The Supers (unedited scene)

Title: The Supers

Genre: Young adult, supernatural

Rating: T (for some language)

Story Type: Novel - incomplete

Word count: (scene) 1938

Summary:  Some people are just born different.  That's always been the way of the species, but different then, and different now are nowhere near the same.  Now, the different ones are born with special powers, and instead of being ostracized, like those in the past, they are envied, they are the cool kids, the hip parents, the cream of the crop, but most importantly, they are envied.  There are those out there who will do anything to harness this power, and they are looking at the children to get it.  A group of teens must stop their generation from being used and, eventually, destroyed, by those who think they are more worthy to hold such power.

The class ended and Lora jumped up from her seat, making a beeline for the door.  She had packed her notebook away five minutes before the end of class and had spent the rest of the lecture peeling chipped nail polish off of her fingernails.  It wasn’t that the lecture itself was boring.  The material was interesting, but the teacher’s voice…  It droned on and on in the same monotonous tone.  Lora was pretty sure that, about halfway through, she had nodded off.  When her head jerked, she couldn’t be sure if she’d been sleeping for two minutes or ten.  Not that Mr. Norris noticed or anything.  His head was in his notes.

“That was fun, huh?”

Lora’s eyes cut to the side, and then rolled.  “Yeah, that was a blast.  I’ve heard better stories from my grandpa.  Seriously, an account of an actual battle shouldn’t have been that boring.”

Connor laughed and Lora shivered.  Having a crush on your best friend was crazy cliché but Lora couldn’t help it, especially when Connor sometimes seemed like he liked her, too.  Jake kept saying that he did, but…  It was so hard to read Connor.  He could slip in and out of anyone’s mind in a second, but Lora couldn’t even read his face and body language half of the time.  It was like, since he knew just how easily thoughts could be taken, he was guarded in every way possible.

Sometimes, though, he smiled a certain way, or he put a hand to Lora’s back when they were walking, and she was positive that he liked her.  Jake told her to make the first move, that Connor wasn’t going to put a move on her, so she had to do it first, but she was afraid.  What if he turned her down?  No, that wouldn’t make things weird, at all.  She’d have to stay away from him, which meant staying away from everyone else, and then she would have to find a whole new batch of friends.  Lora could do without that.  It was hard enough to get the ones that she had.

“We’re not holding court this afternoon, are we?”  Lora rubbed the back of her neck.  She was stiff from too much playing.  Sure, some people would call it training, but throwing fireballs at her father while he ran at about the speed of light?  Yeah, Lora called that playing. 

“Nope.”  The grin on Connor’s face was disconcerting.  “In fact,” he said, “we’re ditching the rest of the afternoon.”

“Oh, we are, are we?”

“I just happen to have gotten us all passes off campus this afternoon for a special seminar up at Iowa State on the effects of mutated genes on rabbits or some such shit.  I don’t know.  It just sounded like something we could get away with.”

Skipping out of class was a bad idea, especially if she continued to suck at lying and her parents asked her how her day went.  Sure, she could say that she went on a field trip, but then they would want to know the details, and since Lora was pretty sure they weren’t actually going to this seminar, she wouldn’t have any details to give them.  Yup, this was a bad idea, but she would go, though.  Why?  Because Connor was the one making the plans, and it was just so hard to turn him down.

Connor was the one that made her forget the common sense that her parents had given her.  He was compelling, and not just because he could get inside of your head and make you think whatever he wanted you to think.  Connor was charismatic all on his own.  He had a strength about him, a confidence that spread out whenever he talked.  Hell, he could pass that confidence with just a look and a smile.  It was just one of the many ways that he reminded Lora of her father.

Connor was pretty tall, Lora would guess around five feet, eight inches.  His hair was very modern, trendy, cut just long enough that the hair in his face came down in a slant over his left eye but didn’t touch his collar in the back.  His eyes were bright blue.  He kind of reminded her of her father, tall with brown hair and blue eyes, sharp features, though Connor’s weren’t as sharp as Neil’s.  There was a softness to his cheekbones and the tip of his nose that made them more like butter knives than steak knives.

Lora sighed.  “What are we really doing?” she asked as they rounded the corner and headed to their lockers.  Their entire group had side-by-side lockers.  Since they hadn’t started school that way, but had somehow managed to carry that over into the school year following their meeting, Lora could only guess that Connor was messing with things again.

“We’re going to Borders.”

Lora’s right eyebrow tried to reach the ceiling.  “Ya know, I love a good Peach Fruitkula on a hot day, too, but we’re really ditching school to do something we could easily do after school?”

“Can’t do anything after school,” he told her.  They stopped in front of their lockers.  Connor didn’t have a lock on his locker, but he never worried that anyone would break into it.  He had fixed his locker so that only he could open it.  Even Jake couldn’t find the sweet spot that popped it open, and he had hit on every single spot on the locker door, from the inside and the outside.

Lora didn’t trust that she’d be able to find her own sweet spot, so had turned down Connor’s offer to rig her locker, too.  She twisted the lock’s face back and forth until it popped open.  She took the lock off and hooked it on one of her belt loops, then opened the door.  “Since when do you have after school plans that don’t involve me?”

Facing the inside of her locker, one arm up to put a book on the shelf, Lora froze.  That was awfully bold of her.  Jake would have loved it.  Tina and Troy would have made fun of her, so it was very good fortune of hers that neither of them was there.  Lora’s cheeks burned and she used the cover of the open locker door to fan herself and calm down.  When she was sure that she wasn’t going to run away with her head down, she pulled down two books and closed the door.

Connor looked mostly normal, but she could tell that her Tina-channelling moment had made him stop for a second, too.  He had done a pretty good recovery job, but there was something about his eyes, something in the way he looked at her that told Lora that he heard her question the way that it had sounded to her own ears, i.e. like she was his girlfriend or something.  Way to overstep there, Lora.  Since Connor had promised not to randomly go into her head, it was safe to think to herself again.

“I didn’t say I had plans,” Connor told her.  He winked and said, “Besides, wouldn’t you already know if I had plans, since you’re always part of them?”

Lora caught herself before she let her sigh of relief come out.  So, Connor was going to play it off like a joke.  That was good.  Jokes were good.  They were great.  They were absolutely awesome.  “So, if you don’t have plans, why can’t we meet after school?”  If Connor could play it cool, so could she.

“Because everywhere we would meet up has listening ears, and no one needs to hear what we’re going to be talking about.”

Oh, great.  Connor was going cryptic again.  Sometimes, she was pretty sure that he was paranoid.  Lora had never known Connor to be comfortable with the level of support and fanfare that people like them received.  They were different, he always said, and people were supposed to fear different, not love it.  Lora just gave people the benefit of the doubt.  Besides, she didn’t really see it as love and devotion or anything like that.  They were just accepted and appreciated.

“We could meet at my place,” Lora said.  “My parents aren’t nosy.”

“They’re parents,” Connor said with a shrug.

“So, we’re skipping out to go to Borders.”

“It’ll be the Borders in Ames, so at least we’ll be near the campus.  Besides, the Borders people here know us and would probably wonder why we’re not in school.”  Connor shrugged again.  “Don’t worry about it.  I’ll make sure we know all we need to know about the lecture we’re not attending.  We’ll be in good shape.”

Lora still thought this was a bad idea.  She thought it was even worse of an idea when coupled with Connor’s paranoia.  Yet, part of her said that maybe he knew something that they didn’t, and he wasn’t paranoid after all.  If he knew something, then they were meeting so he could tell them about it.  That would make sense.  That would also be kind of scary, and the idea that Connor was right instead of just being paranoid didn’t exactly put Lora at ease.

“What about the others?  When are you going to tell them?” Lora asked.   None of the five shared another class before their lunch break, another perk that had to come from Connor messing with someone’s head. 

“Already told them during the boring lecture, and they’re good.”  Which meant that Troy would just wait until they were face-to-face to tell Connor that he was being paranoid and a little bit crazy.  “We’re meeting out at the cars at lunch.”

Lora wanted to ask him just how far his ability reached, but that felt a little personal.  Obviously, he could reach throughout the school, since they were all scattered at the time that he told them.  Everyone in their group knew the basics of each other’s abilities, but that was about it.  They didn’t like to show off within the group.  They usually kept that to when they wanted to reassert their positions as the cool kids and put on a display in the parking lot.

Lora took in a deep breath and held it for a few seconds before letting it out.  “Fine,” she said.  Connor closed his locker as Lora shrugged.  “I guess we’re in.  But, you have to cover for me.  You know I suck at lying, and there’s no way I can claim I went somewhere and have my parents actually believe me.”

Connor hitched his backpack up on his shoulder, then put both hands on Lora’s arms.  His left hand was pretty low on her arm, and between that and his long fingers, she could feel his fingers just barely brushing against her hip.  The surge that went through her body said that maybe Jake was right and she should just go for it.  Maybe, she’d do it.  Maybe, when they were alone and Tina wasn’t there to say something that sent Lora into a fit.

“Don’t I always cover for you?” Connor asked.

“Yeah.”

“Then, don’t sweat it.  I’ve got you covered, Lora.  Just like always.”

Connor’s hands came away, his right going up to grab the strap of his backpack.  Just like always, he said.  A little voice told her that she should really be more careful, because Connor Alterman was going to get her into some serious trouble one day, probably one day soon.  Listening to that voice would have been a very good thing.  Too bad Lora rarely listened to her common sense.