by Lan Chan
A wave of telepathy skidded across our joined skin. We both shuddered. Then it was gone as though nothing had happened. With a distinct lack of dignity, I straightened up, stepped in front of Mr. Hikari and snatched the phone. “Hello?”
“Hey, babe,” Bianca said, like she’d just called for a chat. “It’s hectic over here so I might be a bit late to pick you up.”
“Okay.” I drew it out, not understanding what she could have said to make Pudgy Face turn cagey. Had she pushed him with her telepathy?
“Hopefully not too long.”
I could tell she was about to hang up. “Wait, B. What did you –”
“Force of habit. Keep forgetting I’m not in that line of work anymore. A bit of advice for you, Will. The Academy might not have much bite in Street King territory, but Hyper sure as hell does.”
She was gone before I could ask what that even meant. When I turned around after replacing the receiver, the thugs were watching me, their expressions uncertain. With my five-foot-six height and slight frame, I was by no means imposing. But whatever Bianca had said to them, they now saw me as a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Cashing in on their uncertainty, I gave them a winning smile, exposing my own teeth.
“Like Mr. Hikari said, if anything happens, he’ll call the Academy.”
With one last glare, Pudgy Face nodded for his goons to leave the store. I slid into his head to try and gauge whether he was likely to come back. The physiological feedback in this one was strong. It was as though his mind had to work on overdrive to keep his body functioning. Even then the commands to swallow, blink, respire were sluggish. It took me a few seconds to understand it was because his brain was compromised by some sort of drug.
He was thinking through a haze, and I picked up nothing but annoyance. Their backs were to me now. The bell over the door tinkled as they each stepped out. I took one last opportunity to inspect the esper’s shield. But when I slipped into his mind, it was as though his telepathy never existed. All I got was the same feedback as his friend, only this time, it was weaker and telling him to keep his eyes open, blink slowly, and breathe quietly. I was now inside the mind of a regular Whisper.
Delving deeper, I cast my thoughts a bit further and lifted a name from him. Kenny Li. Out on the street, he staggered a little. To a casual onlooker, it might have seemed as though he’d tripped over his own feet. I grimaced, knowing that in my haste, I’d been too rough with my probe.
Mr. Hikari’s sigh brought me back to the physical world. He shook his head at me. “I’m sorry to bring you into this, Willow. Those boys used to come in here for apples after school.” His voice was wistful as he went out the back again to get into the truck.
Viktor couldn’t take his eyes off me as the truck’s engine roared to life and then drifted away. A full minute passed before he straightened up his tie and stepped out from the cover of the shelves.
“The floor needs to be mopped again,” he said. As he walked past, I let the mop handle fall in his way, only catching it once it had dropped below his thighs.
“Mr. Hikari can’t unload the truck on his own,” I said. “If I find out you’ve let him, I’m not going to be very happy.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed slowly up and down. He swallowed hard a few times more and then I lifted the mop handle out of the way and went about my business.
Bianca only turned out to be fifteen minutes late. All the way home, I tried to figure out how a person went from being an esper one second to having no powers at all the next. My conclusion was that it was impossible.
4
Lily’s explanation for me over lunch the next day was less than impressive. “You must have been mistaken.”
“Thanks. Because I couldn’t have come up with that on my own.”
She took the sarcasm literally. “Yes, you could have. It should have been the first thing you thought of.”
If I didn’t need to get a move on, I would have stayed to argue the point. Instead, I met Adam at the parking lot and got into his cruiser.
“Ready for another fun-filled session?” he said.
I glanced at the cigarette already perched behind his ear. “Thanks for doing this. I know it’s a pain in the ass.”
He shrugged. “Got nothing better to do.”
I knew that for the truth. Unlike me, Adam was a loner by choice. I couldn’t quite figure out why it had to be that way. Adam despised certain crowds, but he did better amongst people we knew than I generally did.
“At least this is the last week,” I said absently.
The drive from Hyper to the intensive care facility where Abigail Manning lived didn’t take very long. Twenty minutes tops. But every Sunday, it felt as though we were driving to our doom. Facility was a misnomer for this place. It was more a mansion set atop a hill with vast gardens surrounding it. Ryan was originally from the Slums. No way should he be able to afford this place. Of course, he had his paycheck from the League. I didn’t think his dad helped out because Minister Nichols wasn’t Abigail’s father.
Adam drove us up the driveway lined on either side with citrus and lilac. The road curved around a fountain sitting right in the middle of the entrance that then led to a visitor parking lot.
After Adam turned off the ignition, we sat in silence for a beat as though psyching ourselves up. “This is ridiculous,” I said. “She’s a seven-year-old.”
“Have you seen those pre-Reset movies where the doll gets possessed by a demon? That’s what this kid is like.”
The receptionist cast us a pitying smile when we finally gathered our courage to enter the mansion. “They’re bringing her out now,” she said. “Take a seat if you want.”
I did not want.
What I wanted was my Sundays back to laze about and do nothing instead of escorting this devil-child to see the devil’s bride.
Adam leaned back on one of the cream-coloured couches and closed his eyes. He was the only one who offered to do this with me more than once. As a result, I owed him big time.
Despite sunshine streaming through the enormous half-wall windows, I shivered at the chill inside. The walls were made of granite and marble covered in artistic tapestries. There were modern heating units at intervals along the walls, but a place this big was like a castle and keeping it warm seemed to be a problem.
My footsteps echoed as I paced in front of Adam.
Have you got ants in your pants? he thought to me without opening his eyes. You’re making me nervous.
I hate this place, I thought back. It’s so depressing.
He smirked. I think what you meant to say is calming. This place is calming.
If they tried to calm me down in here, I’d knock someone out. Huh. That probably explained why Abigail was such an unholy terror. But between Ryan’s schedule and their mum’s total lack of responsibility, it was probably the best choice for her.
I shuddered as a moan rattled through the rafters. Whoever designed the filtration system must have had a thing for horror movies.
I caught myself scowling in the reflection of the window and bit my lip. It didn’t bode well for my dad or Jenny that this was my reaction to a care facility. Although to be fair, I’d never had to go to a hospital, so I wasn’t used to this kind of atmosphere.
I’m going to take a look around, I told Adam. He waved a dismissive hand at me. The boarding rooms were all in the west wing of the building. I headed towards the east wing where the residents were allowed free time to pursue activities. Through the window of one studio, some younger kids sat in their wheelchairs in front of easels, painting a mountain landscape. In another, they were being read to by an elderly volunteer.
My nose took me past the aqua lounge where the scent of chlorine made me sneeze, but I couldn’t help smiling at all the kids in there being exercised. For the most part, they seemed relatively happy.
I was making my way back when I spotted a room close to the receptionist’s desk that had always been empty before. I peered in to see a w
oman in her mid-twenties lying propped up on a hospital bed. The whiteboard at the base of her bed read: Izzy. Quad. Whisper.
She stared straight ahead at me without blinking. Her expression was challenging but hollow. I almost tried to reach out to her telepathically when a voice shouted across the floor and made me jump.
“No!” Abigail screamed. “I don’t want you. I want Ryan! Why are you looking into her room? She’s crazy! I want Ryan. I want Ryan!”
Here we go again.
“Hey, guys,” Georgie, Abigail’s minder, said. Her left cheek quivered a little when she smiled. Every week Abigail hoped that it would be her brother coming for her and every week for the past month, I’d shown up. Standing a good distance away, Adam and I allowed Georgie and one of the orderlies to bundle Abigail into the back seat of a transport van with the facility’s logo on it. A wad of spit hit the back windscreen.
“What a little asshole,” Adam muttered. Georgie flashed him a glare as she handed him the keys. I wasn’t going to correct him.
Georgie smoothed the front of her grey suit jacket absentmindedly. “She’s been spoken to about her behaviour.” Just then something plush and brown glided past the driver’s seat and landed on the dash. It was the decapitated head of a teddy bear. The white stuffing spilled out onto the gear stick.
Adam raised a brow. “You were saying?”
“She just misses her brother.” A strained expression crossed Georgie’s sharp features. After a moment, she gave me an encouraging smile and turned to go back inside. Adam and I peered at each other and sighed simultaneously.
I slid into the passenger side of the car just in time to see Adam launch the bear’s head back where it came from. As we pulled out onto the road, the headless body smacked him in the back of his head. She had good aim, I’d give her that.
Adam’s dark eyes concentrated too hard on the road. He reached involuntarily for the cigarette over his ear. The vein in his jaw twitched menacingly. I was dragged back into my dream in which his hand was crushing my windpipe. My fists balled and I dug sharp nails into my palms. The pain was acute but it forced me to concentrate on the present.
Ryan didn’t say anything about protecting her from me, did he? Adam said in my head.
Don’t start, I sent back, swallowing hard. It took Abigail all of three seconds to notice that we were transmitting telepathically.
“It’s rude to speak with your mind!” she hissed. In the side mirror, I saw her strawberry-blonde waves shaking as she moved her head disapprovingly. She scowled, and Adam and I braced for the impact. The wave of telepathic energy washed over us. Slamming my shield into place, I reached out with every ounce of energy I had and braced Adam’s mind with it.
Past experience had taught me that I could ride out the frequency of Abigail’s temper, but the others, the true espers, had a harder time dealing with the sudden power spike.
If Adam lost control of the car, we’d plough into the river running alongside the road. It would take too long to get Abigail from the back with all the straps holding her into place.
“Abigail! Stop it right now!”
Her cherubic face scrunched. “I hate you! Where’s Ryan? I want Ryan!”
A part of me wanted to throw a tantrum and scream that I wanted Ryan too. If he were here, then it meant that I didn’t have to be. I would have asked how he dealt with her but I suspected that his secret was that he was just him, and I wasn’t.
I was my mother’s daughter. The only thing I had in my arsenal for dealing with other people was threats. “Keep screaming and the bad men will come. Right now, I’d have no problems handing you over to them.”
“You wouldn’t.” She pumped her fist on the side of her wheelchair. “Or Ryan will be angry with you.”
“Woo, did you hear that, Adam? Ryan might be angry with me.” I turned back to the kid. “Does it look like I care?”
She studied me in the unprejudiced way that only children can see a person, and then her bottom lip stuck out. We’d had four weeks to get used to each other, and she was smart enough to know by now that I wasn’t scared of incurring Ryan’s displeasure.
Slowly, the electricity that had been dancing under my skin began to recede. Adam’s breathing came out in harsh gasps. His jaw was clenched shut, and I had a feeling that— no jokes— if I weren’t there, he’d have driven the van into the water just to spite her.
It made me wonder why he’d bothered to volunteer for the last shift. The others had all had a turn each. Bianca has tried cajoling the kid. Zeke ignored her unless she was being reasonable. Oz just shook his head pitifully, but Adam did nothing to hide his annoyance. The others could only stand one trip. I was the lucky constant, and for that, Abigail focused all of her anger on me. It was like she thought I’d taken her brother away on purpose.
It would have been nice of Ryan to tell me that his sister was an Amp. It was kind of poetic that he and Rich had the ability to absorb esper energy and his sister had the ability to amplify it. The problem with Abigail was that she had zero impulse control.
Sunday afternoon wasn’t a busy time for the occupants of the Row. Sunlight wasn’t really their ally. I had strict orders from Scarlet that we weren’t to show up before noon. Pre-Reset, this area had once been an upmarket suburb. Afterwards, it became a hotbed of refugee camps, and more recently, it has become Melbourne’s notorious red-light district.
By rights, I wasn’t supposed to set foot in the Row. Although I was Hyper now, my vendetta against The Shadowman was always present in the back of my mind. Come to think of it, maybe that was why Adam was here. Protection. For some reason, the thought didn’t annoy like it would have before I joined Hyper.
Adam managed to get a parking spot a couple of metres from the terrace building where Scarlet lived and worked. He killed the engine and then we sat there for the briefest moment.
Okay, I sent him. Time for the hard part.
Just rip it off like a band-aid.
We opened our doors in unison and made our way to the van’s sliding door. There wasn’t any point lowering the lip because the building wasn’t wheelchair friendly and there wasn’t enough room to manoeuvre the chair around Scarlet’s tiny apartment. This meant one of us would have to carry Abigail. As the poor sod doing the official favour, it would be me.
Before I got anywhere near her, Abigail began to protest. She made the same keening sound at the back of her throat that Lily made. In Lily’s case, it was a manifestation of her distress. From Abigail, it was a warning.
She hit out as soon as my fingers reached over to undo her harness. Strength wasn’t one of her best assets, so the impact of her hit wasn’t painful. It was tenacity where she got you. She was like a battery that just wouldn’t die. Unless you knew what you were doing, which I had not known the first time, everything tended to get bruised.
Taking out rapists and murderers suddenly paled in comparison to being brutalized by an out-of-control seven-year-old. Thankfully, this wasn’t my first rodeo. After the first attack, I’d asked Lily to pull up the specs for the wheelchair harness. Abigail got in two hits before I compressed the locking mechanism and then she was free to grab.
“Get off me!” And here came the screaming. Laughter drifted from the upper levels of the terraces all around us. By now, my Sunday afternoon wrestling with this kid had become a spectacle, and the residents turned up in droves to see a show with their breakfast cigarette.
The first time I’d done this, I held her like a newborn baby. This left her arms completely free to yank at my hair. Today I’d plaited my wispy brown tresses and tucked it into a bun. Then Bianca sprayed the whole thing with enough hair spray so that not a single strand came loose.
The second time I tried grabbing her from the front and pinning her arms against my chest. For that bright idea, I got bitten in the shoulder. When I was with Oz, he bribed her with candy and managed to carry her upstairs without too much fuss. Afterwards, I found bubble gum on the ass of my favourite
pair of jeans.
The problem was that Abigail was so boisterous I kept forgetting she was immobile from the waist down. This time, I hauled her forward as soon as the compression on the harness unlocked. Then I whipped her around and braced my left arm around her chest, pinning her arms. My right hand went over her mouth to keep her from biting. With one swift movement, I backed out the car door and Adam locked it behind us.
He ran for the intercom and someone buzzed us in right away. The skin of my palm grew moist from where Abigail tried to press her tongue against it. My feet beat a furious pace up the staircase. This was utterly ridiculous!
Scarlet stood at the door of her room, languid and lovely from what appeared to have been a refreshing sleep. Her trademark cherry tresses might have been stylish bed hair, but her smoky eye makeup was immaculate. Plump, pink lips curved into an inviting smile when she laid eyes on me carrying Abigail like a bomb that was about to detonate.
I ran past Scarlet into the apartment and practically threw Abigail onto the lazy-boy recliner that was her spot. As soon as she was free, Abigail let out a scream that pierced my eardrums. It shot right up my spine and down my jawline, making my teeth grind together.
I wasn’t sure what possessed me, but suddenly I was screaming too. I’ll say this, we both did mindless terror well. Mum generally despised the kind of public spectacle that brought attention to us but she didn’t mind it as a strategy. For a while, as a child, I was made to practice the art of making a scene in case I was ever separated from my parents and someone decided to abduct me.
“Hell no!” Adam covered his ears. “I’m waiting in the car.” He spoke the last words and also transmitted them to me telepathically. Just as well, because I couldn’t hear him over the commotion.
Abigail gave as good as she got but she’d been screaming longer, and let’s face it, her lungs were tiny compared to mine. In the end, she settled for throwing a stiletto that she found on the coffee table at me. I sidestepped easily and dropped down onto the couch opposite her.
