Page 20 of Electricity

O h God. I hadn’t meant to—oh God! I stood outside for a moment, watching things be on fire because of me , and then ran back inside and got my bag from my locker, and Darius’s too, then ran back out as the firetruck arrived.

The rest of everyone evacuated as firemen replaced them. We huddled together, and I handed Darius his things. He took them with a nod. The sirens the truck had rolled in with were nothing compared to the blaring inside of my head. I wanted to kneel, my headache was so bad it made it hard to stand.

“How the hell did that happen? Someone could’ve gotten hurt!” Burton was shouting, like that was the only volume he had. He walked up and down our line. “Are you okay?”

I shook my head.

“Where are you hurt?” he yelled.

“I’m fine,” I said, lying lying lying .

He inhaled deeply. “Okay then. We’re all accounted for? No one injured?”

We all looked at one another. Three boys and one girl who accidentally blew things up. We’re all here.

“Okay then. There’s no point in everyone gawking—go home—I’ll call you all when we’re ready to get back to work.” He swept us back with both arms.

The boys gave a series of affirmative grunts, whereas I just stood watching the firemen run in and smoke rise up. It’d gone from grey to black, like dirtier things were burning.

Darius took my arm. “Come on, Jessie.”

I shrugged my arm back from him out of habit, but followed him anyhow.

The Corolla barely fit around the firetruck. I was quiet as Darius did a twelve point turn, and then we hit the highway.

“You okay?” he asked, looking over at me at a stop sign.

I’d almost hurt people. I could’ve killed people. I –

“Look, I know that was scary and all,” he went on, us idling.

I closed my eyes and I could see the blossoming of light of his battery and engine and feel them call to me, almost asking to be petted. I snapped my eyes open again and tried to concentrate on this world, the real and normal one. “You don’t understand.”

“What’s there to understand? Sometimes things catch on fire.”

“You just don’t—” I closed my eyes again, and put my hands to my face and rested the heels of my palms in my eyes, trying to overwhelm the strange shapes and forms there with the ones that pressure caused. I leaned down, like my hands were holding tears in, because they were.

“Jessica, it’s okay—it wasn’t even that bad—it’ll just be a week or two—probably more water damage than fire now.”

I swallowed everything back. I had to get calm, to be calm, before I did something else bad. I opened up my eyes, with my head between my knees, and from down here, I could see the corner of a forgotten comic book, wedged underneath Darius’s seat.

Lacey might not believe me, but –

“I did it.” I sat bolt upright and looked at him. “Darius, it was me.”

His face was the epitome of disbelief. “You couldn’t have. You weren’t even nearby—unless you hit the dial—did you hit the dial?”

“No, it’s—” A car arrived behind us at last and honked. “Look—is there somewhere we can go to talk?” My mom wouldn’t be expecting me home until our shift ended—which gave me a few hours to unburden my soul.

He still didn’t believe me, it was clear. “Yeah. Sure,” he said, turning back to the road, driving off with a purpose.

I didn’t even ask where we were going. Was I really going to tell him? I couldn’t not—not now. I had to tell someone or I’d burst.

How was Lacey not going to tell anyone, ever, again?

We pulled into an unfamiliar driveway and parked. “Where are we?”

“My place,” Darius said, getting out of the car. “Don’t worry, my uncle’s off on a hunting trip.”

“Great,” I said flatly, and followed him up to the front door.

The door opened into a place that was full, literally, of dead things. There were rifles on all of the walls, and animals in different stages of fighting and repose, murderous bears and cud-chewing gazelle, surrounding a couch facing a TV. I stopped on the doorjamb.

“Are you now, or have you ever been, a serial killer?”

He laughed. “Look at me. I’m half-black. This is your people, not mine?—”

“Then your uncle is….”

“My mom’s brother. My mom and dad met when he was stationed at Fort Leavenworth.”

I stepped inside and spotted a wildcat recoiling a paw, like it’d just hurt itself swatting the horns of a nearby jack-a-lope. They were both set onto the same base, some sad taxidermist’s joke. “How can you live here, with all their dead eyes are staring at you?”

“My mom didn’t give me much choice. Plus, the eyes are just buttons.”

I reached out to tap the glass of one, without touching any of the creepy fur. “That doesn’t make it better.”

“Well I wasn’t going to have us sit here anyways. Serious conversations require going downstairs,” he said, pointing to a descending stairway.

Downstairs. Sure. Why not? If I could light things on fire on accident, I was pretty safe from everything…but lighting things on fire on accident. I made a face, but followed him.

The stairs led to a door. Houses, real houses, in Kansas had basements for tornado shelters. And this basement was apparently Darius’s lair.

“Welcome to the laboratory,” he said with a flourish, opening the door and sweeping his arm inside. I was sort of disappointed when smoke didn’t billow out of it, what with the name and his alternate occupation.

It was a dim room, largely because of the number of posters papered on all four, no, five sides, since some were on the ceiling.

Comic books, movies, bands, art—a little bit of everything Darius was all over the walls.

His bed occupied a corner, and then a small couch, a wide TV, and assorted game stations made up the other half.

Everything was neatly organized and stacked—very different from the mess inside his car.

I had never been in a boy’s room before. I didn’t know what to do—the couch was too small for two people, but I didn’t want to sit on his bed.

He made things easier by folding himself up on the floor and I sat opposite him, perched on the couch like it might bite me.

“Where’s the fry containers?”

“Those are in case I get pulled over by an officer with a drug dog. Of course the dog’d be interested in fry-boxes,” he answered. “My turn—you set the Shax on fire?”

“It was an accident.” How much of the story did I have to tell him for him to believe me? I twisted my lips to one side, and decided to start as close to the beginning as I could. “I was hit by lightning a few days ago.”

He studied me again then asked, “For real?”

“For real. It happened. And after that—remember how I held the jumper cables for your car? And all of a sudden the engine worked? And the fire alarm at school this morning? And now the grease fire at the Shax—I’ve got weird powers and I can’t control them.

” The words burbled out of me, but his concerned expression didn’t change.

I folded my knees into my chest. I stank like burger grease and sweat and the longer he was quiet, the more I wished I could just melt into the ground. “Nevermind.”

“No no no—I can tell you’re serious,” he said, and I looked up. “It’s just…weird. You’d be surprised how many delusional people I’ve had to deal with in my seventeen years.”

“Occupational hazard?” I guessed.

“Yep. But since you’re not currently high and don’t appear to be psychotic—can you prove it to me?” He wiggled his fingers in the air between us, to indicate whatever magic I could do.

I inhaled and looked around, half-of-this-world, and half-of-the-other. I could feel his house around me, all of its wires and volts, but I didn’t want to try anything if I couldn’t control it. I didn’t want a repeat of the Shax or to fry either of our phones.

So what else was there? I twisted around, looking for something safe—and remembered the marks on my back. “Here—I can show you.”

I turned on the couch and lifted up the back of my uniform, up to just under my bra. First time in a strange boy’s room and here I was already halfway to taking off my top.

I heard him make a low sound and crawl nearer. “Can I touch?”

If anyone was ever going to believe me—I nodded quickly. “Yeah.”

He reached out and I felt a fingertip lightly trace the line from my mid-back to my hip. I shivered, then I shoved my shirt back down and turned to find him very much closer.

“Those are trippy.”

“It happened that night. And ever since—” I reached out at the walls. “When I close my eyes, I can see things. Like, fireflies darting back and forth from phones. And power cables inside walls. I can feel them too.”

“So why the grease fire?”

“Burton pissed me off.”

Darius nodded like that was rational—no matter that I could have burned the whole place down with everyone inside.

“I can’t control it yet.”

“Have you tried?”

“Where can I?” I looked around in frustration. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

“Here.” He crawled backwards and reached for some remotes, turning one of the game systems and his TV on. Then he handed a controller to me.

I dropped it like it was on fire. “I can’t—I might break it.”

He picked it up and handed it back. “It’s last gen, don’t care—do your thing.”

I took it from him hesitantly. I could feel its charge, see the stream of fireflies shooting in and out of it—and I could feel the game system revving up.

“Okay.” I held onto it with both hands, and let my fingers find the controls.

A game booted up. Alien Atrocity! the load screen informed me. It had a lot of guns, and was us versus aliens, I was some sort of warrior and—I died. Once, twice, again?—

“Are you even trying?”

I inhaled and exhaled without saying anything. “I have never played this before?—”

“You’re not letting yourself go.”

“Because letting myself go is dangerous.”

“So is ruining my reputation online,” Darius said. “If we were playing the team version of this, my teammates would be howling for your blood. As it is, you’re embarrassing me.”

I sighed and closed my eyes. The controller I held rumbled—I knew by now that meant I was being shot. Or eaten. The game was pretty violent.

But I could be violent, too—I let the other-world close in.

I stopped trying to pretend things had to make sense, that there was anything blocking me from my…

my power. Walls melted away and I could see the powerlines running behind them like shining ribbons and the TV in front of me became iridescent like a beetle’s wing and the fireflies streaming back and forth from the controller to the system stopped—and started flowing back and forth from me.

I died without dying in the manner of games and rebooted and—instead of trying to play the character, I was the character.

A creature of light and power and the things that fought me I could feel-see coming from miles away, fragments of code, instructions, complicated yes, but trapped like cable cars to preordained paths whereas I—I?—

I ruled here.

I raced around at the speed of light. Nothing could touch me, nothing could stand in my way.

Code ran after me and it was like being chased by kittens—what I didn’t disintegrate, I kicked out of my way.

I didn’t participate in the game by its parameters because I was beyond them.

It couldn’t contain me with its silly rules and story-logic.

I didn’t need anyone else telling me what to do. Never again.

For the first time in my life I felt powerful. I was power. I?—

“Jessica?”

Darius shook me and I dropped the controller, breaking the connection. I was still sitting in the same place, facing the TV screen. It was blurry, covered in spatters of green alien blood. I was panting like I’d run a race and my head was roaring.

“What happened?” I whispered quietly, for my head’s sake.

“You either got the high score, or you broke it. One of those two.” He looked from the screen to me. “It was like you were—a machine. You were racing through levels I’d never reached, and the screen kept going black, and?—”

My own body felt so small now, so constrained.

“I don’t really have words for what it looked like—other than fucking amazing. You—you were doing a perfect run. Can you teach me how?”

I caught my breath and settled back into real-reality, no matter how much more real the video game seemed, and gave him a half-hearted smile. “Only after you get hit by lightning.”

The TV screen flickered and both of us snapped to attention.

Servers going down for reboot. All current stats will be lost.

“Ooooooh shit!” Darius said, half-laughing.

I pointed at the screen. “See!”

“No! You just need to practice more—something easier that you can’t break—like Juicejam.”

“Ugh!” Juicejam was what my little sister played whenever my mom would let her use her phone. It was an addictive matching app with a slot-machine component, using different fruit you squished.

“Seriously. It’s a small world, simple rules, easily confined. If you can manage that, then you know you won’t break things anymore.”

“Maybe.” It made a certain amount of sense. “Or ever get angry.”

“That too.” He leaned backward to look at me appraisingly. “You’re like the Hulk. Only with electricity.”

I found him on one of the posters by Darius’s bed, large and green. “The Hulk, eh?”

“He’s—”

I looked back at him. The way he was looking at me now—it was unfamiliar and it made me uncomfortable. “I know who the Hulk is, Darius,” I said, a little stronger than I meant to.

He seemed to ignore it. “Control your emotions, and control your power.”

I rubbed my palms on the thighs of my Shax uniform. I’d been holding the controller long enough to make them sweaty and I needed Tylenol like yesterday. “You make it sound so easy to fix.”

“Maybe it is.” He stood. “Come on, I’d better get you home.” He offered me his hand. I didn’t take it, pretending not to see it, and then he pretended not to have offered, and we were both back to pretending things, all the way up from his room and out the front door.