| Human of the Lost Cities | Book 1 | Chapter 1 |

Instructions

<--- click flag For those of you who have not read Keeper... If you want to read these parallel to each other, I'm trying to write them like that so that it's easier to follow along. So! :D If you want to read KotLC spoilers-free, DO NOT SCROLL DOWN!!! READ BOOK 1 FIRST!!! You have been warned. Chapter 1 Calisto Mayfield squeezed her eyes shut, trying to shield herself from the barrage of emotions pelting against her brain. She couldn't ask for help, or even ask for something to help with the emotional noise, though. Nobody---not even her parents---could know. So she usually coped by focusing on one specific person's emotions. That usually drowned out the others.    Today, it was Marie Emmons's turn. She was feeling mostly boredom, of course, the type that made Cali really sleepy, because the tour guide who was yapping about the history of American art wasn't providing anything particularly enlightening. The boredom felt like she was listening to a tedious lecture on the wing structure of bees.    But there was also a boatload of gooey obsession. Cali opened her eyes and found Marie drooling at a tall brunette boy Cali didn't recognise, who was leaning against the museum wall, scanning the room. And, honestly, Marie didn't have horrible taste in boys. The boy she was so interested in looked like a teen model, muscles and all.    But he wasn't a part of her class. So why was he at the museum?    Cali pretended to be interested in the sculpture of Abraham Lincoln--- which was actually pretty cool---and waited for her group to move on. But she didn't confront the boy herself---she figured that if she stayed, he'd tell her to go join her group again, and she'd have the chance to ask him what he was doing in a museum with no sign of any group he could be a part of for an educational tour.    But, of course, he didn't tell her to join her group.    Instead, he walked right up to her and held up a news article.    "Is this you?" he asked, pointing to the picture on the cover which was, of course, Cali. Her mom hadn't been very happy when she'd found the article (it was about how smart Cali was to be a high school junior when she was only 13), and had even called the news paper office. But the editor had no idea how it had gotten on there---or even who'd written the article.    Cali chewed the inside of her cheek. "Yeah. Why?" Why was the boy talking to her? He was a teen model, pretty much. He didn't have any reason to be interested in the local nerd.    "Huh. I didn't think you'd have grey eyes."    Cali started to turn away. This guy was WIERD. Why he was talking about her eyes instead of making fun of her nerdyness was also plain wierd.    But before she could point that put to him, a whole bunch of really young kids, probably no older than 8 came rushing in, yelling about the American artwork. And the tidal waves of excitement and pure joy radiating off of them was overwhelming, knocking her back a step.    But what was really interesting was how the boy also stumbled a bit, one of his hands flying to his forehead. And also the pain coming from him---and it didn't seem like it was coming from his ears. It seemed like it was coming from INSIDE his head.    He looked up at Cali after a moment, who was still trying to cope with the intense excitement coming from the kids by biting her lip so hard that she was convinced it was going to bleed.    "Can you hear that?" he asked at the same time Cali asked, "You can feel their emotions, too?"    The boy suddenly stepped towards Cali and grabbed her wrist, and she got an even clearer vision of his emotions. As if the kids weren't hard enough to deal with. His curiosity was like feeling a question rise up at the back of her throat, waiting to be answered. It was almost irresistable. And then there was the sincere interest, like he wanted to ask Cali out.    She wasn't sure where the comparison came from. She wasn't sure if she wanted to know, either.    "You can feel their emotions?" he repeated.    Cali didn't see a point in lying. And she wasn't about to reveal her secret---she had spent too much time hiding it for her to give it up so easily. So she just stared into the boy's sparkly teal eyes.    "You can, can't you?" His face lit up with a tiny but still photograph-worthy grin. "You're an Empath, aren't you?"    The word felt new, and it didn't at the same time. Like it had been in the back of her head her whole life, waiting to come out and show itself. And with that recognition came an image.    An IMAGE.    Of a beautiful, tall blonde woman who looked like a fairy princess. And her crown pulled off the look.    That was incredibly wierd. Cali didn't ever think in images, or remember images. So how did...    It had to be the boy.    Cali tried to wrestle her arm away from the boy's grip, but he just held on tighter. "You don't have to be scared, Cali. I'm a Telepath."    She would stop being scared when he LET HER-