Origin (Book 2)

Chapter 1

Rule #1: Don't tell anyone about your powers. Don't use them in front of others.

Rule #2: If you see someone you think you know, don't talk to them. They don't know you. You don't know them.

Rule #3: No superhero-ing.

Rule #4: Don't allow anyone inside the house. This property is off-limits to outsiders.

Rule #5: Report to this house immediately every day after school. Don't make other plans without speaking with Jake first.

*****

I watched Jake hang up the sheet of paper with these five rules in my living room. "Why is this here again?" I asked him. I felt that Rule #3 was meant specifically for me.

"Because I think it might get a little hard for you to remember what we agreed on," he replied.

"You're right. I've already forgotten," I said.

"What's that?" I heard Cassie ask from the railing above. She was looking down at the rule sheet with Sage next to her. Those two had bonded a lot over the past month that we've been here.

"Apparently, it's a set of rules that we'll never need," I directed up at her.

"Great. I'll be in my room," Sage said. She left out of my sight with Cassie in tow.

Soon after we got here, we discovered that our previous lives didn't exist at all. The only remnants of it were my old house and car and Jake's truck. Everything and everyone else went to hell. Wherever hell was.

I looked on as Jake put some tape on the back of the sheet and stick it on the wall above the couch for everyone to see.

"Is that alright?" he asked me. "Is it crooked?"

"Not at all," I said. "Except for that little bit." I raised my hand.

The air rippled as I used my power to control vibrational waves to fix the sheet of paper.

"I still can't figure out the difference between what you do and what Cassie does," Jake commented.

"I told you already. I don't use telekinesis," I said. I was starting to get tired of this conversation.

"But it has the same effect as when you control vibrations," he argued.

"Yeah, it does, but the way our powers work is completely separate from each other."

When we found out that Jake and Cassie's families and houses were gone, we- and by we, I mean my sister- decided to invite them into ours. I protested. Sage didn't have the right to do that because she hadn't lived here at all, but she insisted. She even let Blink in, who didn't have a family to begin with.

Space wasn't the problem. I just didn't want my ex-crush and best friend, along with an almost total stranger, living in my home. I needed privacy. Could you blame me?

I came around, though. They had nowhere else to stay, and they weren't going to live on the street.

"What do you think they do in there?" I was referencing Cassie and Sage in Sage's room. They always had the door shut, with quieted giggles escaping into the hallway every once in a while.

"No telling," Jake said. He didn't sound very interested, but I wanted to know what went on behind that closed door.

Before I could say something else, however, the door handle jiggled. I opened it for Blink to get in with the groceries.