I woke a couple days later to find Gwen stretched across my chest, grinning like she'd won something."Come on, tough guy. My dad's taking us shopping today," she said, bouncing just enough to make my ribs protest.
I groaned—partly from her weight sprawled over me, mostly from the exhaustion buried deep in my bones.
Yesterday I finally managed what I'd been trying to do for weeks: I coated my whole arm in that strange energy. Mana—yeah, I'm calling it mana because I don't have a better word yet. With it, I punched a hole straight through a tree. A whole tree. Afterwards I nearly blacked out, my skull splitting with a sledgehammer of a headache.
Oddly, I'd woken up today with a little more energy than usual. Not much, but enough to notice.
Only after the fact did the real questions hit me.Why do I even have this? What the hell am I?
"Ben, get up already—you're starting to creep me out."
Gwen hopped off me with zero mercy, knocking the air from my lungs. I wheezed, glared, and watched her bolt down the hall, giggling.
"GWEN!" I yelled, dragging myself upright and stumbling after her.
By the time I made it to the kitchen, she was perched on a stool, already halfway through a bowl of cereal. Uncle Frank stood at the counter, filling a travel mug. His sleeves were rolled to his elbows, and his tie was hanging crooked like it had lost a fight he didn't remember starting.
"There he is," he said, giving me a once-over. "Alive and ambulatory. Progress."
Barely, I signed back as he slid a plate toward me—both sunny-side-up and scrambled eggs.Don't judge me. The yolk makes the whole ensemble better. Creamy goodness mixed with the bland scrambled ones? Delicious.
"So, buddy, I was thinking…" he started.
His face tightened, and he let out a nervous little sigh. Was he… embarrassed? Why?Before I could figure it out, he rushed through the rest:
"Why don't I take Gwen and her favorite cousin out to the mall today? You know—have some fun."
He said it so fast I had to process it twice.
Aunt Natalie put you up to this, huh? I signed, chuckling. Gwen snorted into her cereal and nearly choked.
"No! I'll have you know she didn't," he insisted, with a smile that absolutely meant she told me to say that, and she is definitely watching me right now.How do I know? Because I've felt that same pressure before.
Note to self: never get on Aunt Natalie's bad side. Ever.It probably wouldn't end well.
"Enough with the weird looks from both of you," Gwen said, glancing between us like she could sense the parental conspiracy forming. "When are we going?"
Uncle Frank cleared his throat. "Whenever y'all are finished, honey."
We ate faster.
"Dad, Dad, Dad—can we get ice cream?" Gwen asked later, wearing that innocent-but-not-really smirk she uses to get her way.
Uncle Frank and I exchanged a look of mutual understanding.
We ignored her.
As we approached the mall, I watched the crowds flowing in and out—people juggling smoothies, bags stuffed with clothes, and enough merchandise to fill a small truck.
When we finally stepped inside, I stopped in place, stunned. A massive two-story open atrium stretched out before us, packed with miniature shops and restaurants stacked like colorful bricks. The air buzzed with chatter, music, and the constant hum of too many people.
"So… what do you two want to see first?" Uncle Frank asked, face scrunching like the crowd physically pained him. Honestly? Same.
I didn't even get to sign a single letter before Gwen grabbed both our wrists and dragged us to the first ice-cream-themed storefront she spotted.
Of course she did.
Gwen practically slammed us into the ice cream counter like a hostage presenting demands.
The teenager behind the register blinked at her, then at us, then back at her, like he was trying to determine whether we were kidnapping her or she was kidnapping us.
"One double-fudge brownie swirl," Gwen declared. "In the waffle cone. The BIG waffle cone."
Uncle Frank sighed the kind of sigh parents develop only after years of spiritual combat. "Gwen, we just got here."
"Exactly." She spread her hands. "We need energy."
"That's… not how energy works."
"It works for me."
I elbowed him gently and signed, Just give her the sugar. It'll buy us five minutes of peace.
"It absolutely won't," he muttered, but he still caved.
When Gwen happily skipped off with a tower of ice cream threatening the structural integrity of the cone, Uncle Frank and I got something more reasonable. I stuck with a scoop of vanilla—my stomach still wasn't fully recovered from yesterday's mana experiment—and he grabbed some boring adult flavor like butter pecan.
We headed into the mall proper, the noise swallowing us whole. Bright lights, chatter, a screeching toddler, and music from at least four stores fought for dominance. My head throbbed instantly.
Mana flickered faintly under my skin, reacting to the sensory overload. I shoved it down hard.
Not here. Not in public.
Gwen, meanwhile, was thriving. She spun around to face us while walking backwards—dangerous for anyone but somehow typical for her.
"So!" she chirped. "We're gonna hit the arcade first, right? Or the comic shop? Or—ooh! The new gadget place opened on the second floor—Ben, we have to go there, they have drones the size of your hand!"
Does she ever breathe? I signed to Uncle Frank.
"Only when forced," he said under his breath.
Then he glanced at me, hesitating. "…Hey, buddy. About earlier. You feeling alright? You still look kinda pale."
I froze for half a second.Did he know? No—couldn't. I've been careful. He just thinks I'm tired.
Headache, I signed. Didn't sleep great.
He nodded, but his eyes lingered a second too long. He wasn't buying it completely.
We walked on, weaving through the crowd. My nerves were stretched thin. Every time someone brushed too close, mana twitched like a muscle spasm. I clenched my jaw, focusing on keeping it contained.
Then a shout cut through the noise.
"HEY—WATCH IT!"
A man barreled past us, nearly knocking Gwen's cone out of her hand. She stumbled, and I grabbed her by the elbow before she face-planted.
The guy didn't even look back as he shoved through the crowd, clutching something to his chest. A wallet? No—too big. A bag? Something rectangular.
Behind him, a security guard was sprinting."STOP! THIEF!"
Great. Chaos incoming.
Uncle Frank groaned. "Why does this always happen when I leave the house…"
Gwen perked up like this was the best thing that had ever happened.
And me?
Mana rippled up my arm entirely on its own.
Not good.
Before I could stop myself, my vision sharpened, heartbeat accelerating, every sound turning crisp. The thief shoved through a group of people—too close, too fast.
Someone was about to get hurt.
And my body reacted before my brain gave permission.
I stepped forward.
Before I could stop myself, my entire body surged with green energy—bright, wild, overwhelming. It swallowed me whole for a heartbeat… then snapped, flickering down until it focused only on my legs, pulsing there like coiled springs.
I took another step.
And shot across the floor.
I crashed straight into the thief, slamming into him with enough force to knock the breath from both of us. We tumbled, limbs tangling, momentum carrying us across the tiles until I hit the ground hard on my back. Pain flared between my shoulder blades.
"BEN!"
Gwen's voice cracked with panic, but I couldn't look her way. The world tilted as the thief rolled over, scrambling upright. His hand fumbled inside his jacket—and came out gripping the cold, black shape of a gun.
My pulse spiked. Mana sparked instinctively under my skin.
He didn't care about the bag he'd stolen; it lay tossed aside like trash. What he did care about was survival—and now that meant using me.
He grabbed a fistful of my shirt and yanked me up with a desperate strength. The gun barrel pressed against my forehead, metal biting ice-cold against my skin.
The mall went dead silent.
Screams faded. Complaints cut off mid-word. The space froze around us as if everyone had inhaled and forgotten how to exhale.
"Don't move!" a distant voice shouted—but it was swallowed by the thief's breath against my ear.
"Let me go," he hissed, voice shaking with panic and something unhinged. "Or the boy dies."
His hand trembled violently. Not good. Scared people were unpredictable. Scared people with guns were worse.
I felt Gwen's fear like a physical weight behind me. Uncle Frank's voice sounded somewhere off to the side—sharp, terrified, trying to bargain, trying to help.
Mana surged again, responding to my panic, crawling up my spine like lightning begging to strike. If it exploded out of me again, if I lost control here…
Someone would die.
Maybe me.
Maybe him.
Maybe everyone.
I forced myself to breathe, staring straight into the thief's wild eyes. He smelled like sweat and adrenaline, like someone running from more than mall security.
"Don't be stupid," he snarled. The gun pushed harder against my skin. "They let me walk, or you—"
The trigger twitched.
Mana flared in my legs again—violent, instinctual.
And I knew I had one second to decide what to do.