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what she looks like. My
body's reaction to her has settled. I smile for the small victory.
What are the chances of her throwing herself at me and rebooting
the whole situation again? I'll take the chance and hear her out
since she mentioned Red.
    I come out from behind the dumpster and
the girl seems to keep a cautious distance between us, something
I've never seen before with people I've accidently collided with. I
take a good look at her; her face is still obscured by the ball cap
and her baggy clothing reveals nothing. She's small. I could've
really hurt her. She's nervously fiddling with her fingers trying
to sum up something to say.
    "What do you
want?" I help her out.
    "I need you and you
need me."
    Which need did she mean?
    "I know about your burden and I can
help."
    "What burden?"
I test.
    "Th e one that sexually
lures people."
    Hearing her say
it like that mak es my cheeks
burn. She couldn't have known this with our collision .
    "What do you
want?" I clutch my backpack
strap.
    "Red sent me. I can
help you, but you have to come with me."
    How is it that
Red is real? He i s a dream. How
d oes
t his Red person know me? How
did she know about my 'burden' ?
    "Gabriel, we
can help each other. If you help me, Red will help you. He knows
what you've been going through. Please come with me."
    It sounds good
not to go home, but I don't know her. I can’t trust a total
stranger, but in the end it doesn't matter, I will never get close
to anyone. I have nothing to lose; I've already lost everything
else. "Okay.”
    "I'm Violet."
The girl smiles under the
shadow of her ball cap.
    It's difficult
to get a good look at her when every step I
take, she steps back. Good.
    "Gabriel, you
have to stay this
distance away from me. It's
safer for the both of us."
    If I touch people, they go crazy. Maybe
when I bumped into her, it scared her into being overly cautious.
Twelve feet seems like overkill.
    "Why?" I test
again.
    She hesitates
at first, "Because we both have abilities, so the pull is
stronger." I assume the pull she's referring to is the magnetic
feeling when we bumped into each
other.
    "What do you
have that makes it happen like that?"
    She
ignores me again. "There is
one more thing...." she begins, "well, maybe two more things. We
have to meet two others like us."
    "Wait, there
are others like me?"
    "Not like you
exactly. Just people with abilities."
    Abilities? More like a condition.
    "I know this is asking a lot
but. I w on't hurt you. Will
you come with me?"
    "Yeah. I don't want to go home
anyway."

Chapter Six
     
    Alex
     
    I open my test booklet. The first question is
barely read when the voices of the minds around me sound off one by
one with the answer.
    Answer is… B. Majority rules .
    I pencil in the oval with the letter B and listens for a tally on question two.
    I can remember most answers if I tried, but
it’s easier to listen then to think. I can hear thoughts all day.
It doesn't make sense to study when I‘ll hear the answers anyway.
Cheating doesn't seem so bad when everything is based on
memorization. How much of this shit will I care about when I'm
running my own music label?
    Telepathy is useful this way. It helps me say
the right thing when I'm called on in class to answer questions.
Teachers love me because I'm always 'paying attention' . But
I have no choice. Voices flood into my head where I can barely hear
myself think. The volume can be too much sometimes, but once in a
while the voices soften just enough so I can actual focus on at
least one person. Sometimes it's the wrong person. Garrett
Kellerman, for one, has the hots for our homeroom teacher, Mr.
Woodrow. How a guy sees another guy's ass, as far as attraction
goes, is not what I want to hear first thing in the morning.
    Most of the time I want to turn it off—if I
knew how, I fucking would. Playing sports is no fun when I know
every God damn move of my opponents. That's no fun. My lacrosse
coach loves me for my 'uncanny sense' . It does have