Us Mutants Prefer the Term "Special"

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"Yeah right, funny. Being psychic isn't real," Sumer laughed on the flight. We had managed to turn the seats and we all switched around and were in the aisles way to talk to her.

"Yes it is," Jane insisted. Sumer explained everything to us. She had dreams of people and events that would later happen at random times. She would have visions for the people that she's already met. She had been that way a week before her parents got a divorce and wondered just how she had her bags already packed.

"It's nothing really. I'm not some lady to sit in a booth and read peoples' hands," she blushed.

"You're much more than that," Jane said. She looked over to Zaine, who had tuned out and stared out of the window—he had been doing that since we left the ground—but I know what Jane was implying with the look, and it was his fault he didn't reply. "You're special, Sumer. All of us, here, are special."

"Ha!" she laughed and my eyes stayed on how Zaine would react to the revelation of our secret. "You don't seriously think I'll believe that...that..."

Suddenly, the lights flickered and I looked over to see Sumer blinking and looking down as if she was in a trance. Her fingers started tapping against her knee as if she was sending Morse code or something, and then she snapped out of it.

"Oh my God," Indica as well as Sumer commented, only Indica was sitting near the cockpit of the plane, away from our conversation. Sumer, however, looked around at me and Warren and Anthony and Jane and Isaac and eventually Zaine. "You guys really are special..."

"Yeah, and now we know for a fact that you are too," Anthony commented before I adjusted my seat when they started telling them the story of the Secret Security Agency for Specialization and Maxwell Academy and the intrusion that brought us here. I knew the story would take forever and I didn't want to listen. So I looked in front of me at Cariba and she was sitting stressfully, clutching the arm rests and her eyes were shut tightly.

"Uh, are you okay?" I asked Cariba. Her not-as-bright blue eyes opened.

"I belong on land, preferably as below sea level as possible," she said with clenched teeth. Ah.

"It's not that bad," I laughed.

"For you," she said. "I feel like I'm gonna puke."

"Let's not..." I said, handing over a barf bag that she took as an insult and threw it over her shoulder and into my seat. Rude.

"Here," Warren said out of nowhere, holding out a piece of mint gum to Cariba. "Just take it. When I was younger, I was told that it helped with flying."

"I don't need my ears to pop or some sh!t, I just—"

"—feel like you're having motion sickness?" he questioned and she closed her mouth. "A little ironic coming from a girl who spends so much time on the waves, don't you think?"

He dropped the piece of gum in her lap and returned to Indica's previous seat so he could spin it around and talk to Zaine. Yeah right. Like he was going to talk to anyone. But maybe that's the thing with their friendship; they didn't need to talk because they understood enough. Just like I understood Warren's countered discourtesy toward Cariba.

"Why don't you just accept him already?" I asked her in a groan. She unwrapped the gum.

"Why didn't you sit with Zaine?" she retorted, folding the gum into her mouth. "And plus, it's my job to give him a hard time. Since no one else will."

"Mmh," I said. Whatever. That's her way of "flirting" I guess. However, I noticed that she sat more relaxed once she started chewing the gum. I returned to my seat and realized that Wib sat with his hands over his ears and he was hunched over as if in pain. He had been shifting uncomfortably the entire ride, but now I was concerned. "Wib, what's wrong?"