"Band, ten hut!"

"GO!" Callum and I yelled with the rest of the band as our head director gathered us in the center of the football field.

"We have a competition tomorrow, so make sure you all get some rest. We report here tomorrow at four in the morning. Band dismissed."

"Come on, let’s help back stuff up." Callum said as we ran back to the front of the field where our other director was watching Koda.

"Thanks for watching him, Mr. Alverez." I said, picking up Koda and holding him tightly. "My dad had to go out of town for some security conference thing and he doesn’t trust Koda alone in the house for more than a school day."

"No problem. This little guy was a treat to hang out with in the box." Mr. Alverez said, smiling happily. "I’m assuming that Koda is gonna be joining us tomorrow?"

"Yeah. Sorry if that’s an inconvenience. My dad’s coming back Sunday evening."

"Not an inconvenience to me. I like having the little guy around."

"Anna, come on!" Callum said, pushing the head drum major stand back to the school.

"Right." I said, running over and setting the dog down onto the ground. Koda followed us back to the school as we wheeled everything inside, grabbing our belongings and walking back outside to Callum’s car. "Thanks for convincing your parents into letting Koda and I spend the night."

"No problem." Callum said, shrugging happily.

"But, are you sure your parents are cool with this?"

"Yeah. Why wouldn’t they be chill with it?"

"Well, I don’t know if your parents… You know-"

"Know that I’m gay?"

"Well… Yeah."

"Oh trust me, they know." Callum said as he put the car in reverse and started driving down the road. "They aren’t too thrilled about it, believe me, but they know."

"I just wanted to make sure." I said quickly. "How did they handle it?"

"Not well since I came out to them while they were trying to set me up with one of their friend’s daughters."

"Seriously!"

"Yeah. Lots of yelling back and forth, I think my dad tried to make a pray the gay away camp in our house the summer after I came out, but they’re way better now. Not that that says much since they still judge me every ten minutes..."

"You know that if they get testy, I’ll cover for you, right?"

"Of course I know that. You’re my friend, and I know that I have your back, so I expect that you also have mine." Callum said happily. "Besides, with my older sister in town this weekend, all of the attention is gonna be on her and not me."

"I didn’t know you had an older sister."

"I do. Her name’s Grace and she’s a sophomore in college. Majoring in health and all that. Wants to be a doctor."

"No powers?"

"Not that I know of."

"Must be hard to only have your aunt to rely on for that stuff."

"Could be harder." Callum said, shrugging. "Aunt Beth is pretty chill with everything. Helped me figure out my power when I first got it. At this point, she’s more like my real mom than my actual mom is."

"How’d you get your powers anyway?"

"Trying to compare notes with someone else so that you can figure out how you got your’s?"

"Yeah… Everything is kinda blurry still." I admitted.

"Do you remember any new information?"

"Just a tree and then bright light."

"So… No?"

"No."

"My story isn’t really that interesting." Callum said, shrugging. "My animal science class from Sophomore year was on this field trip to the Megatropolis Zoo, I got seperated from them, somehow wound up in the cheetah enclosure-"

"You WHAT!"

"And when they tried to remove the cheetah tooth from my arm, a power surge went through whatever I was attached to and through the cheetah tooth, making my DNA partially bonded with the tooth. I obviously didn’t get the spot thing or the carnivorous appetite, but I did get the speed."

"So you’re Wally West, minus the science experiment gone wrong?"

"Who’s Wally West?"

"You did not just ask me that."

"I did."

"Wally West is the Flash’s sidekick, the original Kid Flash."

"There’s more than one Kid Flash?"

"Just like there’s more than one Robin."

"There’s more than one Robin!"

"Of course there is! Even I know that, and I’m a dog!" Koda said as I started laughing, petting the small dog in my lap.

"Well, I’m sorry that I don’t read comic books, you small furry creature." Callum said, rolling his eyes as we pulled up to the house, pausing in the driveway. His house was big, practically a mansion. White columns bordered the outside and the house was easily three floors. "Okay. We’re here, but let’s just play this cool, okay?"

"I got this." I said, grabbing my bag and Koda, getting out of Callum’s car and walking towards the house as Callum unlocked the door.

"Mom, Dad, we’re home!" Callum announced as a man with dark hair and dark eyes stood at the top of the stairs in front of us.

"And you did bring your friend." His dad said cautiously.

"I’m Anneliese. Nice to meet you, Mr. Kent." I said, smiling at Callum’s father.

"Yeah..." Mr. Kent said, walking away. "Take off your shoes and get up here, Callum. Grace is home."

"That could have gone better." I said awkwardly.

"That’s better than how he normally reacts to my friends, trust me." Callum said as I set Koda down on the ground.

"What exactly do your parents do, anyway?" I asked quietly as Callum led me through his dark house. Everything in here felt unwelcoming. It was almost weird to consider the fact that Callum, who’s usually a smiley and happy person, comes from this place.

"My dad is a lawyer and my mom is a biochemist."

"Lots of money."

"You bet." Callum said, sighing heavily. "Also means a lot of expectations."

Callum and I walked into the den, which was so white with the walls and artificial lights that the whole room felt harsh, a woman with her bright red hair that was twisted into a severe bun, turned towards us. "There’s the other one… And he did bring his friend."

"Hey bro!" Said the girl who was standing in front of who I assumed was Mrs. Kent, walking towards Callum and hugging him tightly, her long dark hair swinging into his face. She looked over at me curiously. "Who’s your little girlfriend?"

"Grace, she is not-"

"I am a friend who is a girl, but I am not his girlfriend." I said, crossing my arms as I looked over at Grace.

"I know. I tease him like that occasionally since I know he’s gay and all that jazziness."

"It’s not teasing if you’re trying to push your straight agenda, Grace." Callum said bitterly.

"Anyway, who is she?"

"I’m one of his fellow drum majors. My dad is gonna be out of town this weekend, and since I don’t have my own car, I’m spending the night so that I can go to the competition tomorrow."

"Oh..."

"Now, if you will all excuse us," Callum said as we both backed away. "Anna and I are going to make a very gay dinner since we haven’t eaten anything yet and then we are going to bed wrapped in rainbows before we have to be up in three in the morning."

"Callum-"

"It was nice meeting you!" I said quickly as I quickly followed Callum into the black kitchen. I looked over at Callum as he dug into the freezer. "Okay, not that I am not behind making your parents uncomfortable for what they just pulled, but what exactly is a gay dinner?"

Callum helpd up a bag of chicken nuggets, shaking it up and down. "I was thinking dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets."

"Yes!" I said excitedly. As I helped Callum put the chicken nuggets on a tray, I cautiously looked over at him. "So… Is your family always like that?"

"If you mean ‘is my family always homophobic’, then yes, they are. And my mother wonders why I spend time with Aunt Beth..."

"So you spend a lot of time with her?"

"Yeah. Mom doesn’t like it, but Aunt Beth is easily the most supportive with my various life decisions." Callum explained, sighing as he shook his head. "Grace says that she’s supportive, but any comment she makes about me being gay just comes off as her shaming me for not being straight. It gets on my damn nerves. They just don’t even try to understand the kind of things that I have to go through and instead they’re focused on trying to fix me or whatever."

"You don’t need to be fixed, Callum." I said, looking over at Callum as he smiled a bit. "You are perfect just the way you are."

"I know. My family just needs to figure that out." Callum said, shrugging. "We better hurry up and make food though. Wanna get out of my family’s hair as fast as possible."

As soon as our food was done, we both quickly walked up to Callum’s room. His walls were bright yellow with different posters and flags, a big pride flag hanging above his bed. His sheets were dark blue and he had a TV mounted on the wall. So far, this was the most welcoming room in the house. Callum patted his bed. "Come. Sit and eat food."

I looked down at the ground, nodding my head towards Koda. "Come on buddy."

Koda nodded, jumping up on Callum’s bed. Callum looked over at me sadly. "So far, I like your family a lot better, and your mom isn’t even in town right now."

"You know what? I like my family too."

Callum laughed a bit. "You nervous about tomorrow?"

"Not really. I mean, we have our show down pat. We got this."

"That is one thing I like about you."

"What? My attitude?" I asked, taking off my glasses for a second to clean them.

"No, your optimism, doofus." Callum said, elbowing me in a place where some of my skin was showing.

I felt my vision darken and in an instant, I saw Callum running away from something in slow motion, like most of my visions are in, but this time Callum stepped on a floor bomb and exploded.

"NO!" I shrieked, putting my glasses back on my face.

"Anna, are you okay!" Callum said, panicking.

I heard panicked footsteps coming up the stairs near us as I looked over at Callum. "Find a scary movie, and I will explain."

Callum nodded, turning on a random scary movie as his father ran into the room. "What the fuck is going on in here?"

"We were watching this scary movie and Anna started screaming at the screen because the characters are stupid. I mean… This is Nightmare on Elm Street, Dad. Glen fell asleep when Nancy told him not too. That’s pretty stupid when dealing with Freddy Kreuger."

Mr. Kent took one look at the screen, sighing heavily. "Fine, just try to keep it down, okay?"

"Okay Dad."

"Sorry sir."

As soon as his dad was gone, Callum looked over at me. "Okay, what just happened?"

"Before I tell you, you have to promise not to tell anyone." I said, looking over at Koda. "Both of you."

"I promise." Koda said, sitting up a bit.

"Same here, obviously. What happened?"

"You know how I can do the zappy zap?"

"Yes, but I don’t think I would call your electricity thing the zappy zap. Why are you asking?"

"I… May have another power."

"You have another power! What is it?"

"I can… See the future."

"So you’re like Phoebe from that really old show about sisters who are also witches?"

"You mean Charmed?"

"That’s it!"

"If that’s how you want to think of it, then sure. I can only see that type of thing if I have direct skin contact with someone. I think that it’s something about swapping electrical current, I don’t entirely understand it myself, but-"

"So you saw my future?"

"Well, yes, but-"

"What’d you see?"

"Callum, I don’t think-"

"Come on, tell me! Please-"

"I saw you die, okay?" I snapped, pushing my plate of chicken nuggets to my side, not daring to look Callum in the eyes.

Callum looked over at me cautiously, his voice slow and even. "You… You saw my death?"

"YES!" I said, feeling my body start to shake.

"Calm down, okay?" Callum said, rubbing the small of my back carefully. "I hope that it’s okay to do this without triggering anything."

"No, you’re okay." I said, breathing in and out. "That’s why I wear the glasses. They block the premonitions."

"I thought that Edward was teaching you to not need the glasses anymore?"

"We took a break from training so that he can figure out how to do exposure therapy. He thinks that if I get used to having physical contact I can build up a tolerance to the point where I can trigger them myself instead of them triggering on their own."

"How many people have you seen die?" Callum asked gently.

"More than I’d like to admit."

"Do you want to give me a number?"

"Well… You, Edward, a couple teachers at my old school." I said anxiously. I looked down at my feet. "My parents."

"You saw-"

"You die by running onto a landmine, by the way."

Callum seemed to get that I wanted to change the subject. "That’s pretty scary. No wonder you tried to block it out."

"Yeah." I said uneasily.

"I won’t tell anyone, promise."

"Thanks."

"If that happens again, just tell me, okay?"

"I will."

Callum checked the time on his phone, shaking his head. "We better go to bed soon. We do have that competition tomorrow."

"Right." I said, grabbing my plate again. Tomorrow was going to be a long day that I was not looking forward to.