injustices that had enslaved us.
I turned my eyes away from Max to the other face that was featured most often in my drawings. Adrien, with that smile he saved for me when no one else was looking. I sighed. His was the only face on my wall that didn’t fill me with regret.
The last time I’d seen him had been ages ago, while he was passing through on his way to the Foundation. It was going to be a school for glitchers, and, best of all, it would have an air-filtration system equal to the research lab here. I’d be able to join him there without fear of the air I breathed or worrying that any sound I made might get me caught and killed.
As I reached up to trace Adrien’s face, a tremor ran through my hand. The gentle quaking had been plaguing me all night, first in my thighs, now my hand. A flash of fear washed over me.
Not again. It shouldn’t be happening again so soon.
I flexed my hand, then made a fist, and the shaking stopped. I swallowed hard, trying to quiet my rising alarm. I hadn’t gotten my telekinesis to function properly in weeks, and the power raged like a wild beast clawing underneath my skin. Adrien always called our glitcher powers Gifts, but I was beginning to suspect that he was wrong.
I clicked the light off and settled into my pillow. Our minds may have evolved to develop superhuman abilities, but what if our bodies hadn’t? Maybe we were too fragile to contain that kind of power. Maybe our Gifts were actually a curse.
I’d only been asleep for a few minutes when I woke to my knuckles banging repeatedly into my cheek.
“Shunt,” I murmured, suddenly fully awake. My arm kept at it, but now the shaking had moved up to my shoulder. The normal telltale buzz of my power grew louder in my ears until it was a high-pitched screech.
“No, no, no,” I whispered, clicking on my light and climbing awkwardly down from the bed. I glanced at the clock on the wall above my head. It was an hour into the workday. Somehow I had to stop myself from going into full eruption mode, or else I’d be caught for sure.
The first time my power had gotten uncontrollable like this I’d been lucky; it was nighttime, when no one was around. Milton, one of the two people at the research lab who knew I was hiding here, had been slack-jawed when he finally pushed his way into my trashed room the morning after. The metal frame of the bed had been twisted in on itself like a figure eight, and the toilet had come loose and made a dent in the concrete of the opposite wall. All my drawings and clothes had been shredded, and I’d sat huddled in the far corner with my arms over my head, bruised and bleeding.
But Milton had been kind. He said I reminded him a little of his sister, a drone he had to leave behind in the Community’s control. He told me stories about her while he helped me clean up. He said maybe the outburst had happened because I was boxed in here and not able to use my power often. But he didn’t understand, not really. It was more than that. My power was changing, and I was changing with it. I couldn’t control it anymore. I didn’t know how I ever had. Sometimes I imagined it consuming me from the inside like a slowly fattening parasite.
I reached up and managed to grab my pillow and blanket right before my legs buckled and I landed on the ground. There was barely enough space to lay flat, but the floor was safer than the bed. With what little muscle control I had left, I wedged myself between the shelf and the toilet to keep myself as secure as possible. I squeezed my eyes shut. I knew what was coming next, and it was going to hurt. I clenched my teeth in the darkness, willing my body to stay still and quiet. Above all, I had to stay quiet.
Both my arms shook uncontrollably now. I flipped myself onto my side to get the pillow under my head and put part of the twisted-up blanket between my teeth. The tremors moved to my torso and down to my legs. My elbows, shoulder blades, and heels jerked up and down, slamming painfully into the cold floor. I wanted to scream into the blanket, but I was afraid that if I opened my mouth even the tiniest bit, all my power might accidentally burst out.
The screech inside my head became a long howl. The beast wanted release. I ground my teeth further into the blanket and tried to brace myself for each time my body smacked into the ground. Again and again and again. I winced with each hit, aching from the impact on bruises that had never fully healed.
I just had to get through this and then I could rest.
The shaking became wilder, and as it reached an apex my foot banged against the wall, making a loud
I thought I was going to pass out from the pain and panic. I prepared for the worst, knowing I couldn’t hold on much longer. The power built up like expanding gas in an enclosed space, begging for release.
I couldn’t keep it in. It was going to explode. I clamped my mouth shut tighter, but it felt like I was ripping apart from the inside. I clenched my teeth and felt sweat dripping down my face from the effort.
Right when I felt like I was about to burst wide open, the seizing began to quiet down. The shakes slowed to trembles, then to just a shiver, and then I lay still. Sweat dripped down my temple and slid into my eyes with a salty sting. I wanted to wipe it away, but I was so tired, my arm felt leaden. I rolled over onto my side and breathed slowly as I gathered my strength. Then I eased my way to my knees, pausing with each movement, and eventually rose to my feet.
I felt like I’d been running on the treadmill for a day and a half. But at least I’d be able to sleep now. I climbed tiredly up the ladder to my bed. My arms shook again, this time not from excess power but from exhaustion.
But right when my body finally rested on the thin mattress, a scratching sounded from the wall, right at the hidden entrance to my room. I froze. Milton shouldn’t be bringing me food yet. Someone must have heard my foot banging into the wall and was coming to investigate. They could have easily followed the sound back to the wall panel that doubled as the secret entrance to the alcove.
Fat tears squeezed out of my eyes. I wasn’t strong enough to fight. I rolled my tired body over toward the wall. Whoever came in wouldn’t see me right away, but I knew it would only buy me a few moments. I was a muddle of fear and exhaustion. After so much effort, so much sacrifice and patience, I couldn’t lose it all like this, facing my enemies while weak and afraid—
The door opened and immediately I heard a whisper. “Zoe, it’s me.”
It was Adrien’s voice. All the tension flooded out of my body. I half climbed, half fell down the ladder and launched myself into his outstretched arms. He wasn’t supposed to be here until next week. Was he here to take me to the Foundation early? I parted my lips to ask but couldn’t find the strength to care about anything other than his warm arms around me.
My hair had come undone from its braid during the shaking episode, and Adrien curled his fingers into it. I sank against him, breathing him in. Even my exhaustion lightened in his embrace. It was always like that when I was with him. I tipped my head back and he kissed me. His lips were gentle, and for a moment I forgot all the loneliness and fear of the past few months. All I could think about was the soft texture of his lips and the way love for him bloomed inside me like a light cell blinking to life in a pitch-black room.
But all too soon he pulled away. His eyes were cloudy. “There’s not much time. We’ve gotta move. Now.”
He turned and let go of me, and my weakened legs gave out from under me.
“Zoe!” Adrien caught me around the waist, pulling me back up. “What’s going on, are you okay?” He set me down on the closed toilet lid, the only place to sit other than up on my bed.
“I’m fine,” I lied, blinking and trying to get a breath. “I just gotta get some rest. Can we leave in the morning?”
But when I looked back over at Adrien, he was already pulling out the biosuit box and opening it up.
“We gotta leave now Zoe, not tomorrow morning. Fit your feet into the rubber boots first, then we’ll pull the rest of the suit up.”
“Why now?” I asked, blinking and trying to make sense of everything that was happening. I stepped into the boots.
“I had a vision. They’re gonna raid this place soon.”
It took a few more moments for what he’d said to sink in. “Wait, you mean … they know I’m here?”
“Not yet,” Adrien said, managing to sound halfway calm. “Chancellor Bright was just named Underchancellor
