Dahlia was surprised to see Luhan and Chanyeol standing beside her car the morning they were set to depart for Austria.

“Uhh, hey guys,” she greeted tentatively. “What’re you doing here? Don’t you guys need to help pack the outdoor lodging stuff?”

“The perks of being a telekinetic,” Luhan grinned. “I got it done in a quarter of the time. Now, come on; it’s about time we hit the road.”

“Wait, you guys are coming with me?” Dahlia gestured between the two guys.

“Luhan drove your car last time,” Chanyeol explained.

“Oh, so you’re the deer looking guy Manfred was talking about,” Dahlia remarked, watching as Luhan’s grin turned into a frown.

“Deer?” Luhan repeated. “I don’t look like a deer.”

“Yeah, you do,” Chanyeol disagreed. “You’re like a regular Bambi.”

“I am not! I happen to be very manly!” Luhan argued.

“Whatever,” Chanyeol rolled his eyes. “Anyways, since you were passed out last time, I couldn’t ride with Mr. Manly-Man since Lay wanted to be nearby to check up on you. I was stuck in a van with five other guys; not this time.”

She chuckled lightly, “Okay; yeah, it’s not a problem. So, who’s calling shotgun?”

“You are; I’m driving,” Luhan wiggled her keys that were dangling on his thumb, his good mood slowly coming back.

“How did you get my…oh yeah, you’re telekinetic.”

“It has its perks,” he chuckled. “We should get going; I don’t want to be the last to leave.”

“Again,” Chanyeol muttered as the trio climbed into Dahlia’s car. Luhan caused the metal part of the seatbelt to slap against Chanyeol’s head in retaliation. “Ow! Luhan!”

“Well, you did kind of deserve that one,” Dahlia chuckled as they started driving, falling behind one of the food trucks.

The ride was fairly silent as they maneuvered through the local roads, with Chanyeol and Dahlia trading jokes here and there. It wasn’t until they reached the highway that Luhan spoke again.

“I hope you don’t think I’m prying,” he began, “but have you always had these abilities? The people on our planet are born with them, so I’m curious what the development is like for people on Earth.”

“You’re not prying,” she reassured. “I didn’t develop any kind of ability until I turned sixteen. It wasn’t until my first year at the carnival that I learned how to control it somewhat. I can’t turn it off completely, but I can limit the interaction to just thoughts or emotions or memories. And I’m able to tune things out to just skin to skin or skin to object interactions. It was a nightmare if I brushed someone’s sleeve and got an onslaught of the contents of their mind.”

“Why did it take until you got to the carnival?” Chanyeol interjected, leaning in from his spot in the backseat. “Didn’t your parents try to help you?”

“Didn’t Suho or Sehun tell you guys?” She asked, met with both boys shaking their heads. Dahlia was surprised, and slightly grateful, that they’d kept their conversation between the three of them. “Well, you can tell the others this – since this isn’t something I really want to keep repeating – but my mom and dad divorced when I was 7. My mom left and got custody of my little brother, who was 4 at the time, so she wasn’t there when my abilities developed. I never told my dad what happened to me, I just…shut myself away. I finished high school online and the only time I really got out of my house was to go to the backyard to the garden. They were the only places I felt comfortable.”

“Wait, then how did you join the carnival?” Luhan wondered. “If you were as reclusive as you made it seem, it’s a little strange to think you up and left for a place that would have you be around large numbers of people daily.”

“It kind of found me, to be honest.” Dahlia shrugged. “There was a story online about the carnival and the woman who I replaced. She was talking about the different kinds of psychic abilities – it was the first time I had a name to give what it was that I could do – and how the carnival had given her a place when she felt like she didn’t have anyone. It kinda resonated with me, so I did some digging and got her contact info. We’d talked online a bit about what I could do, and she invited me to join the carnival to take her