Chapter Twenty-Two

I asked them to come to the roof with me and see if I could make wind happen on command. I still had no idea what the benefit of that could be, but perhaps I'd learn later in life. And I did know for sure that not controlling it was a problem. That fire could have spread to the whole roof and maybe even farther. The tornado once upon a time. And there were other incidences I could now look back to and recognize that they weren't just stray breezes or dust devils or even poltergeists. Yes, I'd stretched that far to avoid taking responsibility for something that seemed too unlikely.

A shifter? A wolf? Yes, I could accept those things, but having the random ability to set the air moving? Why? Where did it come from? And then meeting my sisters and hearing them talk about their abilities made me feel like I wasn't such a freak if I did have a gift like that. I didn't really understand what an original shifter was, except that they were impossibly old, but I supposed someone who lived that long might well have been different from the run-of-the-mill wolf. I wished we were able to know more though. I wished we could meet him.

But maybe he wasn't just the player we assumed. Maybe in creating us he'd had a plan? Passing on abilities he had to make sure that when he was gone, they would be available to the world? And, if so…had he already moved on to another plane, perhaps the one from which he came.

Was an original shifter like an ancient god?

And what did that make me? And Ava and Minx?

But they had learned to handle what they'd been given. Certainly they felt their mates helped with that, but I also had to believe it took a lot of discipline as well. Did I have that? I had not yet once summoned the wind on purpose. Could I?

"Mate? Are you ready?" Ian, my math study buddy asked. "Tell us how we can help."

I nodded, dragging myself back into the moment. I could have all the esoteric ideas I wanted about the whole thing, but what mattered was making it work. "Can someone put one of those pickleball wiffle balls in the middle of the patch of grass?"

Neo complied and stepped back.

I wasn't even sure how to go about it. I tried squeezing my eyes closed and concentrating very hard. But when I peeked, the wiffle ball remained unmoved. Then I got right up to it on my hands and knees and threw power at it. Not that I really knew how to do that. I used all my willpower and then little of it, thinking it might be overkill, but after a half hour or so, I was exhausted and frustrated and ready to quit. "If I can't do this with something this light, how did I send a laptop into the air and all the other things in the classroom that day?"

Neo leaned against one of the heavy plastic rectangles that made up the wall of the roof area. He tapped his fingers on his lower lip and murmured.

"Maybe light isn't the answer."

"What?" I looked away from the damnable wiffle ball. "Why wouldn't it be?"

"Aerodynamics. I'm not an expert, but look at things like airplanes that can be lifted into the air. Filled with people and cargo."

"So why do they fly?"

"They balance lift, gravity, thrust, and drag," Ian blurted out. "And don't ask me for details. I remember that from a science class a long time ago, so I hope it helps."

I murmured what I already thought of as the magic words. "Lift. Gravity. Thrust. Drag."

"Right." He shrugged. "Do with it what you will."

I considered the four things. Pictured what those would look like and how they might be building blocks in using the wind to take something off the ground. Pictured it over and over. Tried to think scientifically.

And then I heard a crack . "Neo!" Ian was the shouter, but he and Artimis both were darting toward the edge of the roof where my other mate had been casually leaning and where the plastic had shattered into sharp-edged pieces, and there was no Neo in sight. Time slowed down. I froze for a fraction of a second before following the others, passing them to perch on the edge of the rooftop and look down. He clung to the frame of a window floors below by one hand, and it didn't take a genius to know what came next.

But it did take the daughter of a god to know what to do next. I lifted a foot and held it over the edge, Ian's and Artimis' roars of protest and fear ringing in my ears. They reached for me, endangering themselves, and I sent a puff of wind to push them back to safety before organizing a whirlwind and stepping onto it. It shouldn't have worked, but I couldn't doubt, couldn't question, just rode it down to where my mate's fingers were slipping from the bit of steel edging and before anything else bad could happen, I tilted my whirlwind to catch him up and rose to the rooftop again.

It couldn't have been pleasant for Neo because unlike me, he was not standing on top of the wind but twirling in it. Slowly, but dizzying for sure. When we were over the roof, I let him down then hopped off myself. The wind dissipated, leaving me standing and my mates spilled across the rooftop.

I sat down on the grass and looked around me at the specimens of incredible masculinity all around me and began to laugh. Not only had I proven that I could, when necessary, control my power, but I'd found it to be useful. I'd saved my mates. All of them. And I couldn't wait to tell my sisters about it. I truly felt worth to be one of them.