Fiction.

I half-closed my eyes, then looked over at Lauren, sitting on the floor of the room Kaiser was staying in. “It’s so hot outside. You’re sweaty. Why don’t you just take off your shirt?” I winked at Kaiser. Honestly, I had no idea if it was going to work. This was significantly more of a stretch than making cops want donuts, but you didn’t need a special mind-power to want to get that shirt off.

Lauren looked back at me, her eyes almost empty. “It is very hot out. But I don’t know, I think my shirt ought to just stay on.” I thought about bonfires. House fires. Uncontrollable conflagrations that consumed forests. That one sweaty, steamy night in that girl’s dorm room when the AC broke, and the burning sensation when I peed during following weeks. Lauren blinked. “I really don’t see why I’m wearing these sweaty jeans, though.” Down went the zipper, and she started wriggling out of them. Holy shit, I thought. I’m going to conquer the fucking world.

There was a bright flash from a desk lamp next to me, then Lauren’s entire body was plunged into darkness. I turned around to see Amelia watching my little game from the doorway.

“James! Stop it. Lauren.” She snapped her fingers. “Lauren, you need to keep your pants on.” Kaiser shifted uncomfortably from his bed.

“Aw, come on, Amelia,” I said, hardly able to keep my laughter under control. “Kid was hot. What do you want her to do? Suffer? Poor girl.”

Lauren was suddenly visible again, properly clothed and adjusted. “Fuck you, James.”

“Look, I don’t know how we’re going to defeat our ol’ friend Tom Snooze if we’re not supposed to practice our powers.”

“Yeah, but we shouldn’t use them on each other.” Kaiser’s eyes flicked over to Lauren as he said it, and then back to me. “We need to work like a team.”

“Okay, geez, lay off.”

Amelia wasn’t satisfied. “And I think you owe Lauren an apology.”

“Fine. Lauren, I’m sorry I almost made you take your pants off, even though I think we all enjoyed it, except for Amelia who is just jealous that I wasn’t interested in her.”

Lauren appeared uncomfortable, which meant I was doing it right. “‘Sokay.”

My eyelids drooped a bit. “And these aren’t the droids you are looking for.”

“You’re right. These aren’t the . . hey! Dammit James!” Lauren hopped up and stomped off to the kitchen.

“James! Quit it!” It sounded stereophonic, coming from Amelia and Kaiser at once.

Okay, so it doesn’t always work flawlessly, I thought. Do I need to just be concentrating harder? Is it easier to resist my little suggestions if you know it can work on you? Does it have to have some element of reasonableness to it for it to work? If so, is Lauren a huge slut but we don’t know it yet?

I sighed. “Fine. So, kids. What’s your grand scheme for defeating our crazy bum friend, Lindsay Dozehan?”

But I never heard any brilliant ideas. Just then Lauren called out something that turned Kaiser’s face to the approximate pasty white color of my balls:

“Where’s Diana?”