Breaking Through

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  For heroes.

  Because the world needs you.

  I can’t move. My arms, my legs, they won’t budge.

  It’s pitch-black, but I think I’m inside of something. Something long and small…a capsule, maybe? Stretched out above my head, my fingers touch cold metal. Whatever I’m inside of is only as long as I am. I wouldn’t have much wiggle room, even if I could move.

  I don’t know how I got here or how long I’ve been tied up. I do a quick mental scan, searching for any piece of information. Nothing. I can’t even recall my own name.

  What I do know is I’m running out of oxygen. Each breath comes shorter, faster, and if I can’t control it soon, I’ll pass out before I figure out what’s going on.

  I close my eyes, suck in one deep breath, and let it out through puckered lips.

  Calm down.

  Relax.

  Slow your heart rate.

  What I tell myself comes from memory, though I have no clue where it came from. Whatever it is, though, it works. Somehow, my body is trained to go into hibernation mode on mental command.

  Now I need to figure out how to get out of here. With my eyes still closed, I concentrate on the smell of my prison. The more I know about this box, the better my chances are of escaping. The tang of what I inhale reminds me of burnt metal and rubber. There’s another scent too, one I can’t place, even though my brain insists I know. I dig deeper, filing through blank spaces that aren’t supposed to be empty. I probably shouldn’t be spending precious energy on it, but something tells me this strange odor is important.

  Bright light pours over my face, and my eyelids fly open. Above me, sunlight streams through a circular window. I don’t know how long it will last, so I quickly confirm that I am inside some sort of capsule with silver metal walls. I also confirm that I was right earlier: the tube is small, barely big enough to fit my body. The window sits exactly six inches from the tip of my nose, though I have no idea how I know that.

  I see nothing above me except blue skies. I don’t hear anything outside either.

  I tug at the restraints holding me in place, but they don’t give. And then I feel something, something on the outside. The capsule I’m in is moving—upward. Shit.

  Calm down. Relax. Slow your heart rate, I repeat to myself.

  It’s working. My body is responding—

  Until I begin to free fall.

  I’m not in it for long before the tube hits water. I know it’s water because of the buoyancy of the capsule. But I know because of something else too—I feel it. Surrounding me, the water gives off its own energy, almost as if it’s surrendering to me, willing me to control it. Which makes no sense.

  Above me, the sunlight begins to refract as it struggles to break through the water now covering the tiny window. That’s when I realize I’m sinking. Deeper, deeper underwater.

  As the light fades, the panic inside me rises. I try the calming mantra again, but nothing happens. Drops of water fall onto my forehead. The seal around my window creaks under the pressure of the water.

  I’m going to drown.

  I struggle against the restraints. Twisting my body. Pulling at my wrists and ankles. I yank and kick, but it’s in vain. I’m trapped.

  “Fuck!” I scream.

  Water sprays in from the seal, salty like the ocean, and suddenly I register where I am—in the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of South Korea. Except, I still don’t know why I’m here or how I got here.

  What I do know is that this is where I’m going to die.

  I hate the smell of this office. I should be concentrating on my session, but I can’t with that stupid lavender scent spilling into the air. I have a headache. Seriously, sitting inside Kray’s sweaty gym locker would be better than this.

  “It’s been ten minutes, Nautia. What do you think?”

  What do I think?

  I think it’s a good thing that, unlike Kray, Cara’s not a mind reader. She’d be pissed if she knew what I was really thinking. And a pissed-off Cara usually means random stuff spontaneously combusts. I have it on good authority that crap in her office has exploded three times in the last two years. In a way, we have that in common, except fire isn’t my thing. Cara’s a trainer, but she’s also the school counselor. I’m in this room far too often.

  I glance up at her. Yep, she’s irritated; flames flicker in her dark irises.

  “Um …” I have no clue what she just asked me.

  The ball of fire she’s been playing with sinks back into her palm. She leans forward on her desk. “If you can’t learn how to control your ability, Nautia, you’ll never get out of here. The Navy wants to recruit you, but you’re unpredictable. You’re a liability.”

  I stare at her. She’s right, as usual.

  “We need assets. You have to prove yourself to us, to them, to the world.” Cara sits back, pulling her red-and-black streaked hair over a shoulder.

  “What about Nate?” I ask, then immediately swallow the lump that materialized in my throat. “Was he a liability?”

  Cara sighs and taps her nails on the leather armrests of her chair. “All information regarding your brother and the accident is classified. You know we can’t discuss it.”

  “But you do know, don’t you?” I push.

  Cara picks up her pen and twirls it around a finger as if she’s bored with this conversation. I’m not surprised. We have it on a weekly basis. “I can neither confirm nor deny. All I can tell you is that he died on a mission.” She pauses, then leans forward again, her elbows coming to rest on her desk. “You need to move on, Nautia.”

  “Move on?” I ask, sick of being told to forget about my brother like his death shouldn’t be a big deal. Like I don’t deserve to know how or why he’d left and never came back. “How can I? We share the same ability, and if the Navy wants me like they wanted him, I could end up in the same watery grave.”

  Her brows perk up. “Watery grave?”

  “Figure of speech,” I answer.

  Brighton is an off-the-record, government-run school for people with special abilities. We’re educated and trained here, then recruited by government agencies in need of our talents. Most end up in the military, FBI, or CIA.

  “Look,” Cara says, “you were supposed to have graduated last year. If you want out of here, you’ve got to pull yourself together and concentrate. You’re dismissed.”

  I stand up and brush past her, letting her words sink in as I walk out of the office. Yes, I have to prove myself, but how can I when doubt clouds every corner of my mind? When Nate…

  “Because you’re not Nate,” Kray says out loud, interrupting my thought.

  I groan inwardly. Sometimes Kray’s voice makes me want to pound his face in. Like the times when he’s listening in where he doesn’t belong.

  “Get out of my head,” I say, spinning to glare at him. I’m not in the mood for another conversation about Nate.

  He throws his hands up in surrender, but I know he’s not giving in. He never does. “Nate didn’t play by the rules, Nautia.”

  What does Kray know? Like most current students, Kray doesn’t remember Nate. My brother had been a level seven student—the highest ranking—and was recruited early along with the rest of the sevens. Heck, even my memory of him is hazy, and we were twins!

  Irritation burns through my
veins, igniting my powers. I’ve had enough today.

  “The hell he didn’t!” I yell, losing it. Drops of water begin to drip from the ceiling and into my hair. “Nate did it right.”

  Kray is used to my outbursts, and he’s not afraid to push me. “From what I’ve heard, your brother skyrocketed up the chain of command in this school because he got shit done, fuck the rules if need be.”

  “Then you heard wrong.” I step into him as if I could take him in a fistfight. “Nate didn’t bend the rules. He was a team player because he didn’t want anyone to get hurt. He … He …”

  Kray grabs my wrists and pulls me into him as the sprinkler system sprays full force around us. “You’ve got to calm down. This isn’t your war.”

  “FIRE!” someone screams and runs past us. Students pour out from various rooms, into the foyer, and out the double front doors.

  Kray doesn’t move because he knows I’m the cause of this spectacle. He cups my face until he has me in a stare-down, attempting to calm me. “You want to know what really happened to your brother? You want to find that classified information?” He squeezes my cheeks with his hands, and I nod. “Then you learn how to control your ability and get the Navy begging to have you join up.”

  I bob my head and unclench my fists.

  “Get it under control,” Kray repeats and moves away from me so I can do what he said.

  With everyone scrambling for the front door and bumping into me, distracting me, I’m forced to concentrate harder than usual. I bow my head and close my eyes.

  Calm down. Relax. Slow your heart rate. I repeat the words Cara taught me over and over until I feel them working.

  “Come on, Nautia. You’ve got this,” Kray encourages from somewhere behind me.

  I squeeze my eyelids tighter, focusing on the water and willing it back into the pipes. Drops roll down my forehead, and I lick the excess off my lips.

  Heaviness creeps into my shoulders, flowing down, down into my fingertips. As it inches into my extremities, I spread my fingers and lift my arms like I have a hundred pounds in each palm—it feels like I actually do. My chin drops until it touches my chest. Breathing in fast gasps, I force all of my power into my hands like I was taught.

  Energy moves through my veins, the intensity threatening to rip my skin open. I feel it all over my body now, consuming me, shaking me, shattering me.

  “Don’t let it control you,” Kray reminds me, his voice being drowned out by the power surging through me.

  I’m about to break. I can’t hold on any longer. The weight, the burden is too heavy.

  Tears flow down my cheeks, mixing with the water. In my mind, Nate’s face flashes in front of me. His black hair is soaked and falling into his eyes, but he doesn’t push it away. He can’t, because he’s tied up. Water pours over him, and he can’t concentrate. He can’t control it.

  He can’t breathe—

  Energy flies from the tips of my fingers, and I throw my head back and scream. Above me, the pipes break, the noise ringing through the building.

  “Oh shit!” Kray grabs me from behind just as the ceiling crashes down into the foyer. A rush of water laps at my heels, seeping into my shoes.

  I’m flooding the school.

  Kray pushes me into one of the classrooms and slams the door to momentarily block the water. Already, it’s pouring in under the door, streaming faster and faster.

  “The dam won’t hold for long,” he says, grabbing a chair and throwing it into a window. Glass shatters to the outside.

  Kray reaches for me. “Ladies first.”

  The ceiling in the room creaks, and I look up. Spider web lines slither out from the center as water floods through the walls.

  “You really did it this time, princess.” Kray jerks me toward the broken window. “We gotta move.”

  “But—”

  Before I can finish, Kray pushes me through the window. I’m airborne over the bushes. I hold my breath and wait for the inevitable bump, indicating my rescue. When it comes, I’m briefly jerked skyward. I’m only ten feet off the ground, but it still sucks. Inside my bubble of energy, my stomach begins to churn.

  Perfect.

  Slowly, my levitator brings me down to Earth. We have a dozen at Brighton, and in evacuations, it’s their job to get the rest of the students and faculty to safety. They’re lined up on all sides of the school.

  As soon as my feet touch the ground a hundred yards from the mansion, I throw up at my levitator’s feet. He jumps backwards to avoid my regurgitated lunch.

  “You’re welcome, Nautia,” he grumbles, disgusted by my sign of appreciation.

  “Back off, asshole,” Kray says when he lands beside the levitator who caught him. He gives her a nod of thanks, but she’s already moved on to her next rescue—and so has mine.

  Eyes burn into back of my neck, and I shiver. Even though I don’t have to turn around to know it’s Cara, I do anyway. I’m the only aquator here, so this is clearly on my shoulders. The disappointment in her gaze is plain. Only with her approval can I be released from Brighton Academy.

  After today, I’m pretty sure I’ll be here forever.

  Two weeks after my water-pipe-explosion fiasco, Kray and I meet in the newly repaired foyer after another one of my therapy sessions with Cara.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” I grumble on my way past him.

  “I’m me. You don’t have to talk; I already know.”

  I huff at him as I climb the grand staircase. He’s reading my thoughts with each step I take.

  He follows me. “Man, Cara is bru-tal!”

  “Do you ever mind your own business?”

  Kray ignores me. “Have you told her about the nightmares?”

  “And why would I do that? She already has enough shit on me to keep me locked up here for the rest of my life. I’m not giving her more ammo.”

  “Wait.” He grabs my wrist and spins me to face him. “What’s this about a mission?”

  I shake my head, only half-annoyed he’d plucked that out of my mind. “I don’t know. I’m not sure she even meant to say it.”

  “The Navy is heading it up?”

  I shrug. “I guess. Like I said, I think she accidentally let it slip.”

  “Cara doesn’t accidentally do anything. She wants you on that mission, Nautia. The Navy wants you on that mission.”

  “Whatever.” I jerk my hand free of him and head up the stairs. “Cara’s never going to release me, so it doesn’t matter.”

  Kray’s footfalls vibrate behind me. “I’m calling your bluff, princess.”

  I roll my eyes because he can’t see me.

  “I saw that,” he says.

  “No you didn’t,” I reply. “I’ve got to get to training. See you in the dining hall at seven.”

  I reach the top of the stairs and turn left, toward the girls’ corridor. I’m two steps down when I hear the front doors open. Voices I don’t recognize rise up to me, and both Kray and I twist around to see what the commotion is about.

  We’re not the only ones either. Everyone on the second floor hallway is leaning over the banister, and those downstairs stop in their tracks, staring at the visitors.

  Three high-ranking Navy officials cluster onto the Oriental rug in the foyer. Cara, Troy, Levi, and a few other Brighton Academy trainers surround them. Troy hates when we get uninvited visitors, and from his expression, these guys definitely didn’t have an invitation.

  Kray’s lips lower to my ear. “They’re here to put together a team for a top secret mission,” he says as if this is old news. He’s smug too, probably thinking this is about what Cara had let slip.

  “This is why you don’t have any friends; you know that, right?”

  He grins. “More of me for you.”

  “In your dreams, buddy.”

&nb
sp; Cara’s gaze flits up the stairs. Oh crap! She sees us. Or, well, she sees Kray.

  Even though I can’t hear her, I know what she says to the visitors. “Why don’t we move this into my office?”

  I nudge Kray. “Get what you can.”

  “What do you think I’m doing?”

  As the group heads into the room I exited not five minutes ago, one of them pauses, taking in the foyer. His short brown hair falls a little longer in front, brushing across his forehead. Recognition glazes his face as he takes a final scan and follows the last person into Cara’s office.

  I elbow Kray right before he goes in. “Who’s that?”

  Beside me, Kray snickers. “That, princess, is your ticket out of here.”

  It’s been five years since I graduated at eighteen from Brighton Academy—two years early. But nothing’s changed. Even the trainers are the same.

  “Riley Barton, right?” Cara asks once she has the door shut. I’m surprised she remembers. In my time here, I only had two classes with her. She focused mainly on the students whose abilities lie within their emotional cores. The only other time I even spoke with her was when the Navy recruited me, since she handles all transfers in and out of Brighton.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I confirm.

  “And you’re heading up this mission?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Cara sits down behind her desk. She motions for us to take the seats in front of her. Like the foyer, this room is the same too. Her office resembles a university history professor’s. Framed maps on the walls, some old and some new. One of those old-fashioned globes rests on an end table between the leather couch and a matching chair.

  “Well, I have to admit, Riley, I’m a little surprised. I thought this…conflict was taken care of two summers ago. We’re still dealing with the repercussions of that failure.”

  “We understand that,” I say, referring to the Navy and not to me personally. To date, I’ve been given very little information on what transpired during the first mission. Most of the files are classified. “However, we’ve recently received intel that the project is alive and well on their end. We’re taking a different approach this time,” I assure her. “No one’s going undercover.”