Chapter 33

Ray

"What are you doing here, Mark?”

“Waiting for you, Draco.”

I hovered there for a moment, just outside the abandoned building, looking at Mark through a broken window. His motorcyclist’s leather jacket creaked as he folded his arms.

“Where is Invisiguy?” I asked threateningly.

“Who?”

“You know who I’m talking about, Mark. He’s the invisible guy who stole my money and flew in this building.”

“Scorpio?”

“Yeah, whatever his name is. He’s the guy you’ve been training the past few days, and I know he’s around here somewhere.”

“Oh, he is…” Mark turned around, looking at the dusty, concrete building he was standing in. “But, I don’t even know where he is.”

I flew into the building and stood on the ledge, just inches away from Mark, looking down at him. This guy was infuriating. “What do you want, Mark? Why not just call me instead of make me chase your new student all the way here?”

He narrowed his eyes. “I have a proposition for you that I wanted to offer in person. You know what I really want, right?

His stone. And my help to find it. That seemed to be all he cared about.

“But the real question, Draco....” Mark paused, “Is what do you want?”

I hesitated to answer as I just kept glaring down at Mark, my impatience swelling.

“Money? Fame? Front-row Super Bowl tickets?” He shook his head. “No, that’s not it. You don’t really know what you want anymore, do you?”

“I just want my money back.”

“No, you don’t. You want respect.” He smiled at me for a moment. I felt uncomfortable under his gaze, as if he could see right through me. His body and face looked just a few years older than me, but those dark eyes of his contained ancient wisdom that left me feeling like an infant. “It’s hard to be respected,” he said, “when you’ve been defeated so many times. Orion and Cygnus defeated you. And now Scorpio humiliated you.”

I clenched my fist, my blood beginning to boil.

Mark laughed at my reaction, unfolding his arms. “If you want to be respected, Draco, then you need more power. You need to win a fight. You need to show the world that you are the most powerful Starling to walk the earth. The Dragon God.”

I listened carefully but tried to remain expressionless.

“What you need…” Mark continued. “What you want is the Second Degree. You’ve felt the power. You’ve felt what it’s like to tap into it, and you want more of it.”

I didn’t respond. I didn’t want to show Mark that he could manipulate me. But he was right. I did want to learn the Second Degree. I did want a rematch with Invisiguy, New Girl, and mostly Stoner.

“I will teach it to you,” he said. “Right here. Right now. All I ask in return is your loyalty to help me find my stone.”

“I don’t want to be your pawn.”

“You won’t be. You will be my partner.” He paused. “Think about it, Draco. You could kill me right now if you wanted to. I don’t have the power to stop you. But then you wouldn’t learn the Second Degree. Or the Third for that matter. And you will continue to get crushed by the other Starlings. Disrespected by everyone.”

I turned my back to him, facing a concrete wall with S-shaped graffiti all over it. The sun had just set, but my eyes didn’t perceive the increasing darkness. I didn’t like the idea of being under Mark’s thumb, but I guess he needed me and I needed him.

I saw something out of the corner of my eye. Down a dark hallway I could see the black purse filled with money being held in the air by a dismembered hand. It was Invisiguy—Scorpio. He bounced the purse up and down, daringly.

“Or you could keep on fighting me,” The invisible Starling said. “I’m fine with that.”

I turned back to Mark. “Why do you need me when you have Invisiguy?”

“It’s Scorpio!” Invisiguy shouted back at me.

“Because,” Mark said, “it will take both of you to defeat Orion and Cygnus.”

“Oh, so that’s your plan?” I said. “Not that I’m complaining, but how will defeating them help you find your stone?”

Mark smiled. “I’ll tell you that after we have captured them.”

I chewed on that for a while, looking back at Invisiguy—wherever he was—and then back at Mark. “Alright,” I said. “Teach me.”

Half an hour later, I knelt on the desert floor, bare-chested and panting. I had been sprinting around the abandoned horse racing track for the past twenty minutes as fast as I could. A huge cloud of dust lingered over the entire area, making it difficult to breathe.

Mark approached me, appearing as the dust cloud slowly dispersed. “I don’t think running around in circles is working, Draco,” he said sarcastically. It was still weird to hear my new name being used so casually.

I stood up. “Well, that’s what I was doing the first time I tapped into the Second Degree. I was just jogging near my house and then I punched the tree and it exploded into flames.”

“It’s not about what you did,” Mark explained. “But why you did it. Reaching the Second Degree is based on a strong, specific emotion. An emotion that you put into action. So, why did you hit that tree?”

“I don’t know. I guess I was angry.”

“Anger,” Mark said. “That might be the emotion. Every Star Stone requires a different emotion to tap into the Second and Third Degrees. I know the key emotions for most of them, but I never figured out the ones for the Draco Stone.”

“I don’t know,” I said with a shrug. “I’m angry a lot. And fire hasn’t burst out of my hands every time I get upset.”

“The emotion has to be strong enough. It has to be more than just anger; it has to be rage.”

Rage, I thought. I needed to get really angry about something; build my anger to get my powers. Sounds like the Hulk. I jumped in place, twirled my arms in circles, and loosened my neck; a habitual movement I did at every football game while on the sidelines. What makes me angry?

I thought about my fight with Stoner. I had tapped into the Second Degree at the end, but how? Was I angry? Yes, for sure. About what? I don’t know. I was mad that he kept getting back up. That he was actually holding his own against me. He got a few good shots in. I put my hand up to my left eye; it was still a little sore to the touch. That was infuriating.

I could feel my powers swell, an inferno within me. I looked at my hands. Completely normal.

I scoffed, turning back to Mark. “It’s not working.”

“You have to do more than just think about the emotion,” he said. “You have to relive the memory. That will rekindle the feeling you had before.”

“Okay,” I said under my breath, refocusing on my powers. I closed my eyes, trying to relive my fight with Michael Stone. I remembered how hot my hands felt. How much I hated Stoner. How the fire burst out of my hands and trickled around my fingers. How good it felt. I’d felt so powerful. So furious. So full of rage. So hot.

I opened my eyes and imagined seeing Stoner walk out of the crater I’d put him in. I thrust my hand in front of me, the same movement I’d made to throw a fireball at him, but nothing happened. No smoke, even.

I groaned. “It’s not working, Mark!”

“I know,” he said calmly. “That’s okay. You’ll get it. You’re not far from reaching the Second Degree, I can tell. This would take a lot longer to train you if you’d never accidentally tapped into it. But since you have, we can try to recreate the moment, the feeling, so that you will reach it. It takes some practice, but you’ll get it.”

“Don’t worry, Ray,” Scorpio’s voice said somewhere to my right. “You’re almost there.”

“Shut up, invisi-freak!” I snapped in his direction. “I’m not your friend!”

“It’s Scorpio!” he retorted.

“Whatever!”

“Draco,” Mark said coolly, ignoring Invisiguy. “Think back to when you hit that tree. What made you so angry that you wanted to do that?”

I stared at the ground, trying to recollect my thoughts. What was I mad about?

“It was my brother, Sam,” I finally said. “He was mocking me about barely winning the football game against a weak team. I had won the game ball, and instead of congratulating me, he mocked me for being less than perfect.”

Mark hummed as he scratched his goatee. “Go on.”

“And then I ran out of the house, just trying to get away from him. I jogged down the street, just thinking about how much I hate him and how he mistreats me, and then I punched the tree.”

“So,” Mark said, beginning to pace. “Maybe anger isn’t the trigger emotion. Maybe it’s what made you angry. You’re brother—”

“Sam, Doug, and Stoner…” I interrupted. “All three of them caused me to heat up. What was it they all did to me?”

Mark didn’t say anything; he let me think it through.

“Each of them mistreated me. They did just the opposite of what I wanted them to do. They…” I looked back at Mark. He raised his head, as if coming to the same conclusion that I had.

“They didn’t respect you,” he finished for me. “Disrespect.” He chuckled. “How strange. Usually the key emotion is vague and foreign, but for you, it’s what you want the most. I wonder if the key emotions are different for this Condescension. I knew that was what you really wanted—respect from everyone. Whether it’s respect as a good quarter back, respect as a friend, or respect as a worthy opponent, you want it. And when people fiercely disrespect you, you retaliate. That must be the key.”

“Respect,” I said to myself. Mark was absolutely right. It was spooky how well he understood me. I guess living for thousands of years made him really good at reading people. I couldn’t help but be impressed with his mentorship. This was how it went with flying too. I picked it up so fast because he was such a good coach. I wasn’t about to tell him that, though.

“So how do I use that emotion?” I asked. “Wait for someone to disrespect me, and then I can burn their butts?”

“No,” Mark answered. “You don’t need to replay the scenario, you just need to recreate the emotion: the desire for respect. That should be enough to tap into the second degree.”

“Okay,” I said, closing my eyes and turning my focus toward my thoughts.

“Think back on that day,” he instructed. “When Sam disrespected you. Play it out in your mind. Recreate every vivid detail. Remember the feeling you had. Let it fester within you.”

I played the memory out in my mind. The things Sam said. How he mocked me when all I wanted was his approval. I had worked my butt off to win the game ball, and I earned it, deserved it. I wanted Sam to be proud of me, but he did just the opposite. All I asked for was a little respect!

A bomb went off inside me. An explosion of power poured through my veins. I opened my eyes and saw my hands turn red. It didn’t hurt, but I could feel the heat. It was like when you put your freezing hand under hot water. You can’t really feel the pain because your nerves are so shot, but you can tell that it’s still hot.

“Keep going!” Mark instructed. “Feel it!”

I replayed the same thoughts about Sam and how I wanted him to respect me. I replayed the image of me punching the tree out of pure rage. I clenched my hands into fists.

Fire erupted on my hands. “Yeah!” I shouted. The sound was amazing, like two blow torches at maximum. I was grateful Mark instructed me to take off my shirt, it would’ve been on fire by now.

Suddenly the fire died out. I furrowed my eyebrows. “What happened?”

“You lost the feeling,” Mark said. “You started thinking about something else.”

He was right. I was feeling grateful I took off my shirt. Gratitude was a very different emotion than feeling disrespected. “This is tough,” I said.

Mark nodded. “You have to control your feelings. Control your thoughts. You can’t get distracted or it could cost you your life in a fight against another Starling.”

“Okay.” I closed my eyes again and replayed my memories about Sam and his disrespect. It was easier this time. I clenched my fists and fire shot out of them.

I opened my eyes and looked at my hands. I focused on the emotion—the drive to be respected—keeping it burning within me, as if it were the fuel the fire fed off of.

“Good!” Mark yelled over the sound of the roaring fire. “Now throw some fireballs!”

I targeted a rusty, white fence post about fifteen yards from me, and I flung my hands at it, but the fire didn’t leave my hands. Hmm. Maybe I need to imagine I’m actually throwing something.

I brought my hands down in front of me, pretending I had a football in my hands. A ball of fire started to form between them; it even looked like the shape of a football. I cocked my arm back, stepped toward the white post, and flung my arm forward, giving it the same spin I would on a football.

The fireball left my fingers and slammed into the post with an explosion of flames, as if it had just been hit by napalm. The post was no more. A small crater had formed right where it used to be, flames littering the ground around it.

“Awesome!” I shouted over the sound. My hands were still on fire, ready for more fireballs.

Mark looked at the fire, the light reflecting off his eyes. He folded his arms, as if remembering something from his past. After a moment, he looked back at me. “Looks like we’re ready. We’ll make our move tomorrow.”