Etched In Stone

Chapter Ten

He carries on like this for six more days.

Every day is the same - he trains for hours every day, goes to bed aching with exhaustion. He repeats. Every day, Saren and Ian out him through the ringer, using the best of their powers against him, but nothing happens. The attacks don't force him to react the way it does for Chris and Claudine - he just gets hit by the attacks, let's Saren heal him and then does it over and over again.

On the seventh day, they're going at it once more for what feels like the hundredth time. Saren forces another stream of water flying towards him, hitting him square in the chest and soaking his clothes. He coughs and splutters, leaning over, shaking his wet hair like a dog.

"Come on, Jake," Saren's voice strains in exasperation, "It's been over a whole week. And nothing's happened."

"It's not my fault, okay?" He finally snaps, glaring at her with daggers. "It's not my god damn fault! It's just not working!"

"Jake," Ian's voice has a warning undertone as he places a hand on Jake's arm. "Calm down."

"I can't calm down!" He explodes, pulling his arm away from Ian's grasp roughly, "I'm never going to unlock these stupid powers! It's been days, and not a single thing has happened."

"Jake, it's only a matter of time before -"

"Oh shut up, Saren," he snaps at her, cutting her off mid sentence.

Ten seconds after he snaps at her, water slams into him at full force, forcing him staggering back a few steps.

"That's enough." She says. Her voice is calm, but her face is glowering, her fists clenched.

"Just forget it." He lowers his head, defeated, and storms out of the training room, and upstairs to his room.

- - - - - -

"Jake?"

He hears her call out to him in his head, echoing from the inside out.

"Yeah?" He calls out loud, turning onto his side. His arms are folded underneath his head and he's staring out the window blankly.

"We haven't talked in a while."

"Yeah."

A pause, and then, "I heard you fighting with Saren earlier."

"Mhm." He says quietly, "I just got kinda...irritated."

"I could tell. Still no luck in unlocking those powers?"

"No, unfortunately." He sighs deeply, turning to lie on his back and resting his hands under his head. "I don't know if I'm able to do it." He bites down on his lip, "I'm sorry."

"Don't be." Her cool voice sounds in his head, "I think I can help."

"What do you mean?" He bolts up into a sitting position, looking around his room. "Serena?"

But she's gone, along with those strange last words.

- - - - -

"Look," Serena furrows her eyebrows, her lips set into a thin line. Her voice sounds inside his head suddenly.

"I can use my powers, see?"

Jake shrugs, glancing downwards. "I just can't do it."

"Come on." She smiles at him, the corners of her mouth turning upwards. "You can. Just focus, really hard."

He inhales deeply, closing his eyes, and stretches his arms out in front of him once more. For the first time, he lets himself think back, although it fills him with cold dread and makes him shudder involuntarily, he pushes his mind back to the facility and the things they did to him, thinks in as much detail as he can to when they would take blood, force him to use his powers over and over again. He thinks back to when he would use them for his parents. When they would hush him and make him promise not to show anyone else for fear that they might be discovered.