Extraordinary (The Extraordinary Saga #4)

Chapter 9

"Rowan, I've got a bad feeling about this," Caeden said.

"But I saw it!" Rowan protested. "It went this way."

She pointed ahead, straight down the path lined by trees. She'd seen it again. The not-shadow. And it had curved off into the mountains, she was sure of it.

"I called Luna," Rowan added. "It won't just be you and me. She and Onyx are on their way over, but they live on the other side of town. It's going to be about ten minutes."

It had barely been a week and a half since their last encounter with the golden not-shadow, as they had started calling it, but it may as well have been years. They still didn't have any type of explanation, or even a clue.

Yet here they were, inside of another fever dream. Rowan had seen it (she always kept the coin on her; seeing as those things loved the coin it was bound to happen eventually) and called him and the twins. Caeden, like Rowan, had biked over to the tree where they had first met - the two of them had even locked their bikes together on that same tree. By the time Caeden had gotten there, the not-shadow was gone. According to Rowan, it had run away almost as soon as she'd seen it.

Suddenly, Rowan stopped dead in her tracks. Peering a little ways ahead, Caeden saw that the forest ended, giving way to Lake Lotus.

"There are people at the lake," Rowan said, turning to him. "Do they know how dangerous it is?"

Caeden hadn't completely understood what was the deal with the town's central lake, but he knew something had happened lately to change the currents. Though to him, it always looked relatively calm. Or at least, it didn't look particularly dangerous.

"Come this way," Rowan said, leading him away from the lake. "Those people look like they're leaving, anyway."

She led him down a small path to the left, and soon instead of staring straight ahead at the lake, Caeden was looking to his right and down to see it. Rowan had led him up a ledge, towards the large cliff above the lake.

With one last glance at the lake, a hill moved in front of it. They had gone far enough away that the mountains had covered it up. Rowan hoped those two people on the lakefront had walked away safely.

"Rowan, what exactly are we doing out here?" Caeden asked. "We're not just going to stumble across it, you know."

"That not-shadow I saw had to go somewhere, and it wasn't by the lake," she protested. "It's gotta be here somewhere."

"And you want to chase it down?" Caeden asked. He put a hand on her shoulder to stop her. "Rowan, last time it nearly sucked the life out of both of us. We're lucky the twins showed up to get rid of it. And you want to willingly go towards it?"

Rowan sighed. "I think it's connected to our powers."

"I mean, yeah," Caeden agreed. "It fed off them, if that's what you mean by connected."

"No," Rowan said, startling him with her serious tone. "There's something bigger going on here."

She took a seat on one of the rocks lining the trail. Caeden sat down next to her, intrigued to see what she had to say. He glanced off to the side and saw in the distance the cliff that bordered the lake from above.

"The not-shadow..." Rowan started. "It's connected to something. The same thing we are, with our powers, our magic. I think if we follow it, we can get some answers."

Caeden had to admit, that made sense, but only in an ultra-hopeful way. "How do you know?"

"The first time my hands ever, well..." She let little bits of lightning crackle between her fingers. It was easier than forming the words, sometimes. "It was storming outside, bad. This would've been right before you moved here, around the beginning of March."

Rowan paused, taking a shaky breath. Caeden waited, silently, unsure of what to say. Finally, she went on.

"The first time I found out I had powers," Rowan said slowly. "I almost electrocuted my brother."

"Oh my god." Caeden's mind to wrap around that. He'd met Alex, Rowan's older brother and only sibling. She'd never mentioned any of that before. And sure, he'd had some close encounters with his fire at home, but that had never bothered anybody but himself. "What happened? Was he okay?"

"He is now," Rowan said, imagining the stormy skies all over again. Her parents had been out somewhere. She couldn't remember where, and it didn't matter, only that they weren't around. "Alex tried to hook up the generator when we lost power. But between that and the lighting outside, it was too much. Something snapped in me, and the generator lit up the house for a second before I overloaded the circuit and sparks flew everywhere. I didn't even know what to tell EMS when I called. I felt so alone. Everyone insisted there was no connection between my presence and the lightning, that a fuse had simply blown, but I knew otherwise. Eventually I realized the best thing I could do was keep quiet."

"That's... horrible," Caeden said. Rowan had been carrying this on her for how many months now? Three? He couldn't imagine doing that all alone. "I'm so sorry."

"Caeden, you asked me how I know something bigger is going on," she continued. "The truth is I don't know. But ever since then I can feel it. Makes sense, right? I control energy, so I guess I can feel it too. Either way, I have to believe there's a way to stop this, to set things right. Because if there isn't, what are we even doing? The world's already out of balance. We can't let it get any worse."

"If there isn't a way to fix this, we're doing nothing," Caeden agreed. Then it occurred to him that with Rowan's confession, he should probably open up a little, too. "You know, I miss Arizona. I really do," he said. "But at the same time, I feel complete here, like I really needed this place. Or it needed me." He shrugged, waving it off. "Maybe it's just the magic, which doesn't really make sense because it's so dangerous."

Rowan clutched the coin she had hidden in her pocket. It seemed to hum, either as a warning or as encouragement. She chose to take that as a good sign.

"There are two sides to every coin," she said. "I'd bet what you're feeling is the good side of magic, the part we're supposed to have."

"Well, if you're right," Caeden added, "I hope if we find the source today, it's from that same side."