Chapter 9

As it turned out, Ara had gotten back to them fairly quickly about the next meeting. He had told Dallas that they would be meeting at Ara’s house that Wednesday at seven thirty. He also mentioned that Tristan would give him a ride if he needed one. It was an offer that Dallas wasn’t originally going to accept, but when Wednesday came around and it was pouring rain yet again, bussing into West Vancouver suddenly became a lot less appealing.

Tristan picked him up just before seven at a Starbucks that was close to Dallas’ house. He was a bit surprised to see that Kaitlyn was sitting in the passenger’s seat.

“Hey Dallas,” She said cheerfully when he slid into the seat behind her.

“Hi,” Dallas said, “I didn’t know you’d be here.”

“She’s staying at my place,” Tristan said, “Andor doesn’t really have much room in his apartment. We were going to pick him up too, but apparently he’s actually working today.”

“He’s actually working today?” Dallas repeated, “Does he normally not work or something?”

“Andor does freelance work,” Tristan explained, “He only works when there’s work for him to do, which is not very often. I’m pretty sure that most of his money comes from his parents.”

“Really?” Kaitlyn said, “He made it sound like he didn’t get along with them very well.”

Tristan shrugged. “They tolerate each other,” He said, “There was a bit of a falling out back when Andor was in high school. It was pretty bad from my understanding. I don’t think Andor ever really got over it, since he only talks to his parents like, once or twice a year. It’s not really my place to talk about it though. Anyways,” He looked at Dallas in the rearview mirror. “You’re in grade twelve, right?”

“Yeah,” Dallas said, “I don’t know what I want to do next. If that was the conversation you wanted to have, then I’m sorry.”

“It’s ok, Dallas,” Kaitlyn said, “I’ve been out of high school for a few months and I still don’t know what I’m doing after high school.”

“Ara said you were thinking about applying to some schools out here,” Tristan said.

“I’ve thought about it,” Kaitlyn said, “But I don’t really know what I want to study. People say that I should go into some kind of medical field because I’m good at science stuff. I don’t know though, it’s not something I can see myself doing.”

“Why not?” Tristan asked, “If you're good at it then it may be worth considering.”

“Well, I don’t really like it,” Kaitlyn said.

“Ah,” Tristan said, “Well, I guess that’s one good reason right there. But, whatever you decide on I’m sure you’ll have a great time. University can be fun once you survive all the papers and exams. It’s not so bad, really.”

“Didn’t you meet Ara in university?” Dallas asked, recalling his first conversation with Tristan. He wasn’t too sure how he felt about being on a first name basis with his psychologist after such a short period of time.

“We sure did,” Tristan said, “We shared a dorm in our first year and we’ve been pretty much inseparable ever since. We even live in the same overpriced townhouse complex. Speaking of which, we’re almost here.”

About five minutes later, Tristan pulled up in front of a driveway of a small, nondescript townhouse. “I’ll let you two off here,” He said, “I’m going to bring my car back to my place. Tell Ara I’ll see him in a few minutes.”

Dallas and Kaitlyn got out of the car and watched as Tristan drove off.

You guys can come in, Ara said to them mentally, You don’t have to knock or anything. Just come in.

“You know,” Dallas said as they walked up to the front door, “I think it’s going to take me a while to get used to this telepathic communication thing.”

“Same,” Kaitlyn said, “But I feel better knowing I’m not the only one who can do it. I had started looking for my biological parents to see if maybe there was something that they would know, but then Andor showed up.”

“Your biological parents?” Dallas said, “You’re adopted?”

“Yeah,” Kaitlyn said, “I suppose that’s less obvious if you haven’t seen a family picture. My parents are white, and my brother’s Cambodian. My real parents lived in Beijing though.”

“Do you know what happened to them?” Dallas asked.

“No,” Kaitlyn said, as she opened Ara’s front door, “I like to think they’re looking for me somewhere. At the same time though, I think that if they were really motivated to find me, then they probably would have done so by now.”

“Hey,” Ara called, cutting off any further conversation. He was sitting on a dull grey couch, holding a laptop.

“Hi,” Kaitlyn said, “Tristan dropped us off. He’s just---”

“Parking his car,” Ara said, “I know. Andor should be here pretty soon. Why don’t you two go find Paolo? He’s upstairs somewhere, I think.”

Dallas couldn’t help but to notice that Ara seemed a little more jumpy than he had been the last time they met. He wondered if this was normal for him, but it was difficult to tell since they had only met in person once.

“Everything ok, Ara?” Kaitlyn asked.

“Not really,” Ara said, looking back down at his computer screen, “But we’ll talk about it later when everyone is here.” He took a deep breath, and added, “I’m sure we’ll be able to work through it.”

“Oh, are you showing them that weird email?” Dallas looked over, and saw Paolo standing on the stairs.

“No, I wasn’t,” Ara said, “But I never exactly showed you either.”

“You’ve been stressing out about it for a while,” Paolo said. He looked at Dallas and Kaitlyn and said, “I don’t know what it says really, but I get the feeling he’s trying to downplay it a little bit.”

“Only a little bit,” Ara muttered, “I’ll show it to you when Andor and Tristan....” He glanced over to the front door. “Never mind, they’re here.”

The front door opened, and Tristan walked in with Andor close behind. “Hey guys,” Andor called as he slammed the door behind him, “Did we miss anything important?”

“No,” Ara said, “Everyone just arrived.”

“Well, actually,” Paolo said, “Ara was just about to show us this weird email he got. Isn’t that right?”

“What do you mean by a weird email?” Tristan asked in a concerned tone, “I’m guessing this is something a little more than the average spam email, right?”

Ara opened his laptop. “See for yourself,” He said.

Dallas walked over to the couch where Ara was sitting. Even without reading Ara’s mind, Dallas could tell that he was stressed out about the email. He leaned over, and started to read:

To: Ara Azarian

From: Unknown Sender

Subject:

Ara, you don’t know who I am but I need you to take this very seriously. I want  you to reveal your powers to the world. I know this may be a difficult thing for you to do, which is why I am leaving you with a choice: Either reveal your powers, or leave me a cheque for $15,000. This is not a bargain. If you fail to do either of those things by next Wednesday, the consequences will be very serious.

“Well,” Dallas said, “That seems very shady.” He wasn’t too sure what to make of the email. Whoever sent it was threatening Ara. Would they come after him next? Dallas didn’t even want to think about it.

“You’re being blackmailed, Ara,” Tristan said, “This person obviously knows a bit about you.”

“I know that, thanks,” Ara snapped, “I just don’t know what I should do about it. I don’t want to tell anyone about my powers, but I don’t exactly want to hand over fifteen grand. I’m not exactly swimming in cash here.”

“So what do you plan on doing about it?” Andor said, “This guy wants you to do one of two things. And if you don’t he’ll kill all your friends and family, so you better come up with something.”

Ara turned and faced Andor, who was sitting on the back of the couch. “Did we just read the same email?” Ara asked, in an unamused voice, “Because I don’t see anything about killing my friends and family.”

“It said something about very serious consequences,” Andor said, “So it could mean killing everyone you’ve ever cared for. Do you really want to find out?”

“No, Andor, I don’t,” Ara said, his voice crescendoing, “But I don’t have a solution, and neither do you. Unless someone has something that will fix this, then just be quiet!”

“I… I might know a way,” Paolo said quietly.

“Go on,” Ara sighed.

“It’s not really ideal,” Paolo said, “But if we split up into groups and hit up a bunch of casinos we could use our powers to rig some of the games and get some money.”

“That is a horrible idea,” Ara said, “Forget it.”

“It may be a horrible idea,” Kaitlyn said, “But it’s the only one we have at this point.”

“Say we did do this,” Ara said, closing his laptop, “Tristan can’t help us rig the games, and Dallas isn’t even legally allowed in casinos. That puts us down two people.”

“I have a fake ID from when I was in college,” Andor said, “It might be able to get Dallas in.”

“Yeah,” Dallas muttered, “If the bouncers are blind.”

“I had blond hair once,” Andor said, “It may work. You know they don’t really look at it that closely.”

“I still don’t think it’ll work,” Dallas said.

“If you don’t want to do this,” Ara said, “Then just say so.”

“I don’t want to do it,” Dallas said, “I mean, I want to help you guys but if something goes wrong my parents are going to have a lot of questions.”

“Good to know that at least one of us still has a conscience,” Ara sighed, “Before I say that we’re doing this, does anyone have a better solution?” He looked at each person in the room. “No one? Ok. I guess we’ll be heading to some casinos then.”

Author's Note

So basically this ended up being a lot longer than I'd intended it to be. I felt like I needed to shed some light on Kaitlyn and Andor's characters, so I added some things that I wasn't originally going to add. But if you read all that, give yourself a pat on the back or something. Also if you told me your thoughts so far, that would also be really nice.