrying your energy through you. Make the color violet like my eyes get whenever I use my power." I did as I was told, closing my eyes and imagining what I was told. "Now imagine your energy leaving your hands like heat, leaving plain white energy," he instructed.
It was fun imagining this. I imagined myself, like leaving my body and looking down. Then I blocked out the image of Damien beside me, leaving my body with my hand wrapped around nothing but air. After that, I imagined violet streams of energy going through me, filled with the energy Damien spoke of. I pictured the energy slowly heading toward my hands, and I swear I actually felt something pushing against my palms as I did so. I imagined them slowly escaping from my hands, the energy slowly becoming white.
I gasped as I actually felt the energy flowing out of my palms, but I automatically slumped my shoulders at the sudden lose of energy. It just felt wrong to get rid of my own energy.
"Keep on going, Kat. You're doing great." A pause. He added, "You'll regain the energy you're losing now in a few moments. Just rest for a moment after this and you'll get it back."
I nodded, and then focused again, waiting until all of the energy in me was white before I opened my eyes again. "Done," I told him. "All of my energy is white."
Damien nodded. "Good. Now to tell you how to absorb energy." Damien pursed his lips. "Sorry. I'm trying to remember what they had in the book." After a moment, he said, "Okay, you have to do more imagining. This time you imagine it coming from me into you. That's how you absorb it."
"Okay." I closed my eyes, once again imagining what I was told. Only this time I didn't block out Damien. I added purple energy flowing through Damien while white energy flowed through me. I saw, in my mind's eye, the purple energy leave through Damien's palm and into mine, but his energy didn't turn white. Apparently I automatically kept it that way since all of his energy was psychic. It did, however, become thinner and thinner lines as more came out, filling me, empowering me. It wasn't until I heard Damien gasp that I opened my eyes.
Damien's eyes were closed, his face pale. "Very good," he said with an effort. He slowly opened my eyes, smiling reassuringly when he saw my worried look.
"What's up?" I asked, not fooled by his smile. His face was beaded with sweat, like he'd just run a couple miles at full speed. "Are you okay?" Then it hit me. When I released energy, I got weaker. If I took energy..... "Oh my gosh. I'm so sorry! How much of your energy did I take?"
Damien laughed, shaking his head. "Your fine, Kat. You don't have to take that much energy from me, though. You just need to take a little, and then it will automatically get stronger when it goes into you since your aura isn't worn out. You only need to take large amounts when you're tired."
I smiled sheepishly. "Sorry," I murmured. "I'll remember that next time."
Damien rolled his eyes. "Seriously, Kat. It's okay," he said. "Okay, well, on to the next lesson. Release my energy again."
I did as he instructed, leaning against him when I suddenly lost all of my energy again. That was one disadvantage I'd never like or get used to.
He nodded. He slipped his hand out of mine and moved over so his leg was no longer against mine. "Now try and absorb my energy," Damien instructed.
Confused, I tried to absorb his energy again. Key word: tried. Nothing happened though. I visualized it, but there was nothing. I narrowed my closed eyes, irritated and confused. I was supposed to be able to absorb his energy, and it was annoying that I couldn't. What was going on. I pursed my lips, concentrating hard. Nothing. I opened my eyes, highly annoyed, and said, "Can't. Your energy won't listen."
Damien smirked. "I know. That's because you're not touching me." His smirk turned into a smile. "You have to be touching me to absorb my energy. That's one of the other disadvantages of being an absorber."
I glared. "And you were compelled to make me feel like a fool because?" I crossed my arms when he laughed. "It's not funny."
Damien nodded. "Yes it is." He winced when I lightly pushed him, accidentally making him scrape his hand.
"I'm so, so sorry!" I exclaimed, wincing in sympathy when I saw it. "I guess rocks can easily give you scrapes, huh?" I watched as he shrugged, putting it in the water. He winced, but then relaxed. Apparently the cold water felt good. "It okay?" I asked even though it was a mere scrape.
"I'm fine. I guess I deserved it for laughing and making you feel a bit foolish. The second thing was me just trying to teach it to you by making you experiencing it. I'm the one who's sorry," he apologized.
I rolled my eyes. I grabbed the hand close to me, which just happened to be the one that wasn't injured. Lucky me. I still felt bad for doing that to his hand, though. "Anything else you need to teach me, Teach?" I asked.
His smile got wider. "So I'm your teacher now, huh?" He laughed.
I marveled at the sound. I'd heard him laugh more than once, but it still seemed to be able to amaze me. I wanted to laugh along with him. Did his laugh have that effect on everyone, or did it just effect me? "Yep. My boyfriend's my teacher. How amazing is that?" I smiled almost as widely as him.
"Pretty amazing." He stared at me for a few moments before looking away. "Okay, now to get back on topic." Damien smiled. "I would tell you to stop distracting me by not being so amazing, but I don't think you can be any less amazing."
Feeling my face heat up, I looked away. "Back on topic, remember?" I mumbled.
"See what I mean? It's so easy to make you blush now," he said. He took a deep breath and looked back down at my hand as began to make circles and hearts on my hand with his pointer finger. "Well, more things about Super Humans....."
"Hey, Damien," I began, remembering my memories. "You liked me before came to your house, didn't you?" I remembered the way my mom had treated him because of him liking me. Then he'd said he'd waited for me for thirteen years while my mom waited for dad for zero years. How could he love me my whole life when he only would've been two?
Damien bit his lip. "Well, you remember how I said that Super Humans were formed around 1903?" Damien asked, looking me in the eyes.
I nodded, wondering where in the world this conversation was going.
He pursed his lips. "Think, Kat. What generation is my mom?" he asked. "What generation did I tell you?"
My eyes widened as I thought about this. She was a part of the first generation. But then that made her..... "How is your mom a hundred and seven?" I asked, bewildered by the thought.
Damien smiled. "You figured that out pretty fast. Okay, now tell me what one hundred and seven is divided by three? Or what it's around is a better question."
I quickly did the math mentally, closing my eyes as I thought. "It's around thirty-five. But why does that-" Okay, I already had to think outside the box, so the answer easily came to me. "Wait a second. Are you telling me your mom ages every three years or something?"
Damien smiled. "Why I ever had to tutor you when you were thirteen is beyond me," he said. "Yes, Kat, you're correct. For some reason, our body only ages every three years. It's the same way with all Super Humans. Including me, and, if you're still wanting to be in this world, you from now on."
I calculated the math as he was speaking, and I bit back a smile. "So you're telling me I'm dating a forty-eight-year-old boy?" I asked, finally giving in and laughing. "Sorry, but I think you're a bit too old for me. My dad would freak if he found out I was dating someone who was only eighteen."
"Well," Damien said, smiling. I think he'll have to make an exception." He sighed. "So you're sure you want to become a Super Human, right?"
I pursed my lips. "If that's what it means to be with you," I finally said, completely stunned I said this. But it did come from my lips, even if it was the last thing I expect myself to say. I don't know why, but I truly loved him already. "Wait."
Damien raised an eyebrow. "What's wrong?" he asked. "You taking that back?"
I shook my head. "No, I'm wondering how you loved me since birth. How'd you even love me if you didn't know what I'd be like?" I asked, confused.
Damien sighed. "Just hear what I have to say, and then speak, okay?" he asked. "You may be a bit prejudice about what I'm about to say."
"I'll try, but I may speak without thinking," I warned him.
Damien smiled, squeezing my hand. "I absolutely love your honesty," he told me. "Okay, well there's this one thing that happens when Super Humans meet people who could be "the one", but some people don't like it." He made air quotes with his free hand when he said "the one". "We sort of do this thing called giving our hearts to someone. For example, when you give your heart to someone, it means you found the person who you love, and no matter what happens, you love them."
"So you have no choice but to love me?" I asked in a disgusted tone, doing exactly as I'd warned Damien I would. I spoke without speaking.
Damien sighed. "Well, Kat, if it's the person we love, of course we have no choice. It was like my heart was saying I loved you, that way we can more easily tell who's our chosen one. but sometimes other people don't take other's hearts, like I didn't steal your heart, but I treat you so lovely that it's almost impossible not to love me. I know it's weird, but it just proves that I love you at my max. Does that make any sense to you?" he asked.
I thought for a moment. "I guess. So it just makes it so that you love the right person, right?" I asked.
Damien nodded. "Sometimes you never find that person, though." Damien smiled. "But that doesn't mean they don't live happily ever after," he informed me.
"Wait," I said, my eyes narrowing. "If you didn't steal my heart, does that mean that you're not my chosen one or whatever?"
Damien shook his head. "No, that's not what it means. absorbers are just the hardest to steal the hearts of. I'm surprised a human stole your mom's heart. That was the first time anybody stole an absorber's heart."
I sighed in relief. I didn't speak what I was thinking. Instead I decided to keep it to myself. What if that was just because I haven't met the right person yet? What if I ended up loving someone else and breaking Damien's heart?
Damien squeezed my hand. "Don't worry about it, okay? Just know that no matter what, I'll always love you." Damien had been serious, but as soon as I blushed, he burst out laughing. "I'll never get used to how easily you blush," he laughed.
I looked away. "How about you finish what you were saying before about more things about Super Humans?" I asked, wondering what else I may need to know. "How about what your family's powers are?"
Damien nodded. "That's a place to start, I guess," Damien said. "Well, Max can control earth and do this thing called lock on, so he can't miss." He smiled. "Explains why he always catches the football, huh?"
My eyes narrowed. "That little cheater," I said, and then rolled my eyes. "I thought you can't misuse your powers."
"It's not like he's getting money or anything," Damien defended. "Okay, Alley's power is she's super fast, and not just like most Super Humans. We're about five times faster while she's ten times faster. It's the same thing with Anne, only her power's strength, not speed. Never race her."
"I'll keep that in mind," I said, even though I doubted I'd ever race anyone. I'm not that big on racing because I'm not that fast. I could only go really fast whenever I'm emotionally.
"Then there's my mom," he began. "She's both of the twins powers combined. She's the one who trained the twins. My dad's sort of like Max, only he controls metal and can't lock on like Max." He looked at his wrist watch, and then started calculating something. "Wow. We've been here for about an hour."
My eyes widened slightly. How had we been there so long? I looked at the setting sun. I closed my eyes, feeling a cool breeze play with my hair. It was hard to believe all of this stuff was real. It all seemed story like. And it was my story life now. "Thanks, Damien," I said.
I opened my eyes to see Damien giving me a confused look. "Thanks for what?" he asked. He had his head cocked slightly as he looked at me, a faint smile on his face.
"Thanks for letting me know all of this instead of keeping it hidden like my mom. But what changed you mind? Do you really want to protect me?" I questioned.
Damien nodded. "I'd protect you no matter what the cost," he responded, getting to his feet. "I think that's it. I'll tell you anything I remember later on." He helped me to my feet as well, getting me into his arms yet again. A purple aura surrounded us, and I leaned my head back against Damien, looking up at his face. We slowly lifted off the ground, both me and Damien giving each other gentle smiles. I closed my eyes, my smile getting bigger when Damien chuckled. Why was he chuckling? I was blushing at his closeness again.
"Can you promise me something?" Damien asked, his violet eyes turning back to blue the moment our feet touched the ground. The violet aura around us disappeared as well. Damien let go, stepping back and instead taking my hand as we walked toward my house.
"What?"
"Promise me that just because you have these powers, you'll never do anything cocky, okay? Don't go off and play hero." He was looking away from me, but I could still tell he was being serious. He truly cared if I got hurt or not. When I didn't respond right away, he looked at me. "Promise?" he asked.
I finally nodded. "Yeah, I promise."
Instead of leading me to the door like I thought he would've, he took me up the steps on the side of the house to the back porch, as my dad called it. Why? It was even a mystery to me. He walked over to the swing, sitting down. I sat down beside of him, listening to the running water below us for a few moments.
"There's something else I want to know," he said, looking off in the distance. He smiled. "I've never known a Super Human who's actually fallen in love without giving their hearts to someone, so-" Damien paused, looking like he was lost in thought. He took in a deep breath before continuing. "So why do you love me?"
The abrupt question took me by surprise. I looked at him, the suprise more than likely visible in my eyes. "That was out of nowhere," I remarked. I pursed my lips, trying to think of how to answer. "Well," I said, untangling my hand from his. I laid one on top the other, resting them between my knees. I sighed, leaning back so my back was touching the swing completely. "I guess I don't know how to answer." I looked over at him.
"And why would that be?" he asked. I could barely see a hint of an emotion in his eyes. My eyes narrowed when I realized it was fear.
"It's nothing bad." I smiled. "I'm not sure how to answer because I'm unsure what love is." The fear in his eyes turned into surprise. "I know I love my family, and I know love is an emotion, but I just don't truly know what love is." I met his eyes. "Do you?"
Damien opened his mouth to answer, but then his eyes narrowed. "You know what? Good question." He smiled. "I feel the same way now. I love you and my family, but what exactly is love?" He laughed. "I think you just came up with the question of the century, maybe even the millennia." He grabbed my hand again, squeezing it. "But we have about two hundred and fifty years to live, so I'm sure we'll find it out eventually."
"Yeah," I said, staring at the clouds as I let that sink in. "Maybe we will." I closed my eyes, smiling. I'm sorry, Mom, I thought. I guess you didn't want me to be in this world, but it's what I want. You always told me to fight for what I want, and if fighting means being with the one I love, then that's what I must do.