Chapter 384
Everyone walked out into the hallway, though it took more than a nudge from my sister to get my mother walking in the right direction.
Once they were gone, I swung my feet over the side of the bed, and Jamie took out his stethoscope. He paused to shake his head, I assumed at me at first, but then my sister asked for visuals through my IAC, and I thought perhaps he was telling her no. I allowed it. I needed to know someone was with me right now, and even though I love Jamie, he’s not my family. I was about to see if this was as worth it as I thought it was.
Jamie listened to my heart and took my pulse, listened to me breathe, whatever doctors do with stethoscopes, and then he said, “Your pulse is a little slower than usual, but everything sounds okay. How do you feel?”
“Weird,” I admitted. I moved my hand in front of my face, expecting the super speed I’d seen from the others who had undergone this procedure, and while mine was moving faster than normal, it also rippled through the air, like it wasn’t ever in an exact location. It was odd—but it matched how I was feeling.
The Healer saw it, too. “Why don’t you stand up for me for a minute? Be careful getting up.” He offered his hand, and I took it, but I felt more steady than most people looked after they’d been lying in the same position for so long. I stood there for a few seconds before he asked, “Do you feel okay?”
“Yeah, just a little fuzzy,” I replied. “It’s weird. It’s like I’m vibrating on a different plane.” I shook my head, thinking he would probably write down “Cass is crazy” on my chart, but he just nodded along with me. “I don’t think that probably makes much sense, but it’s like I’m moving through the air differently.”
“I think I understand,” he said, writing something down. It seemed like more words than my prediction. “Take a few steps.”
I did as instructed and then decided to test out my speed. I was just as fast as everyone else, I could tell, but there was something odd even about running now. It was like the air was splitting around me, like I wasn’t going through it, but around it somehow. I wasn’t sure how to describe it, but when I came back to Jamie, he was writing again, and he seemed to notice it, too.
He didn’t comment on that, though. He asked, “Do you think you can levitate just by thinking about it?”
“I can try,” I replied. I was pretty certain I could. I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath. Using my mind’s eye, I imagined myself lifting off of the floor, and instantaneously, I felt my feet leave the tiles. It was exhilarating, and I wasn’t at all afraid. When I opened my eyes, Jamie was staring at me in disbelief. I slowly lowered myself back to the ground.
“Interesting.” He wrote that down, too. “Did you come down because you wanted to?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think you could go higher or stay up longer?”
I didn’t feel any drain on my power at all while I was floating. It felt like an endless stream of energy. “I’m pretty sure I can.”
“Okay. Why don’t you sit back down on the bed for a second?” He made another note as I did as instructed. “There’s something else I’d like to check.”
I hoped he wanted me to see if I could float something else, but that’s not what he asked me to do. My sister was so quiet in my head, I almost forgot she was there. I couldn’t see the others because I didn’t have her visuals, but I was sure that Brandon was pacing, and my mom was probably really upset.
When Jamie had finished writing, he said, “Okay, I want you to try reaching out to Holland. I want to see if it’s the same or if it’s easier now.”
I nodded and closed my eyes again. It wasn’t like it’d been before. In a rush, I was in a room with Holland. She was in a lot of pain, and she was scared. In the back of her mind, I detected that she was vaguely aware that something wasn’t right in Melbourne, but she couldn’t think about that at all. It seemed like maybe she was unconscious or someone had given her something very strong for the pain. All I could truly detect from her was worry about her unborn child. I felt the baby moving, something I’d never experienced before, and it freaked me out.
I decided to jump to Hines. He had a thousand thoughts rushing through his mind, not the least of which was that he hadn’t delivered a baby before. He was also worried about Melbourne and the fact that, without Holland available, he would be in charge of whatever was going down there. I could feel the worry rolling off of him and got the impression he had had an opportunity to try his serum, which made my heart flutter a bit. I had missed the attack—I had wanted to help Paul, but it seems like he’d gone in without me, while I was out. I hoped everything was okay, but while I was in Hines’s head, all I could think about was the baby.
He had a surgical bag in front of him and was looking at different tools, as if he couldn’t decide what he needed to use to help Holland. I noticed a shiny scalpel and decided it would be interesting to see exactly what I could do now. With all of my strength, I willed him to take it out, to pull up a section of his hair, and cut it off. He did it, much to my amusement, and to his horror. It was exhilarating, but as soon as I was done, I decided I needed to get out of his head. He was outraged and beginning to realize he wasn’t alone, and I didn’t need them to know I could infiltrate their minds more deeply than I had been able to before, so I ducked out, coming back to my body.
