He straightens up and steps in a little farther, unwrapping his snowflake-covered scarf as he walks. He stops a few feet in front of me and answers my questions with his own. “Have you looked outside? It’s an honest-to-god blizzard. I had to leave my car three blocks over on Prince Street.” The lights flicker, as if punctuating his account. “Couldn’t see two inches in front of me. I’m lucky I didn’t get lost coming here.”
Curiosity propels my body toward the door. I haven’t looked outside since darkness overtook the windows an hour earlier. I peer out into the night and gasp. I can’t see the streetlight at the end of the parking lot, but the soft glow it emits is just enough to reveal a world that is bathed in white. It’s impossible to distinguish sky from snowflakes from pavement.
I narrow my eyes, trying to find the outline of my bike on the rack, not five yards from the door. “Where’s your car? We’re going to have to walk to it. In this!” I say, as if that thought hasn’t occurred to him.
He stills, eyebrows raised, the collar of his coat suspended in air midway down his back. “Uh . . . we’re not going anywhere,” he says. “Not tonight, anyway.”
It’s so ominous, like a scene straight out of a slasher flick, that a gurgle of laughter strangles my vocal cords.
Aja pipes up: “I bet the electricity is going to—”
And then it does. The lights go out, quieting Aja as if the power also controls his voice. I don’t move. It’s black as pitch, and I can’t see a thing. “Eric?” I say as I wait for my eyes to hopefully adjust and at least give me shapes and figures.
In response, a scream cuts through the darkness, so piercing, so chilling, the hair on the back of my neck stands at full attention.
twenty-one
ERIC
“AJA!” I YELL, fumbling for my cell phone. I get it out of my pocket, but it slips from my grasp and falls to the floor. The wailing continues. It sounds just like the night I tried to tell that story about Dinesh. “Are you OK? Are you hurt?”
I get on my hands and knees and feel around for it. A squeal breaks through from right above me, adding to the cacophony.
“Sorry, that’s your foot,” I say to Jubilee, moving my hand. “I’m looking for my phone.”
But I don’t know if she can hear me; Aja’s plaintive crying is so loud, it sounds like a heavy metal singer screaming directly into a microphone. In my ear.
“There!” My hand lands on the phone. Right when I pick it up and find the flashlight setting, the room falls silent.
“Aja?” I call out, swiping the flashlight mode on and shining my phone in what I think is the direction the noise was coming from. He’s not there. I sweep my phone in a slow circle, passing over Jubilee. Her eyes are wide, concerned.
“Just stay there,” I say, holding my hand up.
“I think there’s a real flashlight in the back. I’ll go look,” she says.
Well, yes, that’s probably a better idea. Except— “You won’t be able to see anything!”
“My cell phone’s on my desk,” she says.
“OK,” I say, shining the light from my phone so she can make it to the desk. Once she’s there and I’ve seen her turn on the light on her phone, I turn back to the rows of books in front of me.
“Aja, where are you? Come out right now,” I say in my best stern voice, trying to conceal the panic in it. I hear a whimper and walk forward to the stacks. I shine the light down each one, until finally, in the fourth row, I spot him, curled in a ball, his back to the books. He looks up at me, squinting into the light. His cheeks are wet. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he’s saying over and over. “It’s my fault.”
I rush to close the gap between us and kneel down. “What’s your fault, bud?”
“The lights! I made them go off.”
“No, no. That was the storm, the blizzard. I’m sure it downed a power line somewhere. That wasn’t you.”
I put my hand on his shoulder, but he shrugs it off, so I sit opposite him, setting the phone down so the light shines directly up toward the ceiling like a beacon in the middle of the sea. Aja’s shaking his head.
“It was me!” he yells. “It was me.” And then he starts crying again, in earnest now. “I’ve been . . . practicing . . . the wrong . . . thing,” he says, in between hiccupping sobs.
“What? Take a deep breath now, so I can understand you.”
“Where’s Jubilee?” he asks. “I want to talk to her.”
“No,” I say, scratching the day-old stubble on my chin. “No. You have to talk to me, Aja. You have to talk to me.”
He looks down but doesn’t say anything. I wait. I have no idea how much time passes, but he finally—finally—speaks. “This whole time . . . I thought . . . I was telekinetic. That’s what . . . I’ve been practicing, trying to . . . harness. But that’s not it. I control electricity . . . just like . . . Bolt.”
I squint my eyes, trying to make sense of what he’s saying, but I can’t. “Who’s Bolt?”
“One of the X-Men,” he says, and even in his state, there’s an edge of annoyance in his voice that sounds like: Seriously, you don’t know who Bolt is?
I smile, comforted by this. There’s the Aja I know.
“His real name’s Bradley and he works for Stryker.”
“Who’s Stryk—”
“The villain!” he says, cutting me off. Then he lowers his voice, as if he’s talking to himself instead of me. “Which makes sense, really. I knew I was bad. I know I’m bad. I’m the bad guy.” He starts hitting himself in the head with clenched fists.
I grab his arms. “Aja! Aja, stop it. You are not bad. You are not a bad guy. Why do you think that? Stop it! Calm down, bud.”
Aja stills his fists, but tears are falling from his eyes like a dripping faucet. I move over next to him. “You’ve got to talk to me, Aja. I’m worried about you. You have to tell me what’s going on.”
He squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head. “No, I can’t. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.”
“Please. Please. I want to help you.”
He stops moving his head and curls in an even tighter ball, his fists tight against his cheeks. I’m worried he’s going to start hitting himself again and I reach out for his arms, but then he whispers something.
I lean closer. “What?”
“It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault. It’s mine.”
“What—the lights? No, I told you, bud, that’s from the snow. You didn’t—”
“My parents!” he shouts, causing my head to jerk an inch or two back. “It’s my fault they’re dead!”
“Your parents? No. No, Aja. How could that be your fault?”
The tears are falling faster now and I wait, my mind reeling.
“I didn’t want them to go,” he says finally. He sniffs. “Dad—” His voice cracks on the word and he tries again. “Dad . . . had promised we’d go see the new X-Men movie. It was coming out that weekend. But then he had to go on this work trip.”
“OK,” I say, encouraging him.
“So when they left, I kept thinking maybe something would happen. Maybe the plane wouldn’t be able to fly, or the weather could keep them grounded. And I kept thinking it! I didn’t stop. I kept thinking and thinking and thinking and then—and then—”
He collapses, his head hanging over his knees, his shoulders shaking. I put my arm around him tentatively, but he shrugs me off.
“I thought I must be telekinetic,” he says in a small voice, “and that I needed to learn how to control it so I didn’t hurt anyone else.”
“So that’s why you’ve been practicing this whole time?”