Chapter 5 The Game Begins

Emma Stone POV

I corner the four men in Ryan's room an hour after my meeting with Dr. Kane, my hands still shaking from the vision.

"Tell me about Vera Kane," I demand, closing the door behind me. "And don't lie to me. I can feel it when you lie now."

The connection between us has grown stronger since yesterday. Their emotions hit me in waves - Ryan's clinical worry, Blake's calculating concern, Cole's protective anger, and Kai's chaotic fear. They're scared of her too.

"Sit down," Ryan says, gesturing to his desk chair. "This is going to take a while."

"I don't want to sit down. I want answers."

Blake runs a hand through his golden hair. "Dr. Kane was supposed to be a conduit twenty years ago. She had the bloodline, the abilities, everything we look for."

"What happened?"

"She failed the binding," Cole says bluntly. "Her mind couldn't handle the connection. She went into a coma for six months."

"When she woke up," Ryan continues, "her abilities were gone, but her obsession with getting them back wasn't. She's spent two decades studying conduits, trying to figure out how to steal what she couldn't earn."

Kai pulls out his sketchpad, flipping to a page covered in dark, twisted images. "She's been in my visions for months. Always in the background, always watching. I thought she was just a teacher."

"She's not just a teacher," Blake says grimly. "She's been manipulating events to get close to you. Your transfer from community college? She arranged it. The library shift that put you in the restricted section? She influenced the scheduling. Even your roommate getting that economics class - Kane made sure you'd be alone in your room that night."

The room spins around me. "She's been controlling my life for months?"

"Planning it," Ryan corrects. "Kane doesn't leave anything to chance."

I sink into the chair, overwhelmed. "What does she want from me?"

"Your abilities," Cole says. "But not through binding. She's developed a way to transfer psychic powers permanently."

"Transfer them how?"

The four men exchange looks that make my stomach clench.

"We're not sure," Blake admits. "But her research involves surgical extraction of neural tissue from active conduits."

"You mean she wants to cut out pieces of my brain?"

"In simple terms, yes," Ryan says with his usual brutal honesty.

Rage builds in my chest, hot and bright. Through our connection, I feel the men react to my anger - Ryan's pulse spikes, Blake takes a step back, Cole's hands curl into fists, and Kai's eyes light up with excitement.

"Well," I say, voice deadly calm. "If she wants a war, she can have one."

Over the next few days, Dr. Kane begins my "education" with twice-weekly psychology sessions in her private office. The room smells like lavender and lies, with diplomas covering every wall and a leather chair that's probably worth more than my old car.

"Tell me about your earliest psychic experience," she says during our first session, pen poised over a yellow notepad.

"I was seven. I knew my goldfish was going to die before it happened."

She writes something down. "How did you know?"

"It felt wrong. Like its colors were too bright, too desperate."

More scribbling. "Have you ever influenced someone else's emotions?"

I think about the connection with Ryan, Blake, Cole, and Kai. How I can feel their feelings and sometimes push my own emotions back to them.

"No," I lied.

Dr. Kane's pen stops moving. She looks at me over her glasses with those ice-blue eyes, and I feel her trying to probe my thoughts. But Ryan has been teaching me to shield my mind, building mental walls around my most important memories.

"Interesting," she murmurs. "Most conduits develop empathic influence within days of binding."

"Maybe I'm not the most conduit."

"No," she agrees. "You're definitely not."

After each session, I meet with one of the men for training. Ryan teaches me meditation techniques to strengthen my mental shields. Blake shows me how to read body language and detect lies. Cole runs me through basic self-defense moves. Kai helps me understand the prophetic visions that come more frequently now.

"The drowning dream," Kai says, sketching while I describe my latest vision. "You said the water was dark?"

"Black. Like ink or oil. And cold, so cold it burned."

His pencil moves across the paper, creating an image that makes me shiver. It's me, underwater, but the liquid around me doesn't look like water. It looks like liquid shadow.

"That's not drowning," he says quietly. "That's absorption. She's planning to drain your abilities completely."

"How can you tell?"

"The way the darkness moves. It's not random like real water. It's purposeful. Hungry."

Blake appears in the doorway of Kai's studio. "Emma, you need to see something."

He leads me down to the basement of Legacy Hall, through corridors I didn't know existed. We stop at a one-way mirror overlooking what looks like a medical examination room.

Inside, Dr. Kane stands over a student I recognize from the dining hall - a quiet girl with telekinetic abilities who can move objects with her mind. The girl is strapped to a table, wires attached to her head, while machines beep and hum around her.

"What is she doing?" I whisper.

"Testing her theory," Blake says grimly. "Watch."

Dr. Kane injects something into the girl's IV line. Immediately, the girl's eyes roll back and her body convulses. The machines go crazy, alarms beeping as numbers spike on the screens.

"She's overloading her neural pathways," Ryan's voice says behind us. I turn to see him and Cole joining us at the window. "Forcing her abilities to manifest beyond safe limits."

On the table, the girl screams. Every object in the room starts floating - chairs, medical equipment, even Dr. Kane's clipboard. But instead of looking concerned, Dr. Kane looks excited. She takes notes while the girl suffers.

"How many others?" I ask.

"Twelve that we know of," Cole says. "All students with documented abilities. All being pushed past their breaking points."

"She's building data," Blake explains. "Learning exactly how much psychic energy a human brain can generate before it burns out."

The girl on the table goes limp. The floating objects crash to the floor. Dr. Kane checks her pulse, makes a note, and calls for the medical team to take her away.

"She's building an army," I realize. "She wants to enhance every student at Blackwood."

"Using your power as the source," Ryan confirms. "A mass binding that would make her the conduit for hundreds of enhanced individuals."

"When?"

"Founder's Day," Kai says, appearing at my shoulder with a fresh painting. "Three weeks from now."

The image shows the university's main auditorium filled with students. On stage, Dr. Kane stands over my body while power flows from me to everyone in the crowd. But in the corner of the painting, four familiar figures lie motionless on the ground.

"You're all going to die trying to stop her," I whisper.

"Probably," Cole says with his usual bluntness.

"Not if I stop her first."

Blake shakes his head. "Emma, you can't face her alone. She's been planning this for twenty years."

"Then we don't give her twenty more days."

I stare at the painting, at the image of my own death and theirs. Dr. Kane thinks she's the one playing games, moving pieces around a board while I stumble through her maze like a lab rat.

She's wrong.

I've been poor my whole life. I've been underestimated, dismissed, and used by people who thought they were smarter than me. But I've also survived things that would break most people, and I've learned that sometimes the best way to win a rigged game is to change the rules.

"If she wants a war, she can have one," I say, turning away from the window. "But she's not the only one who can play games."

The four men stare at me, and through our connection, I feel their surprise mixed with something else. Something that feels like hope.

"What do you have in mind?" Blake asks.

I smile, and for the first time since this started, it feels like my smile instead of someone else's.

"We're going to give Dr. Kane exactly what she wants," I say. "And then we're going to destroy her with it."