Chapter 32

The next morning, I knocked on Trayvon’s door. Becky had already grabbed Koda to take him to the alley and had just sent me up by myself. After standing outside for a couple minutes, a short African American woman with her hair in curlers opened the door. She smiled at me warmly. "Hi Anneliese! How you doing, honey?"

"I’m fine, Ms. Trevors." I said, tugging on the sleeves of my sweatshirt. "And how are you doing?"

Trayvon’s mom shrugged. She was easily one of the nicest mom’s I’ve ever met since she always insists that I stay for dinner whenever I come over to work with Trayvon on our French homework or when we marathoned some TV shows we both wanted to watch. "Oh, I’m just fine, honey. I notice that you didn’t bring your school bag."

"Yeah..." I said struggling to come up with an excuse as to why I was there since Trayvon’s mother didn’t know the inner workings of Y.A.K.S. "You see, I’m here to… Um..."

"She’s here to show me the ways of the Barbie movies." Trayvon quickly interrupted.

Ms. Trevors raised an eyebrow. "Barbie movies? But they’re for little girls, honey. Why would you want to watch that?"

"They’re actually not bad." Callum added, quickly walking up to us. "Anna forced us to watch the Barbie movie she and our friend Erika were named after last time we were over at her house and we all surprisingly enjoyed it."

"Yeah. I’ve had ‘To Be A Princess’ stuck in my mind for days!" Trayvon agreed as Callum and I walked inside the small apartment and sat down on the giant couch in the center. "Excited to see the other classics that Anna and Erika have in mind."

Ms. Trevors shook her head. "You kids… So what other friends of yours are coming over, Trey?"

"Well… These two. Erika. Keisha and her dad."

Ms. Trevor’s eyes widened. "Lakeisha and her father?"

"Mom, she prefers Keisha now."

"I haven’t seen you and her hang out together since you two were little kids!" Ms. Trevors said happily, walking over to the open air kitchen.

"I know, Mom."

"You two were so cute together!"

"Mom, please-"

"I always thought you two would end up together-"

"Mom-"

"Especially since you’ve had a crush on her for who knows how long!"

"Mom!" Trayvon groaned, sighing heavily. "That was private information!"

Callum’s eyes widened. "You have a crush on Keisha?"

"Yeah, when I was a Freshman in high school!"

"And a Sophomore, Junior, and Senior." Ms. Trevors teased. "The amount of times I have had to hear about how Lakeshia looks so cute in her school uniform and how smart and pretty she’s turned out to be."

"You know what?" I said, smirking at Trayvon. "I can so see you and Keisha together as a couple."

"Really, Anna? You too?"

"I think you mean you three because I’ve been thinking that you and Keisha should get together since you both joined Y.A.K.S." Callum said earnestly.

"Yaks? What’s that?" Ms. Trevors asked.

"It’s a club for yak lovers." I said quickly. "We all love yaks so much that we all formed a club around them. We’re taking a mini field trip on Homecoming day to a nearby yak farm."

"Yeah. We love ourselves one big yak." Trayvon said awkwardly. "They’re so big and hairy. They’re big, walking bags of meat."

"We so need to figure out a better name..." Callum whispered to himself. I nodded in agreement.

Trayvon walked to the door as we heard another knock. Erika was awkwardly standing in the doorway. She smiled at us uneasily. "Hey guys!"

"Ready to watch some Barbie movies, Erika?" Callum asked, nodding his head in a hope that Erika would get the message.

Erika nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, definitely."

"Do you have a list?" I asked quickly.

"Totally. You?"

"Oh yeah. Wanna discuss a viewing order?"

"Yeah. Trayvon, can we borrow your bedroom to discuss?" Erika asked, walking forward and grabbing my arm, yanking me up as she started walking towards a small hallway that had Trayvon’s room inside.

"Yeah, go ahead, I guess." Trayvon said uneasily.

Erika opened the door and the two of us quickly sat down on Trayvon’s bed. His room was messy, but with some form of organization. It looked lived in and cluttered. The room had brown walls almost completely covered in sports posters. He had a small twin bed that made me think that his feet would easily fall off of the edge if the wall wasn’t in the way. It was as big as my room was before I switched to a slightly bigger one after Mom left. This room was way too small for him and based on the slightly crumbling walls scattered around the apartment, Trayvon could barely afford to go to school. Only reason why I could even go was because the Treatorian Collective was paying for the school since Dad was the Head of Security. How could his family afford the school? Erika didn’t even seem to care as she looked over at me, her eyes wide. "So… What did I miss? Why are we suddenly watching Barbie movies instead of watching Keisha’s dad? Why did Trayvon look frazzled when I walked in? Like seriously, what did I miss?"

"First off," I explained. "Trayvon’s mom doesn’t know that we have powers and we came up with that excuse on the fly. Ironically enough, that was not my idea. That was Trayvon’s idea."

"Seriously? I didn’t think that he liked Princess and the Pauper that much..." Erika said uneasily.

"Apparently he did because he told his mother that we were going to be coming up with a list on what Barbie movies to force everyone to watch."

"Okay… Let’s look on YouTube to see what Barbie movies they have for free." Erika said, getting out her phone. "But what about the other thing?"

"Trayvon has a crush on Keisha."

Erika dropped her phone on the rough yellow carpet. "I FUCKING KNEW IT!"

"What?"

"I knew Trayvon had a crush on her!"

"Really?"

"Hell yeah! Keisha feels the same way!"

"But how?"

"Ironically enough, Trayvon wasn’t always a jock." Erika said, exiting out of YouTube and clicking into her photo gallery and scrolling down until it was a couple years in the past. She clicked on a picture of her, Keisha, and Trayvon. They all looked much younger, Keisha with small braids in her hair, Erika with her hair much shorter and held back into two braids, and Trayvon with an afro and glasses. "He was a part of team science nerd for the first two years of high school. Then… Something happened and he suddenly got interested in football. He kinda left us in the dark."

"Trayvon? Science?"

"How do you think he got his powers?" Erika asked, rolling her eyes a bit. "We were doing an experiment for Science Olympiad our Sophomore year that involved magnets, he accidentally got caught in the crossfire, and he became a literal human magnet."

My eyes widened. "What kind of science experiments were you guys doing Sophomore year!"

"You don’t want to know."

I paused for a second. "Do you think it could have something to do with Trayvon’s father?"

"Trayvon’s father?" Erika asked, laughing a bit. "I doubt that, highly."

"Why?"

"He’s been out of the picture since he found out Tiana was pregnant."

"Huh?"

"I don’t know all the details, but his father is some famous actor or something. He pays for Trayvon’s school stuff but doesn’t deal with anything actually pertaining to his family."

"I wonder why."

"No idea." Erika said, scrolling through her phone. "But it looks like all of the Barbie movies from the 2000’s are free."

"Okay… What movies do we want to force the guys to watch?"

"So, obviously, we force them to watch Princess and the Popstar because they’ve already seen Princess and the Pauper." Erika said, staring at her phone. "Why don’t we do Diamond Castle?"

"I don’t know..." I said uneasily. "Might be too advanced for them."

"Advanced? Anna, it’s a children’s movie that’s also a musical. How can that be too advanced?" Erika asked, rolling her eyes for a moment before pausing. "Unless… There’s a reason you don’t want to watch it?"

"Is it that obvious?"

"What’s going on?"

"It’s nothing."

"Anna..."

"Okay, fine." I said, sighing heavily. "That was my movie with Zelena."

"Really?"

"I was Liana, obviously because of the blonde hair, and she was Alexa. We always used to say that whatever happened, we’d always be connected, just like them." I explained sadly, thinking back to when Zelena and I were much younger and our lives were much simpler. "I guess it’s even more literal now since we’re connected with our powers and all that."

"Maybe you just need a new buddy to go through life with." Erika said, smiling at me as brightly as she could. "I could apply for that position."

I laughed, rolling my eyes. "Maybe you’re right. I shouldn’t let Zelena define what I can and can’t like."

"Exactly. How about we put that further back on the list and put Magic of Pegasus, both Mermaid Tale movies, and Princess Charm School after Princess and the Popstar." Erika said, making a playlist on her phone. "And then, if we get that far, which I hope we won’t, we can watch Nutcracker, Swan Lake, Twelve Dancing Princesses, Three Musketeers, The Pink Shoes, The Secret Door, and Island Princess. Watching the Fairytopia movies is a whole event, so we should save that for after Homecoming."

"And since we’re waiting until Homecoming for Fairytopia, we can also add Barbie Fairy Secret and the Mariposa series for after Fairytopia."

"Glad we’re in agreement." Erika said, closing down her phone. "Let’s go back out there and wait until Keisha and her dad get here."

"Calvin! Lakeshia! I haven’t seen you two in ages!" Ms. Trevors said happily. The walls of the apartment were were thin, so we could easily hear her from the living room.

"Or they’re already here." I said, walking to the door. "Let’s go. Our duty starts now."

Erika nodded and the two of us walked out of Trayvon’s bedroom and sat down on the couch, watching as Keisha and her father walked inside. Keisha awkwardly sat down on the armrest of the couch. Calvin stood, talking to Ms. Trevors as she took the curlers out of her hair. "I thought I’d stay here and watch the kids while you go to your weekly meetup with the girls, Tiana."

"Now Calvin, you and I both know you don’t have to do that. They’re high school Seniors! They can take care of themselves."

"I know, but just to make sure they don’t get into any… Trouble. This group has had a lot of drama these past couple weeks. With the school finding out personal details about the kids over these past couple weeks, I thought that it might be a good idea to watch them to make sure they don’t get into anymore trouble."

"What kind of personal details?" Ms. Trevors asked, looking over at us.

"Well, someone found out that my parents kicked me out for being gay and posted that on the school rumors website." Callum said, shrugging. "You know, stuff like that."

"What did they-"

"They just talked about Lania, Mom." Trayvon said quickly. "Not that big of a deal."

Ms. Trevors let out a sigh of relief, as if her gang member of a daughter was the least of their worries. "If you say so, honey."

She walked over to Trayvon, hugging him tightly. "I’ll be back before dinner, okay?"

"Okay Mom. I love you."

"I love you too, honey." Ms. Trevors said, walking towards the door. "I’ll see you kids later!"

As soon as Ms. Trevors was out the door, Keisha looked at us cautiously. "So what’s the plan until this whole thing goes down?"

Erika tapped some things on her phone. "I am sending the link to the movies now."

"You two do realize that I was just coming up with an idea on the fly, right? We don’t actually have to watch Barbie movies-"

"We’ve already made a playlist on YouTube." I said, staring at Trayvon seriously. "We don’t kid about Barbie movies in this household."

"But this is my-"

"We’re watching Barbie movies and you are going to be happy about it." Erika said, holding out a finger.

"So what exactly is the plan here?" Calvin asked cautiously. "No offense to you kids, I know you are all capable adults, but how are you kids gonna stop me from handing over the bombs?"

"Who said that we were going to stop the bomb exchange?" I asked, giving Calvin a confused look.

Callum’s eyes widened. "You mean we aren’t stopping him from giving F.E.R.R.E.T. the bombs?"

"No."

"Anna, we love you, but you’re insane. Why would we willingly let F.E.R.R.E.T. get the bombs?" Keisha asked, giving me a perplexed look as she pressed play on Princess and the Popstar, moving the image from her phone onto the TV screen.

"Think about this logically." I said, sighing heavily. "If they get the bombs, we know that whatever their main plan on Saturday is is going to happen. We get the doll now, we spend some time figuring out how to cancel the control and we break your dad out of it. We know that they’re gonna have the doll Jill uses to control Damian there on Saturday. We get the doll, get Damian back on our side, we disable the bombs, we win."

"So… We’re living to fight another day." Trayvon asked, raising an eyebrow for confirmation.

"Essentially, yes."

"So we’re just getting the doll?"

"We’re just getting the doll."

"I thought you kids were going to restrain me or something to stop me from handing over the bombs… Wherever they are." Calvin said nervously.

"You’ll be fine, I promise." I said, motioning to the empty chair in all of our sights. "Now sit down and watch some movies with us. We have a whole list prepared."

Calvin reluctantly sat down and watched the movie with us as Erika and I sang the songs to each of the movies in our seats.

It felt like hours passed, which I knew that they had. The trouble started when Princess Charm School was halfway through. Calvin slowly got out of his seat. Trayvon looked over at him nervously. "Um… Mr. Clark… Are you good? Do you need anything?"

Calvin didn’t answer. He simply opened the door and walked out of the small apartment. Keisha’s face grew in terror as she got up and ran to the window. "It’s happening..."

"How many are out there?" Callum asked.

"Jill and Zelena, so far."

"I gotta go out there." I said, standing up and walking towards the door.

Erika grabbed my hand tightly, as if trying to restrain me. "Anna, think this through. You’re going to get yourself killed out there."

"Not if she doesn’t hit me."

"What is up with your nonexistent self preservation skills?" Trayvon muttered to himself.

"Anna, just stay here!" Callum begged. "Becky, Braylen, and Koda can handle this. If you stay here, you’ll be safe."

"Yeah, but if there’s anything I’ve learned from my premonitions, it’s that they happen for a reason. There’s a reason why Zelena sensed me in my premonition in the alley. I have to be there to figure out why."

"I mean… I don’t think we can argue with that logic..." Erika said, letting go of my wrist.

"Erika, what are you doing?" Keisha asked.

"She got that premonition of me dying and used it to save my life. There has to be a reason why she was sensed in that premonition." Erika said, looking up at me and smiling. "Go."

"Thanks." I said, running out of the apartment and running to the hidden area behind the restaurant that the three were hiding in. I drew my hood up, turning my gaze away from the wall Zelena was leaning against as I ran to hide behind the boxes where Becky, Koda, and Braylen were sitting. "Hey guys."

Braylen’s eyes widened like they were about to bug out of his head. "Anneliese, what part of ‘stay in the apartment’ do you not understand?"

"Okay, look," I said, my voice lowering to a whisper. "There’s a reason why I was in the premonition and saw this."

"And we’re trying to protect you from death." Becky said exhaustedly.

"I got this. I can protect myself. Besides, I came to warn you guys because Calvin walked out of the apartment."

"And you let him!" Braylen harshly whispered.

"I have a plan!"

"Do you now?"

"She always has a plan." Koda said confidently.

"Look, just focus on getting the doll."

"What about the bombs?" Becky asked.

"Don’t worry about them."

"Do you have a concussion or something, because you sound insane. Bonkers! Your head isn’t on right!"

"You guys just gotta trust me. This is going to work." I said, noticing shadows moving on the wall. "They’re coming!"

We all ducked down as Calvin and the kids in F.E.R.R.E.T. walked into the alley. They all talked for a minute, the same stuff I’ve already heard once before, as Jill held the doll in her hands. Then, Jill’s voice perked up. "Z… What are you looking at?"

"Get ready to grab that doll and bolt." I whispered, ready to stand up and run.

"Anna, are you sure-"

"Just follow my lead, Becky!"

"Well, maybe we should kick her out, huh?" Jill suggested.

"I completely agree." Zelena said as I quickly jumped up, the red ball of lightning hitting me in the chest. In an instant, I was suddenly in the air, hovering slightly above the rest of F.E.R.R.E.T. before I came crashing down on them. Braylen ran over, the doll hovering by his face as he held out a hand out to me. I grabbed it as Braylen pulled me up, dragging me back to the apartment.

As soon as we got back inside, Callum rose to his feet. "Did you guys get the doll?"

"Yeah," Braylen said, tossing the doll into Keisha’s lap. "But I think we have bigger issues right now."

"What bigger issues?" I asked, Koda jumping up onto the couch to sit next to Erika.

Becky’s eyes widened. "Do you really not know what you just did?"

"No..." I said hesitantly. "I know that I got hit by Zelena and then I was hovering above the other kids… Why? What happened?"

Becky and Braylen looked at each other nervously. That just made me more anxious. "Guys, seriously. What happened? You’re scaring me."

"You see… The thing is… Braylen, you tell her!"

"Why do I have to tell her?"

"You’re the boyfriend!"

"And that automatically means-"

"You two are making this too difficult." Koda said, looking over at me. "You teleported on top of the bad guys."

"That’s not possible. I don’t have the power to teleport."

"Maybe that was the glitchy effect on you in that security tape." Keisha suggested.

"What did it look like?" Trayvon asked, growing interested.

"Well… Her body kinda dissolved into electricity for a second, then it reappeared above the kids in F.E.R.R.E.T." Becky explained. "She couldn’t have been gone for more than a second."

"Is that really..." I hesitated.

"Yeah. That’s really what happened." Braylen said nervously. "I don’t understand how unless you turned into pure energy, but-"

"I think I do." Erika said, grabbing a piece of paper from the coffee table and a pen, grabbing a magazine to write on.

"Erika, be careful. My mom is gonna kill me if her magazine is ruined!" Trayvon said, slightly panicking.

"You know what a Punnett Square is, right?" Erika asked, drawing a square on the paper.

"Yeah. I passed Freshman Bio. So?"

"Okay, so super powered individuals only account for about 25% of the population, which makes your mother have the recessive genes." Erika said, drawing two lowercase T’s at the top of the square. "And does anyone on your father’s side of the family have powers?"

"Not that I can think of..."

"Okay, so he gets two capitalized T’s." Erika said, doing some quick doodles. "According to this, you should have the same genes as your father and not have any super powers. However, because you still carry the super power gene, you could still get a power through a crazy accident, like you did with the lightning. While the genetics don’t vanish, it does activate the super powered gene. Speaking as though the only super powered gene you could even possibly get is your mother’s teleportation, maybe the lightning jumpstarted that specific power and allowed you to get the teleportation power, albeit in a much different medium than how your mother has it because, let’s be real, getting struck by lightning is a statistical anomaly because of how rare it is, it is believable that you could have gotten some different form of the power."

"Actually, that checks out." Braylen said, tapping his chin. "My mom got her super power after surviving a plane crash when she was a Junior in college and she was the first one in her family that got super powers."

"And Aunt Beth got her powers from eating some pudding that somehow got into the store, despite the fact that it had some radiation poisoning in it." Callum said, shrugging.

"Okay, but how do I control it because I don’t want to do that during school hours." I asked.

"We will figure that out later." Erika said hesitantly. "Right now, we need to figure out how to break the voodoo doll control on Keisha’s dad."

"Right… That’s a thing..." Braylen said, shaking his head.

Keisha looked over at me, holding up the doll. "So… Do you know how this thing works?"

I thought back to the two premonitions where I’ve seen the doll being used, then looked over at the doll. "Not very well. Can I see it?"

"Yeah." Keisha said, handing me the doll. It felt like it was made of burlap, which only made me wonder how Jill even got access to burlap to make the doll. It’s not like anyone wore burlap sacks anymore, so how did she even make the doll? After turning it around in my hands, I kept feeling a surge of energy around the neck where the bracelet was tied.

"Okay… That’s weird." I whispered to myself. What was the source of energy I was feeling?

"What’s weird?" Erika asked.

I handed the doll to her. "You feel anything weird about this?"

"Just the material it’s made of." Erika said, shrugging. "What is it made of? Burlap? Tweed?"

"It’s burlap." Braylen said quickly.

"You mean you instantly recognize stuff like this?" Becky asked, giving him a confused look.

"I'm a prince, remember? I know extremely weird stuff."

"Time out. You mean you can’t feel anything weird around here?" I asked, pointing to the neck of the doll where the bracelet was wrapped around.

"No… All I feel is the bracelet. Why?" Erika asked.

I grabbed the doll back, feeling the surge of energy by the neck once again. "Maybe..."

"Maybe what?" Keisha asked nervously.

Ignoring her question, I found the bow that had the ends of the bracelet connected, untying it from the neck. Once it was off, the energy seemed to just disappear from the doll. Calvin came running into the apartment, a look of pure terror on his face. "Did you kids get the doll?"

"Yeah." Callum said uneasily.

"Well, did you break the control they have on me?"

I held up the doll to my mouth. "Um… Spin in a circle and do the chicken dance!"

Trayvon rolled his eyes. "Really? The chicken dance?"

"It was all I could think of, okay?"

Calvin just awkwardly stood at the doorway, standing still. Keisha smiled uneasily. "So… Do you feel the urge to do the chicken dance, Dad?"

"No." Calvin said, smiling happily. "Thank you guys so much!"

"I think this belongs to you." I said, getting up and handing him the bracelet. Calvin smiled, happily tying it back onto his wrist.

"How did you know to do that?" Koda asked.

"What?"

"How did you know how to break the control?"

"It was a feeling." I said quickly. "I don’t know how to explain it, but when I held it in my hands, I just felt some extreme energy source by the bracelet. When I took it off, the energy disappeared."

"So what, you can sense energy now?" Becky asked exhaustedly. "How many powers are you going to get exactly?"

"How am I supposed to know that, Becky? It’s not like I can see the future!" I said, then realized what I said. "Well, I can, but… You know what the heck I mean, Becky!"

"You mean you have more powers?" Calvin asked, looking at me uneasily.

"If I had any control over what powers I could get, I’d stop right now, believe me." I said, sighing heavily.

The door opened back up as Ms. Trevors opened the door. She looked at the gathered teenagers, her eyes widened. "Trayvon, there’s a lot more people here than you told me there would be. What happened while I was gone?"

"Nothing, Mom. We’re just watching Barbie movies and Becky, Edward, and his dog showed up." Trayvon said nervously.

"Well… I was going to make burgers for you kids, but why don’t I order you kids some pizza instead?" Ms. Trevors suggested.

We all nodded in agreement and continued watching the movie, scared to address the elephant in the room: my new power and how that would affect whatever was going down on Saturday.

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