The only comparison I could make was that it was kind of like flexing your knee after you’ve hit the ground, bruised the hell out of yourself, and taken off a few layers of skin. You don’t have a full range of motion while it’s healing, and it takes extra effort to move, but it’ll still work and eventually you won’t even notice the hurt.
In the same way, it took a great deal of concentration to make my new abilities work as they were supposed to right now. But it was getting easier, and Emerson promised that once I’d stabilized and my body adjusted, it would become second nature. I wouldn’t have to think so hard about using these powers any more than I thought about using my individual fingers.
Strangely enough, smaller objects were tougher. They weren’t as difficult to move, but just touching them required more concentration and focus. Less surface area, or something. Pushing at the door release alone was trickier than shoving at the whole door. But if I wasn’t careful and directive, I’d end up breaking the entire thing. At Emerson’s, I’d destroyed several desks trying to get a pencil to roll. Adam had apparently gone through that stage as well. It was the difference between using tweezers and a bulldozer.
I wasn’t sure whether or not Ariane had the same issues. If not, I wasn’t sure why she didn’t move/touch/pick up everything this way. It was amazing. I’d never have to leave bed to turn the lights off again. No more getting up to retrieve the remote from halfway across the room. No more flinching when my dad chucked a newspaper at me or hit the wall in frustration or anger. He would know better than to mess with me.
Not that I’d be going home again, ever, anyway.
The idea sent a weird, uneasy twinge through me. I didn’t want to go home. Didn’t want the life I’d had before. And yet, the thought of never being there again made me feel…off-kilter somehow. As if some part of my identity had centered on being the younger Bradshaw boy, the screwup, and now I didn’t know how to be me without that. Or, maybe, more like I’d cheated by cutting off that part of my past instead of dealing with it.
Stupid. I shook my head in disgust at myself. I was much better now. What difference did it make how I got here?
I returned my attention to the door, but before I could test my control further and try flipping the lock mechanism, an eerie feeling of being watched settled between my shoulder blades.
I turned swiftly, checking the corridor behind me.
Empty. Just a set of vending machines farther down the hall, buzzing and clanking as the cooling units inside kicked on.
There wasn’t really any place to hide, either. The restaurant windows were on the right side, dark and papered over from the inside. On the left, large floor-to-ceiling windows looked out onto the sidewalk and the flow of blissfully ignorant pedestrians, busily going to work or shopping or wherever normal people were going on a regular Friday morning.
Someone approaching me from behind would have to cover fifty yards in the open hall without me seeing or hearing them. It wouldn’t be an impossible feat but definitely not easy, which was another reason why it was a good place to wait for Ariane.
Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling of being observed. Maybe I was just being jumpy.
Or maybe not. Ford was here somewhere. And maybe even more eager to meet with me than Ariane (i.e., kill me horribly for what I’d done).
A warm trickle of blood slipped free of my nose and rolled down over my mouth. I pressed my lips tighter together to keep it from seeping in. Blood in your mouth is just not something you ever get used to.
I turned, putting the closed restaurant’s doors at my back so I could watch both ways, and fumbled for tissues in my pocket. Emerson had reluctantly given me another injection this morning. So the nosebleed thing was, theoretically, supposed to be getting better, but not so far.
Ariane rounded the corner then, from the portion of hallway that led from the main lobby, her feet moving silently on the carpet. Her hair was pulled up in a messy ponytail, and she had on a T-shirt and jeans, similar to what she’d always worn to school.
If I ignored the fact that she wasn’t carrying her tattered green canvas bag and that we were alone in the hallway instead of being jostled this way and that, we could have been at Ashe High. Maybe even on that day we first talked and struck a deal to get back at Rachel.
Ariane met my gaze warily, her eyes that beautiful, uninterrupted darkness that had once seemed strange to me. The buzz of thoughts in my head grew louder, adding hers to the noise. I couldn’t pick anything out, though.
“Hey,” I said, my voice cracking. I’d been imagining this moment for weeks now, but the reality of it fell painfully short.
Ariane wasn’t smiling, didn’t seem pleased to see me. If anything, she looked alert, cautious, her breathing short and fast as if she were preparing for fight or flight.