Chapter 8 #2
This, again, about me being not good enough.
I can’t hear it anymore. Least of all from Mace Hardfield, who seems to have turned into the most obnoxious, insufferable, awful person I’ve ever known.
I can’t believe I spent years pining after him.
‘And there’s no doubt that you’re the biggest jerk I ever met. ’
Mace flinches, as if my words have struck him. I don’t care. I just want to get through this mission, and I want him off my back.
Neither of us is ready to stand down as we stare each other out. I straighten my spine, trying to ignore the fact that at my full height, the top of my head barely reaches under his chin.
Someone touches my elbow and I flinch, tension still flowing through my veins. Allen is standing beside me. ‘Do you have a sec, Ellie? I want to test your power profile, since Stella is denying me access to your file.’
I blink. ‘Why would you want that?’
Allen scratches his head. ‘Well, we can’t play up your strengths in this mission if we don’t know what they are.’
‘Spoiler,’ Xandra says. ‘She doesn’t have any.’
Julian chuckles and my blood starts boiling again.
Allen huffs, annoyed. ‘I, for one, am very intrigued about the shield that you used yesterday. That’s definitely an asset that we could use. And I refuse to believe that you were assigned to our team by accident. There’s a reason for it, even if it’s not completely obvious to us.’
The anger trickles out of me, bit by bit. At least someone thinks I’m capable of something. ‘Do you really think that?’
‘Of course,’ Mace says. ‘There must be something. Ellie used to be so good in school. Everyone was so sure she’d be powerful.’
I gape at Mace. Now he chooses to acknowledge that I was good in school?
Allen places his palm at the small of my back and guides me towards his tent. I think how strange life is. How Mace and I grew apart. We used to be inseparable, now, we can barely look at each other before starting an argument.
Allen pulls apart the flaps of his tent and we duck inside. He tosses me his wrapped bedroll, and I sit down on top of it. Then, out of his backpack he conjures an ART that looks slightly larger than the standard-issue ones, with a keypad sliding out from the underside.
He rummages in a small rectangular bag and draws out a tiny, blue bead. ‘I have a gift for you. May I?’
I frown. ‘May you what?’
‘May I present you with … the bean.’
Bean? Where did I hear something about beans? And then, it clicks. It was Mace, going on about his bean last night. ‘Do not tell me this is the bean.’
‘Yes, it is,’ Allen says, grinning. ‘I made a few extras, because I was sure Julian would lose his within days and I was ninety per cent sure that Stella would assign another member to our team. So, Haeleanor Errington, I award you with your very own bean.’
I clap my hands. After the shitshow outside, this is exactly what I needed. ‘Where does it go?’
‘In your ear. I warn you, I’m pretty sure that, long-term, it’s a health hazard. But being on the mission and not being able to talk to the others is an even bigger health hazard. So, you know. It’s your choice whether you want to use it or not.’
‘I definitely want it and I want it now,’ I nearly shout.
Allen breaks out in laughter, then leans in, holding something like tweezers in his hand, with the bean pinched between its claws. He pulls my earlobe down. ‘This will be slightly uncomfortable. Try and keep still.’
Those tweezers dig briefly in my ear canal and ‘slightly uncomfortable’ is an understatement, but for the first time today, someone on this team is doing something to make me feel like I’m a part of it, too.
Though this doesn’t quite explain the waves of enthusiasm I’m feeling.
I can’t put my finger on what it is about Allen that makes me feel instantly at ease, the anger I felt earlier quickly evaporating.
Allen pulls back and I rub my ear. The bean feels weird, but it’s bearable. ‘How do I use it?’ I ask.
‘You tug on your earlobe and say the name of the person you want to talk to. It connects between the five of us in the team.’
‘I just have to say a name? That’s it?’ I say, already pulling at my ear.
‘Yup. Why don’t you try Mace?’
I huff. ‘Mace? In his dreams.’
There’s a short beeping sound and then I hear Mace’s low voice directly in my ear. ‘What was that about my dreams, Ellie?’
I turn around, shocked, but he isn’t there. It’s just Allen and me in the tent. That voice trickles in my ear again, and from there, directly down my spine. ‘You were saying, Ellie?’
Could this situation become even more mortifying? I can’t articulate a single sound, while Allen is choking with laughter. ‘How do I turn this off?’ I shout-whisper.
‘Just pull on your ear again, Ellie,’ Mace says, as unperturbable as ever. ‘You’re welcome.’
I throw Allen a murderous glare, but do as Mace says, eager to get away from the twentieth disastrously awkward situation between us in less than twenty-four hours. There’s a short click in my ear and I think Mace is gone.
Allen clutches his stomach. ‘I’m sorry. You should have seen your face.’
I fold my arms. ‘You’re more than welcome to stop laughing,’ I say. ‘I didn’t have to embarrass myself further in front of him.’
Allen takes a deep breath. ‘You aren’t an embarrassment. We just agreed that you should stay on the team.’
‘I thought we agreed on that this morning,’ I say, increasingly annoyed. Are we going to have this conversation daily?
‘Well, yes, but Mace still wasn’t convinced. He wanted to order you back to The Citadel, even in spite of our wishes. He can do that, as Team Captain.’
‘Yep. I know.’
‘But this morning, you proved that you can hold your own with the holograms. So I think it’s safe to say that was the last we’ll ever hear of you leaving the team.’
I roll my eyes. Am I supposed to be grateful now?
‘I know Mace, Ellie. How he ticks. It’s driving him out of his mind that he has someone on his team that he isn’t sure how and if he can protect. You’re not making it easy for him.’
‘How about we drop this,’ I suggest. Everything about Mace makes me uncomfortable on so many levels. And Allen has the kind of look that suggest he understands more than either of us is saying.
‘Okay,’ he says. ‘Send an impulse of your power into my ART first. The kind of surge that you send when you want to find a connection point to Stella. This will only be able to tell us a few things about your magic, but we can start there.’
I do as he says, touching my fingers to the glassy, cold surface of the ART. A chart lights up and he twists the device towards me, tapping on it. ‘Hmm,’ he says. ‘So this tells me that you’re probably not an Empath.’
‘I thought we’d already established that.’
‘I had to be sure,’ Allen says, still clicking away at his ART. ‘The thing is, we instantly had this sort of bond. You felt it, right? The wordless exchanges.’