Enders

Enders (23)

I had been training with Tom nearly every day since I had woken up. He was still completely insufferable, but I couldn't deny that he was a good teacher. He wasn't afraid to answer any questions I had, no matter what they were. Even though I couldn't remember much from before I had woken up, I felt like I'd learned more than I ever had before.

Of course, I could've lived without these lessons being only between me and him, but I guess there was nothing I could do about it, considering the only other people that seemed to be in this place with us were Striker and Carmine, who I liked even less than Tom. I'd rather have private lessons with Tom than either of them any day.

Training would switch between physical activity and sitting in my bedroom listening to Tom go on about whatever information he thought I needed to know. Most of it was about Enders, since he thought I needed to know absolutely everything about what I was before I went out into any type of battle. And as much as I detested him, I did agree.

"I want you to name off all the unique powers Enders have," Tom ordered, his eyes narrowing at me expectantly. I raised an eyebrow back at him as if to challenge him for trying to tell me what to do. "We've been going over it for days now. You should know exactly what you can do and how you can do it."

"We have bullet-proof skin," I relayed, going through a checklist in my head. "We can detect the feelings of others. We can take powers from and give powers to whoever we want, and if we don't stop while taking people's powers away, we can even steal their life-force until they're dead."

Tom didn't seem quite satisfied yet. "And?"

"And then their powers are basically useless, because they die with who they originally belonged to," I continued, sneering a little because I hadn't finished explaining before he had interrupted me.

"You're forgetting one," was all he said now, his arms crossed over his chest.

My eyebrows furrowed at him. "What?"

"You're forgetting one," he repeated, raising an eyebrow at me. "You know...? If you get hurt by a loved one..."

"It takes longer to heal than if we get hurt regularly," I finished, the answer coming to my head immediately. I couldn't believe I'd actually forgotten it. "Enders have much faster healing abilities than the regular superhuman unless we're hurt by someone we care very much for. Then it takes just as long as a regular superhuman, maybe even longer depending on the injury and who exactly inflicted it."

Tom nodded his head in approval. "Good."

"I don't get why, though," I continued, even though he hadn't asked for my personal opinion.

"Enders are all about emotions," he began to explain, leaning against the desk I was sitting at and looking over his shoulder at me. "Your emotions control everything. If you feel too much of a negative emotion, your powers go haywire, your eyes turn black, you can hardly control what you do. That's why you always want to be feeling a positive emotion, or completely indifferent to everything. I'd prefer you be the latter."

It felt like I couldn't be anything else but indifferent, except maybe slightly annoyed since Tom always seemed to be on my nerves somehow. But that was better than losing control and doing who knew what when I was angry.

"I think it's finally time for us to meet our little DAU friends," Tom smirked as he made his way closer, his hand stroking my hair up and down as he stood above me. I glared at him, but did nothing to make him stop. "Of course, we're going to have to prep you on who exactly they are beforehand."

Suddenly, there was a knock on my door, which I was a little thankful for since Tom was too close for my liking. I told whoever it was that they could come in, though I didn't really want to because I knew it was either Striker or Carmine. But as long as they made Tom get away from me, I didn't care.