“What is sitting here supposed to do?” Stephanie asked as she sat cross-legged in front of Liam.

“You need to learn how to draw out your abilities at will. Being calm helps you detect the subtle changes associated with them,” Liam said simply.

Stephanie frowned at his response. She couldn’t just calm down. Being so close to Liam made her feel almost jittery. She knew how their relationship made her feel before and hoped that it would develop into that type of relationship again. At the same times she was afraid that she wasn’t the same person she used to be, and he would want nothing to do with her after all of this was over. She knew what Aiden had said, but Liam didn’t have a poker face. She had seen his horror when she showed him the scars. She knew she wasn’t beautiful with those scars.

“Just close your eyes and breathe. The first step is calming down,” Liam said patiently, and then flashed a smile that made her heart beat furiously against her chest. “I understand that this is difficult. It takes most uninitiated human irregulars a few months or years to figure out their abilities after they are located by the API.”

Stephanie tried again, closing her eyes and taking deep breaths. This was just like those meditations that her therapist had tried to get her to do years ago. She hadn’t been able to relax then. Nothing bad will happen, she tried to assure herself. Meditation didn’t mean falling asleep. She wouldn’t see more of that awful nightmare. Liam had barely left her side since the incident at the college campus. He had explained the theory that her captors might be part of a group called the Order, and the possibility had shifted something in him. He was even more cautious when she was in public, going as far as to refuse to let her go to her favorite coffee shop alone. She understood his concern, but his reaction seemed overblown.

She forced her thoughts into the background and tried to calm down. She didn’t know how long it was before Liam spoke again. He sounded so far away as he said, “Now, feel the movement of energy within your body. It flows through your veins, through your soul.”

Try as she might, she couldn’t feel anything like that remotely resembled what Liam described. Stephanie grew restless and impatient with herself. She couldn’t do this. She was too different from her past self to manage this simple task. That’s not it at all. The voice cut through her mind. It was that of the white fox from her dream. Your soul mate did a good job getting you to this point. You are ready to listen, receptive to understanding, but your power isn’t like most so the typical route wouldn’t work anyways. You’ve probably grown numb to the flow of your power anyways. I’ll guide you. Stephanie remained quiet, trying to follow the voice, afraid that she would lose the connection if she wasn’t careful to keep relatively calm.

She felt her concentration shifting inward. Think of a river, the intense rush of water cascading over rocks, cutting through valleys. Stephanie did as the fox instructed. Suddenly, she felt as if the blood running through her veins was the river, and then the voice continued. That’s it. That is your power. Now tug at the edges of the flow, don’t fight against it, just pull a little of it to the surface. Stephanie hesitantly tried to do as the fox ordered, and after what felt like an hour, she finally succeeded on pulling a small trickle of the flow away from herself. Open your eyes and try to direct the flow to your hands. To return the flow to the river just do this in reverse.

Stephanie opened her eyes and tried to do as the fox suggested. A white light appeared in the palms of her hands. Liam looked surprised to see the light but nodded encouragingly. “Now return the flow to the source,” he said gently.

Now that his instructions made sense, she was able to understand what she was supposed to do in order to stop using the ability. She let go of the power, dropping it back into the river of her abilities. Liam grinned as Stephanie. “Great job. I thought that would take a lot longer.”

“It was hard at the beginning but then the fox talked me through the rest,” Stephanie admitted nervously.

“Oh,” Liam looked a bit worried. She understood it. He had explained that the creatures in her dream were real, but part of a different realm. They were guardians, but she didn’t understand what they were supposed to be guarding. “Do you want to continue? I can show you how to project your abilities outwards for offensive, defensive, or healing.”

Stephanie nodded and Liam stood and held his hand out to help her up. She took his hand, enjoying the warmth she felt there. “So, what do I do?” she asked to distract herself.

“Activate your ability and then guide it outwards. For offensive,” Liam turned away and a pale light appeared in his hand. He pushed his power out in a wave towards the wall. It cut through the framed print on the wall. “You sharpen it like a bladed weapon and project the flow outwards.”

Stephanie tried to mimic his actions. After barely a minute she was able to do the same and tear through the remaining half of the print. “What now?” Stephanie asked.

“That’s going to need some practice. You need to be able to do all of that instantaneously. The enemy isn’t going to sit around waiting for you to succeed.”

“I know that,” Stephanie frowned. She wasn’t anywhere near ready for another encounter with the shard. She didn’t even know what she had been thinking, jumping between Liam and that monster, or if she had been thinking at all.

“In the meantime, you need to learn shielding and healing. Shielding should be relatively easy. Release your ability and make it form a membrane between you and your surroundings. It should be clear like a bubble, but hard like rock.”

Stephanie nodded, and began to release her ability. She tried to shape it into the proper shape and hardness. Liam was right about one thing. It was easier for her to make a shield than it was to attack. It felt like a wall between her and Liam. “How long should I hold it?” Stephanie asked.

“Let’s start with two minutes,” Liam frowned before adding, “I’ll attack the shield so this will take focus. Tell me the moment you start feeling tired.”

Stephanie swallowed, “Okay.” She didn’t want to stop until she figured out how to use her abilities properly, but she knew that if she overdid this, then she could be left weak when that shard did manage to find them again. The first blow felt like a shock to her system. She could feel some feedback from the shield, but not physically. It felt strange, but not painful. It was like a pressure that she could tell was there but couldn’t feel properly. She reaffirmed her grip on the shield, trying to ensure that the shield didn’t fail. Stephanie poured more of her power into the shield. She felt it strengthen, but it still felt frail against the blows that Liam was testing on the barrier. She knew that he wasn’t going all out. He was probably afraid to hurt her, and Liam hadn’t been strong enough to take down the shard on his own. That shard wouldn’t go easy on her. She needed to get stronger than she was currently. She poured even more power into the shield. A thought came to her mind. What if she could infuse offensive abilities into the shield? Then she might be able to do some damage while remaining protected. She gave an experimental push with her abilities, guiding a sharp flow through the shield to reinforce the shield with offensive abilities.

It was only then that she realized what she had done. Liam was the person attacking the shield, not the monster. It was too late to pull the power back as Liam struck the shield and was thrown backwards and into the wall. She let her power collapse and rushed to Liam’s side. He was bleeding from a large gash on his chest. His head had hit the wall hard enough to knock him unconscious, unless it was her power that did it. Stephanie started to panic. Aiden wasn’t in the house. She didn’t know what to do. Liam hadn’t taught her what to do in order to heal. The fox’s voice was strangely absent, but she couldn’t just do nothing.

Stephanie closed her eyes and tried to think of a solution. Stephanie remembered how it felt when Liam had tried to heal the scars on her back. She hadn’t bothered to look at it since, not wanting to hope for anything. The pain and tightness there had eased completely, so she knew that it had been effective in some sense. She tried to remember how Liam’s power had felt when he tried to heal her scars. It had felt warm. Stephanie tried to pull her power to her hands and succeeded and willed it to heal, to be warm and soft, not sharp like her offensive abilities. She shakily held her hand out to Liam, covering the worst wound on his chest with the palm of her hand. She pushed the warmth out harshly, with desperation.

Suddenly, Liam groaned, and Stephanie sagged. A numbness that she hadn’t noticed at first stole the feeling from her limbs. She felt the world start to go black and heard Liam shout something before she was swallowed by the darkness.