Page 53 of Out of My Flocking Mind

I guided the car along the road with absolutely no idea where I was headed.

Okay, so maybe running away wasn’t the best idea. Still, when I’d woken beside Harrison, the tension inside me had reached a breaking point. Staring at his sleeping face while the memory of how his power had felt like it was mocking me had become too much. Before I’d thought too much about it, I’d swiped the keys to his car and taken off, unable to stay there another fucking minute.

The power felt exactly the same. Or, maybe it was better to say it felt like the same power, just used differently. It had been rough the first time, gentle this time, but I couldn’t ignore that they still felt like the same power.

The cinnamon I’d tasted from my attacker was the same I’d felt with Harrison.

I came to a stop sign, still not sure where to go. Left? Right? To Galen? To Kelvin? Maybe I just needed to take off east, to drive until this stupid car and the few credit cards I’d swiped ran out. Maybe it all had become too much and I just needed to nope out of it all.

I rested my forehead against the steering wheel when my body refused to move, to pick a direction. Every damned time I thought I got a handle on the mess that my life was, I ended up losing it all.

It seemed my lot in life, but fuck was I sick of it.

A horn blared from behind me, making me jerk myself upright and drive forward. I pulled off the road, just beside a park, then grabbed my phone. My fingers moved almost on their own, hitting the button for the only person I thought could really understand what I was going through, who might have any real advice.

Ignis answered on the third ring. “You calling me at three in the morning is a bad sign. Please tell me I don’t have to bail you out.”

“No bail needed, at least not yet.”

“Small miracles, huh?” She yawned, and I could almost picture her sitting up in bed. I really didn’t deserve a friend that good. “So, what’s going on?”

“You said before that all Minds have power that feels different, right?”

“Yep, that’s right. It’s like a fingerprint. It can’t be faked or changed.”

“Can two Minds have power similar enough that they’re confused for each other?”

“Not really. They can feel similar, sure, but it’ll always feel different enough to know. Though, if someone waits long enough, they might not remember what a power felt like, if years have passed.” She paused for a moment, her voice shifting as though she realized this might be a more serious question than she’d expected. “Why?”

“No reason,” I lied. Somehow, trying to tell Ignis that I thought my attacker might be her brother didn’t seem like something that would go over all that well. I could already hear Ignis defending her brother, not because she didn’t care, but because she’d never believe he could do that.

Then again, we were all blind in our own way when it came to those around us. Hadn’t I thought the same thing when Beth had said plenty about Harrison? Yet here I was, doubting him just as she had.

“Where are you?” Her tone suggested she knew damn well I wasn’t where I was supposed to be, though that was usually a pretty easy guess to make.

“Just out for a little drive.”

“Meaning you stole Harrison’s car, right?”

“Well, I mean, if you want to get super specific, sure.”

“Which means you’re out without anyone making sure you don’t get attacked? Of course you are—why does that not shock me?” She paused, the sound of a long, slow breath telling me that she’d had to pull her temper back under control. I wasn’t sure if it was a sign of her maturity or just her professional training in dealing with fucked-up people, but when she spoke again, she was calm. “Why did you run away from Harrison? You must have run away, because if he knew you had left, he would have called me already. What happened?”

“How do you know you can trust someone? People talk about it like it’s so simple, so easy, but how do you know? In my experience, even the people I thought I could trust, they just needed the right reason to betray me. They’re never what you think they are, never what they pretend to be.”

“You can’t ever be sure. I mean, I can sense people’s emotions and even I get fooled.”

“So, what’s the point of trying, then? If even you can’t do a damn thing about it, then what hopes do any of us regular folks have?”

“You think life is about coming up with the right answer, but that’s not it. It’s about the journey, the process. You might find out at the end that you picked wrong, but that’s not as important as the path to get there.”

“Sounds like some psychobabble to me.”

“Well, that is my job. Come on—why don’t you come over to my place? Then Harrison won’t need to have a heart attack once he realizes you’re gone. We’ll talk about whatever’s bothering you.”

The desire to drive off again hit me, the temptation to just nope the fuck out of this entire mess. However, cutting and running wasn’t an option, so I nodded. “Okay. I’m over by Lucky Park—I’ll get to your place in like, twenty minutes.”

“I’ll put on some coffee—looks like we’ll have an early morning.”

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