*Before…

Not doing anything else, not caring about how her hair looks and I can feel the girls kind of wtf over that and some are a little turned on and don’t get why...okay one of my cousins definitely gets why and being tuned in now I can feel Cheyenne’s mind on the almost guy track of food.

I head out and see Shy talking with Mom and they’re into it and making some kind of sauce not sauce? It’s green and it’s got lots of olive oil and there’s vinegar and I’m thinking cilantro and garlic but they’re talking and taste testing together and Shy’s dipping pieces of baguette in it trying it out and adding things like lemon zest to it and some squeezes of juice then whipping it up again.

It’s good to see them talking and chilling out.

Little steps.

I head over to where Dad’s at and he’s all cleaned up to after raking and talking with my uncles and stuff as they’re running the grills and my stomach does a growly snap at me after working all day.

It all smells so good.

*And Now…

The food’s really good and it’s sort of that all out last big family bash sort of thing.

Everyone’s that’s cooked has made something or like several somethings and everyone is sort of ready to seriously eat too.

It’s so a family thing even though we’ll all be taking off afterwards because there’s like a whole bunch of parties to go to tonight as well.

Still there’s loads of stuff and we’re really taking advantage of being at the shore with clams, razor clams, quahogs, oysters and lobsters and even Uncle Jimmy went all out and bought crabs that he does in this boil and then they’re put in a bag and tossed whole with old bay spice stuff and butter.

And there’s burgers and dogs plus steaks and ribs and there’s brats and sausages and even those heavy tin roaster pans full of onions and peppers red, orange and yellow sweets and green bells that are there and yellow banana peppers for the boom that’s like all been roasted off and skinned before tossed into the tray and then there’s like italian salad dressing poured over it all and it reduces and simmers and stuff for like sausage and peppers.

And like of course so much ricotta that it’s nearly insane.

Yeah you don’t have to be Italian in Jersey to have a tradition of stuff like sausage and peppers.

I’m getting a little bit of the shellfish and some of Aunt Janice’s potato salad because she makes it with like eggs and green tomato chow chow and whole grain mustard and well of course potatoes and onion but the kicker is she has a little bit of horseradish in there that just is really good and she always has a bowl of green onions to toss on top.

I get a few ribs and two sausage and peppers on rolls and Shy joins me with a plate with a steak very close to rare looking with the pepper mix from the sausage and peppers over the green sauce stuff she and Mom made plus she has three slider burgers and some potato salad and a whole tray of seafood.

I eat and I mean I eat and like healthily but Shy she puts the food away kinda like Jax does.

She’s kinda getting looks too and it’s sort of this awe from the girls mixed with some jealousy too.

I can sort of feel it.

Even as much as they’re eating here if they’re going out...they’re holding back

And it’s also that girl thing.

Like this psychological deal where there’s this little fear inside of them eating.

Me I’m getting sort of grandfathered in with the guys sort of because I kind of started out like one before this summer and yet there’s some that notice me eating less than Cheyenne.

And then there’s some of them that eat but they feel off.

Eating and loving it but hating it too and it’s strong, really strong.

I reach out to Cheyenne...share the feeling.

~What? What is this do you know?~

She looks at me. ~Eating disorder by the feel of it...I’m not really that skilled in that stuff that’s much more a shuani thing.~

~Oh.~

~Which is why you need to get some training Dylan.~

~I know, I know but I have a life.~

She’s looking at me. ~The old you before you woke up had a life you...you have a whole existence of things that you are that you have to learn about.~

I stare at her and honestly I’m a little miffed at this. I mean it’s not fair.

~This isn’t exactly fair Shy.~

~And neither is people getting sick Dylan it’s biology, it’s your race.~

~My race…~

~Our race Dylan.~

~Great so the whole not human thing.~

~We’re human we just took a different path that humans here.~

I sigh and she’s looking at me and she does offer me this quiet sweet smile.

“Things will be okay Dylan.”

“Sure I just have to go some how to like to South America.”

“Eventually yes, you need training and you are strong, really strong Dylan I don’t have the skill to teach you. I just a Shuani, I’m a fighter a protector.”

“So how do I even explain this to my family?”

“Carefully and with time. We have the time you still need to learn the basic stuff and that I can show you and I still need to hook up to the ley lines and contact people and let them know that you’re alive and pass that on.”

“Okay so until then?”

“Life as usual and so not usual now?” She tries to offer cheerfully.

“Okay, okay it’s just that feeling that…” I gesture out to the family a little. “It’s kind of disturbing even kind of freaks me out.”

She nods. “Shielding is important. But they’re likely spiking since they’re having a trigger moment with all of the food here.”

“Can I help them?”

She shakes her head. “Not without training, I’d not even know where to start.”

I nod as I eat then I reach out more and open up and I feel.

Feel them, feel the stuff piling up and the distress.

I reach out and feel Kimberly who’s the worst and I slip in deeper until it feels like I’m inside her skin sort of and I breathe and breathe and feel out for all of that pressure and anxiety and I insert myself in between it and put up a shield.

Not to protect me but between her and all of it.

I feel it work.

I feel her slowly calming down and she’s paying less attention to it and more attention to things around her like conversation.

I give it a little more power and envision sunrise and sort of make the power for the shield last at least that long and then I back out of her.

Cheyenne is staring at me.

“You...you shouldn’t be able to do that Dylan.”

“Okay…”

She shakes her head and she’s definitely feeling out Kimberly and she looks back at me.

“It’s stable, I...you shouldn’t be able to do that.”

I grin. “Yeah you said that.”

“You did that all on your own...that’s advanced stuff...you’re stronger than I thought.”

“So I did a bad thing?”

Cheyenne shakes her head. “No, no not bad but it was dangerous, going deep into others is dangerous you don’t know what’s in there.”

“Do we ever?”

She points her fork at me. “Usually shuani don’t do that sort of thing unless they’ve been speaking to the person. It’s like therapy and knowing what might lurk under it all. People get trapped in other people’s heads.”

I nod. “But what about the first people that did it.”

“Even they had to learn, it was trial and error but...wow that’s a lot more powerful than I had a clue of.”

“I couldn’t just let her suffer Dylan it felt wrong….like inside of me it felt just wrong.”

She looks at me and she sighs. “Just be careful, people have a lot of ugliness in them. It has power Dylan.”

I smile at her. “I’ve got to be me Shy, I can’t help it.”

Her face scrunches up some. “Sure make my job harder.”

I smile again and shove a sausage and pepper roll in my mouth.

~You’ll just have to be my tuan then.~

She points a rib bone at me. “Don’t be smug, we need to be careful, you need to be careful.”

“I still need to be me, something is leading me Shy.”

She stares at me and I just open up to her and the thing is there is something there, the feeling of needing to do this, other things, something, like a bird wanting to fly or something...like a cat that needs to scratch.

She stares and I can feel her reading me and then she sighs.

“Fine, fine...but you have to actually listen to me. I’m serious, when I say no or don’t there’s going to be a reason with it….at least until we get you trained.”

“Are you sure that we can’t find someone around home?”

“As far as I know of there isn’t I could look once we’re back at your house and we can set things up with my lacrima and things so I can feel things or pick up on things better.”

“So there’s a chance that we might not have to leave home then?”

Cheyenne looks at me. “Maybe, maybe but we’re rare Dylan, we’re that last survivors of our race so we’re kind of insulated here as best as we can be, we’re aliens. This isn’t like Men in Black.”

I nod a few times as I chew and finish. “So any truth to that sort of thing?”

She stares at me then she snorts. “No.”

“But we’re here.”

“And that’s enough, seriously there’s no space aliens that we ever have known of or made contact with.”

I get up and stack my things on my tray. “But...but...Area 51 and pyramids and the mayans making the moonlight landing zones!”

She grabs her things and she’s rolling her eyes. “C’mon let’s go and get ready if you want to go out and party.”

“I want to go and party, I want to say goodbye to friends and stuff that I might not see again or for like a year and stuff.”

“Then c’mon you’re going to girl out and take forever to get ready so let’s get started before the bathroom’s too crowded.”

We take our stuff back and we’re not the only ones with that idea so it really didn’t matter that we tried to be there early everyone was and it was this whole deal with getting all dressed up and hot looking.

Cheyenne was sitting literally on the end of one of the laundry tables and drinking a coke looking like super butch hot while she was trying to decide on going girly and part of her does want that and wants to be seen that way and some of that’s this whole seen as normal thing and another part of her wants to be butch and another part of her wants to be comfortable.

I slide over to her. “Let’s do all three. Let’s take things with us in a bag that we can put on as we go or change into.”

That gets her smiling and nodding and kissing me which gets some Aaaws from some of the girls to some looks that have a few of the quiet cousins a little freaked because we kinda look like a lesbian couple.

Heck if you look in the mirror I’m not who I was before this all kicked in with a vengeance. The big and still growing breasts, the shift in my hair and it growing out really fast to my skin and the way that it doesn’t just look but that girl sort of textural change, that girl look and smooth and curve even just on everything.

Cheyenne on the other hand is smaller breasted but still really nice ones, and she’s got stronger shoulders than a lot of average girls and she’s lean. She’s made for all of this warrior deal too. Long legs and long arms for a good reach and long bodied too she’s lean and fit and tall too nearly six feet high she’s the tallest of all of us flat footed.

And I’m not going to say she’s not gorgeous because she is.

I mean watching her slip into a braless little black dress and then do her hair...with some power use I think so that it’s longer than usual because it’s like model/stylized super flat and shiny and she wears it like some exotic princess which she really does get with the make-up job that she does.

It takes some concentration to fight off my unchanged bit. But after that’s literally settled I’m a little fascinated and impressed at how good she looks.

I do the same too...just a little mental sort of pushing to make my hair do what I want it to do and some more to pull on all this sort of fem-energy-knowledge in the room to get the feeling right to put on my make-up. And having that sort of control where your hand is steady and there’s no awkwardness in doing any of this or dealing with a mirror.

Heck yeah this is cheating but I don’t care.

I look good, I look really good and I help the others do things as does Shy and by the time we’re all done we all look really, really good and we’re all charged up to go out.

Some of us packed bags and I definitely did with one of my hockey jersies wrapped around thick socks and some black leggings and two extra pairs of panties all for later and for just in case.

But right now I’m in this little red plunging dress with spaghetti straps and some black stretchy flats.

The cabs we called all come and pick us up and drive into town.

We’re all going to different places and parties so we start splitting up and Cheyenne and I head with some of the older girls and some of the local girls and other visitors to a nearby house party.