Free Independence by Shelly Crane Page B

Lynne was now my responsibility , as were all the Aces . She was going through something supernatural that I'd already been through and it was my job as Visionary to 'deal' with it. Beck was being…Beck. Hopefully, she'd understand soon.
    " Lynne," I said distractedly as I came down the hall and willed Beck to come out. I came out of the hall to see Lynne crying hysterically into Kyle's neck and him trying to soothe her. Caleb, in turn, was trying to calm her down as well. She was mumbling that she didn't mean to, that she was sorry.
    I went to her side, but didn't try to take her from Kyle. I knew that would be a bad idea. So I just touched her shoulder and tried to tell her that it was all right. Beck was fine and everything else would be, too.
    Soon.
    But of course, Beck's dramatic flair won out again as she stormed down the hallway with Ralph in to w. She glared at me and said, "D on't even bother asking if I'm OK. I'm am so far from OK with all of this! We're leaving. I refuse to stay here in this house with you and him!" She pointed at Caleb and then Lynne. "And her! I'm done. We'll stay in a motel or something until I think it's safe for us to go home."
    "Beck, please," I tried futilely.
    "No!" she screeched and jerked her arm away from my outreached hand. "No, Maggie."
    She never called me Maggie. This was bad. This was so bad.
    "I'm sorry," I said lamely.
    She scoffed. "Now you're sorry that you've lied and picked him over me?"
"No," I answered truthfully and silently said goodbye to her. "I'm sorry that I hurt you."
    She would never understand Caleb and me. She would never be OK with what I could do. She would never get used to the fact that I was growing up and away from her and we couldn't be silly high school friends forever. Things changed. It hurt, but I didn't know what else to do at that point but to let her go since that was what she wanted.
    She once again slammed the door on her way out and I stood there as if waiting for something further to happen. It didn't.
    Caleb lifted my chin with his fingers. "I'm sorry."
    "If we were meant to still be friends, we would be, right?"
    He shrugged sadly. "Yeah. That doesn't make it suck any less. This is the reason that I keep Vic at a distance."
    I nodded and screwed my lips up. "It's a good plan."
    "I'm sorry," Lynne told me in a whisper. "I didn't mean to. I didn't know what I was doing."
    "It's OK, I promise. She was mad before you got here. It's better this way with Beck." I nodded to reassure myself more than anyone else that this was right. "It is."
    "I'm sor-"
    I effectively cut her off by pulling her to me. She was ridiculously tiny. " Remember what it felt like when we realize d that things weren't…normal?" She nodded like a child. "Well, we had our significant and all the stuff going on in our minds to hel p us understand. Beck doesn't. S he's human and I'll j ust have to accept that she's…never going to fit in my world anymore." I shook my head and refused to look at Caleb, who was pouri ng on the sympathy next to me. Kyle took Lynne's hand again, which didn't surprise me. She was still pretty upset and he would want to drawn that off of her with his touch. "But you ascended," I reminded her. "That's amazing , Lynne. "
"Yeah," she agreed and sniffed before looking up at Kyle . They both smiled slowly at the same time. "Yeah."
    I sighed. "Stay," Caleb and I both said at the same time. We all laughed. "Just stay the night. You may as well, now."
    "I'll go order some Chinese, " Caleb said and kissed my forehead before sprinting to the phone.
    Twenty five minutes later, and a couple of stories about Gran and her inap propriateness down, the delivery arrived and we sat on Caleb's couch side-by-side and watched a movie.
    Of course it was a horror flick.
    No one cared that I was a chicken when it came to gore on the screen, but Caleb promised to keep me safe. It was so normal. We ate right out of the take-out boxes with our chopsticks. I had beef and