Powerless Revision 1 (37 page)

“Now I’ve been square-dealing with you here and told you everything I heard accurately and honestly. But I can see how you might prefer a nice rosy lie, this truth is all thorns.”

The revelation that their long lost baby lived cut into Kevin and Jeana, shining a light on something they had never thought possible. They held each other and braced themselves for Mira’s reaction. Mira’s emotions waffled through curiosity, confusion, and outrage to despair, sympathy, and wonder. She couldn’t let herself believe what Yannick said. She nervously glanced at her fellow students out of embarrassment. What would they think of her now that they knew the sorrows of her family?

“What is he talking about? I don’t understand,” she said, sounding scared.

“He’s telling the truth,” Kevin said. “You are not an only child. You have a twin sister, Clara, but someone took her from us when you were only an infant. You two lay next to each other in a crib, identical even to us, and a man came into our home. A man without heart or conscience, he took your power and he took your sister from us. We always assumed she had been laid to rest, but somehow she’s done it. She’s survived!”

The feelings stirred so deeply within Mira that her eyeballs rolled up into her head and her hands shook. Her legs could no longer support her weight, and she hobbled into a chair. Gulping her breaths, she covered her straining face with her hands until her grief went to words.

“Is that all? Please, tell me if that’s all. How can mere words tear me apart like this? I had a power, but I was stripped of it and left to live as a hollow shell. I have a sister—something I prayed for every night—but she paid for my blissful ignorance by suffering cruelty and enslavement. And to top it all off, you never told me when someone came to kill me. I know you tried to protect me, Dad, but having it all rain down at once is too much to bear.”

“Mira, I’m sorry. I didn’t want this for you,” Kevin said, trailing off when he realized she couldn’t hear him. Her face was red, and she sobbed.

“I owe her everything,” she whimpered. Taking a deep breath, she steadied herself. Taking her finger to the air, she traced, a face that looked a lot like hers but wasn’t. She wiped her red eyes and waited for the pain to pass, the anger to fade, and the thirst for revenge to disappear. She waited until she could stand up with courage and hope. And when she felt the urge to fight for her sister, she seized it.

She turned to her fellow students, the ones she had known since she first stepped out of her cloudy, insulated world so long ago. Even though everything looked so different after that day, she felt a bigger change in the world from the truths she had learned just now. There was someone out there for her, someone who made her journey a mission. Looking into the eyes of those she had become close to, Roselyn, Will, Vern, Aoi, Mary, Chucky, and Rowland, she could see that they knew what she wanted to say, and they wanted her to say it.

“We must make ourselves strong enough to stand up for our families and our friends, but now protecting them is not enough. Though I never knew it before, they’ve taken more than I ever thought I had. So right now, I’m going to make a promise to you. I stake my life on setting my sister free and making sure they can never torment anyone again. And we will succeed. ‘Cuz when our darkness falls on their evil plight, and the light has gone and it’s time to fight, we’ll bare our teeth and show our might, and they’ll know it’s us who set it right.”

Jason Letts is an author and editor of young-adult and paranormal fiction. The books of his young-adult fantasy series,
Powerless
, are available now, and he and Amanda Hocking will release the first book in a new paranormal romance trilogy, entitled
Inevitable
, in January 2011. The story features an entrancing spirit from infinity who does her best to improve the life of a young man before a tragic accident will take his life. You can contact Jason via email at [email protected] or find out about him and his books at www.powerlessbooks.com.