Balancers
Abby Barly
language
(, Nov. 13, 2013)
Sadie thinks the biggest change she'll have to grow used to this summer is graduating high school and beginning college. But not a week after she's received her diploma, she learns she's part of a group of beings who can manipulate the elements and are called the Balancers. Together, they must fight to keep mankind safe from Louis's plan and everyone safe from beings who seek out to harm or take advantage of others. The Dweller's Dugout is a haven for those who not only have different powers but also share the same urge to stand up for those who can't do so for themselves. And then there's Gabe... And Julie, her best friend who's moving across the country, and a mistaken assumption that brings turmoil into Sadie's personal life just as she's trying to come to terms with what she's meant to do.Sadie must keep her head together, fight for what's right, learn from her mistakes, and do her best not to lose it all.ExtractPrologueSometimes I try to think about how much my life has changed in such a short time. I try to pin it down to an exact moment, but everything I’ve done is connected to something previous. There were no random actions, no random consequences—every single happening in my life has been caused by another. Every decision I’ve made has had an outcome, and every decision was based on either intuition or logic.When I try to think about how much my life has changed in such a short time, I come to the conclusion that the starting point was, precisely, the ending of a big chapter in my life.1Graduation day.The moment I’ve been waiting for, for the past three years. The day I become responsible for my actions. The day I emerge into the world as an individual who must now fight for her rights, leave my home, my shelter, my refuge.What a load of bull. I’m still eighteen, so I won’t be completely responsible and held accountable over my actions until I turn twenty-one, which is a long two years, one month and five days away.I listened to Annie as she gave her speech; I noticed Claire was doing her best to hide her glare. Annie beat Claire’s GPA by decimals, and the latter was truly pissed off because she wasn’t valedictorian. She’d even checked her grades as well as Annie’s with the headmaster to make sure there hadn’t been any mistakes.“She’s shooting arrows from her eyes,” Jules whispered through her pearly smile.I giggled and quickly pulled an innocent grin due to my mom’s quizzical stare. I didn’t want to have to explain why I was laughing with Julie. Actually, I didn’t want to say I was laughing at Claire.The rest of the ceremony continued uneventful. I handed my diploma to my parents, who hugged me and took one too many pictures with every human being they knew. By the time the photography part was over, my cheeks hurt due to plastering a fake, stiff smile on my face. I’m not photogenic, so I think getting pictures taken is a waste of time. But my parents have been very supportive throughout my whole life, and getting photographs taken was a request I could tolerate.