Animi Motus

6: Felix

There's five more minutes until the end of 4th hour. I don't know why I'm so looking forward to lunch. Before, I was excited to get a chance to meet Curiosity, but we can't talk to him if Nessa's friend Skylar is going to be joining us. Oh well, I guess we can always talk to him after school. For some reason, I haven't been able to stop thinking about my ring today. I've only had it for one day, but I already can't imagine going without it. I want to know what else it can do. I want to know so many things. I'm just contemplating opening a channel with Nessa, when the bell finally rings. I jump up, shoving my textbook in my bag and heading out of the room.

When I get to the cafeteria, there's only a few other people milling about. I go ahead and grab a table, throwing my sweatshirt down on it, and head over to get in line for food.

"Hey, man." I hear Riley's voice behind me. I turn to see him strolling into lunchroom.

"Hey, how'd it go?" I ask him.

"I got off with a warning by some stroke of luck," He says.

"Not bad," I say. While we wait for everyone else, I catch him up on the whole Curiosity situation.

"Oops. That's my bad for hittin' him I guess. But you gotta admit, kid had it coming." He insists. I shake my head and laugh. Nessa appears in the lunchroom with Curiosity by her side, and walks over to us. Once we all get formally introduced, we hoped we would have a few moments to talk before Skylar arrived. Unfortunately, she follows only seconds behind them, and sits down next to me.

"Who's this?" She asks, pointing at Curiosity. A lump forms in my throat as I realize I have no way to explain who he is or why he's here.

"Uh...This is...um...well, he's my..." I flounder.

"He's his cousin, Connor," Nessa blurts out. Thank goodness she came to my rescue. "He's visiting from Nevada," She continues.

"Oh, that's super cool," Skylar gushes. "I bet you're such a great cousin."

"Um, yeah. That's me," I smile.

"You know, we should all go get dinner tonight or something!" Skylar exclaims.

"Pass," Riley says bluntly. Skylar glares at him.

"You know, I'd love to, but today just isn't a good day. I'm swamped with school stuff," I tell her.

"Okay, sorry! It was just a suggestion." Skylar snaps.

"Yeah Riley, it was just a suggestion," Someone behind me says. I turn around and see a big guy, maybe 6'2", smirking at Riley. I can practically feel the animosity pulsing off of Riley.

"Get out of here, Chaz," he snarls.

"Or what? You gonna beat me up? Careful, you might get yourself kicked off of the football team. Oh wait, I'm pretty sure you already did that, didn't you?" He snickers, and I see some other guys a few tables away, who must be Chaz's henchmen, follow suit. Then he leans toward Riley. "What are you gonna do, Wiley?" He says, shoving him.

"Don't touch me, Chaz," Riley growls. I can see him trying to keep it together, but he's not doing too well at it. I feel like I should do something.

"Hey now, guys, calm it down. No one here is looking for a fight." Actually, that's exactly what Chaz is looking for.

"Wimp," Chaz mutters, and starts to walk away. Close call. That could've been bad.

"That's it," Riley hisses, pushing back his chair and putting up his fists. "Let's do this." Chaz smiles. Then he lunges at Riley. Yup, now it's bad.

"Stop it!" I shout, feeling a surge of energy. Chaz's momentum stops in mid-air, and he flies back as if he ran full speed into a trampoline. Everyone in the cafeteria stares at Riley, who looks as surprised as them. I guess from where they stood, it looked like Riley just knocked the crap out of Chaz. But everyone sitting at my table, including Chaz, knew that wasn't the case. I wasn't entirely sure what I had just done, but I was pretty sure I just developed another ability. It seemed like I had created a sort of forcefield, but I would have to test it out later to know for sure. I feel woozy.