Page 81 of Sunflower

Dad looked understandably confused. “Honey, what’s a boost? What is George talking about?”

Her eyes settled on me, as she explained without looking away, “A boost is someone with the ability to boost other people’s powers, but they’re incredibly rare. The only way to find them is by touching them when a powered person tries to use their ability. If their power becomes easier to use, or they’re suddenly able to do things they couldn’t before, the person they’re touching is confirmed to be a boost. If their powers don’t change, then they’re not.”

From my periphery, I saw Callum nod in agreement, his hand soothing mine that was still smarting from Kiddo’s grip.

“That’s why…” Erin murmured as she looked down at our joined hands, before she shook her head and frowned at George. “But we know all the boost lines. How could we have missed one?”

George tilted his head in my direction. “Joey tells me that his dad was adopted as a baby.” He thumbed at Dad, who startled when George brought him into the discussion.

“I was, that’s correct,” Dad said, his eyes slightly wider than normal. “It was a closed adoption. Full rights were handed over.”

“And that Joey’s mom disappeared soon after giving birth?” George continued.

“That’s right.” Dad nodded, even though he was still confused. “Why do you ask?”

Erin slid her hand over to Dad’s and squeezed it gently. “Because powers don’t usually spontaneously occur. They’re hereditary. If Joey has the boost ability, he must have gotten it from one of his parents.”

“Oh.”

I could tell Dad wasn’t truly getting it until George said, “What I need to know is if you’ve ever felt your power boosted, Erin. By Joey or Barry.”

“What?” Dad asked, swinging his head around to look at George in astonishment. “Me?”

“Dad,” I said more calmly than I felt. “I had to get it from either you or my egg donor. George is trying to figure out which.”

George nodded.

Erin tilted her head to the side as she thought. “I’ve always found Joey incredibly easy to read. Even that first time.” She blinked and stared at her husband in wonder. “Just like his father…”

George nodded again, sitting back in his chair. “We’ll test it again with someone else, but I’d say that’s reasonably definitive.”

“But how did I never pick up on it?” Erin asked, leaning forward to look past Dad at George. “Shouldn’t I have seen it?”

George shrugged. “Like you said, they’re rare, and we know the lines. Even knowing Barry was adopted, you wouldn’t have thought he’d be powered, especially as a boost.” He swapped focus from Erin to Dad. “Barry, I’d like to run some bloodwork on both you and Joey and see if we can match you to a definitive family. We need to know who your parents are or were and see why you were given up for adoption. It’s unheard of for a powered individual to give up their baby, because this sort of thing can happen if they do. If a person discovers they have powers with no knowledge of how they got them, it can cause untold issues. My guess is that you flew under the radar until you met Erin, because boosting only affects other powered people. If you hadn’t run into Erin, you could easily have lived your entire life and never known you had the ability.”

I watched my dad sit back in his chair in astonishment and absorb his new reality, much like I had only an hour or so earlier. Judging by his pale, poleaxed expression, I figured he might need as much time as possible to get his head around everything, so I took up the conversational thread, and asked George, “Do you think that’s what’s happened to Kiddo? He was adopted, and I boosted him enough to kick-start his power?”

As he looked at me, George scratched his chin and frowned. “Not exactly. He was raised in a cult, and we know his parents were killed in the attack that freed him. It’s been confirmed that no-one who was at the compound had any power. By all rights, Kiddo shouldn’t have had a powertoactivate.”

“And yet, we all saw it,” Marcy said, leaning forward to rest her elbows on her knees. “He’ll have an easier time of accepting it, because he’s so used to being around us and how we use ours, but that begs the question ofwhathis power is.” She aimed a targeted look at George. “Doyouknow, old man?”

Grimacing, George nodded. “He’s an empath.”

Marcy reared back in shock and anger. “Are you fucking kidding me right now? And you let himleave?What the fuck is wrong with you?” She scrambled off the table and darted out the door, presumably to find Kiddo, the door swinging shut behind her.

Frowning, I looked to Callum. “I feel like I’ve missed something here.”

Rubbing his temples, Callum grimaced and gave George a withering look. “When empaths first get their power, their mind struggles to cope with the extra input they’re feeling from other people. Empath families are extremely tight-knit so they can look after their children to help prevent them from getting too overwhelmed and train them in how to modulate not only their own emotions, but how other people’s emotions affect them. If they’re really powerful empaths, they also need training on how to not go overboard in pushing emotions onto others.”

“And all that usually happens before they turn ten,” Erin continued. “How old is this Kiddo?”

“Sixteen,” Pippa answered, narrowing her eyes at George. This was the first sign of annoyance I’d seen from the affable Australian. “George, you’re a fool for letting him go without sending someone to help him.”

Sighing, George wiped his hand over his forehead. “He needed time. Things are progressing as they should.”

“As they should, or because you saw a vision that this is the way it happened, so you let it play out because that’s how you saw it?” I asked, aghast at what he was saying and the flippant attitude he had about it. “Did you even stop to consider that if you’d sent someone to Kiddo earlier that it would have been kinder to him, even though it’s not technically what you saw in your vision?”

He was saved from answering when a loud voice screeched from outside the room, “Get out of my head, you fucking freak!”

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