“I have no idea.” Evan shook his head.
“That’s not a flame. Have you ever done this before?” Theo asked.
“No, sir.”
31 The Faith of a Child
Everybody stared as Evan opened and closed his left hand. The orb appeared and vanished repeatedly.
“Are you able to control it? I mean, can you decide when it appears?” Alik pressed.
Evan closed his hand. His fist glowed briefly before the light was extinguished. When he opened his hand again the light was gone.
“What happened?” Theo asked, worried.
“The light only manifests when I want it to—I think.” Evan continued to test his ability.
“Evan, your scars.” Sloan was staring not at the orb, but at the smooth, flawless skin below it.
Everybody had been so absorbed in the newfound gift, only Sloan had looked beyond the orb to his hand.
Evan held his palm up to his face and studied it.
Across the room, Alik discreetly stepped forward with the candle and took the flame from Cole’s nearly spent match.
Cole muttered something about getting more candles before hurrying back down the corridor to the kitchen.
Alik walked toward his little brother. Evan stood absolutely still. His honey eyes searched his hand like he’d misplaced something valuable. “Your scars. They’re gone?”
Evan looked up at Alik and blinked hard. “Your face—”
Alik frowned, but reached up and touched the smooth, pink skin on his face. A distant look came over his eyes as he remembered the beating and chemical burns.
“Oh, wow.”
Evan looked from Alik’s face to his smooth palm, then spun on his heels and hurried back to Kylie. His skilled fingertips searched for her pulse and found it easily—strong and steady. Discreetly he moved her torn, wet shirt away from her shoulder. Her bullet wound was smooth and pink, much like Alik’s face.
Evan and Alik exchanged wide-eyed expressions.
Sloan stepped forward. Without asking, she reached out and took Evan’s left hand in both of hers and ran her thumbs over his palm. She began searching not just with her eyes, but with her skilled sense of touch for the knotted and raised scar tissue that had covered more than eighty-percent of the skin there. It was gone. Instead, she noted his fresh, pink skin where the scarring used to be. Evan’s fingertips twitched with sensation at her gentle manipulation.
“I don’t get it. I thought the scars were what made it possible for me to refract light. With them gone, how am I able to do any of this?”
“You’re not using the flame as a source, are you?” Sloan asked as she watched Evan open both hands, palms up, and create identical lighted spheres.
Evan only shook his head. “And I never could do anything with my right hand.”
The room watched him push the two orbs side by side then gasped as they merged into a large mass.
Boom!
The storm outside slammed the house with what sounded like a wall of sand.
Startled, Cole dropped his freshly lit candles.
Evan reached out to the flames licking the fibers of the rug at his feet. Before they had a chance to ignite the rug, he willed them to leap into his hand. The fire brightened his glowing ball briefly as it was absorbed.
“Okay, that’s it. I choose you as my battle buddy, Ev.” Cole grinned and pointed across the room at Evan.
“I can’t believe it never occurred to me that Danny’s healing could be—so far-reaching,” Theo rubbed his forehead.
“Maybe the healing Danny provided corrected what the burns did to your gift during metamorphosis. Maybe this was always meant to be your evolved gift,” Alik suggested.
“It must have been—part of it, anyway.”
“What do you mean ‘part of it’?” Alik narrowed his eyes at his brother.
“It’s a long story,” Evan’s eyes fell back to his smooth hand.
“Are you saying you have another gift you never told us about?”
Then, from the sofa, Margo inhaled loudly, lifting her arms slowly above her head to stretch leisurely and catlike.
The excitement in the room was instantly redirected as all eyes looked on Dr. Margo Winter.
Theo, whose hand was still resting on Margo’s bare feet, gasped when he realized what he was feeling. Margo was stretching her whole body—her toes pointed, ankles rolled and she lifted her knees slowly before letting them fall to the side and snuggling into the sofa in a new position, legs curled adorably, her fists returning to a comfortable spot just under her chin. She sighed before slowly blinking her eyes open.
Once she did, the first face she saw was Theo’s. His jaw hung slack.
“What’s wrong, honey?” Her voice was groggy. Her brow quickly furrowing as she moved her hands to her face and instinctively brushed the sand off her eyes.
“Margo?” Theo leaned over her and studied her expression.