Convergence - The Last Science #2.1 - In Plain Sight

B2: Chapter 16 - Rebirth - II

  Quinn didn't say anything for a full minute, just staring at the little candle flame floating above Natalie's palm. She glanced around nervously, reassuring herself no one could see them.

  "That is so cool," he murmured. He reached out his hand toward the flame, and Natalie saw it coming out of the corner of her eye. She flinched away before he could get close. "Oh, uhh... sorry."

  "It's real, if that's what you were wondering." She moved it out to float above the table instead of her hand. He cupped his hand around it, and his eyes lit up as he felt the warmth emanating from the little fire.

  "Amazing. This is how the deck of cards floated around, right? Last time we were here."

  Natalie glanced up, surprised. "You remembered that?"

  He shrugged. "I mean, you have a lot of secrets. I just figured it was something you wanted to keep secret too. So I pretended not to see it."

  "Oh." He notices everything...

  "It's really cool though."

  "It's scary," Natalie said, letting the flame fade away.

  "What's scary? Magic?"

  "No... everything else."

  He didn't answer, and Natalie finally looked up at him again. His expression was thoughtful, almost like when he was thinking over a move in the game. He was planning, and that made her feel a lot better. She wanted someone else to come up with something, an answer to what she should do next. Every time she made a decision it just seemed to go wrong.

  "This is why you're in hiding, right?"

  She nodded.

  "But it's not witness protection? Or like, anything from the government?"

  Natalie shook her head. "We have to hide from them too."

  Quinn nodded. "They never do anything good with superpowers."

  "It's not superpowers."

  "I mean, it kind of is..."

  She shook her head again. "It isn't. I got to choose."

  His eyes lit up. "Does that mean I could..." He trailed off, seeing her expression. "Oh."

  "Sorry... it just doesn't really work like that." Even if she had a Scrap he could read from, Natalie wasn't sure anybody else should read from them anymore. Magic sure hadn't seemed to bring much good to the world, despite everything Rachel and Cinza always said. Natalie liked what she could do, and she'd never regret making friends with Gwen, but more people with magic meant more scary people like Julian, or Rika, or... him. The one who'd taken her dad.

  Quinn's eyes drifted over to the bandages stuck awkwardly to her face. The gang members had used duct tape to hold the cloth on, and while Cinza had helped adjust them a bit to stick better, Natalie hadn't really touched them since. She'd taken a bath and washed her hair without letting the water get near, and she never touched it to avoid setting off another spike of pain. She just wanted to pretend it wasn't there, but from the way Quinn couldn't take his eyes off it, she knew she had to give up on that hope.

  "What happened?" he asked, just as she was opening her mouth to answer. She'd been about to launch into a full recounting, but the moment he spoke, she faltered. Cinza told her to find a real friend, and she'd already trusted Quinn with so much, but she didn't want to tell him. She didn't want to tell anyone. There were only two people in the whole world who knew what she'd done—the kind of things she was really capable of—and that was already two too many.