Page 52 of Griffin Undone
“Aahh!” My hand sliced the air in front of me like a knife edge slicing through skin. Except instead of slicing, the blow glanced off the bag, which stared back at me, swaying, not even a crease marring its smooth surface.
“Again, Kat,” Arik commanded.
Ignoring the heat of embarrassment, I closed my eyes, focused, built the emotion, imagined my target—and struck out, my shout ringing in the air.
But when I opened my eyes…nothing.
“Again.”
This time I punched, and again, nothing.
“Again, Kat. Dig deep. Get mean.”
Panic rose, swift and strong, up my throat, choking me. Oh God, what if Arik was wrong? What if there was nothing special about me after all? What would happen to me then—would they send me back to my old life? A life that was meaningless, empty, a life that could just as easily be filled with any nameless face and be exactly the same. Did I matter at all?
Images flashed before my eyes—all the times I’d been rejected, all the times I’d been ignored, unwanted, struck, abused, all the times I’d gone hungry with nowhere to turn. The pictures churned in my head, feeding my fear, feeding my anger, until finally all I could do was lash out. “No!”
My hand pushed, palm out, as if blocking an advance. To my complete astonishment, the bag in front of me popped as my palm made contact, then exploded, swinging up to the twelve-foot ceiling while stuffing rained down all around us. When the bag settled back into place, I gasped. The center was now nothing more than a big, jagged, empty circle.
A huge grin broke across my face. A through and through. And my hand didn’t even hurt.
Ha!
Arik leaned around the opposite side of the bag, expression unamused, head covered in long strands of some kind of fiber. One eyebrow lifted. “Let’s try something a little different, shall we?”
Ten minutes later I sat in the middle of the now clean floor Arik had forced me to sweep, surrounded by a circle of full water bottles. He walked the perimeter as he talked. “Your power isn’t based on physical strength; it’s based on psychic strength. Maybe, in order to learn control, you have to focus without hard physical movement.”
I pulled my legs up to sit cross-legged. “You think so?”
Arik shrugged. “Remember, I’m feeling my way too. There’s no definitive way to train that works for every psych; we just have to find what works for you.”
“’Kay. But how do I strike?”
Arik rubbed the stubble shadowing his chin. “In the kitchen you didn’t have to touch me to make me feel the emotion. I don’t think your gift requires touch at all, though gestures might help you focus.” He nodded at the bottles standing sentry around me. “I don’t want you to touch these, but I do want you to push them, from right where you’re sitting.” One white-blond brow cocked up. “Wanna give it a try?”
“All of them or just one?”
“Just one.”
So he wanted precision, not power. Eyeing the hanging carcass of the punching bag, I could see his point. And if I could dial down the power, it made sense that I could also dial it up if necessary, though the thought of seeing what had happened to the bag happen to a body— I shuddered.
“Okay.” Closing my eyes, I tried hard to shut out thoughts of Arik, him staring at me, my self-consciousness. I focused instead on my body, on filling my lungs deep, all the way to the bottom, then emptying them completely, forcing out every last bit, just as Arik had taught me. The breathing pattern steadied me, body and mind. Raising my hands, palms out, I pushed forward. “Go,” I breathed out.
Silence. No bottles tipping over. Nothing rolling. Refusing to open my eyes and see Arik’s displeasure, I tried again.
“Go.”
Nothing.
That determination, the drive to prove myself, was rising again, but I tamped it down.No losing control. You can do it, Kat. Come on.
Relaxing fingers I hadn’t realized I’d clenched, I breathed in again, pushing with a soft “Go” on the exhale. A faint rattle met my ears, but when I opened my eyes, the bottle had settled back into place.
A heavy sigh sounded beside me. Peeking from the corner of my eye, I saw Arik rubbing his head. Defeat tried to shroud me, but I shook it away. I could do this; I refused to accept any other outcome.
I blocked out everything but my breathing and the emotion I needed. I could feel it then, sliding beneath my skin. It hummed, and the more I focused on it, the louder it got, stronger, growing and growing and growing until it became lava running through my veins. I sucked in a breath, blew it out, and pushed.
“Go.”
