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8
Cups. Make them move.”
Nick looked down at the glass cups she’d brought up from the kitchen. Jazz had set them down in a line on the attic floor. All were empty. Jazz said she didn’t get water because knowing Nick, if it worked, they’d both get wet and her sweater was dry-clean only. He had to hand it to her for having her priorities straight (at least for Jazz) in the middle of … well. Whatever this was.
“Okay, okay.” He shook out his shoulders, wiggling his arms and hands. “Cups. I can do this. They’re just cups. Little glass cups. Focus. Focus.” He took a deep breath, letting it out slow. And like his mother had, he raised his hand up, palm facing the glasses lining the floor. He crooked his fingers as he began to strain, teeth grinding together.
Nothing happened.
“Powers activate!”
Nothing.
“Invisible Glass Smash!”
Jazz started laughing. “What? Why did you say that?”
He glared at her, hand still outstretched. “The name of the move I’m trying to do. Everyone knows that when you perform a move, you say the name of it.”
“Oh, if everyone knows that, then keep going.”
“I would if you’d stop laughing. Hurling Cup of Death!”
She did not stop laughing. If anything, she laughed harder. “Oh my god, this isamazing. Say something else. Wait, I’ve got one. Flying Cup of Eternity!”
“Flying Cup of Eternity!” Nick bellowed, curling his hand into a fist.
The cups didn’t move.
Nick dropped his hand. “This is stupid. I don’t have powers, Jazz. You were right when you said we’d have seen something by now.” He was getting angry, but he didn’t know at whom. Maybe everybody. Dad, for keeping their shared history from him. Mom, for doing what she could and not being here to tell him why. Burke, for existing. Owen, for trying to kill him and his friends. Seth, for … well, for nothing, because Seth was perfect.
Jazz wasn’t laughing anymore. “Nick, calm down, okay? You’re starting to breathe fast again.” She placed her hand on his arm. “You’re okay. We don’t have to do anything now if you’re not ready. It might be better if we pump the brakes and think.”
He shook his head. “I need to talk to Dad. I gotta hear this from him. If he’s—” He swallowed past the lump in his throat. “If he kept this from me, I need to know why.” Andtherewas his anger, bright and glassy. They should’ve told him. Secrets. It always came down to secrets, and Nick was sick of it.
A lance of pain burst through his head, and Nick groaned, bending over and wrapping his arms around his waist. The whisper in the back of his mind—that low, unintelligible voice—began to roar, and hefeltit. He felt it down to his bones, a strangeness he couldn’t escape. He heard Jazz’s worried voice near him, but he couldn’t focus on what she was saying. He gritted his teeth as the headache came for him with a vengeance, pulsing slickly, causing his gorge to rise. He tasted bile in the back of his throat, and just when he thought he couldn’t take it anymore, just when he expected to be consumed by it, he grabbed hold of it. It wriggled furiously like it was alive, and Nick whispered, “No.”
His headache disappeared as quickly as it came. He blinked slowly as his head cleared, back popping as he pulled himself to his full height. He turned to Jazz, an apology on the tip of his tongue, but it died at the look on her face.
Her eyes were wide, her jaw dropped, bottom lip quivering. But she wasn’t staring at him.
“What?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”
She reached up and took his chin in her hand, turning his head toward the hatch.
The four cups were floating in midair. The one on the right spun in slow circles. The one on the left moved up and down, up and down. The middle two clinked together gently, the sound dull in the attic.
“You’re doing it,” Jazz whispered.
He watched as the cups began to spin in concentric circles, wider and faster. He took a step back when one of the cups passed right in front of him, whistling as it sliced through the air. “Ha, ha,” he said weakly. “Okay, I’m done now. Cups, fall down. Cease and desist! Cups,stop.”
They didn’t stop. They moved faster, but he managed to grab Jazz in time and pull her down as one of the cups rocketed toward them. Jazz gasped as it shattered against the wall. “Turn it off!”
“I don’t knowhow!” Nick shouted at her as another cup shot toward them. Jazz shoved him out of the way as the glass smashed against the ground where Nick had been standing only a second before. He fell to his knees as the boxes around him began to shudder and shake. A plastic tub flipped on its side, spilling out old books and papers. The books rose from the floor, the pages fluttering and snapping. He flinched when the broken television righted itself, the power cord whipping back and forth.
He pushed himself up, grabbing Jazz by the hand as the attic began to rumble. She moved quickly, following him as he pulled her toward the ladder. He looked back over his shoulder as he made her go down first.
Every single box and tub in the attic was floating inches off the floor.
