Caleb 59 - Family

"How do you feel?" I asked.

She smiled up at me.

"I can see what E meant," she said. "That smell is weird. It kind of smells like blood, but not quite the same." I nodded to her.

"Anything else?" I asked.

She blinked her eyes a couple of times. "Things are a little blurry," she said. "It's like there are coloured smudges around people."

I shared a glance with the twins. It seemed like she was seeing auras.

"Well," I said, "give it a minute to settle down, and then see."

We waited for a few minutes while Melanie blinked and looked around owlishly.

"It's still there," she said. "What is it?"

"I suspect," I said, "that you are seeing auras."

"What does that mean?" she asked.

"That means," I said, "that you have Empathy. Now, if you have Compulsion too, which I suspect you will, then that means two things. You'll have at least another two powers and you will be able to become a Healer."

She squealed with delight. "That's so cool!" she gushed.

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," I said. "Try your Compulsion."

She looked at Louise. "May I?" she asked. Louise smiled at her and nodded.

The next I knew, Louise had closed with Josh and was doing her damndest to find his tonsils with her tongue.

"That's probably enough," I said gently to Melanie. "Let her go now."

She released Louise, who took a little time before she, in turn, released Josh.

"The colors have changed," she said looking at the pair. "They were kind of multicolored before but now they're pretty much all one color.

I looked at the pair and saw they were both a rich deep purple.

I grinned. "The colors that you see are personal to you but whatever color that is you're seeing now, that means horny. I think you got them both a little wound up."

She grinned. "I'll remember that one."

Louise sat back down breathing heavily. Josh too was panting a little.

"Your other powers will probably show themselves over the next few days," I told her. "Like I said to E - try not to get stressed or angry. We know for sure you have at least two other powers, and we won't know what they are until they show themselves. Other than that, how do you feel?"

"Awesome," she said. "My head feels clearer. It feels like I can think more clearly now than I could before."

I nodded to her. "Like I told you. The amulet did affect your mental acuity. How you feel now is your new 'normal'."

"Wow," she said. "It feels different. Clearer, like I've stepped out of a muggy room into the fresh air."

While we'd been working, E had relinquished his seat to Sarah and she was looking at me nervously. Brian, her dad, was on her other side and he was holding her hand. I saw him squeeze it gently as I approached her.

"Are you ready?" I asked. "There's no rush. We don't have to do it today if you're not."

Sarah looked at me for a minute but then shook her head. "No," she said. "I want it gone. I'm going to need all my brain power when I start at PSU.

"Okay then," I said.

She held out her arm to me, and once more I pressed the device to her wrist. The LED went Red and then green. I watched carefully as I pulled the device away and saw the disk, capturing it with my TK and bringing it to my hand before dropping it in my pocket for now.

In the moment that I'd been distracted, Sarah had been looking around, a look of distress on her face. "No," she said. "No, no please..."

Then she put her hands over her ears and screamed.