Page 46 of Incompatible

But I have no time to analyze it, because the rest of my brothers, who were sitting farther along the wall, suddenly rush toward us in a frantic wave. They surround us all at once, firing questions, shouting over each other, grabbing my shoulders, checking Gabriel, checking me. The owners and employees burst out of the shop a few seconds later, staring wide-eyed at the shattered pots, the knocked-over table, and the tire just lying there.

People who had been eating ice cream inside spill out onto the sidewalk. Some stand with their cones halfway melted in their hands, pointing at me as if I were some kind of street performer who just did a trick with special effects. Others whisper, some recording on their phones, circling in closer but keeping a nervous distance from the tire.

Everything turns into chaotic noise.

The owner keeps asking if anyone is hurt, repeating the question louder each time, and Alex answers before I can open my mouth. He says that we are not okay, that I need medical attention, and that my hands are bleeding through the napkins.

Only then does the owner finally register what happened. He looks at my hands, looks at the tire, and the dawning comprehension in his eyes tells me he understands exactly what I did. He immediately yells for someone to call an ambulance.

Rain is already on the phone with Uncle Van.

In the middle of all of it Alex stays glued to my side, his voice shaking slightly as he tells me to keep my hands raised, to let him wrap more napkins around them. He’s trembling, but he keeps helping me, pressing the improvised bandages gently but firmly.

Soon the ambulance pulls up, sirens cutting through the crowd, and two paramedics hurry toward us, guiding us awayfrom the broken flowerpots and spilled dirt. They examine my hands, clean the cuts, and reassure me that nothing is deep, that it’s mostly scraped skin and bruising. Just impact injuries, they say, and like everyone else around, they seem almost surprised that this is all I got from something so dangerous.

Then the police arrive as well. Two cars. Officers step out, start talking to the owner, taking statements, setting up yellow tape, and shooing people back when they lean too close. A small crowd gathers on the edge of the sidewalk as if this were street theater.

I feel completely stunned, standing in the middle of flashing lights and murmuring voices, and then Uncle Van appears. He runs straight to Gabriel, pulls him tight to his chest, checks him over from head to toe. I hear Gabriel repeating to him exactly what he told us earlier, word for word. Strangely, Van doesn’t react with shock. It’s as if he were expecting something like this.

I decide I’ll ask later. Right now I’m barely processing anything.

But I notice Van watching me a moment later. He leans in and speaks quietly enough that only I can hear him. "If the police ask you about it, do not say Gabriel warned you, okay? I’ll explain everything later."

I’m still dizzy from adrenaline, but I nod. If there’s one thing I understand, it’s keeping secrets.

The officers question me shortly afterward, and the owner brings out his tablet to show the footage from the shop cameras. The angles catch everything: the moment Gabriel points toward the street, the tire crashing through the pots, and me jumping up at the exact second I needed to, pushing it aside before it slammed into us.

The owner whistles under his breath. Even the officers look impressed.

"Kid," one of them says, shaking his head, "what you did is a miracle. I’m not sure a grown alpha could push away a tire like that. You’re really strong for your age."

Several of them murmur in agreement.

Thankfully Uncle Van doesn’t let it go much further. He gathers us, thanks the owner and the officers, and ushers us to the car.

We pile into the back, still buzzing with leftover panic. Everyone starts talking at once, reliving every second of it, and Alex presses himself against me as if he’s afraid I might vanish if he lets go. The entire drive he stays close, our shoulders touching, his knee brushing mine every time the car turns.

Van asks Alex if he wants to call his dad, but Alex shakes his head right away. He says it would only make his dad panic and drop everything to rush here, and that wouldn’t help.

Once we get home Van pulls me aside.

He explains that Gabriel has a gift, something that lets him sense things a moment before they happen, especially if they’re dangerous or carry strong emotions. Two seconds, sometimes three, just enough time to react. It doesn’t happen all the time, not for everything, not for words or normal moments, only spikes of danger or discomfort.

I listen quietly. Snow has something similar, although as I’ve said, it never seems to work on me, at least not from the moment he predicted the car accident after which I was born. And those black streaks I see…? We are quite a family.

At dinner Alex stays by my side the whole time while lively conversations unfold with Van, Uncle Zenith, and the rest, but I don’t comment on anything, and Alex does not say much either. He already knows about Snow’s talent from me, so maybe he has accepted that strange things and strange abilities run in my family.

My hands hurt badly, and it looks like part of my vacation may be ruined because of it.

But Alex is here, offering his help.

That same evening, since the four of us share one room, Alex asks if I need help changing and washing up, but of course I refuse, because I would rather deal with soaked bandages than let anyone see me naked, that is absolutely out of the question.

I have become almost obsessive about keeping my body covered all the way down to my wrists. I never want anyone to look at me without clothes on, it only reminds me of horror, of feeling weak, of losing something precious.

When we finally turn off the lights, Veyron and Rain twist around in their beds for a while, whispering excitedly about everything that happened at the ice cream shop. They keep asking how I managed to push the tire away, and Veyron insists that I must have done some kind of secret alpha training I never told them about.

Rain tries to reenact the moment in the dark, mumbling and kicking his feet against the mattress. I tell them both to calm down, to stop overthinking it, to go to sleep because we are waking up early tomorrow.