Chapter 12 Hidden Powers

Emma Stone - POV

Consciousness returns slowly, like swimming up from black water. The procedure room spins around me, emergency lighting casting everything in hellish red. My head throbs where Ryan drilled into my skull, but through the pain, I can sense things I've never perceived before.

Kane stands beside the equipment rack, her body radiating energy patterns that make my enhanced vision ache. She's not just psychically gifted—she's bound to someone. Multiple someones. Power flows through her in ways that mirror my own connection to Ryan, Blake, Cole, and Kai, but hers feels older, more refined.

"The equipment failure is temporary," Kane says, checking her watch with casual confidence. "Dr. Cross, we need to complete the procedure before—"

"You're a conduit." The words scrape out of my throat, raw and certain. "You were never rejected. You succeeded."

Kane's fingers pause on her clipboard. "Emma, you're experiencing post-surgical disorientation. Please remain still while we—"

"Stop lying to me!" The shout sends another wave of psychic energy through the room, making the emergency lights flicker. "I can see you now. The energy, the connections—you're bound to four people just like I am."

Ryan steadies himself against the wall, still overwhelmed by experiencing physical sensation through our amplified bond. Through our connection, I feel his medical mind racing to understand what he's witnessing.

Kane's professional mask finally cracks. "You want the truth, Emma? Fine. I wasn't rejected as a conduit—I was the most successful one in fifty years. My binding lasted eight years before I learned something your precious heirs haven't figured out yet."

"What?"

"How to choose my own successors. How to transfer the binding to people who actually deserve the power." Kane moves closer, her hidden abilities no longer concealed. "People I raised specifically for that purpose."

The room tilts around me. "What are you talking about?"

"Did you really think your foster care placements were random? That it was coincidence how certain children always seemed to understand your... quirks?" Kane's smile turns predatory. "I spent years identifying enhanced children and arranging their placement with your families. Marcus, Sarah, Tommy, Luke—they were my students long before they were your siblings."

The names hit me like physical blows. Images flood my mind—Marcus calming me during my first precognitive episode when I was twelve. Sarah helping me hide floating objects from our foster mother. Tommy and Luke working together to convince caseworkers that the strange incidents around me were just accidents.

"No." I try to sit up, but dizziness forces me back down. "They were just kids who accepted me. Who didn't think I was broken."

"They were enhanced children I trained to recognize and nurture your abilities. Every 'coincidence' that brought them into your life was carefully orchestrated." Kane pulls out her phone, scrolling to a photo that makes my heart stop. "Marcus specifically has been asking about you for years."

The picture shows my foster brother at what looks like a college campus. He's taller now, broader through the shoulders, but his gentle brown eyes are exactly the same. Standing beside him are Sarah, Tommy, and Luke—all grown up, all wearing expressions of determined focus I remember from our childhood.

"They've been training together since you aged out of the system," Kane continues. "Practicing the binding transfer ritual, perfecting their abilities, preparing for the day they could offer you a real choice."

"Choice?" The word tastes like ash.

"Your university boys forced their way into your life through fear and desperation. They bound you without consent, using ritual and coercion to claim power they weren't prepared to handle." Kane's voice turns almost gentle. "My children—your siblings—will offer you something completely different. A voluntary binding based on love, trust, and genuine compatibility."

Through the psychic bond, I feel Ryan's growing alarm as his medical knowledge processes Kane's words. "Emma, the enhancement I gave you—it's designed to require stable psychic feedback loops. If the current binding is incompatible—"

"Your heirs will burn out within weeks," Kane finishes. "Their nervous systems can't handle the power levels you're generating. The binding will consume them from the inside out."

Terror floods through me. "That's not true."

"Dr. Cross knows I'm right. Check his medical readings. The neurotropic compound he used creates unstable enhancement without proper grounding. Your current heirs lack the psychological framework to survive prolonged exposure to your amplified abilities."

Ryan's face goes pale as he examines the procedure data. Through our bond, I feel his devastating realization that Kane might be correct.

"But there's still time to save everyone," Kane continues softly. "My children arrive tonight for Founder's Day. Marcus specifically requested assignment to Legacy Hall—your dormitory. He's missed you terribly, Emma."

"Marcus is coming here?" The question comes out strangled. I haven't seen him in three years, not since turning eighteen separated us into different lives. He was the one constant in my chaotic childhood, the only person who never made me feel like a freak.

"He'll be here by midnight. Pre-med program, just like Dr. Cross. His abilities manifest through medical intuition—he can diagnose illness through touch, accelerate healing with energy transfer." Kane's expression turns almost maternal. "He's become everything I hoped he would. They all have."

The procedure room door rattles as footsteps thunder down the corridor. Cole's presence fills the hallway like approaching thunder, mixed with Blake's analytical fury and Kai's manic energy.

Kane doesn't even flinch at the approaching danger. "Think carefully about your next choice, Emma. Cling to a binding that's killing everyone you love, or embrace the family that's been preparing to save you all along."

She backs toward what looks like a maintenance panel, her fingers dancing over hidden controls. A section of wall slides away, revealing a corridor that doesn't appear on any campus map I've ever seen.

"The boys coming down that hallway forced their way into your life through violence and manipulation," Kane says, pausing in the hidden doorway. "Tomorrow, your real family will offer you freedom. The choice will be entirely yours."

The main door explodes inward as Cole's massive frame fills the entrance. His eyes scan for immediate threats, but Kane has already vanished into the secret passage.

Through my enhanced abilities, I sense a familiar presence approaching the university grounds. A psychic signature I'd recognize anywhere, one that's been part of my heart since childhood.

Marcus is coming to Blackwood. And if Kane is telling the truth about the unstable binding, his arrival might be the only thing standing between me and watching the four men I've grown to care about burn alive from the inside out.