Chapter 14, Part 1

Cassie!”

Cassie didn’t answer as she balanced on the edge of the roof, wings spread wide, allowing the wind to tease at the feathers. She was getting more comfortable on the edge but still hadn’t worked up the courage to jump off and trust her golden wings.

The door to the roof banged open. “Cassie! Woah!” Caleb paused. “Cool! Are you going to fly?” He walked up to the edge with her.

She glanced over at the eager teenager. “Not today. I still need to get stronger.” It was the same lie she told herself every day since they had started training over a month ago. Her wings retracted with a heave of her shoulders and she stepped off the ledge onto the level surface of the roof.

“What’s up?” she asked.

“Oh, Doc said he figured something out with the freaky radio thing, so he wants to talk to us.”

“Did he say what?”

“Umm…well it was all very science-y.”

Cassie rolled her eyes. “Well let’s go figure it out.”

They took the stairs down to the lab floor and joined the others with Dr. Braxton. The scientist was sipping at his ever-present steaming cup of tea.

“Ah, you’re all here. Come on in.” He ushered them into the lab where they found seats on lab tables and chairs. “Well, we’ve made a breakthrough,” he cut right to the point. “We’ve figured out how to transmit over the frequency you found.”

Sam shifted and crossed his arms over his chest. “So what does that mean now?”

“Well, I’ve had a few conversations with Santos and Armstrong and we’ve had a few ideas we wanted to share with you all,” Braxton said. “We think you have your abilities due to your parents’ connection with Novum. We know that you all are the only people who can hear this frequency and we know that you are not the only children who have gone missing in the last few years. Cassie, you ran away because of your wings.”

Cassie nodded. It was common knowledge among her family. In fact all of her adopted family members had left home for various reasons.

“I think that might be why some other children of the settlers have disappeared. We want to try and broadcast a signal around the world using this frequency. The message will simply let them know that there is a place here for them. We think we can broadcast it over regular radio channels and see if anyone shows up, I suppose.”

“What if the Amelli kid hears it and his psycho dad shows up instead?” Luke asked.

“We are on an Army base, I think we can take care of everything if he does show up,” Josh pointed out. Luke shrugged.

“Ah, yes, I think that a risk we can take,” Braxton said.

Cassie glance up as everyone shifted and looked at her. She crossed her arms uncomfortably. It seemed everyone seemed to agree with Josh’s reasoning that she was the “leader” of the others like her.

“Um, I think it’s worth a shot. Is there a way we could try and reach Mariah?” she asked Braxton.

The doctor smiled kindly. “I think we can work something in. Santos thinks he’s made some progress on the Amelli front,” he reassured. A few faint smiles answered him. Mariah had been missing for a month. Amelli was good at chasing people like them and then hiding. Cassie knew they all missed Mariah, herself maybe most of all since she held herself responsible for all of them. Luke and Josh were definitely sympathetic to them and Cassie already felt like she could count on the two of them.

“We’ll work up a message of some sort. Cassie maybe you can help us with the message. Perhaps help us give a positive spin on the whole ‘come to an army base in the middle-of-nowhere-America and let us help you’, message.”

Caleb bit back a chuckle. “Yeah, have fun with that, Cas.”

She smiled. She knew she probably wouldn’t listen to that message. If anything, she’d run hard in the opposite direction. Still, like she had said, it was worth a shot. Until a month ago, she hadn’t really given a though to whether there were any others like her out there. But life had changed drastically.

“I’m probably going to need ideas from all of y’all,” she warned. “You know how people like us think.”

“I think it will work,” Abby piped up. She’d been quiet the whole time, no doubt running probabilities in her head. “We might even find kids with powers like us.”

Cassie hadn’t even considered the fact that there might be people with powers similar to her and her adopted siblings. That thought alone made her more open to the idea of the message. Hopefully it would work out for the best.

Hey, guys! Just a quick announcement letting y’all know that there won’t be an episode next Saturday due to the blog tour for Adela’s Curse! Let me know what you thought of the new development in the comments! 🙂 Oh, and if y’all couldn’t tell, there will be a new character showing up soon and I’m going to need help with another name, so get ready!