One (One Universe)

we couldn’t get your body to pick up a second. We gave you the enhancers, but for whatever reason…”
    “It didn’t work,” I say, and Dad nods. Until now , I think, but I can’t bring myself to say it, can’t get the words out of my mouth.
    He nods. “Didn’t even make your float stronger. But, then, none of the Ones responded. Not in the way we’d hoped. We thought the youngest would be…”
    “The most malleable,” I finish.
    He stares at me for a second and then takes a deep breath. “But you were the youngest, and you didn’t respond. And since then, we haven’t seen you transfer, either.”
    I stare at him, my eyebrows raised. I probably didn’t transfer after having a needle shoved into my arm because I was so damn terrified that I didn’t think about my One for a long time. Couldn’t engage it. But later, when I really tried, I floated higher and higher. I wait, listening to see if Dad really hasn’t thought about chemicals not being the only factor in this.
    “Some stayed the same, like you,” he continues. “Some…became very ill. One girl lost her power entirely.”
    “Leni,” I say, under my breath, so low I’m not sure he hears it. She didn’t lose a power, she switched. She used to be indestructible. She got Mom’s power in place of her original. Mom, her tester. She transferred then, but never did again. Until Daniel. Same story with Elias and me.
    “And Elias,” Dad says, “transferred like you. To his sisters. Their ability became even more powerful, accelerating their teleportation speed significantly.”
    My brain bounces from piece to piece, my attention span some crazy warp-speeded pinball inside it. “So, transferring means we give our power away and absorb another at the same time?”
    “Yes. Well, no. You were unique in that regard.”
    Elias does it, too. I know that, but I won’t say anything. Can’t reveal anything to Dad now.
    “So we transferred — okay. And then we didn’t. It’s over. Why is Elias back here? And what the hell are they doing with Michael and Max?” I know my voice rises, I know it, but I can’t stop it.
    “Merrin! Get a handle on yourself,” he says and steps toward me, looking like he’s going to clap his hand over my mouth again. Something rumbles deep inside of me.
    I can’t stand feeling this way about Dad, absolutely can’t stand it, and now that it’s happened — him keeping secrets and shushing me — I’ll never be able to forget it.
    “You have to keep quiet,” he says, more gently, and glances out the door’s narrow window. He pulls me toward it, turns me so I’m looking out.
    The petite figure in a white coat hovers between Michael and Max’s beds and then looks anxiously toward our door, right at Dad. It’s Mom.
    “See? Your mother’s got everything covered. They’re letting her oversee the bone marrow tap, but she’s not going to do it, okay? When she takes them back for the procedure, she’s going to give them something to wake them up, and we’re all going to get out of here. I’m going to take you to the back room, and we’ll all leave together.”
    “After all you’ve kept from me, you expect me to believe you? How do I know they’re not going to just come and drag us back to the Hub?”
    Dad reaches out to try to take my hand, but I pull away. “We very much regret everything we put you through all those years ago. How much you’ve suffered. We wanted to give you a better chance. And it didn’t work, and we’re sorry. But we have a plan. Plans work. Storming the Hub with your friends from high school to save your boyfriend without a plan? Stealing valuable formulas that you have no idea how to implement? Without a plan, Merrin? That doesn’t work.”
    I just glare at him for a second.
    “And giving your blood to Stephen Hoffman in the Nelson High School library doesn’t help much either.”
    “You knew about that,” I say, pushing my shoulders back, trying to breathe deeply.
    “There’s a reason he didn’t want you to tell us, Merrin. We would never have… Well, let’s just say that them having current genetic material from you complicated things quite a bit.”
    Bile burns at the bottom of my esophagus, and it takes everything in me to keep my voice steady. “That’s why the boys are here, isn’t it? So they can take some of their genetic material to figure me out?”
    Dad looks at the door. “They wanted to see how close the match was…” He shakes his head.