“Mr. Prowler, I’m James Stapleton. We’re here to talk to you about the Gadramicks.”
“I don’t want to hear about them. I want nothing to do with the Gadramicks. You’re on your own,” he says as he starts to close the door. I run past Colton and bound up the front stairs to stop him before the door shuts.
“Mr. Prowler, will you please just hear us out.” I flinch again as Colton’s anger hits me. The sound of footsteps on the gravel echoes behind me, and I know that if I look back, Colton will be right there. That’s why I remain looking ahead. Mr. Prowler towers over me as he stares at me from inside the house.
“It’s you. You’re the one.” He didn’t say it as a question, so I just nod. His suspicion starts to disappear as curiosity takes over. I’m not what you would expect for the girl who’s supposed to stop a magical war. He looks over me at all the mages in the driveway. I hear someone walking around the inside of the house.
“Honey, who’s at the door?” a feminine voice yells from inside. A tall brunette woman walks up to the door and looks out, eyes widening as she sees everyone standing in her driveway. “What’s going on?”
“My name is Ryanne Arden, and I need your help.”
“Dan, calm down. Let’s hear what she has to say,” Mrs. Prowler says. When she places her hand on his arm and pulls him back, Mr. Prowler steps away from the door and motions for us to come in. Colton grabs my hand and enters the house first. After assuring that it is safe, he pulls me in after him. He’s still angry with me, but now he’s the suspicious one. He is worried the Prowlers are up to something.
“Not everyone is out to get me, you know,” I whisper to him as we walk into their living room. Colton looks down at me, confused as to how I know about his concern, but doesn’t question me. Mr. Prowler glares at me as we enter into the living room. My steps falter with the anger that is again directed at me. Colton’s grip on my hand tightens, and he pulls me to his side to steady me. Everyone else walks into the room and stops, confused as to what is going on. I grab my chest as it tightens inhibiting any air flow. I can’t breathe. There are too many emotions flowing into me for me to do anything but panic.
“Ryanne, what’s wrong?” Colton asks. I close my eyes and lean into him, trying to coerce oxygen into my lungs. My knees give out and arms wrap around my waist, keeping me upright. Confusion and worry trump the anger as my body starts to shake.
“What’s going on?” Emma asks.
“Everyone calm down. Control your emotions. She’s going to be fine,” Liam says. “Ryanne look at me.” I shake my head vigorously. I can’t. “Trust me,” he pleads with me. His voice sounds very close. The arm around my waist tightens as I try to stand on my own.
Slowly, I open my eyelids and look up at my protector. The waves of emotions increase. I whimper and stumble back again. Liam crouches down like he did earlier and places his hands on either side of my face, forcing me to look at him. “Push them to the back of your mind. Think about how you control the thoughts. Their emotions are no different. Push them into the background and lock them away. I know you can do this.”
Closing my eyes, I look for their emotions. Right now, the feelings are just swirling around my mind. I can’t gather anything. They’re too jumbled. My thought box has cracked open and now those are seeping out as well. I can’t even tell which emotions belong to whom. “I can’t.”
“Think about everything you’re feeling. Compartmentalize all those feeling into similar categories. You can do this, Ryanne. You are so strong and capable of doing this. I’ve seen you do some pretty amazing things. Like I said before, you’re Ryanne freaking Arden.” I can hear the smile in his voice as he speaks.
His encouragement flows through me, giving me the support that I need. The emotions seem to be categorized with colors. Confusion is a blue green. Concern is a dull gray and anger is red. I push everyone’s emotions into groups based on their color and stack the colors onto one another, creating one tall stack of varying color blocks. Mentally, I push the emotions into the back, visualizing them being locked into a box. I hear a single click of a lock being turned and slowly open my eyes now that I’m no longer being bombarded with emotions.
“Thank you, Liam.” I don’t know how he knew about the emotions, but I’m glad he was here.
“Anytime.”
“What just happened?” Emma asks me.
“I think I can sense emotions too. I don’t know. All of the sudden, I started getting all these feelings. I knew Mr. Prowler was very suspicious of us, and then he got very angry at me. Colton was really mad at me for walking away from him, and then he got really suspicious of Mr. Prowler. You guys all got worried and confused at the same time. It became really hard to breathe because I was overwhelmed with all your emotions at one time.”