Page 42 of Infinity Chronicles 1
“Do you guys feel it too? When you touch?”
A slight pink rises on Milo’s cheeks. “Not like it was when we touched you.”
Hesitantly, I brush my fingers over Ares forearm and down to the top of his hand, trailing past his fingers, eventually folding my hands together in my lap. When I look up, he’s staring at the hand I just grazed. “It’s not there anymore.” My words are spoken softly, I knew it was too good to be true.
Ollie comes over and sits on the arm of the couch, he places his hand over mine. “It’s changing,” he offers. “You may not believe much of this, but your body has already accepted it. That’s the only way you would have been able to feed my power.” I still feel something when he touches me, I felt the same thing when I touched Ares, but it’s not the overwhelming feeling that would invade my senses from before, now that I’m thinking about it. I haven’t felt it since the first day I came here, and they tried to explain what was happening.
“So, when you guys need your powers, like for something big, I’ll have to be around?” I get a small jolt of satisfaction, knowing I might be needed. Ares gets up and heads to the kitchen, the light from the fridge opening creates a long shadow behind him. I narrow my eyes, wondering if the light is playing tricks on me, or if it is moving independently of him, which is the way it looks.
Dante grabs my attention by answering my question, “It’s more than just when we’re using our abilities for big stuff, it’s more like we become a unit.” He glances around to the others, waiting to see if he gave the right answer. When no one protests he continues, “We’re able to function separately, but it’s like losing one of your senses. If you are born without taste, eating is still something you would do. But say you tasted… chocolate once in your life, then you had to go back to not being able to experience the bitter sweetness melting on your tongue. Wouldn’t you crave it? Crave it like you didn’t know how to crave it before, because you had no idea there was something out there that tasted like that?”
“So, that’s why you guys are so close. Wait, if Ares wasn’t living nearby wouldn’t that have been hard?”
The man in question drops into the seat next to me, closer if I had to judge. “We do get a certain connection from being together, but it’s not the same as the one we get from you.”
“That’s part of the reason I might have seemed like a jerk the last day or two,” Milo cuts in before I really have a chance to think about what Ares is implying. “Not all of us agreed that finding out how you don’t know about us, or yourself, was more important than having us all together.” He’s not looking at anyone in particular, he’s more addressing the room as a whole, but Dante accepts it as a challenge.
“You act like I was doing it to keep her away from you. It was a day or two max Milo.”
“Yeah a day or two, but I’ve been waiting for three years.” As soon as the words come out of his mouth he looks at Ares, then casts his eyes down to the floor.
“I’ve been waiting six.” Ares’s voice is low, and it sends a fissure of awareness through me. The sophisticated clothes don’t hide the fierce man beneath. I shift away from him on instinct. Ares’s darkened eyes snap over to me when I do. Ollie places a steadying hand on my shoulder and the blackness bleeds away immediately, leaving behind the beautiful burnished brown. “What Milo was trying to tell youcara, is that each of us will continue to struggle a bit during this adjustment period.” He clasps my hand in his. “Its normal to feel a little out of sorts, on edge,” he finishes.
It’s quiet for only seconds before Ollie interjects, “Are you sure you weren’t adopted?”
“Jesus Oliver,” Dante groans. I gaze up to Ollie’s sweet face, his long hair is tied back with only few stray pieces escaping. His full lips are turned down in a frown and his brow is wrinkled. The thought never crossed my mind. Could I be? I dismiss the idea as soon as it forms. I know I look like my mom, she even has the same abnormality in her eyes as I do. Hers is much subtler, you have to look really hard to see her right eye has a pie shaped piece of green cutting through the brown. Most people just mistakenly think her eyes are hazel.
“No,” I finally respond after giving the question some genuine thought. “I really don’t think so.”
“But…” Ollie looks around. “You said your mom’s sick right?” I nod. “See, that’s the thing, we don’t really get sick, and if she’s your mom and you’re an Infinity like us, then I don’t see how it’s possible.”
“Wait, you don’t get sick, like ever?” I question, wondering how that’s even possible.
“We get sick,” Milo places his phone on the middle cushion, “but only before your united in an Infinity, afterwards our bodies tend to fight off anything that could get us sick.”
I shake my head. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. The only thing abnormal about me is my ability to blend in. I don’t have any powers, neither does my mom.”
It’s quiet for several minutes. Ollie eventually abandons the arm of the couch for the much more comfortable position he was in previously. He crooks his inner elbow over his eyes and sighs. “I feel like I haven’t slept in ages,” he says around a yawn. A yawn over takes me in the next second. I lie my head back with the intention to relax for a moment.
Dante and Ares start up a quiet conversation. “Why didn’t you tell me you had moved above the garage?”
“Because I didn’t want you coming home just because of me, if you were happy where you were I wanted you to stay there.”
Ares snorts. “Happy wasn’t what I would call it, I was surviving.”
“I was doing the same. I hated being in this house all alone, even when Milo and Oliver were with me, it felt wrong.” My eyes fall shut, I feel like I’m invading their privacy but I’m helpless to get up. Their words grow even more faint as I begin to drift off. I know it’s happening and I don’t stop it. I’m tired of being in my tiny RV alone, waking up at every sound. I just need a few moments’ rest and I’ll ask Dante or Milo to drive me back.
* * *
“Laura,”a deep voice coos. “Laura, we need to get you home before your mom calls the cops.” I turn, rolling into a ball in the corner.
“She won’t call,” I murmur, falling back to sleep almost immediately.
“I don’t want you to get into trouble.” Dante brushes my hair away from my face, still trying to wake me.
“I won’t. I promise.” The weight of a soft blanket settles over my shoulders, I burrow down even further.
* * *
