Zachary Rawlins - The Academy

Whatever Rebecca’s preparations were, from where Alex sat, it looked quite a bit as if she’d gone to sleep, half-smiling, her head cocked to one side, as if she were about to say something.

“Alex, right?” Alistair said his name oddly, as if it were in doubt. “He doesn’t look like much.”

“Hey!” Alex objected, confused. “I’m right here, you know.”

“Alistair,” Rebecca said warningly, eyes still closed.

“Well, he doesn’t, anyone can see that,” Alistair said sullenly, folding his arms across his chest and ignoring Alex’s defiant glare.

“Don’t be a brat,” Rebecca scolded, then opened her eyes and smiled at Alex. “Just ignore him, hon, okay?”

Alex managed a nod. He was now feeling pretty resentful, on top of everything else. Who in the hell was this Alistair guy anyway? And why did he look so disappointed in him? He hadn’t even had the chance to do anything yet!

“We should start soon,” Gaul said. “I don’t want this to become public knowledge, and the longer all of us spend in the same room, the greater the likelihood that someone will notice.”

“Alex, stick with us for a minute longer,” Michael said, nodding at him. “Gaul, you know that these things can’t be rushed.”

“It’s cool,” Rebecca said, kicking her sandals off. “I’m ready anyway. Alex, I bet you don’t mind if we skip the introductions, right? We already know each other.”

“Yeah, but, why is that? Why do I feel like I know you?”

“Empathy, Alex,” Rebecca said, walking across the office to sit down next to him on the couch. “I’m an empath. My name is Rebecca.”

Alex flinched and shifted away from her a bit. The crushed leather cushions seemed equally uncomfortable no matter what part of the couch he sat on.

“Are you making me trust you right now, or something?”

Rebecca chuckled good-naturedly.

“I don’t think you would have flinched away from me if I was making you trust me, Alex,” she said, amused. “It’s actually the other way around. As an empath, I inadvertently make my own emotional state public knowledge. So you feel like you know me,” she said, shrugging, “because on an unconscious level, you already do. Your reptile brain already knows everything it needs to know about me. You trust me because I am trustworthy, Alex. You like me because I am extremely likable.”

Alistair snorted.

“Keep ignoring him,” Rebecca told Alex, patting him on the knee. “I’ve already told you what you need to know about me, Alex, down where it matters. You know that, right?”

Alex nodded slowly.

“I do, actually,” he said, with a touch of uncertainty.

Rebecca smiled at him approvingly, pulling her hair back into a quick ponytail and wrapping it in a rubber band. Alex couldn’t quite figure her out — her accent was definitely Southern Californian, and she looked a bit Latino, but there was something about the way she spoke, something a bit exotic about her appearance that he couldn’t place. She was right, though — he found her immediately likable, and utterly without guile in her frankness. Also, she was pretty, but she didn’t make him nervous at all, even when she sat close to him on the couch, like she was right now, even in front of the strangely intense audience that sat directly across the room, staring at them as if they expected to be entertained.

Actually, Alex thought, that part might be the whole empath thing.

“Okay, that’s good. I’m sure you have a whole bunch of questions, and I promise I’ll do my best to answer them later. But, if you are okay with it, I’d like to move on to our main business.” Rebecca folded her legs underneath her, Indian-style, so that she faced him on the couch, her bare toes pressing against the leg of his jeans. “Michael has told you that you are special, right?”

Alistair made another coughing, choking noise, but neither Alex nor Rebecca acknowledged it.

“I guess so,” Alex said reluctantly. “I’ve got some kind of power, right?”

“More like potential, right now,” Rebecca said, nodding. “And today, I’d like to activate those abilities, Alex. I’d like to wake up that power of yours, and find out what you can do. And I’d like to help make it possible for you to use it. What do you think about that?”

Gaul glanced irritably at his watch, but didn’t dare interrupt. To the best of his knowledge, Rebecca had never lost her temper with anyone at the Academy. But that didn’t keep Gaul, along with the rest of the campus, from treading very lightly when it came to potentially upsetting Rebecca. That was probably a side effect of her empathic abilities, he thought, and not something to actually be worried about. But he didn’t plan to find out by hurrying her.

Not that it seemed as if it mattered, anyway. Rebecca was talking to Alex in a calm, reasonable voice, her face open and reassuring, and her hand resting casually over his own. Neither of them seemed to be aware of the staring onlookers, crowded into the small office.

“I’m a bit scared,” Alex said, surprised and a bit embarrassed by his honesty. “But, I want to know whatever there is to know.”

Rebecca lifted his hand up, and clutched it between her own, smiling beatifically at him.

“I have your permission, then, right?” She asked the boy, his eyes already drooping. “I promise to take good care of you.”

“Okay,” Alex said, his speech a bit slurred, his eyes half-closed, “okay.”

Rebecca smiled and squeezed his hand, then set it neatly down on his thigh. She reached forward and ran one hand across his face, gently closing his eyes.

“Would you like to lie down, Alex?” Rebecca asked, speaking so softly that Gaul had to lean forward to hear it. She patted her crossed legs cheerfully. “You can use my lap.”

Alex obediently lay his head down in her lap, facing up toward the ceiling, his legs bent over the arm of the couch and dangling a few inches off the ground. His eyes were closed, and his face had an almost disturbing calm to it, as if he had been washed unnaturally clean of all concerns, an involuntary Buddha. Rebecca bent over him, her eyes shut, one arm draped across his chest, her other hand pressed against his forehead.

“Okay,” she said, her voice sounding very animated. “Okay, he’s down and I’m in. And, oh my, this is very strange…”

“Rebecca? Is something wrong? Are you alright?”

Rebecca nodded shortly, her face flushed and red, her brow wet with sweat.

“Yeah, I’m okay, but touching this kid, you understand,” she said, breathing heavily. “It’s incandescent, the effect he has. This is a tremendous power. We’re going to need to be very careful about who he comes in contact with, here at the Academy. I can barely manage it.”

Gaul and Michael both shifted in their seats and leaned forward, while Alistair rolled his eyes.

“What’s his story? What makes Alexander tick?”

“Guilt.” Rebecca’s reply was prompt, definite. “Barely contained anger. A tremendous sense of unfairness, resentment of the most general kind. Tremendous guilt.”

“Did he actually kill his family?”

“She’s an empath, Michael,” Alistair said scornfully. “All she knows is how he feels about it. You want to find out something about that kid, ask me.”

Gaul pushed his glasses back up on his brow, glancing over at Alistair disapprovingly.

“That’s enough, Alistair,” Gaul said mildly.

Alistair gave Gaul a challenging glare, but settled back in his chair.

“Did he kill them?”

Michael continued his questions with an almost placid patience.

“Hard to say,” Rebecca admitted, biting her lower lip. “He certainly thinks so, but I can’t find any specific memory of it. Maybe Alistair’s right. Maybe you need a better telepath.”