Damien and I were sitting on what has become our bench, in a nearly empty and freezing cold park, sipping coffee and talking about his ability. He was explaining how it worked to me—how it wasn’t mind control at all, but that his wants were so strong that they would go into other people, make them want the same thing. I know that my dreamdiving has its downsides but the way Damien talked about his power made my issues pale in comparison.

“So I never really know what anyone wants,” he said sadly. “Or if anyone actually cares about me for me.”

“Sheesh, that’s so rough.” I winced.

“Yeah…” He nodded. “It’s just—people have always assumed I’m a bad person because I influence people, but it’s not my fault, you know? I can’t control what my ability does.”

“I know what you mean,” I said. “And it’s like people with good control just forget what it’s like to not have control. My brother used to read our minds without asking all the time and now he gets annoyed when I go into his dreams. It’s totally unfair.”

“Exactly,” he agreed. “And just because we have abilities that affect other people’s minds, doesn’t mean that we’re worse than other Atypicals with more straightforward abilities. I had this friend once—Blaze—he was a pyrokinetic, and his power was totally out of control, he was constantly burning stuff, but the rest of our friends just felt bad for him, because he couldn’t control it.”

“Well, it sounds like it wasn’t his fault,” I pointed out.

“That’s exactly my point,” he said. “It’s not my fault either.”

Something in the back of my brain itched at that. I understood what Damien was saying, that just because we have powers that can embarrass people or invade privacy, we’re unfairly maligned. But I also don’t know that we can say it’s not our fault. It’s not our fault that we have the powers we do, but the way we use them is up to us. I think.

I didn’t say any of that though, because I was distracted by Damien telling me more about his friend Blaze. And guess what? Blaze had ALSO been kidnapped, ten years ago, but by a totally different group, one Damien doesn’t even know the name of. And all the experimenting they did on him made his pyrokinesis go totally wild.