Archer Warrick February 21st,20XX

Eva screamed into my mind and pulled me out of the mental fog that had captured my mind. Aside from the mental harassment, she also softly poked me in the arm and tried to wake me up that way.

“E-eva, was it? Could you come over here for a second? Your older brother just needs to sleep well, I’m sure he’ll wake up soon enough. While we wait you need to eat something… ah, yeah? Yeah, I ordered something separate for him, so you don’t have to worry about saving any. Look! It’s this box over here, I’m keeping it warm in this lunch box, but you can check it over.”

I heard a familiar, feminine voice and could quickly place her as the woman that had come in with the cops. A little further thought helped me connect it to the woman that had come to my school and made that presentation about the ‘Page’ program. I was already awake and had been about to get up, but I faked sleep and get a read on her mind.

Who was she? And why had she come to our house so late at night?

She seemed to be nice enough from the way she patiently interacted with Eva, who had yet to say a single word to her. I suddenly worried that Eva was talking to her like she did to me, but I quickly put aside my worries. No matter how nice she claimed to be, no one normal could hear an eight-year-old’s voice in their head and not panic.

Our uncle had been nice enough at first.

Now I knew that I couldn’t trust adults based only on how they acted, but thankfully I could use my powers to see the truth. I steeled myself and dove straight into the second layer of her mind.

What an adorable little girl. She cares so much about her older brother, but she should worry about herself a bit. She looks slight enough to break in the wind.

The first emotion was concern and took over most of her mind. I also read a bit of anger and frustration, but it dismissed it when I confirmed that it wasn’t at the two of us. I concentrated a bit more and got past the surface thoughts.

I hope the boy is okay… but how do I broach the topic.

Most people’s minds were similar.

The first layer was the emotions, what they were feeling. The second layer of a person’s mind was their surface thoughts. These differed from person to person. Some people, like the lady over there, thought in words. Others thought in pictures and a few rare people, didn’t have surface thoughts at all, and all of their thoughts went directly to the third layer.

The third layer contained the thoughts that betrayed their intentions and goals. These came in as a mixture of all the other layers but included memories. This layer required me to put all the pieces together.

I had only tried it a few times, but I had only gotten it wrong a few times.

Although I’d organized them into layers on my own, there were a few people that broke the norm. While I could read some people like a book, others were more of a code that I needed to detangle.

The lady that made sure Eva ate was one of those people.

I read anticipation and concern for us and someone else I wasn’t familiar with.

Her thoughts were frantic and were too much of a strain on me right then. What I’d gathered from her mind, though, was that she held no malice or ill will toward us.

I retreated out of her mind for a breather and dove into the third layer one more time and sift through her memories... I could only access those that she had recently thought of, but it would be enough to get a handle on what had recently happened.

The first thing I saw was my uncle’s face, bathed in a sickly pale light. I couldn’t hear most of the conversation, but I saw him getting led away in cuffs while he swore expletives at the lady. Next was a scene of her speaking to my step-aunt. She had gotten her to sign a document, but I couldn’t get a handle on what the document was, and they led my aunt away in handcuffs. But she looked…pleased?

My attempts to hone in on those memories were interrupted by other memories, and they compromised the quality of the memories I wanted to see. At first, I tried to brush the intruding memories out of the way, but one of them startled me enough to make me let out a small scream.

Why was there a man…flying?

“Oh! Archer! You’re awake! I’m Joyce Knightly!”

She jumped at the sound and quickly got up from her chair. In her hurry, she placed the paper plate full of food onto the low table provided by the hospital. A few grains of rice fell off the plate and rolled onto the floor. But that was the least of my concern.

I tried to pretend that I’d just woken up, but I was too flustered to do a good job. Thankfully, I could pretend that the confusion was from waking up at a new location.

“Joyc- Mrs. Knightly. Why am I at the hospital?”

It was a redundant question, but I needed to get my mind together. There were others like us…. Or at least there was one other person, and she knew him well enough to have him show off his powers to her.

She put on an awkward expression but smiled as warmly as she could.

“You’re probably disoriented, so take your time in getting up! I’m not sure how long you were conscious, but you won’t have to see those awful people again, I’ve made sure of that. You should remember me from that presentation at your school about a month ago, I’m Joyce Knightly, the owner of Squire.”

She repeated her introduction and searched my face for a glimmer of recognition. She apparently found it because she kept talking.

“I know it must be difficult to adjust, so take your time! But you have a decision to make. I doubt they told you, but I accepted your application to the program. I won’t force you into anything, so I want to give you a few choices. You can come into the program under the government’s custody. Your sister would go into the foster care system but I’m sure you could still see her-“

“Not an option”

Even if I had to run away and the two of us had to live on the streets, I had confidence in finding enough money for us to live off. There was no way I would leave her alone, and I didn’t think I could stand being alone either.

I waited for her to convince me to choose that option, but she stayed silent and instead a confident smirk bloomed on her face. I felt a sense of approval on her first layer and wondered if there was something I’d missed.

“I thought you’d say that, which is why I had over one option. You can also become my younger siblings. You’d need to become foster children for a while, and you wouldn’t be able to keep your last names if we go through with the adoption, but if you wanted to keep the foster status until you turn 18, that’s fine too. Like this, you’ll be able to stay with your younger sister and be able to take part in the page program!”

“I- Let me think about it.”

It sounded too good to be true, and I was suddenly suspicious of the program, despite not having paid it much attention in the past. I had barely put in an application under the counsellor’s instance and had all but forgotten about it since then. I wondered why she was so insistent on me joining.

“Wh- Why do you want me in the Page program so bad? My application wasn’t that fantastic, I’m sure there were other, more talented people.”

I had confidence in my face…when it wasn’t beat up and swollen, but it wasn’t like I was so uniquely handsome that a company would hunt me down like Squire did. I jumped into her mind when I mentioned Page, but what I saw shocked me silent.

The flying man popped into her mind again, but this time a group of scientists surrounded him and took notes as he hovered over their heads.

That scared me, and I retreated to reality as quickly as I could. Did she…. know about us?”

My sudden wariness must have shown on my face because she suddenly exhaled and looked back to the other woman that had stayed silent until now.

“Annora, you can go home now. I’ll see you in the morning.”

I half expected Annora to reject the sudden dismissal, but she only gave a half-hearted thank you to her boss and left quicker than I could say anything.

Ms. Knightly looked me in the eye and winced at the injury on it, but she maintained eye contact.

“Archer. I know about your abilities and I want to help.”

Once I registered what she said, I acted purely on instinct and used my second power. I was usually hesitant to use it since I couldn’t control it too well, but I needed to do something. I wasn’t a stranger to threatening people, so I was confident I did a good job. But she looked too calm at the immediate threats to her safety.

Guess she hadn’t been joking when she said she knew.

Eva stood up and prepared to attack her as well, but I raised my hand. I could handle it, and I didn’t want her using her powers any more than she needed to. Although it had been a lie that she got deathly ill when she used them, they took a toll on her body. I also didn’t want her to get used to the idea of using these powers to hurt others.

“Okay… I don’t blame you for this. But I want to say that I have no intentions of exposing you two to anyone. Right now the only one that knows about you two are me, the private investigator that found you and my boyfriend, Aaron Cyrus, who also has powers.”

When she said the name ‘Aaron Cyrus’ I remembered a guest star that had appeared on a reality tv show my aunt liked to watch. I remembered my uncle had quickly turned off the screen when he’d appeared and complained that he was much better than some washed up pretty boy.

Still, by the way Ms. Knightly emphasized the name, I got the impression that he was more than just a ‘washed up pretty boy’.

“That’s a lot of people you just mentioned.”

“Well… maybe. Archer, correct me if I’m wrong, but you can read minds, right? I got some information from some of your… ‘victims’ but they all seemed disoriented and reluctant to answer.”

She paused and put on a teasing smile despite the four arms that we raised towards her and threats to her mental safety.

“You were quite an expensive duo to find Mr. Warrick. I think I spent about four times the budget I spent on the other three kids I found.”

“Other three?!”

I blurted out my surprise before I could restrain my enthusiasm. She didn’t seem surprised though and quickly answered my question.

“Yes, although I won’t tell you their names in case you decide against coming with me. Archer, what I want to do is to find and help people like you. I won’t make you use your powers at all if you don’t want to, but I want to help you learn to control them. And I want you to do so in a place where you feel safe.”

It sounded amazing, but it also sounded too good to be true. A scan into her mind showed me she was being honest, but who knew how long that would last.

If I’d had both time and options, I doubted I would have taken her hand, but seeing as I had neither; I made my choice. I couldn’t go back into the foster care system since they would try to separate Eva and me again, and I didn’t want to force Eva onto the streets because of my stubbornness.

There was also the fact that my aunt had already signed us away to the woman in front of me. I tested her one more time before giving her my answer.

“What if I decide not to use my powers at all? Ever?”

She looked stumped by the question, and I felt a sense of doubt coming from her. I just didn’t know what there was to doubt in my words.

“Well, if you think you can hold back from using your powers, then I’ll respect that. I will have to ask you to warn us if you ever change your mind so my employees aren’t vulnerable.”

I waited a few more seconds to confirm before finally relaxing and lowering my arms. She was telling the truth.

“Eva put your hands down. She’s a good person. Ma’am. If it’s okay… we’d like to go with you.”

“Ha, I’m not quite old enough for you to call me ma’am. You can call me Joyce.”