Manipulate
Chapter Eighteen

The bell rings at the end of dinner. I dump my remaining food into the trash can. Alia and Max order the unit to go to the dorm. But they tell me to come with them. My mind is racing. My heartbeats faster than normal.

Max and Alia guide me down the many hallways toward Rae’s office. My heart beats in my throat. I’m nervous and I don’t know what I did wrong.

Alia knocks on Rae’s door. My body freezes. Rae answers the door with a smile. But her face is serious. My breath gets caught in my throat. Oh my God. What did I do? I think.

“Abhaya, come in please,” Rae orders.

I take in a deep breath and follow Rae into her office.

“Take a seat please, Abhaya,” Rae says in a normal voice.

I sit. But I can still feel my heart beating faster with every second passing by.

Rae sits at her desk with her hands folded neatly. “Just to clarify, you are not in trouble, Abhaya. I just want to talk with you.”

My body stiffens as she speaks. “What did I do wrong?” I manage to whisper.

I slouch in the chair as Rae looks at me.

Rae looks at me with her kind, brown, creased eyes. “Abhaya, I don’t know why you think that you’re in trouble. Because you’re not. Let me just say this for starters, we might need to start training you earlier than we expected.”

My blood stops for a second. “Why?”

“I’m glad that you’re curious,” Rae starts. She stands up out of her chair and starts pacing the room. “Here’s the thing, here in TID normally one person possesses one power. Not three. You on the other hand poses three. That makes you a threat to the government and to yourself. And from my observations, your powers seem to be showing more and more. You manipulated time this morning at breakfast and that rose some suspicion about you.” Rae concludes.

I knew it. I knew I did something wrong, I think.

Rae sits back down in her seat. “Abhaya, have you ever noticed when you change the time?”

“I do feel it sometimes. When I was younger it made no sense to me. But recently I’ve been noticing it more.”

“Why do you think this happens?” Rae questions

“It normally happens because of my anxiety or when my stepmother would lock me in my room.”

“She locked you in your room, so you found that you can manipulate time then? Am I correct?” Rae asks.

“Yes,” I whisper.

Rae nods and accepts my answer. “Did you know that you have stronger hearing and you can see into the past?” Rae asks, breaking the silence.

“I knew I had strong hearing. But I never knew that I could see into the past,” I state.

“Abhaya, you need to listen to me. You need to stay within TID, or else the government will replace you. They will run tests on you. They did it to your mom and her mom and so on.”

My heart stops. I stop breathing. Mom. Mom was captured by the government.