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Chapter 13

“GOOD AFTERNOON LADIES,” Jilia said, settling herself down in front of us.

I sat down on the cushion while she put a box on the ground beside her. Xona leaned over and opened it. A cluster of little clear balls lay inside.

“What are those?” I asked.

“Marbles,” Xona said. “I used to play with them when I was a kid.”

“I wanted to try something a little more tactile for Zoe to focus on while we meditate. But the same practices apply to non-glitchers, so it will be useful for you as well, Xona.”

“Okay,” I said, but I wasn’t convinced. Nothing had worked so far.

“First, Zoe, I want you to think about some memory that brings up strong emotions.”

I looked over at Xona, then down at the ground again. “Um, that might not be … safe.”

“It will be fine,” Jilia said, her voice calm and soothing. “You won’t hurt us. You can always Link yourself if you feel like you’re going to lose control. That’s been part of the problem, I think. You’re so afraid of losing control that you never allow yourself enough leeway to access and explore your power. Being locked up in the research lab for all those months only exacerbated the problem right when your power was expanding and you needed to be experimenting most. We’ve got to break those habits. So try to abandon your fears. This is a safe place. Just remember you can Link yourself the moment you feel your power getting out of control. Think of that like a safety switch.”

I nodded, uncertain. What she said made sense, but I’d been afraid of my power for so long …

“Close your eyes and think of a powerful emotional memory. As soon as you feel the power start to build, let me know.”

I closed my eyes and sifted through my memories. Well, getting mad at Adrien’s mom usually worked to get me upset. I thought about our latest session yesterday and how she’d said that I would always fail the people I loved most. A slight buzzing did begin to build in my ears at the thought. But then I shook the memory off. No. I didn’t want to draw on negative emotions if I could avoid it.

Instead, I switched to another memory. Of Adrien and me alone in my room back in the Community, when he’d tried to explain what love was. He’d called it a miracle that, in a world so broken and painful, love could still exist.

I still remembered the tenor of his voice and the intensity of his gaze as he’d spoken. Love shouldn’t exist but it does. It’s the biggest anomaly, some might say the biggest defect, of the whole human race. But it’s the most beautiful anomaly. I understand that now. And I would give up anything for you … Because I love you.

And then I’d said it back to him and we’d kissed until I felt like I was soaring right up and out of my body. So much had happened since then, but my love for him was the one thing that had remained constant. I felt warm just thinking about it, and a soft buzz rose in my ears.

But then, without meaning to, the scene switched to our kiss in the bathroom, right before I’d lost control and shattered the mirror. There had been passion in that kiss too. More than that—desperation. Tied up in the memory was fear about how upset Adrien had been and worry about what he saw in the future that had him so scared. I thought of the haunted look in his eyes. The buzzing in my ears suddenly became a loud drone and my hand started to tremble.

I gritted my teeth as the tremors worsened. My first instinct was to choke off the emotions or Link myself. Instead I let myself linger in the memory of our kiss. It wasn’t the purely happy memory I’d wanted, but maybe the strongest emotions were always a complex mix of good and bad. I replayed the feel of Adrien’s hands on my body, pulling me into him and kissing me like he was a starving man and I was a full course meal. I let the mixture of desire and desperation resonate throughout my body. The buzzing came to a fever pitch in my ears. “Okay,” I finally whispered, my voice trembling. “I can feel it.”

“Good,” Jilia murmured. “Now I want you to try to channel that energy into the box of marbles in front of you. Visualize yourself and all that emotion you feel as being contained in the marble. Make it a single thought to focus your energy. Think: I am that. Repeat the phrase with your breaths in and out. Like this. I,” she breathed in, “am that,” she said after her breath out.

“I’ll try,” I said. I closed my eyes. The shaking in my hands was getting worse. I should Link myself so I didn’t hurt anybody. I tightened my jaw against the thought. No, I wouldn’t give up before I’d even tried. I knew from training with Sophia that I had a little bit longer before I lost control. I’d wait until the last moment to Link myself if I had to.

I am that, I repeated internally. I am that.

“Do not think of any moment beyond the present.” Jilia’s voice was sonorous. “There is only now. Anything can happen next, but what happens next is not important. What is important is now, inhabiting this space. There is no separate you. You are connected to all things. You are the marble.”

The power bubbled up inside of me, but for once, maybe the first time ever, I felt completely present with it and was not afraid. The mental projection cube rose up in my mind and I felt the shapes of the marbles in the box. There was one sitting on top of all the others, and I zeroed in my focus. I am that.

The marble started to vibrate, shaking and knocking against the other marbles with a slight tinkling sound. Even though I wasn’t touching it physically, I could feel its surface texture. It was so smooth, but as I zoomed in closer and closer, I could feel the tiny imperfections, the slight indentations and pockets of air in the glass.

“Good,” Jilia murmured. “Now lift the marble up.”

I felt the power inside me boiling over, tingling in my fingertips. For a second I worried. What if I lost control? Then I gritted my teeth and pushed the fear away.

I focused only on my power extending outward past my skin and covering the marble.

I am that.

The marble lifted up into the air. Then I lifted another and another until all of the small spheres hovered in the air. I raised them up a foot, then two.

I opened my eyes to look at them. Xona was watching in stunned fascination, but I ignored her.

The marbles formed a circle in the air. I spun them like a giant wheel. The glass glinted in the light with each rotation and I kept it spinning faster and faster until all I could see were brief flashes of light. And for the first time for as long as I could remember, I felt completely at peace.

Then several things happened at once.

Cole charged into the room with a loud roar. There was a sharp knife raised in his hand.

Xona’s head jerked up and she immediately pulled out two weapons, one from her ankle and another from her hip.

Jilia screamed at them both to stop.

I watched, detached almost, as the components of a disaster fell into place in front of me. I raised my arms and gulped in the room with my power. Everyone in the room was within my mind’s projection cube now and I could manipulate them as easily as I could the marbles. I wasn’t afraid.

“Stop,” I whispered, and they did. Cole had leapt up into the air, knife raised. He froze there, three feet above the ground, and I held him perfectly immobile with my telek. Xona’s hand likewise stopped in place.

“Let me go, Zoe,” she shouted. “I can take him!”

But I ignored her. The spinning marbles stopped, hovering around me in a giant sphere. I held everything perfectly still.

In the next breath I pulled the weapons out of Cole’s and Xona’s hands and placed them gently against the wall. I lifted Cole up almost to the ceiling, and then over to the doorway, far away from Xona.

And then Sophia stepped from the shadow of the hallway into the room. “Good. You passed the test. You’re ready.”

Suddenly my control faltered. I lowered Cole back to the ground quickly before I lost it. The marbles dropped to the ground, bouncing on the hard floor with small clinking noises.

Anger quickly replaced the sense of peace I’d just felt. “It was all a test? What if I’d failed! Xona could have killed Cole.”

Sophia frowned. “She shouldn’t have loaded weapons.”

Xona let out a disgusted noise and kicked her cushion to the wall before pushing past Sophia to leave.

Sophia turned back to me, her cool eyes meeting my glare. “Come with me. It’s time to see the General.”