Power Lust

Chapter One

My mom used to always say I was special. That I could make a whole room light up just by walking through the door. That when I was older, I'd have the whole world in the palm of my hand. And I always believed her too. I was always told my "natural beauty" I had received from her would take me far in the world, that my two different colored eyes completed the picture, a pale blue and a dark chocolate brown set into a tan face with a frame of dark brown hair. Not that I ever thought that what I had as especially beautiful, but everyone else seemed to. The scholarships I received to some of the best schools in the country seemed to make it more obvious I was destined for great things. I could rule the world.

Then, when I was seventeen, on the cusp of adult hood, of being able to do all the great things I'd been told I could since almost the day I was born, I discovered something about myself, something that had never happened in the past, something that separated me from everyone else. I started to develop some strange abilities that I thought were only possible in works of fantasy and science fiction. I found myself able to control fire. It started with little things. A few sparks erupting from my fingertips when I was angry, or all the candles going out when I walked into a room if I was sad. Eventually, the scale got bigger. If I got too angry, the curtains in a room would ignite, or flames would burst out of my hands. And it seemed to grow more intense and stronger as I grew older. And it grew much harder to control. Even now, two years after I first discovered my ability, if someone or something startles me, there is a good chance that whatever startled me, whether it be person or thing, will light up in flame, or the surrounding area will be set ablaze. But I have become much better at controlling it than I was when it first appeared in my life. And there are others like me too. They found me after I accidentally set a grocery store on fire after one of my friends saw me, ran up behind me, and grabbed my waist. Everyone got out okay, thank goodness, but the building was completely destroyed. News reporters and EMT's and fire fighters came and talked to everyone who was there. Every time someone asked me what happened, why the fire started, I lied and said it was someone who was trying to light up a cigarette and dropped their match or their lighter. A few days after the incident I got a phone call from a private number asking me about the fire. I said I didn't know anything, I didn't know why it started.

They just said "You're lying, you started it, I know you did. And I know how,"

"How then?" I had replied, about to hang up on them.

"You did it with your mind,"

And then I just stood there, mouth open. How had they known? After a silence that was probably longer than it should've been I asked to meet. We had a rendez-vous at a cafe, and I met Fiona Grenlocke, a skinny little thing who looked only fifteen. When I walked up to her, she told me it was rude of me to insult her weight and age without opening her mouth. I also noticed her eyes, although the were both brown, they were different shades of brown. Like my eyes. She told me that she is the leader of a group of people who posses supernatural abilities, or powers as she calls them. And in response to my thinking about her eyes, she also tells me that everyone who possesses powers has different colored eyes, just another thing thats sets us apart from the general public. She invited me to join her and the rest of the people with these unique abilities, that they'd help me train to control my own. Considering I was 18 at the time and had some troubles at home, I accepted. And since I arrived there, I've been so much better at controlling my power, and when I need to use it, can use it with accuracy and skill.

We have a base of operations in a very rural part of Canada. There, the ones of us who are minors and orphans or those of us of legal age who have finished with all of our wanted or required schooling reside. Not one of us is older than twenty-three. Everyone learns control of their power and how to correctly use them at the base. The rest of us are spread out in different parts of the world completing education or recruiting new people with powers. And we always go off in pairs, one person who speaks the native language of the area goes with you. The only exception is Fiona. She's always with her girlfriend Lily, a pale girl with severe social anxieties and a stutter. Lily has a calming aura to her, she could calm down a riot into a civilized discussion, and she can extract the truth from anyone, there is no lying to her. My partner is a guy with very minor telekinetic power named Ash. Him and I are in Paris, France right now. He is studying there, and I figured it may as well be me who tagged along with him, considering he's one of my only friends. I speak basically no French, but I'm learning a little each day. Ash is proud of my progress and has started speaking French to me even when we're alone, even though I don't understand most of it. He says he's "completing my French immersion," I think he just enjoys my frustration.