Elaina and Karina sat across from each other, neither speaking nor moving, only staring straight into each other with flat lips and vacant expressions.

They sat out on the patio of Dominic's vast acreage, with their palms flat upon a sturdy wooden table. The wind whipped around them from their lofty height in the hills of San Francisco. Karina wore her golden hair in a tight ponytail that swung at the pleasure of the breezy currents, while Elaina kept her dark, wild hair free and natural so that it swarmed around her like waves crashing against a rock.

Karina blinked first.

"Well, I'll at least give you credit for maintaining this silence for an hour," she said through stiff lips. "I didn't believe you could handle going a minute without making a snide comment."

"I was waiting for you to take the lead, oh great Jedi Master."

"Ah, there's one," said Karina with an amused twist of her lips. "Nevertheless, those exercises you were doing during my recovery must have actually helped. One hour in silence and I didn't feel even a flicker in my emotions."

"Then maybe you need to turn up the heat, teach."

Though Karina kept her lips firm and her eyes steady, there was still evidence of what happened the last time she turned up the heat. Makeup concealed most of the dark bruising beneath her eyes, but there was no hiding the unnatural curvature of her nose. It was subtle, thanks to a gifted surgeon, but Elaina had left her mark on her teacher. A mark Karina wouldn't ever forget.

Elaina sighed and turned away, lifting her hand to massage her forehead.

"You're running out of time here, Ms. Tutor. Your contract is almost up and I'm waiting for that diploma, which I can't get if you don't put me before a final exam."

"Oh, your final exam is coming," she replied with a sharp seriousness to her words, "but, you're right, I need to prove to our audience that you are ready to take that test." Karina motioned to the small group of observers who stood on the far end of the patio, watching the proceedings with quiet stoicism. Among them was Dominic.

Elaina did her best not to follow Karina's outstretched hand. If she did, she might catch Dominic's eye, and she didn't need that hurdle added to her trial with Karina. The illusionist may have had better control over her emotions, but the thought of her night in his arms, feeling his warmth and kindness despite baring her terrifying secret before him, often caused her to lose some sense of reason. She didn't think that fault should affect her graduation to the Society of Trusted Gifted, or whatever the hell Dom called his team of rogues, but she also didn't want to give them any reason to doubt her.

So instead, she focused her attention on the real obstacle at hand.

"So, do something," said Elaina as she crossed her arms and raised her eyebrow.

In return, Karina's jaw clenched, and her eyes wavered. She turned her head; the light bouncing off her skin, catching it just right so the pale, pink line of her scar gleamed. This sat an inch or two above the flattened expanse of her broken nose, where her skin had ruptured because of the repeated pounding it took when Karina attempted to crack her head open and unleash the self-loathing and sorrow that Elaina had infected her with.

"Look," said the illusionist with a shake of her head, "I know you may doubt this, but I'm just as adamant about not putting you through that again as you are about not experiencing it."

"Doubtful," she replied with a snarl, her eyes watering and threatening to breach.

"If you don't trust me, fine. They don't care about how well you have your shit together, they just want to know I won't be sending anyone else into a suicidal frenzy. So, just do it already!"

Uncertain of what response her words would provoke, she failed to brace herself for the table rising up and knocking her chin on its way. She hissed at the painful friction burn now present on her skin, but had little time to consider Karina's intent. A quick assessment of the table's fluctuating shadow spoke of its quick descent back to the ground and she dodged the collision just in time.

"You should have died," said Karina, who sauntered around the damaged table so she could get a better view of Elaina's sprawled out form on the patios dark slate tiles. "Melissa shouldn't have ended her life. All that she felt was your guilt, your self-loathing. You should have saved her by killing yourself when you had the chance."

Elaina pulled herself from the ground and sat cross-legged as she looked up into Karina's large, stabbing eyes.

"I don't disagree with you," she replied in a cool voice. "I have felt that way every day of my life."

"Then die now, be crushed and seek your repentance."

From the corner of her eye, Elaina caught sight of a sculptural ornament, wrenching itself from the ground. It was either carved from stone or formed from cement. She couldn't quite tell, but either way, it was heavy and had enough weight to crush her in an instant, if that's what Karina wanted.

"You can kill me, but it will be from your own rage, not from my will."

"How do I know that it's not you fueling me?" she hissed from behind clenched teeth, her pale skin growing a vibrant red. "That's the trick with you. How can we tell what is real and what isn't?"

"Call the others over," the illusionist responded, her voice loud enough so Dominic and his staff could hear her suggestion and act upon it, even if Karina chose not to. "If they feel the same as you then, you're right—I'm poisoning everyone around me and perhaps there is no hope in taming my powers. But, if they feel their own individual emotions, then all the hatred you feel is your own."

"You won't fool anyone with your calm attitude," she screeched. "I felt your mind. I felt your pain and your turmoil. You are a bomb waiting to explode."

"So are you," replied Elaina with a tinge of sympathy. However, that shared understanding did nothing to move the sculpture away from its position above her head, threatening to crush her.

"I know how to control my emotions," said Karina with a snarl. "I don't need any proof that what I feel is your doing."

"Except Ms. Hart's heart rate is steady," said the lead scientist of Dominic's architects, Civic. The stiff lipped woman stood a few yards from where the mentor and mentee sparred, along with the rest of the crowd. "It's fluctuated now and again, but nothing outside of an expected range for any human being considering a table flew out from beneath her."

"Fine," growled Karina, whose focus left the statue, allowing it to plummet to the ground, landing right where Elaina sat. However, the illusionist escaped the massive weight thanks to the force pulling her shirt and sending her careening across the yard. With her shirt tugging her by her armpits, it exposed her back to the rough texture of the stone tiles composing the patio. She bit back her howl of pain, only for a gasp to replace it when she found herself tossed into the air.

Elaina grunted as the neck of her shirt cut into her throat and her arms strained to keep her sleeves snug beneath her shoulder blades. As if hanging from a hook, she dangled past the parapet that guarded the patio from the steep drop of the hill. She took a moment to glance down to see how far below the ground loomed, but regretted it the second she looked.

"Are you afraid?" hissed her malevolent tutor.

"Of course I am," she shot back. "It's human nature to fear heights to some extent."

"I can support this statement," added Civic, who, with the others, joined up next to Karina at her position near the fencing around the patio. "Her heart rate and respiration have increased."

"Thanks, Doc," said Elaina with a roll of her eyes. In doing so, she caught Dominic's gaze. For a moment, her thoughts quieted, and she simply disappeared into his cool, blue eyes, which remained steady upon her. She saw his fear, but a part of her knew it was his alone.

"Wait," interjected Civic, pulling Elaina from Dominic's hold, "her numbers are dropping back to a more sustainable level."

"I just needed a moment," Elaina replied with a smirk. "Can't blame me for having to take a second to recover. Despite this power, I'm still human after all."

"That she is," answered Dom, his voice booming over the hillside and his eyes burning with something Elaina couldn't put her finger on. She considered, perhaps, she was hallucinating from oxygen deprivation thanks to the way her shirt kept riding up on her throat, but she tried not to dwell on that theory for long. "Lower her, Karina. She's done with her training."

"Sure," said her mentor with an effervescent shrug.

"The fuck you mean, 'sure'?" asked Elaina, with spite dripping from your words. "What happened to your personal inferno? You were ready to kill me." Despite the previous hatred Karina expressed, the telekinetic psychic sent Elaina gliding through the air, before navigating her to the ground with a soft plop.

"I mean, I might still off you one of these days," she replied as she brushed a finger beneath her lip, "and I'm still pissed about this ongoing headache you gave me, but I told you from the start, you must handle your emotions if you have a mind-based power. I handle my emotions." She tossed her ponytail over her shoulder and batted her eyes at Dom, who watched her with a bored expression that she willfully ignored. Then she turned back to face the disoriented Elaina. "I was just playing my part to see if I could get a rise out of you, but we had a breakthrough I think a couple weeks ago and apparently some of my lessons found their way into your thick skull."

"Thank you, Karina," said Dom with exhaustion tugging at his voice. "Walt will pay you once Mirage completes the final test this Friday. However, we can give you a bit of an advance if you'd like to buy yourself something to wear for the event."

She hummed to herself, her eyes darting between Elaina, Dom, and Walt, who stood a few yards away from the group. After some deliberation, she sighed and landed her gaze on the dutiful assistant.

"Your invite is appreciated and it would be nice to get out for a little while and reward myself with something pretty." As she reflected on what exactly that might be, the reluctant curve of her lips shifted into an impish smirk. "I would like to find something that will remind you of the old days, Dom."

"I wouldn't expect anything less from you," he said as she walked past him, brushing his arm and wiggling her hips as she did.

Once she and Walt were headed back to the house, Civic instructed her team to return to the lab to analyze the data they had collected and compare it to the readings they retrieved during earlier training sessions. Dominic, however, stood before Elaina with his hand outstretched.

"You've grown," he said with a soft, warm smile that caused Elaina's own cheeks to rise.

"I don't like her methods, but her extreme behavior had its effect, I suppose." She looked at his hand and recalled the way they felt on her back. About how they would pull her in during his slumber and how they massaged her skin when he thought she was still asleep. For weeks, she spent every night reliving that simple, blissful nap they shared together. Feeling both exposed and safe in his arms. She wasn't sure what might happen if she were to feel those hands on her again.

Eventually, she took hold of his offer and rose to her feet. Once stable, she was quick to let go under the pretense of straightening her dirtied shirt.

"You'll probably want some new clothes too," he remarked as they made their way back to the house.

"I don't know," she replied, "Tudor has been diligent in stocking up that massive armoire she unearthed. I think I'll find something to change into in there."

"I mean, for your last test," he continued, his vague comments clearly intended to tease her, given the twist of his smile. "You're going to have to look your best for it."

"Oh, yeah?" she asked with a raised eyebrow and a playful, but hesitant, smirk. "What exactly is this final test or is this more like a pop quiz?"

"Well," he replied with a mischievous grin that outshined her own, "my last dinner event was destroyed by a Lovecraftian beast called Purr-seus, so I'm trying to make it up to a few people by hosting another dinner and you're going to have to endure being surrounded by people for hours."

"Yay," she groaned, before stepping into the house and returning to her room to get changed.