Jane shook her head. “How am I supposed to know if it takes you?”

“He screams,” Lily said softly.

“Can you do it? You’ll have to force me awake. It might take … the connection between us to do it. We know … when we’re together, it can’t reach me.”

“Earl isn’t going to like that,” Ryan said.

“Earl?” Jane raised an eyebrow.

“One of the bastards up there,” Ryan pointed up. “He spent a lot of time in my head, and vice versa. So I know they see us as lower than rats in a maze, and they’re just watching to see how successful we are on our world in destroying each other. Whatever works, they’ll just duplicate it elsewhere. We’re just a testing site. If they didn’t count on William having this much control, once they have him, they won’t let him go.”

William stood and walked over to one of the seats. He sighed, hearing Jane rise and come and sit beside him.

“It comes at me all the time now,” he said. “It will be quick.”

She nodded.

He slowed his breath. Before he shut his eyes, he thought of the flames, and the eyes.

Before he could even begin to venture into the dark, it had him.

Jane watched him flinch, and she instinctively reached out to squeeze his hand. William then seemed to calm, the tension in his face softening.

My God, she thought. How is this happening to us?

Even though she was still angry with William and harbored a real worry that even he wasn’t truly in control of himself, she did believe him. That he wanted to stop this.

She looked back to Lily and Ryan, who were both now looking out the windows. Just two kids. Handling this as an adult was one thing. But children? She could only imagine what it would be like to be a hormonal teenager and wake up one day to realize you could make people kill each other with a flick of your wrist. Or what about Lily? Close your eyes and give people diseases. How can a child even comprehend that? And somewhere, out there in the smoke, was someone who was burning the very world around him.

And let us not forget yourself, dear doctor. Who ruined the city you love with wind and rain? How many people died in those hurricanes you summoned? How many homes and businesses were destroyed when you had the dreams of storms?

She knew it wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t William’s fault. They were only instruments in the hands of what—aliens? She couldn’t even say the word. It was all too ludicrous. You are a woman of science, of facts and proven theories.