Chapter Two

Axel’s plan was above all the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard. He wanted to leave a note in her locker asking her to meet me at the mall – why would someone go meet a stranger in the mall? Axel went into the school early, advising he’d meet me in the library. We hadn’t seen each other all weekend since Friday night in the hidden shed. There was still half an hour before school started, yet the place was full of students. I feel the winter breeze blow right through my jacket, then I proceed to pass some students as I walk into the library. Unlike outside, the library is still very quiet. Some students curled up on the back lounge chairs and others silently typing away on the computers. I see Axel sitting on the tables to the left, where they often hold classes if research is needed. As I approached him he looks up and smirks, honestly though it looked like he was up all night, baggy eyes and messed up hair wasn’t his usual attire.

“So,” He says, “, we good?” It was an odd question to start the morning.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t we be?” I was very confused by this point. Not just because he wanted to meet in a library.

“Just checking, I mean you could have had second thoughts over the weekend about me.”

“The only reason I’d turn you in to anyone is if you eat my food again without asking.” I laugh, gesturing to a past time where he had taken a piece of steak meat off my plate without asking. 

“I’ll be sure to ask. Now, get your English books out.”

“Why?” I ask, taking them out anyway.

“Well, we’re not that good with Shakespeare right?”

“Not even remotely, last year when we did The Taming of the Shrew we were lucky to pass.”

“Yes, and now we’re about to be given Much Ado About Nothing in our first lesson today. I found that out yesterday when I was talking with Ms. S.” Ms. S, or Ms. Starner, is one of the more interesting and eccentric teachers at this school, but she really likes it when Axel puts in some enthusiasm, truthfully though it’s so he can get ahead in assignments by reading the novels early.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Just shush for a second,” He cuts me off and puts up a hand, as if to wave at someone. I turn slightly and see her standing there – impossible to miss with her long dark hair and arms full of books. “, hey, Cecilia, right?” He says. She stops, and backtracks, as if not sure someone was talking to her.

“Y-Yes?” She asks. To be honest, that’s the first time I noticed that she was a nervous person.

“Sorry if you’re in a rush, but I noticed you’re in here a lot so I thought you could help us.” She looks around at the quiet library, even I’m noticing how far away everyone is for the first time myself.

“Um, what would you like help with?” Cecilia’s voice is hushed and light, very welcoming. My heart is racing as she stands there and I’m more than a little sure that my face has turned completely red. My throat is totally clenched up right now. 

“Have you read Much Ado About Nothing?”

“Shakespeare? Yeah, it’s a romantic comedy.”

“Awesome! Look, we could really use a good summary before class starts, you wouldn’t mind would you?” She looks down at the books she’s holding and slowly puts them down on the desk beside me. Slowly, and nervously, she pulls the seat out next to me and sits down. I’m not sure I’ll even be able to hear a word she says. I’m too caught up with her face, her skin is flawless, and her eyes aren’t really brown, but more like bright ember. Absolutely mesmerizing. “Thanks so much, Cecilia. I’m Axel. And you know Chase, right?” This was my moment to say ‘hi’, but nothing came out. I was probably going to die alone.

“Yes, we have a few classes together, I think.” She begins fidgeting with the ends of her hair and I notice Axel trying to sit up tall. I know he’s trying to see if she has a mark – but with her blue shirt up so high I don’t think he was ever going to see anything. Timidly, Cecilia begins to explain the story to us, and suddenly that overwhelming fear of speaking out loud isn’t clouding me. I feel my voice come back to me, and every now and then I ask her questions about the book and she smiles and responds. Easily, the best twenty minutes I’ve ever spent in a library.

The bell rings and she stands, “I hope I helped.” She smiles.

“So much!” Axel exclaims.

I chime in with a small “Thank you.” She picks up her books and I look over at Axel, he nods towards Cecilia, ushering me to do something. He grabs his things in a rush and begins walking away. I take the leap of faith, “Um-” That’s as far as I got. She looks up at me, staring. Her big eyes staring right into my soul.

“Cecillliaaa!” We both snap our heads around. Steven and his thick gel covered spiky hair approaches us. Clearly his first period is sport since he was wearing the tracksuits and the school jersey. He walks right up to her face and leans in, “A little birdy told me you don’t have a date to the dance yet.” He says. I’ve never seen this side to her before, her brows furrow and she looks upset,

“Then you heard wrong.” She says, with much spite in her voice.

“Oh come on, I know your game, you say someone’s taking you, then you don’t even show up. You’ve done the same thing every year since middle school.” He puts a hand on her shoulder and pulls her towards him. “Just come with me, we’ll make a great night out of it.” His words were nice, but his actions and tone just weren’t. I felt an overwhelming desire to protect her in this situation. Stepping forward I push his arm upwards and off her shoulders – by no means roughly, just enough.

“She said she’s already going with someone, that means back off.” I have no idea where the words were coming from but it was the most interesting feeling I’ve ever experienced. I felt strong, not even slightly nervous – yet something in my chest was burning.

“I didn’t ask you, jackass.”

Cecilia then responded, “I’m going with Chase. Just leave it alone.” I looked at her at that moment and she smiled. Steven scoffs.

“Whatever, you would have had more fun with me. Just sayin’.” He puts his hands up in the air as if to show he surrenders, but he’s not the type. He walks off without another word. He seems more the type to engage when he has back up but in a library where a teacher could walk in at any moment? Totally useless. 

Cecilia clears her throat, “Um, look, you don’t have to take me.” She clenches her books to her chest – back to her nervous self. At that moment I decided I couldn’t risk going back to my timid ways.

“I have no reason not to.” I smile, then I feel my old self coming back, “Well, if you want me to…” She takes a step closer to me,

“I wouldn’t mind, maybe, hanging out before then?” Her face is going somewhat red so I can tell she’s really out of her comfort zone, but so am I.

“H-How about this weekend? We could hang at the, um,” My brain is starting to freeze and I can’t think of the word. “, the place with t-the shops and-”

“We could hang out at the mall.” She smiles. Putting her books down on the table once more she pulls out a small notebook and writes something. She tears out the paper and hands it to me. “This is my n-number, just let me know when you’re free.” She grabs her books in a hurry and runs out of the library. I almost forgot classes had already started. Picking up my books I leave the library, more sure than ever this was one of the best days of my life so far.

“I can’t believe it.” Axel snickers during lunch. “I can’t believe she actually gave you her number. Best recon man ever.” Axel jumps in to grab two trays from the stand and we jump into the cafeteria lunch line, hoping to still find something edible before it’s gone.

“It’s not just for recon, remember?” I sigh, the anxious tension still built up in my chest despite the time that had already passed from this morning.

“Oh yeah, but you know, if,” He looks around and hushes his voice, “, if she’s part of that fan group, then it’s a win-win, right?” I can’t help thinking that it’s completely deceiving. My chest begins to hurt me again as I think about it.

“I’m not sure I can do it. I can barely breathe when she’s around, the fact that this happened was spurred on by the fact I don’t like Steven.”

“Well use that, keep thinking that if it’s not you, he will push in.” The idea does burn me – but maybe something else is too. I don’t understand why my chest was hurting so bad. It’s like someone is stabbing it. I look around the cafeteria and notice that Cecilia isn’t here – which was normal because she’d usually bring a packed lunch and sit in the library after eating it. Sometimes I think it’s scary how much I know about someone just from the small glimpses I get of them every day. We get to the food and I pick up a sandwich and a container of cut fruit. Axel, of course, goes for the cheeseburger and fries.

We walk toward the corner of the hall where the cluster of students aren’t – it’s far too loud to sit in the center, and this way we can discuss what we need to.

“Look,” Axel says, biting into his burger, “, I can be your guide.” He was barely understandable with a mouth full of food but I’ve been getting used to it.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, it’s like, super cold right? I’ll give you my earpiece to wear and you just wear a beanie to cover it – she’ll never notice and I’ll be able to hear and talk you through everything. I’ll be your cupid.”

“A cupid who has very unusual intentions.”

“Look, if it was a Bluetooth camera, that would be weird. But it’s not, it's just an earpiece. I’ll help you sound smooth and cool – totally irresistible. You just need to convince her to maybe try on some dresses for the dance. If she hasn’t been before she might not own one.” He had a good point, but that doesn’t make me feel any better about it.

“I could always say I’d prefer to pick out a tie the same colour?” Axel looked up, almost proud that I thought of that myself.

“See, you are smooth, you just need time to think.”

“I can’t think around her. She makes me nervous.” My chest burns again, this time more like pain than pressure. Maybe I’m not just nervous, maybe I’m sick?

“We’ll come up with a game plan at your place tonight. But dude, do you even realize?” The pain subsides again and I look at him curiously,

“What?”

“You have a date.”

Axel, as usual, jumps on my bed and I take the seat by the desk. His face shows a rather puzzled look, “We got to make you really interesting to her.” He mumbles,

“Who said I’m not interesting?” I sigh, realizing my own words. I’m not that interesting. I don’t have special interests; I don’t do anything outside of school aside from fiddling with computer parts.

“Can you finish reading a book she likes before the weekend?” That wasn’t actually a bad idea, except-

“She reads so many books. It would be impossible to identify which one is her favorite without asking her.”

“How many books can you read in a week?” I wouldn’t know. My bookshelf has only a couple of books but only educational ones, you don’t read them in a single sitting. I lean back in my chair. Totally clueless as to what I could possibly say to Cecilia to make her interested in hanging around more often. Although, what kind of relationship would I have with someone that I can barely talk to?

“I can’t randomly pick out books she’s read and try to read them. There’s too many and I have no time.”

“The mall has some movies playing.” Suddenly hearing that sends my brain into a frenzy. Me? In a dark room with Cecilia sitting right next to me? My chest begins to feel pain again, but I brush it off as anxiety. There’s a knock on my door and Bee walks in,

“Did I just hear that right?” She asks, “Are you taking a girl to the movies?” She giggles.

Axel responds, “Maybe, she’s a bit of a bookworm so we’re not really sure what she’d like to do at the mall.” Bee is silent for a moment while she thinks,

“Oh, the bookstore just opened last week in the mall, take her in there and tell her you’ll buy her any book she wants. Or maybe buy her a pretty bookmark?” I feel my heart burning.

“Nice idea! You’re secretly smart, aren’t you?” Axel laughs, “Don’t you think?” He turns to me, but I can’t help myself this time, I groan and grab my chest – the pain is getting too much to keep a straight face. “Dude, you okay?”

“My chest has been hurting me all day, worse and worse.”

“Ah,” He stands up and goes to the door, “, say Bee, why don’t you leave us for a minute, and maybe come back in ten with some water?” He then closes the door and locks it. The sharp shooting pain through my chest was getting painful and beginning to burn.

“I don’t know what’s happening.” I manage to say. I try to stand up from my chair and I fall to the ground in complete agony.

“Okay, but I think I do.” Axel picks me up from under my shoulders and pulls me onto the bed. “Just try and breathe.” I try but my chest feels like it is being compressed by heavy stones – I felt helpless. I squeeze my eyes tightly together, hoping that doing so would help the pain. “Tell me what happened when the first pain started?”

“I-” I yell in pain, no longer able to control it.

“Try not to scream, just tell me.”

“I was with Cecilia, in the library.”

“Did you do something completely out of character?” I nod rather furiously. It was out of my character to be so intimidating or strong-headed against Steven. “I have a hunch on what’s happening to you because it looks like what happened to me, before I became an Abnormal.” I didn’t understand, I thought they were born, not made. What was happening to me? “Trust me.” He touches my face and I can feel how cold his hands were, I must have been sweating up a storm. He struggles but helps me pull off my jumper and that’s when I see something strange. There’s a red mark forming on my chest – red hot like someone was poking me with a iron rod inside of my chest.

“What is-” I exclaim,

“Quiet!” Axel hushes me, constantly checking over his shoulder to see that no one has attempted to open the locked door. He rushes over to my curtains and pulls them shut. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the pain is gone. Axel must have noticed because I stopped groaning in pain. I sit up. The burning look has not gone and what remains is the most unusual shape I’ve seen. A mark seated on my heart in a shape similar to the sun. A thin circle with small swirls on the outside – probably about the size of a coin. “I can’t believe it.” Axel exhales. “You were one the whole time.”

“I don’t get it…” My head is spinning, surely this can’t be real.

“The Abnormals are people that have really amazing powers given to them, but from what I gather, you get them later in life, not right away.” This was a scary thought.

“But, what are the chances of that? How do I know I have powers? What are they?” I had so many questions.

“Take it easy, it took me like three weeks to figure out I could walk through walls.” He sits in front of me and starts to laugh. “I can’t believe it. One was my best mate all along.” He chuckles. Not that I asked for it, or thought I’d ever want it, but the idea of having powers and abilities could be very fun, as well as risky. “I figure that your mark relates to your power, from the news they say everyone is different. Mine looks like a circle which is half degraded. Hence, Phasing – disappearing.”

I look down at the sun that now sits on my chest, “I guess we’re not going topless to the beach this summer?” I chuckle. Axel looks relieved.

“I freaked out when this happened to me. You’re taking it heaps well.” He sighs,

“Yeah, because you’re here, probably. I know I’m not on my own with this one. The concept of this is intriguing. I wonder what power I have. I’m so keen to find out.” I can hear the excitement in my voice for the first time, then I remember, “I have to cancel the date.”

“What?” Axel exclaims in confusion, “Why?”

“What if my power comes on the weekend or something weird happens. I might have no control over it.”

“Well, I’m hoping your power is sudden bravery.” He laughs, as if it were the best joke he’s ever heard, but I just roll my eyes. “It’s not that bad, besides I’ll be with you the whole time, remember? That’s got to help.” It did, but only marginally.