A Beautiful Dark

vision been one of my powers trying to emerge? The only thing was I didn’t know what sort of power it could possibly be.
    When we got to my house, we saw Cassie’s car sitting in the drive but no sign of Devin.
    “Think he’s finished with it?” Cassie asked.
    Either that or Asher had chased him off.
    “Try it and see.”
    She climbed in and turned the key, which was in the ignition. The car responded by purring to life. We cheered as she pulled it out of the driveway a little ways. She leaned her head out the open window. “Devin is a saint . This is amazing! I don’t think the engine has ever been this quiet.”
    “Who knew he had it in him?” I had to admit, I was impressed. Sometimes he could really surprise me. Asher had painted him as a villain, but Devin had a good heart. He’d shared it with me during small moments. I made a promise to myself to find him at school on Monday and thank him.
    “Are you sure you’ll be okay?” Cassie asked. “Want me to come in with you?”
    “No, really, thanks,” I said. “I just need water and sleep. I’m probably just dehydrated.”
    “Okay, well, call if you need anything?”
    I nodded. “Sure.”
    But I knew I wasn’t as fine as I pretended. Something was happening to me, something scary.
    Cassie took off, and I headed back into the house. I felt more alone than ever. A draft was blowing in from the sliding door, and I grabbed a heavy wool throw from a chair in the living room and, wrapping it around myself, walked through the sliding door onto the deck.
    The sun had dropped behind the mountains, and the sky was just fading from a velvety blue to a darker, inky smudge. The moon was rising, but it wasn’t yet dark enough for it to shine as brightly as it would later. It was the in-between time.
    I recognized the silhouette sitting in the Adirondack chair as soon as I stepped outside. He didn’t see me at first—he had his back to me, looking up at the first stars of the night. Watching, as he had been the night before.
    I knew, suddenly, what I wanted to do. I walked over to him and climbed into his lap, wrapping the blanket around the two of us. He seemed surprised, but he smoothed my hair back with one hand as he let me tuck my head under his chin.
    “Did you chase Devin off and fix Cassie’s car?”
    “No. He was gone when I got here, but I did check out the engine. Appears he fixed it.”
    “You sound baffled. He healed me. Why couldn’t he want to fix a car?”
    “The Order just doesn’t work that way.”
    We sat in silence for several long moments. I simply absorbed his nearness.
    “Asher?”
    “Yeah?”
    “I’m scared.”
    “I know. You’d be stupid not to be.”
    “But what am I becoming ?” His arms tightened around me. Protecting me from what he was about to say next.
    “Your powers are sporadic and choppy so far—and none of us know how they’ll develop—if they continue to at all. Not for nothing, Skye, but I think they will.” He leaned in and whispered in my ear, “I think you’re strong.” I shivered. “All of this has been to prepare you. And if I can do anything to help prepare you for what’s to come, then I promise that I will. The Order is ruthless. They don’t care about you. They only care about the power they stand to gain—or prevent us from gaining—and that they are able to keep manipulating destiny at will.” He shifted my weight so that he looked into my eyes, and for a moment, I felt a longing so sharp, I thought I would stop breathing. “And I think the one thing both sides agree on is that you’re going to be different from anything we’ve seen before. And that we haven’t even seen half of what’s to come.”
    I wanted to tell him about what had just happened in the parking lot of the mall. But something about it scared me too much. I wasn’t ready to say it out loud yet.
    “So I was thinking,” he said, playing with a strand of my hair.
    “Again?” I asked.
    “Do you want to hear it or not?” He looked up at me.
    “Amaze me.”
    I could tell he was fighting not to laugh.
    “Well,” Asher said slowly. “Have you ever been so close to something you’ve wanted for as long as you can remember, something you never thought you could have, and been afraid to reach out and just . . . take it?”
    “Yes,” I said, my heart racing.
    “The whole point of the Rebellion is so that we can live by our own rules. That’s the entire reason we jumped,” he said. “Right?”
    “If