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  "And what if Desmond kicks me out? What about if he would like me to leave Chicago? He does, you know. He says he wants me to relocate somewhere else before the baby is born. And I'm pretty sure he's gunning for 'immediately,' rather than later."

  "Well, the United States government will be telling him that any relocation won't be happening immediately. I think this whole situation needs a bit of time to shake itself out. If you and Commander Grant are still unhappy with you still living in Chicago a few months from now, then we'll talk again."

  Something about Cynthia's tone of voice told me that she was completely finished discussing everything, and when I didn't respond, she wished me well and ended the call.

  I didn't see or speak to Desmond the next day, or the next. The day after that, Emma, Jake, and I took a little road trip in my car to visit my grandma in Quincy. The visit went extremely well, with Jake being a very unexpected treat for the care home residents and staff members. My grandma gave him several hugs and lots of kisses on his big, round cheeks, and another woman kept clapping her hands together every so often, saying he was "just beautiful."

  Even one elderly man named Marvin, who Eloise sometimes muttered was a "grumpy Gus," seemed tickled by Jake, encouraging him as he lobbed tiny stuffed animals several feet across the room. Before Emma, Jake, and I left, I saw Marvin wiping his eyes with the back of his sleeve, telling Eloise that he'd thought his granddaughter would never bring his little great-grandson to visit him ever again.

  A while back, Eloise had told me that Marvin's family had stopped visiting him a year earlier, saying that when Marvin didn't recognize them and had angry outbursts related to his Alzheimer's, it was too hard on them.

  After being the center of so much attention, Jake immediately passed out on the way home, clutching a tiny stuffed dog. Deciding that this might be a good time to broach the subject of Emma's Gifted troubles with her, I briefly thought about what might be the best way to kind of casually bring them up.

  "So, I've been thinking...do you think you might want to-"

  "No, Madison. I'm not joining in at the next Gifted practice with you."

  Stunned, I glanced over at her. "How do you even know that's what I was going to say?"

  "Well, wasn't it?"

  "Well...yes."

  "Look. I've been waiting for you to ask me to join in. I saw the way you kept looking over at me during your first practice, and then you kept giving me the same kind of looks yesterday. Both practices, you kept looking like you felt bad for me and you wanted me to join in with the group. Which is really nice of you to have that impulse, but I'm not ever joining in, no matter what. I'll never be of use as a Gifted, and I long ago figured that out, so there's no point in me even trying anymore."

  "But you said yourself that you were initially successful at levitating...successful enough that someone in your town was able to take video that they sent to the government for a cash reward for having located a Gifted."

  Emma shrugged, gaze on the long stretch of road in front of us.

  "Yeah. But that didn't last long."

  "Well, what happened? Why do you think you lost your power?"

  Emma took so long in responding that I started wondering if she was going to or not, but then she finally spoke.

  "Basically, here's the story. I was a latent Gifted like you. I found out I was pregnant, and my husband Josh and I were overjoyed. The next day in town, I was grocery shopping for things to make a special celebration meal for us; a little container of cornstarch fell out of the overfull hand-basket thing I was carrying and I accidentally levitated it into my hand while in the process of kneeling down with my hand outstretched to grab it.

  “It just sort of...levitated its own self, it felt like. But then, with a bunch of people in the store watching, I levitated a bunch of other things, this time actually trying to. I even levitated a cart full of groceries several feet off the ground and just held it there for probably ten seconds."

  "Which, from what I've heard, is a long time for a brand-new Gifted to levitate anything. It sounds like you were pretty good at it."

  "Maybe. I don't know."

  "So what happened that you couldn't do it anymore?"

  Again, Emma hesitated a really long time before responding.

  "When I got out to my car with my groceries, I was so happy and excited I was really losing my mind. See, Josh was working as a construction foreman, and I'd recently been let go from my secretarial job for mixing up some very important files for about the fifth time.

  “So, money was somewhat tight, and I knew it was about to get a whole lot tighter with a baby coming. But now, that problem was solved. With my income as a Gifted, we'd be just fine, and even while in the grocery store, I was already thinking that I'd ask the government if I could be assigned to Chicago, where so much new construction was taking place, so that Josh could continue his work as a foreman.

  “Everything would be perfect. So...excited out of my mind, I called him from right there in the parking lot, and I told him to rush right home from work as soon as he could, because I had something incredible to show him, which was, of course, going to be my levitation power. He asked me to tell him what was going on, but I told him this was something he'd just have to see; so he said he'd be right home."

  Still gazing straight ahead on the road, Emma once again paused so long I wondered if she was going to continue.

  "So, then what happened?"

  She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  "Josh was speeding on the way home...maybe ten miles above the limit, the accident re-constructors said. And somehow, he lost control of his truck and hit a tree. He probably died on impact, they said. After that, the government gave me a whole week to plan and have his funeral and grieve with our family members before taking me away to Chicago...which was, of course, just the place I wanted to be after suddenly losing my husband while pregnant.

  “No friends, no family, didn't know a soul...and most people had heard about what had happened and kind of steered clear of me, I guess just because they didn't know how to act around a brand-new widow. Which is part of the reason why I later took it upon myself to become the 'welcoming committee' for new Gifteds.

  “I didn't feel exactly unwelcome when I arrived, but no one really went out of their way to welcome me, either. I think people thought that an upbeat, friendly welcome might have been weird or something considering that I was in mourning, or maybe they just thought I wanted to be left alone.

  “At any rate, I decided that I was always going to welcome new Gifteds to town with a special lunch visit, just in case nobody else did. That's how Eric and I first met and became friends, by the way. About a month after I'd arrived in town, he came by with lunch, making some joke about how in addition to being Desmond's second-in-command, he was also in charge of making sure all pregnant Gifteds were eating properly or something.

  “He probably just felt sorry for me, because after me attending several Gifted practices and just not being able to do anything, word had definitely gotten around by that time that I was an absolute failure of a Gifted."

  "Emma, I really don't think that Eric feeling sorry for you is the reason he's friends with you. He sure seems to check in on you and Jake an awful lot for a person who supposedly just feels pity."

  He'd actually called Emma while we'd been at the care home, just wanting to know that we'd arrived safely.

  In response to what I'd said, Emma just shrugged.

  "Well...maybe. But, anyway...so that's the story of how I lost my Gifted power, or how I never had a good handle on it in the first place, or whatever."

  Thinking, it was now my turn to hesitate in responding, I said, "Well...it sounds like you 'lost' your power and weren't ever able to do it again after Josh was killed...so, I have to agree with Eric that you not being able to levitate anymore might be some kind of a mental block. Like, maybe you subconsciously feel guilty that-"

  "No, there's nothing subco
nscious about it. I absolutely feel guilty that Josh was speeding and crashed his truck, and I absolutely feel that I'm to blame for him not being around to watch Jake grow up. If I hadn't told him to 'hurry home,' then-"

  "But that's insane, Emma. Josh, regrettably, made his own choice to speed-"

  "Because I told him to rush on home."

  "Doesn't matter. You're still not to blame for what happened, and it's clear to me that maybe your mental block is because something really bad happened right after the first time you used your powers, which maybe got mixed up in your mind, like, 'I use my powers and people I love die.' So now you have this feeling, subconscious or otherwise, that something really bad might happen again if you ever really use your powers again. Maybe your subconscious hasn't been letting you use them, even though you've tried. Maybe your mind's been trying to protect you, or rather, others you love.”

  Emma just stared out the windshield for a long moment.

  "Let's just please change the subject."

  "Okay. I won't say anything more about it. But will you at least promise to come with me again to practice tomorrow? Just to sit and watch; that's all."

  "Well...I'll do that. But just so I can see how you're coming along with your zapping, and just so that Jake can get some time with his friends at the daycare. But I'm not going to personally join in, so you can just forget about that. Shortly after arriving here in Chicago, I got more than enough of embarrassing myself in front of all the other Gifteds. Now...." Emma took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "While we're talking about serious things and subconscious things, here, I have something I've been wanting to talk to you about. And I've been kind of waffling back-and-forth about bringing it up, hoping that Desmond would just tell you himself, but since he seems to have just been going out of his way to avoid you these past few days...."

  With my pulse already accelerating a little bit, I glanced over at Emma.

  "What? Was it it?"

  She gave me a return glance, knitting her chocolate-brown brows.

  "It's about Desmond's past, and I think it relates to why he's seeming less-than-thrilled about your pregnancy. I think that once you hear what I'm going to tell you, things might make a little more sense to you."

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The same day that it had happened, I'd told Emma all about the conversation Desmond and I had before I'd made my unsuccessful phone call to Cynthia for a reassignment. Emma had listened, frowning, eventually remarking that it wasn't at all like Desmond to be so cold, especially to the point of saying that he wanted nothing to do with his own child. I'd told Emma that maybe she just didn't know Desmond as well as she thought, because he himself had even admitted that he wasn't a good guy.

  Emma had just frowned harder, saying that definitely wasn't true, as evidenced by the fact that he worked so hard, often putting his life on the line, to protect the people of Chicago. I had to admit that something wasn't matching up, and Emma agreed. All she said further was that she hoped Desmond and I spoke again very soon, though she wouldn't elaborate on what, specifically, she hoped we spoke about. She simply said that she felt like we needed to talk more.

  Now, days later, with Desmond and I not having spoken again, it seemed that maybe I was about to get some kind of illumination as to why, precisely, he was so upset about my pregnancy, illumination that apparently Emma had been hoping he might give me himself.

  However, just a second after saying what she had about Desmond's past, and how it might relate to him being "less-than-thrilled" about my pregnancy, Emma closed her mouth and gave her head a good shake.

  "Nope. I'm doing something that I've done a time or two in the past, and it's something I shouldn't do again, so I'm not going to. I'm not going to share something about someone's past that they should share themselves. No matter that Desmond has been avoiding you, or you've been avoiding him, or whatever has been-"

  "We've both been avoiding each other. He hasn't contacted me, and I haven't contacted him."

  "Well, at any rate, the two of you need to talk, because he needs to share a bit of his past with you. And I didn't mean to just 'tease' you by saying that I was going to tell you, but I really shouldn't. It's not my place, and I've gotten in trouble for this sort of thing in the past. Please don't tell Desmond that I told you that he needs to share a bit of his past with you, either.

  “There's something about his past that he told Eric in confidence, but Eric very recently slipped and told me, and I do think it was an accident; so if you tell Desmond that I told you to get him to share some of his past, he'll know that Eric told me, and that won't be good for Eric. Do you get what I'm trying to say?"

  "I do, and I don't want to make Desmond mad at you and Eric, so I won't say that you advised me to try to get him to share about his past with me; I'll just try to get him to do it. However, do you really think I'm going to be able to get him to do that? I don't. I have a feeling he's said everything to me that he wants to."

  "Well, just go see him when we get back to the tower. A lot of times, if their daily surveillance of the Angels and the Angel dragons hasn't taken them too far, Desmond, Eric, and most of the other dragons are home by five or six. So, just go on up to the penthouse and see if you can catch Desmond before dinner. If he doesn't eat down in one of the restaurants around seven, he usually has something brought up to him around that time. Maybe he'll even ask you to eat with him."

  We'd come to a red light, and I now braked, scoffing, behind a line of cars.

  "Right. Something tells me Desmond would rather gouge his eyes out with a fork than eat dinner with me."

  "Well, maybe he's had time to think things through a bit now. At least try him. Just go up there and say you'd like to talk."

  I said that I would. "First I might take a quick shower, though, to get the rest of Jake's applesauce out of my hair."

  While at the care home, Jake had been sitting on my lap at the table, enjoying a snack of applesauce. After getting it all over his hands, he'd then thoroughly tangled his fingers in my hair while planting big, sticky kisses all over my face.

  "Not that Desmond probably cares if I have sticky, messy hair or not. The night we met, he kept saying how beautiful he thought I was, but he apparently doesn't think so anymore."

  Emma turned from looking out the window to look at me.

  "Or, he's just hiding how he really feels about you."

  Not sure if I wanted that to be the case or not, and not sure how I should respond to Emma, I just shrugged.

  An hour or so after we'd arrived back in the city, I'd showered, dried my hair, and re-dressed in clothes completely free of applesauce. At six, I knocked on Desmond's penthouse door, but like the other time, he didn't answer. I knocked two more times and still nothing. Figuring he might not be back from his job duties, I'd just turned to head back down the hallway to the elevator when I heard the quiet sound of the door being pulled open, followed by a single word.

  "Yes?"

  I froze dead in my tracks; that single word, so formal and civil, angered and deeply wounded me at once. It was a word a person might use to greet an unwanted visitor to an office or something. It definitely didn't seem like a greeting for someone the speaker had slept with and was now having a baby with. It was a greeting that seemed like it could only be said by the speaker if the speaker felt absolutely nothing for the person being addressed, and never had. And something deep in my gut kept wanting to deny that that could possibly be true.

  After turning around slowly, I just looked at Desmond for a long moment, trying to ignore the fact that in jeans and a white t-shirt, and with his dark hair rakishly tousled, he looked so good, my first impulse was to throw myself at him.

  "'Yes?' That's how you're greeting me now? I don't even get a 'Hello, Madison?’ I get a 'Yes?'"

  I thought I saw Desmond wince just slightly, though I couldn't be sure, because my attention was kind of flicking all over the place, from his bare feet to his darker-than-usual hair, indicati
ng that he might have just gotten out of the shower and his hair was still damp. Silently cursing myself for the thought, I wondered how great he smelled just out of the shower.

  "All right. Hello, Madison. What can I help you with?"

  I crossed the four or five steps between us gritting my teeth, but not only because of irritation at what he'd just said. I was also gritting my teeth fighting not to look at the way the soft cotton of his white t-shirt highlighted the hard ridges of his chest.

  Knowing I was in some kind of a danger zone, though not quite knowing exactly what kind of one, I came to a stop right in front of him, catching a little whiff of soap along with a hint of his usual masculine, woodsy scent.

  "What can you 'help' me with, Desmond? Well, just for starters, you can stop saying things like 'Yes?' and 'What can I help you with?' Like we barely even know each other or something. Like we never even...like you didn't...."