The moment the gravity of the situation completely evaporated, Victoria Dover locked the heavy oak door of the bedroom with a definitive click.
She spun around to face Airis, her sapphire eyes gleaming with the kind of manic, unbridled excitement usually reserved for a child walking into a theme park.
"Alright," Victoria whispered, clapping her hands together.
"Show me. Show me everything."
Airis, currently sitting cross-legged on the edge of the bed in her pajamas, let out a long, internal sigh.
The twenty-seven-year-old salaryman inside her had expected terror, or perhaps a long, serious discussion about responsibility and hiding from the government.
He had not expected his mother to treat the 'Absolute Psychokinesis' like a brand-new, highly exclusive parlor trick.
"Mom, it's not a toy,"
Airis cautioned gently.
"I know, darling, it's a gift,"
Victoria said, waving a hand dismissively.
"But we are locked in your room, the estate is guarded by an army, and I am your mother.
I demand a private showing.
Can you... can you lift me?"
Airis blinked.
"Lift you?"
"Yes! Make me fly!"
Victoria urged, practically vibrating with excitement.
Airis couldn't help but smile. The sheer, joyful absurdity of it was infectious.
"Okay. But don't panic."
Airis focused. The faint, luminescent emerald-green aura flickered in her eyes.
She extended her telekinetic will, wrapping it gently around her mother's fluffy pink silk robe.
With a soft, rushing sound, Victoria's feet left the plush carpet. She ascended slowly, smoothly, until she was hovering a full three feet in the air.
"Oh my god,"
Victoria gasped, looking down at her dangling slippers.
She waved her arms, doing a slow, zero-gravity twirl in the middle of the bedroom.
"Airis! I'm flying! This is incredible! Do you know how much money tech billionaires spend trying to experience zero gravity, and you can just do it?"
"It's just basic physics manipulation,"
Airis said modestly, leaning back on her hands, watching her mother float around the room like a very glamorous balloon.
"Nonsense, it's magic,"
Victoria declared, swimming through the air toward the vanity.
"Okay, what else? Can you juggle? Oh, juggle those!"
Victoria pointed to a collection of incredibly expensive, crystal perfume bottles resting on the dresser.
"Mom, those are vintage Chanel. If I drop them—"
"If you drop them, I'll buy you new ones. Do it!"
Giving in to the mischievousness, Airis rolled her eyes playfully.
The emerald aura flared. Three heavy crystal bottles shot off the dresser and began rapidly juggling themselves in a perfect, looping circle around Victoria's floating form.
For the next twenty minutes, the luxurious bedroom turned into a telekinetic playground.
Airis discovered that humoring her mother was actually excellent practice for fine-tuning the Esper powers.
She made the pillows do a synchronized dance. She poured two cups of tea from the tray while the teapot floated entirely on its own.
Then, Victoria looked down at the massive, intricately woven Persian rug covering the center of the floor.
"Airis," Victoria whispered, a downright wicked smile crossing her face.
"Sit on the rug."
"Mom, no. We are not doing what I think you want to do."
"Sit on the rug!"
Five minutes later, both mother and daughter were sitting cross-legged on the Persian carpet.
With a thought, Airis lifted the entire rug off the floor. They were hovering four feet in the air, slowly gliding in circles around the king-sized bed.
Victoria was laughing so hard she had tears in her eyes, clutching her teacup to keep it from spilling.
Airis was smiling broadly, genuinely enjoying the ridiculous, wholesome fun of it all. It was the absolute antithesis of her past life's miseries.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
The sharp, heavy rapping on the bedroom door echoed through the room like a gunshot.
"Victoria? Airis? Are you two decent in there?"
Alexander's deep, commanding voice called from the hallway.
Panic struck.
"Drop us! Drop us!" Victoria hissed, frantically waving her hands.
Airis immediately cut the psychokinetic feed. Gravity reasserted itself instantly.
The heavy Persian rug slammed back onto the floor with a loud, muffled THUD.
The pillows, which had been orbiting the chandelier, plummeted onto the bed.
"Oof!"
Victoria grunted as they hit the floor.
She scrambled to her feet with astonishing speed for a woman in a silk robe, grabbing a thick fashion magazine off the nightstand.
She threw herself onto the edge of the bed, throwing one arm around Airis and shoving the magazine onto their laps.
"Come in, darling!"
Victoria called out, her voice pitching up an octave, trying to sound completely natural.
The door handle turned, and Alexander walked in. He was wearing a fresh suit, looking significantly more rested than the night before, holding a tablet in one hand.
He stopped a few feet inside the room, looking at the two of them.
His sharp eyes scanned the slightly crooked Persian rug, the haphazardly tossed pillows, and the fact that both his wife and daughter were slightly out of breath, their cheeks flushed pink.
"What was that loud thud?" Alexander asked, raising an eyebrow.
"And why is the door locked in our own home?"
"Pilates,"
Victoria lied smoothly, not missing a single beat. She flipped a page of the magazine with aggressive casualness.
"We were doing mother-daughter morning pilates. I tried a new balancing pose and lost my footing. It's terribly embarrassing, which is why the door was locked."
Airis kept her eyes glued to an advertisement for designer handbags, nodding vigorously.
"Very intense core workout, Dad."
Alexander looked at the two of them for a long, calculating moment.
For a second, Airis feared the CEO's lie-detector instincts would kick in.
But then, the stern lines of his face softened into an expression of fond exasperation.
"Well. Please try not to break your necks doing yoga," Alexander sighed, walking over and kissing the top of Victoria's head, then Airis's. "I just wanted to let you know I've pushed all my morning meetings to the afternoon. I thought we could have a proper, sit-down breakfast together. The chef is making crepes."
"That sounds wonderful, Dad," Airis smiled, genuinely touched.
"I've also reviewed the perimeter," Alexander added, his tone growing slightly more serious.
"Marcus has doubled the guard rotation. Nobody gets within a mile of this estate without a background check and a retinal scan. You're completely safe here, Airis."
"I know I am," Airis said softly, making direct eye contact with her father. And she meant it. Between his billion-dollar security force and her newfound ability to juggle crystal perfume bottles with her mind, the Dover estate was the safest place on the planet.
"Good," Alexander smiled, patting her shoulder. "Ten minutes, downstairs. Don't be late."
As Alexander closed the door behind him, the heavy silence returned to the room.
Victoria slowly lowered the fashion magazine. She looked at Airis. Airis looked back at her.
Simultaneously, they both burst into quiet, breathless giggles, burying their faces in their hands so Alexander wouldn't hear them in the hallway.
"That was too close,"
Victoria whispered, wiping a tear of mirth from her eye.
"We are going to need a code word next time."
"Next time?"
Airis groaned playfully, though she was still smiling.
"Of course next time!" Victoria declared, standing up and adjusting her robe.
"You still haven't shown me how fast you can make the rug go. Now, come on. Put on some slippers. We have crepes waiting, and we can't let your father get suspicious."
As Airis stood up, using her own two feet to walk to the closet instead of her mind, she felt a profound sense of lightness.
She had a secret. A massive, world-altering secret.
But instead of carrying it alone, she was sharing it with a mother who thought it was the greatest thing in the world.
Her father was downstairs, aggressively protecting them from the mundane world, while she and her mother giggled over magic carpets in the bedroom.
The hidden world of lightning-wielding hijackers and giant monsters could wait.
Right now, her biggest challenge was keeping a straight face over breakfast.
And for Airis Dover, that was the perfect kind of daily life.