The Skylar Experiment : Dead Ending (second draft)

Chapter Twenty-Two - Doubts

RILEY

I ALMOST FORGOT that I sucked at how-to-mutant. My abilities were severely underdeveloped even though Tony kept insisting that I was catching up fast. Maybe it was just to encourage me—positive reinforcement and such. During our last meetings, I'd been able to levitate unlit candles in any direction I wanted, and to lay them down on any surface.

For the first half-hour, my skills were rusted already from the time gap, and I'd been so preoccupied with the fallout that I barely remembered to practice in my room when the door was closed. 

I'd spent the whole thirty minutes regaining the progress I'd lost, and thankfully, it hadn't taken any longer. But it seemed that beyond that point, I couldn't get myself to improve.

"You have to imagine it clearer," Tony said by the couch. "If you're unsure of what'll happen, nothing will happen at all."

I pressed my lips together as I stood in front of a single candle. My hand was outstretched, and I closed my eyes, pushing the image of a dancing flame to the forepart of my brain. I could see it flickering, warping, casting shadows against an imaginary wall I'd created, but still when I opened my eyes, the wick hadn't ignited. It mocked my umpteenth failure with its intact wax. 

My arm dropped against my side and I bit back a groan. We were running in circles.

"I'm sorry. I don't know why it's so hard today."

Tony clasped his fingers as his elbows leaned on the couch's edge. His gaze swept up to mine and his easy grin faded.

"How have you been feeling, lately?"

I slugged away from the damned candle and sank into the living room chair. A sigh leaked out of my mouth, one that escaped without permission. Truth to be told, I was tired from skating on thin ice with NIO and my parents. But I couldn't admit those worries to this man who was too familiar with true pain, the pain of seeing his loved ones die.

"Not... the best." 

We were alone in the cabin. Luc had disappeared about twenty minutes ago, saying he needed some air. Silence wrapped around the room, leaving only Tony's thudding footsteps when he stalked near me. I looked up, heart speeding. This conversation had to happen but I wished I could eschew it forever.

"Sweetheart, you have to stop this." He looked back at me, eyes worn down with sorrow.

His earnest face caused a wave of restlessness to shoot through my body, and my nails dug into the denim over my knees. 

"You don't know what's in my head."

I had been willing to kill a man that night. I pointed a gun at his sternum and I almost pulled the trigger. I didn't deserve an ounce of sympathy. Those figures—the boys that haunted me from time to time—served as my punishment. 

Tony turned to grab a wooden chair behind him, placed it ahead of me, and straddled it.

"I might as well read your mind," he replied, crossing his arms over the back of the chair. "There was nothing you could have done."

God, it sounded so wrong. My insides clenched and I wanted to scream at him to stop this. What I allowed to happen was my fault. It was my irresponsible actions that drove two kids to their deaths. It was my foolish sense of I-can-handle-this-alone that pitched us all into the frying pan, and I couldn't stand the way Tony tried to lighten my conscience. I knew I screwed everything up, and the last thing I wanted was to be treated like a baby.