Bloom

The space between seconds

McKenna — The Frozen Battlefield

I stared at Gabby, unable to look away.

The rogue's claws hovered above her shoulder, his jaws open, his body caught in the final movement of an attack that had never reached its end.

I had stopped time.

The realisation still made no sense. A moment ago, I had been desperate to save my friend. Now the entire battlefield was silent, every wolf frozen in place, every movement suspended.

Except for one person.

Azeo approached me. His black eyes moved from the battlefield to my face.

“Can you move?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Then help me get her out.”

He glanced towards Gabby. “You need to understand what you're dealing with first.”

I gave him an incredulous look. “She's about to be killed. I don't think this is the time for a lecture.”

“Then tell me what you felt when you stopped everything.”

“Panic. Fear. The usual things people feel when their friends are about to die.”

“Before that.”

I wanted to snap at him, but something in his question made me pause.

I looked down at my hands.

There it was again. A faint warmth beneath my skin, spreading through my palms and towards my wrists. I had felt it before, years ago, when I couldn't explain the strange sensations that came and went without warning.

Back then, I had dismissed them.

Tonight, I couldn't afford to.

I crouched beside Gabby and reached for her arm.

Nothing.

Her body felt impossibly still, as though the world had turned her into stone. I pulled gently, then harder, but she wouldn't move.

“Why can't I move her?”

“You stopped the moment she was in,” Azeo replied.

“So how do I change it?”

“You need to find the part of it you can control.”

I looked at him. “That sounds wonderfully vague.”

“I don't have a better answer.”

At least he wasn't pretending to know everything.

I placed my palm against Gabby's shoulder and closed my eyes. The warmth returned, but the moment I tried to force her to move, a sharp pressure formed behind my eyes.

I pulled away with a gasp.

“Don't force it,” Azeo said.

“I wasn't aware there was a gentle way to move someone through frozen time.”

His expression remained serious. “You stopped the world without understanding how. You need to find that same feeling again.”

I looked at Gabby.

I remembered the instant before everything had stopped. The rogue's claws. Her frightened face. The certainty that I couldn't let her die.

And beneath the fear, something had stirred.

A pressure deep inside me. Not pain, exactly. More like a force gathering until it could no longer remain contained.

I drew a slow breath and reached for that sensation again.

The warmth spread through my fingers.

This time, I didn't try to pull Gabby towards me. I focused on the space around her, on the invisible boundary holding her inside that terrible moment.

Something shifted.

Her fingers moved.

I opened my eyes.

For a second, I thought I had imagined it. Then her wrist moved slightly before becoming still again.

“I did that.”

Azeo nodded. “You did.”

It was a tiny movement, but it was proof. I wasn't completely at the mercy of whatever had happened.

I tried again.

The warmth travelled through my palm, and Gabby's shoulder shifted. Her body moved only a fraction before the pressure became too much and I lost my concentration.

I sat back, breathing hard.

“Why is it so difficult?”

“Because you're trying to change something you don't yet understand.”

“I'm beginning to think you enjoy stating the obvious.”

A faint smile touched his mouth, but it disappeared quickly.

I looked at Gabby again. I couldn't keep doing this in tiny movements. She needed to be away from the rogue before time started again.

I reached for her once more.

This time, I concentrated on the distance between her body and the rogue's claws. I imagined that space widening, not by dragging her away, but by allowing the moment around her to move.

The pressure returned.

The rogue's arm shifted.

Gabby's shoulder slipped free.

I nearly lost my balance, but Azeo caught her before she could fall back towards the attacker. He carried her several steps away and lowered her carefully onto the ground.

I stared at her.

She was no longer beneath the rogue.

For the first time since the attack began, I could breathe.

“Is she safe?”

“She's away from him,” Azeo said. “But we won't know whether she's unharmed until time resumes.”

I nodded, swallowing the fear rising in my throat.

I had done something impossible, but I hadn't saved her completely. She was still caught in the moment, unable to move or respond.

And the rest of the battlefield remained frozen.

I looked around.

Wolves were trapped in the middle of their fight. Some were suspended in the air, others pinned beneath fallen bodies. The fire near the tents looked like a painting, its flames motionless.

I couldn't move everyone. I didn't even know whether I could repeat what I had just done.

“How long can I keep this going?” I asked.

“I don't know.”

“Can you make time move again?”

“No. This is your ability.”

I looked at him.

There was something strange about the way he spoke about it, as though he recognised the danger but couldn't fully explain it.

“And you can move because...?”

His gaze held mine.

“That's something we will need to discuss.”

“Of course it is.”

I looked away before my anger could get the better of me. I didn't have the luxury of demanding every answer tonight.

I needed to understand what I could do.

I raised my hand and concentrated on a leaf suspended beside a nearby branch. The warmth returned, and the leaf trembled.

I lowered my hand. It stopped.

I tried again, this time allowing the sensation to build naturally rather than forcing it.

The leaf turned slowly before drifting downwards.

I watched it fall, fascinated.

It was such a small thing, yet it told me more than any explanation Azeo could offer.

I wasn't simply stopping time. I could influence what happened inside it.

Perhaps there were limits. Perhaps there were consequences I hadn't discovered. But there was something I could work with.

Azeo watched me quietly.

“You're learning.”

“I don't need you to congratulate me.”

“I wasn't.”

“Good.”

I turned towards him.

There were still questions between us, too many to ignore. But I wasn't going to spend another moment arguing about the past while my friend remained trapped in a frozen world.

“You're going to tell me the truth eventually,” I said.

“Yes.”

“Not just the parts you think I should know. All of it.”

He didn't answer immediately.

“I will tell you what I can.”

“That isn't quite what I asked.”

“No,” he admitted. “It isn't.”

I studied him, trying to decide whether there was any point in believing him.

There wasn't.

Not yet.

Whatever connection seemed to exist between us, whatever he believed about my future, it didn't give him the right to decide it for me.

I turned away.

My hands were beginning to ache. The warmth had faded, leaving a dull heaviness in my arms. I wasn't sure how much longer I could maintain the strange stillness around us.

“McKenna,” Azeo said.

I glanced back.

“Don't try to take on everything at once.”

“I wasn't planning to.”

“Good. Because you may not have the strength.”

I almost laughed. “You really do know how to encourage someone.”

His expression softened slightly, but I looked away before I could read too much into it.

I focused on Gabby.

She was safe from the rogue for now. That was the only thing that mattered.

I could still feel the invisible boundary around the moment, stretched across the battlefield. It was no longer entirely unfamiliar. I had begun to recognise the sensation, the way it responded when I reached for it.

I raised my hand once more.

The warmth returned.

A leaf lifted from the ground, turned gently in the air and settled again.

I smiled despite myself.

It wasn't control. Not yet.

But it was a beginning.

I had spent years waiting for someone to tell me what I was capable of. The pack had given me a number. The elders had given me a place I didn't want. Azeo had made decisions based on what he believed I might become.

None of them had asked what I wanted.

That would have to change.

I looked across the battlefield, then back at my hands.

I didn't know what I was, or why the world had answered when I demanded that it stop. I didn't know why Azeo could move when everyone else remained frozen.

But I knew one thing.

Whatever this power was, it belonged to me.

And I would decide what to do with it.

I drew a steadying breath and reached towards the suspended moment again.

This time, I wasn't reaching out of desperation.

I was choosing to.