Page 48

Austin

“Alright, spill.”

Jesse and Jamie were back from their trip, and Austin had agreed to pick them up from the Greyhound station.

He’d brought them back to their place, both of them clearly fighting exhaustion.

It was obvious that something big had happened this weekend.

And although Austin had got a few snippets of information from the texts they’d both been sending him, he didn’t have nearly enough pieces to put together a full picture.

So after Jamie had headed into the bedroom to fall asleep the very second his head touched the pillow, Austin had kind of parked Jesse onto the couch and sat down beside him, ready to talk.

What followed was a lengthy and frankly confusing hour-long explanation of everything that had happened on the trip—starting with a frozen fountain, then Jamie’s decision to employ what he was apparently calling his ‘safe form,’ a digression to Jesse wracking himself with guilt over having ‘yelled at Jamie so badly’ (which Austin really doubted had actually happened, though knowing Jesse, it made sense that he’d be torn up about it if he had raised his voice, no matter how much) and finally ending with the disaster at the lake.

By the end of it, Austin was beginning to think he should just never let the two of them out of his sight again, for fear the pair of morons would get themselves killed and never come back.

“I swear you two could go to the safest place in the world and somehow find a way to almost die in it,” he huffed after Jesse was done with his tale. “What do I gotta do, put you both on leashes?”

“I’m not in the mood for jokes, Austin,” Jesse sighed, rubbing his forehead like he had a headache. “I swear, I lost a few years of my lifetime when he broke through that ice. ”

“I’m sure you did,” Austin said. “But look, Jamie’s a smart guy. I’m sure when it really comes down to it, he’ll do the right thing.”

“It’s not like I don’t trust him to always do what he thinks is right,” Jesse replied with a frustrated frown. “I’m just doubting his idea of what the ‘right thing’ is in the first place.”

“Come on, isn’t that a little too harsh?

I mean, I totally get that you’re still quite shaken but it’s not like he’s been getting himself in danger over and over again,” Austin argued.

“What happened on that lake was pretty serious, no kidding, but it was only this once. I don’t think he’s going to repeat it.

Plus, we can’t treat Jamie’s problems like something we understand or know how to fix.

It’s not as if we have any real idea of how to help him anyway.

We’re in uncharted waters here, Jess. And you know I’m the last person in the world to call anybody ‘abnormal,’ but Jamie’s situation is quite literally impossible and utterly unique.

It makes sense that he would have a hard time confiding in you and relying on you, when he thinks there’s not all that much you could do to help him.

You’ll probably never really understand how he feels. ”

“But I could help him,” Jesse pressed. “That’s literally my point.

I might not be able to guide him through the use of his powers or relate to the way he feels, but I could be there for him.

Support him. Hold his hand through the hard times.

He just—” He sighed once again, hanging his head with a tired frown.

“He said he’ll ‘try’ to let me in, but I don’t know if he really will. ”

“…Just give him some time,” Austin told him, putting a comforting hand on his back. “Maybe he’ll come around.”

“Yeah, maybe ,” Jesse agreed in a frustrated voice.

“Though, after what he said about not wanting to get his memories back, I seriously don’t know what to feel.

I asked him straight up what it meant when he said he’ll have to go back but he didn’t really answer.

Just said it was what would ‘have to happen,’ and wouldn’t explain why he felt that way. ”

“You sound as if you’ve never heard anything about amnesia though.

It’s possible he doesn’t know why he feels that way.

He’s been through something really traumatic, even if he can’t remember exactly what it was.

You can’t always explain the way that sort of thing makes you feel, you know.

Sometimes you just… have to obey your instinctive urges, even if your head doesn’t know why. ”

“Of course I know that,” Jesse said with another troubled sigh.

“Maybe he believes that if he gets his memories back, he’ll remember that he did something bad.

Like when he said that in his nightmare it felt as if he’d killed—” He suddenly sat up straight, realization lighting his eyes.

“Hey Austin… That traumatic thing that happened to him; we can assume it has something to do with that figure he sees in his nightmares, right?”

Austin sat up straighter himself. “Are you up to something?”

“Maybe?”

“I’m all ears.”

“You know, even with all the power he’s already discovered, it’s always been related to water and ice, never fire, right? Except in his dreams, where he isn’t alone. You said it yourself, we’re in uncharted waters. And I just remembered how I once joked about that Avatar stuff, but…”

Austin raised a brow in disbelief. “Come on, you’re not seriously saying that Jamie is the Avat—“

“No, of course I’m not! Although we just don’t know , do we? But Jamie does exist, we know that for a fact. So… what if he’s not the only one? What if other people like Jamie exist as well, just with different powers than his? Just like in that series. Is it really that far-fetched?”

The trip must’ve flipped some kind of switch in Jesse. The very person who had been so deep in denial just a little while ago was now proposing a theory like this—and a pretty good one at that.

“…Actually, no, no it’s not,” Austin said, a trickle of excitement going through him as he thought this through.

“Someone else with powers, yeah? This is… It’s brilliant, really.

So brilliant I’m pissed it didn’t come from me.

You know, I’ve been trying to put a few pieces together for a while already, and trust me, that was insanely frustrating. I’m usually way better at puzzles.”

“So you think I’m right?!”

“There’s every possibility you actually are.

Let’s just look at some of the main facts,” Austin said, starting to count off on his fingers.

“We know that Jamie must’ve been in a fire, because his clothes were undeniably covered in soot.

And if we leave everything behind we thought ‘isn’t possible,’ that could’ve been fire powers for sure.

Then, he must’ve been in some kind of bloody situation, because his hands were covered in blood.

We don’t have enough info on that one yet, but we know that he can lock up his powers, and that he insists on doing so because he’s afraid he’ll hurt you. ”

“Right,” Jesse nodded.

“So, whatever the situation was that he was in, what if he was trying to lock up his powers and get away from somebody he thinks he hurt? Or, what if it was the other way around, and he was attacked? That figure in Jamie’s paintings seems pretty threatening to me, so that’s not far-fetched either.

His extreme reaction when he thought there was fire in my kitchen also hints at that.

Even more, what if he accidentally locked up his own memories and teleported to Carson City while he tried to save himself?

Or, since we can’t rule it out, maybe he did kill somebody there, who knows. ”

Jesse’s eyes widened. “Jamie would never.”

“Jesse, we still have zero idea who—or what—he is,” Austin insisted.

“But alright, let’s leave this one out for now.

My theory still stands. After all, it fits quite well with what little he can tell us about those dreams. So yeah, what if he really was attacked?

By someone with fire powers? And then when he tried to escape, things went wrong somewhere. ”

“But have you seen the fire in Jamie’s paintings? There’s so much of it!”

“Yeah, but Jamie’s powers must be really strong as well,” Austin said with a serious voice, leaning a little more forward.

“He froze an entire lake; he’s literally getting more powerful each and every day, and we have no idea where the end is.

Whatever the situation was that day, he did—without any doubt—survive it.

And if we’re right, and there was some kind of fight, it must have been brutal . ”

Being a fantasy author, Austin could vividly imagine.

Jesse swallowed hard. “No wonder he doesn’t want his memories back. And, now that I think about it, I’m all the more glad you told me not to post anything on social media about him. That could’ve gone… very wrong.”

Yeah, if the attacker had found out and come after Jamie again .

The thought sent a chill down Austin’s spine.

If they were right, and if Jamie had escaped some fire-wielding attacker, there was every chance in the world this person would hunt him down to finish the job.

It didn’t feel like Jamie was in immediate danger right now, but anything could change.

And it wasn’t like they could go to the cops about it, either.

Austin could imagine it now; marching into the police station and telling them about their amnesiac friend who could freeze large bodies of water and change his hair and eye color at will, so that they could protect him from a strange shape in his nightmare paintings that they guessed was probably a violent attacker who might be trying to hunt him down.

That would go over just wonderfully, Austin was sure of it.

“What… what about his scar though?” Jesse asked. “It’s not a burn scar; it’s cold, so that can’t be from fire powers.”