Chapter 15

         My brothers also chose to teleport to our house in California. They arrived at the same time I did. When I saw our house again, it reminded me of everything that had happened over the last two years. I looked at the piano and remembered harmonizing on my guitar as Jessica played. I walked into the living room as memories rushed through my head. My brothers joined me in the living room, but none of us had anything to say to each other.

         Later that morning, we still weren't in the mood to do anything. I managed to go outside to the huts we had made before we met the girls. There we could use our powers freely; rather than losing energy, we would gain it.

         I went into my hut and lit a fire with a wave of my hand. I sat down in it and released my five senses as the flames licked my body. Sitting there, I let my thoughts and emotions flow through my head. The first thing that came to mind was Jessica. I thought I really did love her like a sister. That would have explained why I put up with her complaints and still protected her when we were fleeing from the Heinous Knights, jumping from country to country. But there was more to her than that. She was a human. I wished that I had had time to learn more about her. She had told me that she was not the average human. If she wasn't, then what was? I hoped an average human being would be a little more . . . selfless.

         That led me to something else. Had I used Jessica? No, I don't think so. I socialized with her even though it made me uncomfortable, but I protected her. Well, I had introduced myself so that I could examine her characteristics, body language, and everything about her in general. My experiment . . . that sounds as if I were using her. It wasn't just an experiment. I thought I loved her like a sister. There were many things that she did that I didn't understand which made me uncomfortable including her walking into my arms. For hecapsycheires, that is something that only husband and wife or future husbands and wives would do. That was the reason I didn't like it. We had only known each other for a couple of years. She couldn't like me that fast. One has to become close friends before they even get to the hand holding stage.

         There are three or four stages of love. It starts with becoming very close friends. There can be close friends with the same gender, but there can also be close friends of opposite gender without it being assumed they'll become future husband and wife. The second stage is hand holding. (Hecapsycheires usually look human when they're not in the form of their element, so they have arms, legs, hands, feet, and a head.) The third stage is what humans call hugging. That shows true love between a hecapsycheir and a hecapsycheire (that's kind of like saying a man and a woman in the human world). There are two types of hugging. One between brothers or good friends, the other between future husband and wife.

         Another feeling had entered my mind. I didn't feel bad about leaving Jessica; I felt sorry for her because I knew that she would miss me. But I also felt that she would get over it. I realized that even if she didn't go back to James, she would find someone else.

         While I was sitting in the fire mulling things over, someone else came to mind. Vesta. She too was beautiful. More beautiful than Jessica because she was always prepared. I didn't have the burden of protecting her. I wanted to see her again so that she could comfort me. I knew she would be able to, but I had promised Jessica that I wouldn't go out with any other hecapsycheire for a week, and I keep my promises.

         I made up my mind to go to Vesta's house at the end of the week. I had her house coordinates from when we parted on the battleground, and I hoped she would be willing to set aside time to talk with me.

         Other ideas began to float through my mind. What would our lives be like now? My brothers and I had spent the last two decades studying Homo sapiens, and now the Elders had thrown all of our work away as if it were nothing more than half of an apple core at their feet. The Elders hate litter. I could imagine them with disgusted faces as they see mortals throw trash over their shoulders as if they couldn't care less about it, which is probably true.

         I thought that we might start working as servants of the Elders if they would accept our pledge of service. Considering their short temper with us before, I wasn't too interested in working for them. Perhaps we could work with the schools for small hecapsycheires who were just beginning to learn how to control their powers. I'm not sure I could handle a bunch of short tempered Elders snapping at us day and night, but guiding little hecapsycheires would be entertaining at the least.

         Time passed slowly as the flames enriched my form. I didn't know how much time had passed when I came out of my hut. It felt like months, but the sun was rising. So a day had passed. I assumed my brothers would be in their huts, but I looked anyway and found Irvin sitting in the living room.

         "Where are the others?" I asked.

         "They're in their huts. Didn't you see them? You were there just a minute ago."

         "I didn't see them. Have you gone to your hut yet?" I asked.

         "Just for a couple of hours. I think that the more relaxed I become, the greater danger I am in."

         "What do you mean?"

         "Well, think about it. If you're truly relaxed, then your reflexes are not going to be as fast. What if something happened and I couldn't react quickly enough because I wasn't thinking straight, or thinking at all."

         "But the chances of something bad happening are pretty low. Isn't it better to have more time away from reality than less?"

         "But you're always going to have to face reality at one point in time whether you like it or not."

         "Okay, so what's on your mind now."

         "Now, I'm thinking about the feelings that have passed through me when I was with Rhonda."

         "And what feelings were those?"

         "They're hard to describe, but I think you did a good job describing them to the Elders. It wasn't love like I have for you, Hearst, Demetrio, and Timur, but it wasn't the same feeling that I sensed between a happy husband and wife. I think it was another kind of love, one that made me want to protect her. I know this will sound cruel, but by now, I don't feel too bad about leaving her. I mean, I feel bad about the pain I caused her, but I don't feel pain inside me. Maybe I feel empathetic, but I can't feel any emotions of my own. I'm lost in a maze of feelings and there's nobody there to pull me out."

         "I know exactly how you feel. I think you've extracted my feelings from inside me and put them into words."

         "I agree," Timur said from the doorway.

         He entered the living room and sat down.

         "Did you just come out of your hut?" I asked.

         "Yeah, I think that Demetrio and Hearst are still in theirs," he replied.

         "Nope," Hearst said as he entered the living room. "Demetrio might be in his hut, but I'm not."

         "What do you want to talk about until Demetrio gets here?" Timur asked.

         "That may be a long time, I don't know when Demetrio will get here," Hearst said.

         "You don't have long to wait. He's coming now," Irvin said.

         Sure enough, Demetrio walked into the living room a few moments later.

         "Morning, is there a reason you guys are meeting without me?" Demetrio asked.

         "We weren't purposely excluding you, Demetrio," Hearst said. "We just didn't want to pull you from your hut. We knew you'd come out eventually."

         "Is your conversation very important?" he asked.

         "Not particularly," Timur said.

         "We were just talking about emotions," I told him.

         "You mean the ones from leaving the female mortals behind?" Demetrio asked.

         "Yes," Hearst said.

         The days went by slowly as my brothers and I pulled ourselves back together. By the end of the week, we felt as if we were back in high school. We had the house and the huts, but we didn't have school. I guess we could be called college dropouts since we had left Harvard. Apparently, my brothers had promised Terra, Cari, Rhonda, and Portia that they wouldn't see another female hecapsycheire for a while as well. I wondered if that was a female mortal thing to request.

         Once the week was up, I teleported to the coordinates that Vesta had given me. I approached the house to learn that only Vesta's mother and brother were there. They told me Vesta had chosen to live with her friends: Gina, Aurelia, Izumi, and Tamara. It took me another few days to track down them down, but I found her eventually.

         I found the five of them in a large house in one of Seattle, Washington's suburbs. It wasn't near any human life, but there was a lot of wildlife around the house. I rang the doorbell and came face to face with Tamara.

         "Hello, can I help you? Wait a minute, I've seen you before. You were Vesta's roommate weren't you?" Tamara asked.

         "Not exactly roommate, but we shared a cabin with some others at the camp," I replied.

         "Come on in," Tamara said. She turned away from me and called, "Vesta, you have a visitor."

         Vesta came into view with a surprised look on her face.

         "Aden," she said, "What are you doing here?"

         "I came by to see how you were doing. I heard that five hecapsycheires had been killed by stray Heinous Knights, and it led me to you," I started. I was about to continue when I noticed the look on her face. Once I mentioned the hecapsycheires, a look of sorrow had fallen upon her face. I was pretty sure I knew what this meant. "Oh," I said. "Vesta, I am so sorry."

         "It's okay," she sniffed. "We were kind of edgy with each other anyway, but . . . I saw him die. I couldn't get to him."

         I held out my hand to her and she took it. I put my arm around her shoulder and let her lean against me. For those of you who haven't guessed who the five dead hecapsycheires were, they were good friends of Vesta, Gina, Aurelia, Izumi, and Tamara. Vesta stayed next to me until we were interrupted by the doorbell. I stood to the side of the foyer while Aurelia answered the door.

         "Timur!" she cried.

         I whirled around and found Timur in the doorway.

         "Aden," he said in surprise.

         "Timur, what are you doing here?" I asked.

         "I heard about the five hecapsycheires and came to check on Aurelia. I think the others are coming too," he replied.

         Sure enough, there was another knock at the door. This time Izumi answered the door and said, "Irvin! With Demetrio and Hearst right?"

         "Aden, Timur, what are you doing here?" Demetrio and Hearst said together.

         "We might ask you the same question," Timur and I said in unison.

         Irvin remained silent, though he greeted Izumi with courtesy. I was still next to Vesta, with my arm around her shoulders. I felt sorry for her close friend whom I had never met.

         As the other engaged in conversation, Vesta led me up the stairs to her sitting room. It was probably the bedroom because it had a bed, but it also had a couch. Her room was designed in the stereotypical way for those of our element. The usual human bedroom consists of a bed, a chair, maybe a desk and a book case, a closet or a chest of drawers, and a window. Since Vesta could control fire, her bed was simply flames and ashes. There was no window nor closet nor book case. But the chair, couch, and desk were made from flames and there were some candles on the desk. I'm pretty sure the walls were fire-retardant.

         Vesta sat on her couch and indicated I should sit next to her. I sat at the end of the couch, and she lay her head on my lap and cried silently. You may wonder how hecapsycheires who control fire can cry, but it's possible. I let her cry herself to sleep while I gave myself more time to think. What would happen now? I had lived under the former Elders my entire life. What would happen now that that had changed?