Page 74 of Sunflower

“Joey’s a boost,” George said quietly, interrupting Callum.

“What?” Callum asked, his jaw dropping open. “No, he can’t be.” He looked at me with astonishment. “Can he? We know all the boost lines. Right?”

“Apparently not.” George nibbled at his bottom lips as he appraised me, his eyes narrowed slightly in focus. “Joey, areyou absolutely sure you don’t have any powered in your family history?”

“I mean… no?” I frowned, then shrugged. “Dad was adopted, so we don’t really have any knowledge about his bloodline. And I’ve got no clue about my birth mother, because she split pretty much as soon as she had me. Dad might know more, though. Why?”

“BecausePoloandCinthy? Those two men you saw earlier today?” George asked and waited until I nodded. “They were Apollo and Hyacinthus. The Greek God himself and his eternal lover.” The corners of his lips tipped up as he smirked at me. “And they only appear now to those that are related to them.”

“But…” I looked between George and Callum with wide eyes. “The Agent… What was his name? Leland Buckner?”

Callum nodded.

“He saw them too,” I said, absolutely flummoxed. “They terrified him, but he definitely saw them.” I looked at Callum. “So did you. You said you saw them. Right?”

“I’m a descendant of the Teledamus and Pelops lines,mo lus na gréine,”Callum said gently, his hand gently gripping mine. “Of course I could see them.”

“And Leland Buckner is a descendant of the Pelops line, not that you’d expect it,” George added with a wrinkle of his nose. “Nasty man, he is. Not like the rest of his family. They’re known for dream reading, though he didn’t get the power himself.” He leaned forward and tapped the table between us. “If you’re a boost, you’re from the Cestrinus line. We’d have to test your dad’s blood to see if it’s come down through him, but I think it’s safe to say you one hundred percent are if you saw and talked to Apollo and Hyacinthus.” Shaking his head slightly, he chuckled. “No wonder my visions were so adamant about you being part of our team.”

“But…” I trailed off, completely at a loss for words.

I trusted Callum with my life, and he trusted George. What they were saying made sense, but I couldn’t wrap my head around the sudden shift in my worldview. It was one thing to accept that powered people existed, but to actuallybeone of them…? Was that a step too far for my brain to comprehend?

“What do boosts do?” I asked as I shut my eyes tight, sighed in frustration, then scratched my forehead, figuring I’d have to at least ask the obvious question. Knowledge was power, right?

Callum calmly stroked my hand with his thumb, soothing my frayed nerves.

“Exactly as described,” George said. “They boost other people’s powers.” He peered at Callum. “I’d say that’s what kicked your seer ability into action. You said you got your first vision when you shook hands with Joey, correct? How old was Joey then?”

“Fifteen,” I answered quietly on autopilot. “Callum was nineteen.”

“Still in puberty.” George nodded in understanding. “And based on what just happened and your history with Callum, I’d say your power runs through touch.” His fingers twitched as if he himself was eager to touch the hand Callum still held. “You were in a state of flux and your power would have been going haywire.” Not lifting his hand from the table, he pointed at Callum. “He shook your hand at the perfect time to pick up on a powerful blast of your power.”

I blinked, absorbing everything he was saying. Some part of me must have still been hungry, because I absently picked up a few more fries and shoved them in my mouth and chewed automatically.

George shifted his focus to Callum. “No wonder your shields exploded the way they did. There wouldn’t have been any way to protect you from that much raw power.” A soft smile settled on his face as he gazed at my boyfriend. “If you’d met Joey whenyou were both children, you would have burned, just like Iris. Your brain wouldn’t have been able to cope. Your shields saved you.”

“Is that why I can see Callum’s visions in my head?” I asked curiously.

With wide eyes, George immediately swung his focus back to me. “You can see his visions?”

“I mean… Yeah?” Looking at Callum, I shrugged. “I feel like you’re pushing them on me, though. Right?”

Gazing lovingly at me, Callum lifted my hand to his lips and kissed my knuckles. “I did that first time just to see what would happen. I didn’t actually expect you to see it.” Dragging his eyes from mine, he looked at George. “It takes focus, though. Otherwise, we end up in a feedback loop.”

Feeling my cheeks flush, I looked down at my plate. Yeah. I could easily see how Callum lost his focus this afternoon and got us both in that loop. Idly, I wondered when we could do it again. Now that I knew what to expect, a repeat could end up being a lot of fun.

“Huh.” George scratched his heavily bearded chin and looked off into the distance. “Looks like you’ve got some persuasion mixed in your powers, too, Callum. Could be they only work on Joey, though, especially given his boosting ability. I’ll have to do more research.” He took a bite of his burger and chewed as he thought. “The feedback loop probably happened because Joey hasn’t been trained on how to shield.”

Shooting me a filthy look, Callum smirked. “I can teach him.”

I suddenly wondered how our training was going to go. In answer, an image of us in his apartment filled my head. Callum was on top of me and hoovering my cock before he popped off and said with a smirk,“Come on, mo lus na gréine. You can shield better than that.”

Back in the present, Callum chuckled as my entire face burned.

I kicked him under the table, which only made him laugh louder. Pulling my hand from his, I grabbed my rapidly cooling burger and took a bite. It really was too delicious to leave on my plate uneaten. As I was chewing, I startled and looked at Callum with alarm. Swallowing hard, I grabbed his arm and shook it even as he was trying to finish his own burger. “We got sidetracked. Why did you let us get sidetracked?! The Agent! You got a name. Why’s he doing all of this? And how do we catch him?”

“Leland Buckner,” George said with a grimace. “I know why he’s doing this.”

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