Chapter 7

   Burning flame coursed through Lin's veins like a living, breathing thing. And good God, it hurt. Lin faintly recalled thinking the crash was bad, but this, this took the cake. Coursing, pulsing waves of sentient heat searing her insides, nausea roiling in her stomach. Every scratch of fabric against her skin felt like a tattoo, hundreds of little needles of ever-constant pain. Why wouldn't someone stop this, her tired mind inquired of the pain. Why must it continue?

   Sometimes, Lin felt the cool droplets of water on her face, but even those felt like a sledgehammer for every drop. Nonetheless, she was grateful for the coolant, and turned her face in it's direction, blind as a newborn animal. Two male voices grated at her ears, abrasive and loud to her senses.
 
   "Shouldn't it have let up by now? It did for me." The first, impatient, interrupted by cracks, pondered as another few drops fell across her forehead.

   "The blooming is different for everyone, Eric. You know that." To Eric's impatience, this voice was nothing but steady and concerned. The cadences of someone old enough to have leveled out. Lin decided she like it more than she did Eric's.

   Lin blinked, slow and ardorous, to see if her head was in one piece, with the way it felt. For the same reasons, she carefully went through the actions, excruciating as they were, of meticulously bending her arms and legs, toes and fingers. A quiet groan left her lips when she bent her head from side to side.

   Not only did Lin's body thrum with undercurrents of pain, but a bone deep weariness permeated her limbs, and her mind. It whispered in her ear of rest that she couldn't give in to. In the gloom, the barest outline of a face peered down at her, tilted in what might have been curiosity. "It'd be nice for the rest of the people here if you'd shut this down. Jeremy and I can see, but everyone passing through's blind as a bat."

   Lin recognized it as the first voice that had spoken, Eric, if she recalled the name correctly. Lin's throat ached as she murmured in tired response, "Shut what down?"

   Eric snorted in obvious disdain before answering her as if she were an idiot with no more brain cells than a goldfish. "Why the hell do you think it's so dark in here? Because we just left the lights off?"

   Lin winced slightly, squeezing her eyes shut before opening them again. Her voice scraped along, hoarse and raw. "I don't know how."

   Jeremy's voice was calm from her side as he instructed in soothing tones, "Visualize it like it's a cast net, and you're the tether. Reel it inwards, towards you."

   Lin's mind felt like jelly, but she tried to do as he asked. She closed her eyes once more, hoping it would help, and attempted to paint the scene of herself pulling the net of dark toward her.

   After a few moments of silence that left her feeling stupid, Lin peeked through her lashes. The room had lightened some, not much, but some. She could make out the more definitive shapes of the two, some features in their faces. She could vaguely see the room in which she lay, sparsely furnished like Orias' office had been, yet holding traces of the hospital room she'd woken in just over a week ago.

   Jeremy, or at the very least, who she assumed was Jeremy, smiled at her from the side of her bed. She found herself hating her fragility, the fact this was the second time in a month she'd been placed in medical care. "Very good."

   Eric, the younger male with dark skin and stubborn eyes, huffed through his nose as he mumbled not quite to himself, "If it was good, we'd be standing in a room that had actual lighting."

   Jeremy's reprimand was sharp, swift, and it made Lin feel better, to be honest. She shifted her gaze to the ceiling, not together enough to focus on soundly keeping attention on either of the two males. "Can anyone tell me what happened? I remember pain, then and now. Ironically, black." Lin's quiet laughter hurt, ringing through her body like a tolling bell.

   It was Eric who answered, to Lin's surprise. A simple, dry answer, but nonetheless a response with less condescension that before. "Everyone was enjoying the evening. You went off like a ticking time bomb. Suddenly everyone was dining the dark."

   "What Eric means," Jeremy interjected with a quiet sigh, "is that you experienced a blooming. Or, as he so fondly referred to it after the incident, a booming. It's common to every saq'ur, and results after they've been exposed to a specific wave frequency emitted by saq'ur of the same ability."

   Lin struggled to wrap her mind around the words, trying desperately to process them in a way they would make if not complete sense, then at the very least a little sense. "Specific wave frequency," she croaked in question.

   In a bored tone, Eric piped up from where he had chosen to stand over the course of Jeremy and Lin's brief conversation. "Specific wave frequency," he parroted. "Every saq'ur possesses a frequency unique to those of their own ability. The waves trigger only people of the same gift. For example, you came in with Genevieve, Olly, and Spencer. Wonder why you hadn't started exhibiting signs? Because their frequency isn't the same as yours. They wouldn't even trigger each other, seeing as none of them run on the same. A fire manipulator can't cause a blooming in a time warper. Only another time warper could. In your case, only a darkie could expose you to the correct one."

   Lin's only word in response was a quiet, confused, "Darkie?"

   Eric rolled his eyes, or it looked like he did, but Jeremy beat him this time to the explanation. "A nickname for darkness manipulator. Much easier to say in a short amount of time."

   Lin studied the dark around her, settling in finally on the true realization that this was her doing. That the reason she only saw in vague was because she didn't know what to do with this like she had no doubt these two knew. "I'm sorry," she apologized softly. "For causing a mess."

   Jeremy gave a soft chuckle, patting her hand as if he were some doting relative. "You didn't create a mess. Faith just tripped. Austin spilled his tray. Nothing that couldn't be easily fixed."

   "Besides," Eric commented, shrugging, "the bulbs- light bulbs...light manipulators, you catch my drift? -are having the time of their lives out there making everything look like some night sky."

   Lin found herself smiling slightly then. At least she hadn't completely ruined everyone's dinner. "After," she asked the pair, head cocked despite the lance of pain it sent spearing through her senses.

   Eric bluntly stated, "We dragged your ass here. You need to lose a few pounds. I think I tore something."

   Jeremy shot his younger companion a glare, eyes slitted. "Language, Eric."

   Eric shrunk slightly, amending his statement. "We dragged your butt here. You still need to lose a few pounds. How can the fuck you be that short and weigh-."

   Jeremy's glare sharpened, and Eric shifted against the wall. "Forget I said that," Eric murmured, not meeting her eyes in the slowly lightening dark.

   "Yes, forget he said that," Jeremy stated primly, releasing a sigh of what might have been exasperation. "He has a tendency to say things he shouldn't."

   Lin's laughter made her body feel worse, but lightened her mood. "He's not the only one that curses like a sailor."

   Jeremy scrutinized her, eyes narrowed in thought before he said, "Yes, but I'd also wager you're a few good years ahead of his thirteen."

   "Five," Lin clarified with a slight, humorless smile. Eric made a quiet remark over in the corner about another person showing up to boss him around, and Lin couldn't help but let her smile widen. Eric reminded her of herself when she'd been younger, willful and reckless. Wildly stubborn, her parents had often groused.

   "As thought," Jeremy concluded with a faint smile. "Even so, you'll have to get used to censoring yourself a little. You are under my mentorship now, Lin."

   At Lin's confusion, puzzlement that must have been evident, she realized, Jeremy chuckled. "I learned your name from Spencer. Couldn't have me waltzing around calling 'Girl' every time I need your attention, now could I? But besides that, you're going to be learning a lot more than just how to stop your darkness. As Eric so eloquently put it, welcome to being a darkie."

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   Spencer wasn't sure where his sense had run off to. He'd handled the situation in the mess hall well enough, having the light summoners conjure little balls like miniature suns to float around the room until Lin was well, and had decent control over her abilities, to retract the dark she'd cast over them all. But a small voice had nagged at him, rap-tap-tapped on the borders of his focus, whispering in conspiratorial tones that he should check on her. After all, he had been the one to bring her here. She was his responsibility.

   He was snappish towards those internal whispers, already in a bad mood from the scenes he'd witnessed in his dreams. They shrunk back like kicked hounds, pacing sullenly in hopes he would pay them attention again. And sue him, he was starting to listen.

   Spencer dragged himself reluctantly down the hall, body braced with distaste. He turned the corner to the secluded set of rooms in connection with the hospital above, raised his hand to knock on the door of one. He paused for a moment, was this really such a stellar idea?

    Spencer bit his lip before smoothing, he hoped, all turmoil from his features as he pushed open the door.

   The room looked as if it were cloaked in a smoky haze, making it almost easy to overlook the other two darkness manipulators in the room. "Orias wishes me to check in on her." The lie fell easily from Spencer's lips as he looked between the two other males.

   Jeremy nodded his head in silent acknowledgement, standing from his seat. The younger, Eric, he believed was the name, looked about to protest but lowered his head at a sharp glance from his mentor. "We'll be outside," Jeremy said simply, slipping past him into the hall.

  Lin lay in a bed not quite hospital grade, but close enough to give him faint feelings of deja vu. It was too similar to how they'd first met for him to be comfortable leaning against the wall, in the same room as her. Blackened veins spider-webbed across her pale cheeks and traced erratic paths over her arms, paths Spencer found himself idly following while Lin's eyes were closed.

   Lin opened an eye, fawn pelt edged in black. It gave him shivers. "Are you going to stand there and stare?" Her voice sounded different from what he'd heard before, coarse and roughened.

   Concern prickled slightly even as he responded with a flippant, "You look like shit. Am I not supposed to?"

   Lin barked a short laugh, her face contorting into a wince of pain. "It's generally not practical, no."

   "Neglected to give you any water, I see? I don't need to hear nails down a chalkboard every time you say a word." Spencer took a paper cup from it's place of honor next to the pitcher on the stand by her bed, pouring a simple drink of water that he thrust out to her like a poisonous snake instead of harmless, sloshing liquid. He would have rather not played nursemaid, but there was only so much one could expect of a two person division. Spencer had checked up on every person he'd brought in, even some he hadn't.

   Been there to see a fire caller writhe at his own heat as he set his bed aflame.

   Suffered through a girl who had nearly shattered his eardrums with a banshee scream.

   Witnessed small supernovas exploding in light when Xavier had been introduced to the compound.

   Despite the dangers that came with being vulnerable to these because he wasn't a part of their division, Spencer had soothed their fears and whispered them to restful sleep, like an elder brother to a nightmare plagued younger sibling.

   Though Spencer knew the words sounded harsh, a faint smile lingered on Lin's face as she took the cup from him, and pressed the edge to her lips. She took a swallow before setting the cup back on the stand on her own, seeming exhausted by the simple effort.

   On autopilot, his mind occupied elsewhere, Spencer said softly, "I remember my blooming, you know. It was a nightmare." He gave a dry laugh as Lin cocked her head in what might have been interest or annoyance. Spencer didn't have the patience to stop and decipher it. He forged on, messing idly with a patch of skin on the back of his hand that bore a small burn scar. "One minute I was standing in the mess hall. The next I was some cave in Utah and tired as hell. Then Missouri. Hated it. Then on the roof. I pretty much lost track from there. Everything starts getting hazy, you know?"

   "I think I managed to piss off half the compound in the aftermath, showing up in places I wasn't supposed to on accident. Orias informs me I ended up in the water manipulators' training quarters, half out of a fountain. I don't remember it. I also don't remember supposedly dropping from a shadow in the mess hall and upsetting an entire table's worth of food, but nonetheless, everyone seems to think I did."

   Surprise alit in Lin's eyes as she watched him, more than likely incited by the burst of openness Spencer had displayed. It suprised Spencer himself, if he was being honest. It had been more reflex than concious thought, more muscle memory than decision. It unsettled him that it had been so easy, when he was dead set on keeping his distance from this girl, and therefore the version of herself that had stared him down in his dreams.

   Wasn't he?

   Spencer shook himself from what felt like a haze clouding his mind, straightened even as he leaned against the wall. "But...that's irrelevant. Here's how this is going to go, princess. Jeremy's going to teach you how to get a handle on your abilities. He's your division leader. You listen to him. I trust he already explained that?"

   Spencer barely gave Lin time to nod before continuing. "Good." He was out of the room again as soon as he'd spoken the word, giving a tight nod to Jeremy as he passed. He rounded the corner, and the ground wavered underneath him as his vision darkened, filling with images. His ears delivered him screams that hadn't been present mere moments before, and chaos raged around him.

   Genevieve rushed past, calling frantically for her siblings. Tears carved clean paths in the soot on her cheeks. A half-supressed sob burst from her as she placed a hand to the wall. She covered her mouth, staring down at a small foot covered in debris. She fell to her knees, clawing at the discard like a madwoman.

   Spencer felt his own spike of relief as he saw the child's face, even as grief washed over him in a suffocating wave. A child. Lost. Crushed, it seemed, with it's heart missing, evidenced by the empty cave in it's chest.
  
   Genevieve stumbled to her feet, calling in a hoarse voice once more for her siblings as she brushed past a Spencer she didn't heed. Or maybe didn't know was there.

   The scene shifted around him, framing another display of the same chaos, the same chorus of screams.

   To an open and marked door, serene and unharmed.

   Spencer surfaced from the visions like breaching from water. Gasping for air, as his lungs burned. He lay curled in the middle of an otherwise unoccupied hallway, the same in which he'd been before the seeings.

   For these...these could not have been dreams, could they? Not when they had come on so suddenly. These might be true, Spencer allowed himself to ponder, but Olly's death had been a dream. A simple nightmare, was all. He refused to believe otherwise. But he would not brush these off.

   Spencer picked himself up off the dusty ground, jaw set in determination as he strode, like a dead man walking to his grave, to Orias' office. No matter how angry his foster father was at him, he would listen to this.

   Spencer would make him listen.

   He pounded on the door with a closed fist, chewing the inside of his cheek absently as the door stayed closed. What was taking Orias so long? After what seemed like an eternity, Orias called to him to open the door.

   Spencer stepped inside, holding himself rigid as Orias looked up from his papers. It was such a familiar scene it hurt to witness.

   Orias' expression soured slightly, and he quickly asked with quiet venom, "What?"

   Spencer shrunk from this, almost losing his nerve that he'd painstakingly pulled together from shambles. He spoke bluntly, fists clenched in stubborn grit at his sides. "I've been getting visions. I think. I see death and chaos. The open door of the compound. I don't like the looks of any of it."

   Orias seemed unbelieving, but how could he be? Spencer was dead serious, and would've had no reason to fabricate lies.

   Yet, Orias' pale brow raised in skepticism, and he leaned back in his chair. "Do you now," Spencer's father asked flatly.

   Spencer dug his fingernails into his palms, holding his head high as he nodded. He knew what he'd seen. Even if Orias wasn't going to believe him, but why wouldn't he? It wasn't as if Spencer had gone against almost every rule that Orias had set, all without telling his father, or endangered the entirety of the compound's safety, right?

   Oh. Wait....

   Spencer shook himself of the thought, his brow furrowing as he registered Orias' words. "What? I do!"

   Orias sighed softly, rubbing the bridge of his nose. It was such a familiar action it sent an aching pang through his chest. "Spencer, I'm not sure I believe you. Forgive me, but it looks like a convenient time for this to appear."

   Orias might as well have slapped Spencer. After all, the words landed like a blow. Orias thought he was lying? Granted, he'd lied about a lot over the years, but this was too serious for the thought to even be considered. He opened his mouth to sputter a protest, only to be greeted by his own silence. He couldn't form the words.

   Orias stood from his makeshift desk as if every movement pained him, brushing past Spencer to open the door. "Don't you have training to be attending? Somewhere else to be?"

   Spencer walked from the office as if in a daze, blinking the cloud of shock from his mind. Orias hadn't believed him.

  Orias...hadn't believed him.

   It didn't make any sense. Where was the logic? Even if he was lying, which he wasn't, what would be the harm in setting up some extra precautions? Guards at the door, a curfew, that sort of thing.

   Spencer shook his head as he simply stood there in the hall, reeling from it all. Where was the sense?

   The simple truth of the matter was that there wasn't any. All of it seemed to have fled. But why, Spencer asked himself, flurry of thoughts occupied as he placed one foot in front of the other, not knowing where he intended to go.

   The chaos that filled his mind was a stark contrast to the quiet of the hallway, the only sound the distant voices from the mess hall.

   He looked up to where his feet had brought him to a stop, to be met with the sight of Lin's closed door. Spencer stiffened, why had he ended up here? It made no sense. Then again, he thought with a rueful, bitter smile, nothing seemed to be making sense today. Back straight with unbridled tension, Spencer turned on his heel, and walked away.

   Back toward whatever sense and reason he could salvage.