Untitled Story of Healing

Gunner

I hate Avery. She knows it. Avery knows everything about everyone. Lyla often went to her for gossip until Avery had started telling her things that should have been kept secret. It was nothing for Avery to violate someone by going into their minds, seeing everything, then share it. She knew why no one liked her, too. I could never, and still can't, fathom how she could know all the things people think about her and not try to change.

"If you keep up those kinds of thoughts I'll tell everyone what you did to your sister," Avery smirks.

"Oh, so that's why you didn't leave with the doctors? You wanted to taunt me? We all make mistakes when we're learning to use our powers. Didn't you kill someone?"

She visibly tenses, "I don't know why you stay here. Angel-"

"Stop acting like you haven't been in my mind since the moment you walked in this room. You know why I'm here."

"You can't protect him- not even Julie could- so I don't know why you're here. Your mind doesn't answer everything just like that," the class five snaps her fingers.

I stay silent.

"If you're going to be like that, I can just leave. You can watch him suffer all by your lonesome." As if on cue, Angel calls out, begging someone, anyone, to let him go. I flinch and even Avery looks back towards the window. When she meets my eyes again, hers are troubled, "Believe me or not, I don't like seeing him like this. He's a person. People shouldn't suffer like that."

"Then why didn't you tell them to let him go?"

"He's sick, Gunner. I-"

"Yeah. He's sick. He's sick because someone locked him up and drugged him and cut him up and made him believe we were all dead. For months. They did that to him for months," I push myself to my feet to tower over her, "And now he's tied up and drugged again. And you're over here telling me he's sick like that's a reason to let him rot."

"He's not rotting."

I scoff, "I don't have to read your mind to tell you I know you don't even believe that. You know more than anyone else what being stuck in there is doing to his mind."

Avery's nose wrinkles, the only sign she's thinking about what I said, "I can't control his mind, Gunner, so I can't help him. My powers don't work like that. I can only see it. Whatever being gave me my power gave me the mind reading as a check against the rest of it. When I'm holding someone," she refers to what she calls using her power on someone, "I see what they're thinking. Most of the time they're scared or calling me a monster. Or both. Being forced to know what they're feeling keeps me from doing terrible things because I'm not crazy. I don't enjoy hearing people beg for their lives when they think I'm going to rip the carbon out of their bodies."

"So that's your power? You control carbon. Like Julie with oxygen?" I ask the question to distract myself.

"No. I wish. The law of conservation of mass applies to everyone but me. I can remove carbon from existence. Even if Julie can completely take someone's oxygen and kill them, their bodies are still there. If I take the nitrogen, I could completely erase their existence. Maybe Julie could too but I don't know. Humans- all life on Earth- is carbon-based, not oxygen based. And her control over oxygen isn't complete, even if it seems like it is. She can't just remove oxygen. She could kill a nation, not cause complete Armageddon for all life on Earth."

The fear I felt of Avery in the past suddenly feels insignificant. I have never been religious. Now I feel I'm staring at a god.

"Yeah. What you're feeling right there? That's why I have to be better than everyone. I'm not a god. I can die. And I can kill other people. The only thing that separates me from you is that you can't cause an apocalypse if you have a mental breakdown."

"I didn't know that."

"I don't tell people that. And, yes, I can hear what you're thinking right now, I can die to a bullet. If it doesn't have carbon in it. If it does, my powers will naturally stop it. I have no control over that."

"Oh."

I sit back down. Avery sits with me, far enough I don't scoot away. Angel is sobbing now. The sound of his cries are something I haven't been able to get used to. He's begging for help and I'm here listening, listening and not helping. She puts her hand on my knee tentatively but stays silent. For a moment I think maybe Avery isn't completely evil.

A huffed laugh from my left tells me she's still listening. She always is.