“What the hell are you talking AJ?”

“That scene; you are defending Nick from me. You told me you have seen your own death in your visions Kevin. Who else is there with you?”

He closed his eyes and when he opened them again I saw the confusion in them. Fear? Realization?

“I am there, right? I have seen you injured in my visions too and those visions had come together with a feeling that until now I didn’t know what it was. Now I know, it’s guilt. That’s why I am so afraid I can hurt Nicky.”

“Me?” Nick gulped.

I turned to the kid, he was scared but I was more scared than him.

“AJ” Kevin said coming to me, “that’s not going to happen.”

“We all had the same visions.”

“No, you are just making assumptions.”

“I know it's true, Kev. I know it.” And I know what I have to do. “I need to get away from you.”

“What? No way AJ, you are not going anywhere.”

“Brian is right, AJ. Nobody is going anywhere. We stay together.”

“Please” I knew I was about to cry. I’m scared. I’m so scared.

“No. Forget it Alex. You are not making any sense. None of this makes any sense.”

“AWWW GOD!”

“Howie!”

“It’s too much guys.” He had leaned back again but this time he was crying, the pain was too much. “I can’t control it Kev. I need to do something.”

“I’ve told you D. There is an answer for this.”

“It’s not right.” His voice was shaking and you could hardly understand what he was saying.

“You need to do it D.”

“Okay, I will,” he replied after a moment.

“Great.”

“I still don’t think it’s the best idea but I will do it. I don’t think I could take this any more.” He stopped moving suddenly.

“D!”

“Howie!”

“Aw God!” Someone was crying, probably Nick. Probably I was crying too.

“Give him some space guys,” Kevin ordered lifting one arm to keep us away from him.

“Is he dead?”

“What?” Kevin looked at us for a second. “No, of course he is not dead Nicky, he just passed out,” he added checking his pulse.

Thank God!

“Is he going to be alright?”

Kevin placed his right hand on Howie’s forehead and a bright light came out from his palm. It was weird to see Kevin doing that. Most of the times it was Howie the one healing us. I wasn’t even sure if Kevin was able to heal Howie. It looked more like he was trying to find what was wrong with him.

“Yes. He will be alright,” he said after a moment. Then he moved Howie a little and placed him in a more 'comfortable' position.

“Are you sure?” Brian asked.

“I’m sure.” Kevin finally looked at us.

“What was he talking about?”

Kevin raised an eyebrow. Apparently he hadn’t understood my question.

“He said he was going do something although he didn’t think it was a good idea.”

“He was talking about binding his power.”

“Can you do that Kev?”

“Not me, he. You can bind your own powers.”

“You can?”

“Yes, we all can.”

“All his powers?”

“Only the empathy, or at least that’s what he is gonna try. We have never attempted to bind just one power.”

“Hey, maybe that’s what I have to do?” I saw a solution there.

They just looked at me.

“If I don’t have powers I can’t hurt you.”

“Jay stop it. You are not going to hurt us.”

“Can we not discuss this right now,” Brian interrupted us. “Howie is suffering.”

“Howie can’t sense us now. If we are going to finish this discussion lets do it now before he woke up.” I really wanted to know more about that possibility of binding my powers.

“How do you know he can’t sense us AJ?”

“He is sleeping.” Duh!

“He is not sleeping AJ, he fainted.”

“Okay that’s it.” Kevin has the ability to bring a room to silence immediately. “Everyone describes the scene that saw at the pyramid.”

We all looked at him but nobody said a word.

“AJ, you go first. I’m tired of this. What did you see?”

“I… I saw you deadly injured and me crying at your side.”

“So, you are crying after hurting me? That makes a lot of sense AJ,” he snorted.

“I told you I’m feeling guilty, like a reaction after hurting you.”

“Where is Brian?”

“Brian?”

“Yes Brian”

“I don’t know. He is not there.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Then it can’t be the same future. Brian saw us fighting. He had to be there.”

“Maybe I already killed him in my vision.”

“Bull!” I cringed and he softened his tone. “Jay, you think that if you were bad you would be so worry about this. No one can change so much Jay. You are not going to hurt us. Even if we all see the same future that won’t make it real.”

“Kevin is right, Bone.”

I didn’t know what to think.

“And I’m sorry Kevin.” Brian kept talking. “I don’t know why I gave so much importance to that vision. I know you would never hurt us.”

Kevin was looking at the floor, hands on hips.

“Kev?”

“I know. Don’t worry.”

“No, I feel like a jerk. I mean, here you are telling AJ that no matter what he saw you are not going to believe he would ever do something like that, and I chose to believe that you would. After all that you have done for us,” his voice shook.

“Brian don’t...”

“No, let me finish. Part of me knew that you would never hurt us but there was a part of me that was afraid of what I saw.” He was crying.

“I understand Brian.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay Brian, really.” Kevin hugged him.

“Thanks.” Brian's voice was almost a whisper by now but he hugged Kevin back. 

“Okay, now that this conversation is over, you guys better go out. Howie can’t hear us now but I prefer we let him rest.”

I realized Nick hadn’t said a word during the whole discussion. “What about Nick?”

“What about me?” he asked scared.

“You have been too quiet. Did you see anything like that at the pyramid?”

“No.”

“What did you see?”

He licked his lips before speaking. He used to do that a lot when he was nervous. “A girl,” he said almost in a whisper.

“A girl?”

This time I couldn’t control my laugh. “That’s our Nicky.”

Everyone laughed.

“Aww that’s like music to my ears.”

“Howie!” We gathered around him.

“Thanks guys. Those laughs relax me.”

“Are you okay?” Kevin asked helping him to get up.

“Yes, I am but I better do something about this.”

“Yes, you better do it right now.”

“I will.”

“Do you need my help?”

“I don’t know. I don’t even know how I’m gonna do it.”

“Let me go with you.”

“No Kevin, don’t worry. I will call you if I need you.”

“You ARE going to do it, right Howie?”

“Yes, Kev, don’t worry. Like I told you, I still don’t think it’s a good idea but you won, I need to do it,” he said before leaving the room.

“Is he really going to bind his power?”

“Yes, we have talked about this a lot. Right now he only has empathic powers when he is with us but he is not controlling them and it's going to get worse the minute he starts to sense others people feelings.” Kevin was still looking at the door.

“How is he going to learn to control that power if he doesn’t keep it?”

“We hope it gets easy with the time. He just needs to control all his other powers first.”

We stayed in silence for some time and then Kevin spoke up again.

“Time to work guys. Lets go.”

Frick and Frack left the room together, Brian was hugging our little brother. I was about to follow them but Kevin called me.

“Alex”

“Yes?”

“Please, take those feelings out of your head.”

“Okay.” It was not that easy but I would give it a try.

“And what you said, about binding our powers...”

“Yes?”

“If I ever start acting strange, remind me to do that, okay?”

You are scared too, right Kev? “Only if you do the same for me.”

“You know it won’t be necessary.”

“Humor me.”

“Okay,” he accepted, and with that we went after Brian and Nick.


-------------------------------------


I didn’t have too much time to keep thinking about those images from the crystal. We spent the rest of the day getting ready to leave K-Tawoor, which meant, among other things, finishing the provision of the ship. It turned out that we would be needing more supplies than the usual amount since Kevin told us that four other rebels would be traveling with us. There was a considerable difference with the number of people we usually flew, which on average would be only two, but we didn’t give too much thought to the news. Usually D and Kev were the ones giving up their rooms. Either they would share a room or D would leave Kevin his room and come to sleep in ours. There had been other times when Kevin had preferred to take a sleeping bag to the laboratory or to any other room on the ship.

We made some plans that night during dinner. There were only four of us at the table because Howie was too tired. Apparently everything had tuned out okay with him binding his power but he was exhausted and went directly to bed.

Kevin reminded us that it would be only a matter of time until the Empire discovered who we really were and therefore the time had come for us to tell the rebels everything about the Alomegas and the Tracons. Nevertheless, he asked us to wait until we arrived in Trinsuet, which meant not using our powers in front of our guests.


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