by Lan Chan
I grinned smugly at her. “How’d you like a taste of your own medicine?”
She opened her mouth again and I mimicked her. Those rose-coloured cheeks puffed up as though she were about to cry. “I’m telling Ryan,” she sulked.
“Me too.”
Somehow, I’d found myself in a war with a child. I must have been losing my mind for real. Scarlet still stood in the tiny metre-squared patch of tile beside the door. Her hands cradled her elbows, the black silk robe draping elegantly over her gamine frame.
“Would you like me to wait in the car as well?” I asked her.
“You can’t!” Abigail contradicted me. “Ryan says someone always has to be with me when I’m here.”
I stuck my tongue out at her. She cast around for something else to toss. Thankfully, there was nothing within arm’s reach.
“Abby,” Scarlet said. She glided onto the carpeted area in bare feet. Her toenails were painted in eggshell polish. She knelt in front of the couch and swept her daughter up. The contrast between Abigail’s baby-fat arms and Scarlet’s willowy limbs was jarring.
“No!” Abigail whined. “I don’t want to!” But she didn’t scream and struggle like she had with me. I could imagine she’d done this a hundred times and knew it would be over more quickly if she gave in. Not without voicing her distaste, of course.
Scarlet ignored her daughter’s discomfort. She ran long fingers over those puffy cheeks that were stained with crocodile tears. When Scarlet pressed a gentle kiss to one plump cheek, Abigail’s face screwed up again like she was going to cry for real.
When she straightened, there was an expression that I couldn’t fathom on Scarlet’s face. It was almost disbelief. Like she couldn’t believe this child was really hers. The first time I met Scarlet Manning, I couldn’t believe she had a twenty-year-old son. In my head, I’d conjured up an image of a woe-begotten addict whose better years had been squandered to drugs.
I’d assumed she’d snagged the Minister by some form of trickery and gotten pregnant at the right time. Watching her now, innocent was the last word I would use to describe her.
“Would you like coffee?” Scarlet offered. I shook my head. This was all entirely too civilised. Whatever else might have gone on in Scarlet’s life, she obviously wasn’t wanting for small luxuries.
Scarlet glided to the tiny stove that made up the kitchenette on the other side of the room.
“How’s school, love?” Scarlet asked Abigail.
The kid rested her chin on the palms of her hands. “I hate it. It’s boring.”
“It’s meant to be. Boring is good for you.”
I would beg to differ but far be it for me to butt in on their family reunion. I tried to make myself as small as possible, which was hard considering the room was tiny. The terraces weren’t made soundproof, and every now and again, scraping could be heard against the walls on either side of me. Scraping was the least offensive of the noises. The second time I came, the moaning in the adjacent room was so loud that Abigail wouldn’t stop asking about whether someone was being killed. We left early that day.
When she was done making coffee, I had to pull my legs up under my chin to let her pass on her way to the other side of the couch. She sat down with a barely perceptible sigh. For the next hour Scarlet asked questions, the same banal questions she asked every week, and Abby gave non-committal answers. Sometimes she just grunted or groaned. In between, Scarlet picked up phone calls and made appointments with clients.
The quality of her expression and her tone of voice changed like the flick of a switch depending on who she was speaking to. For her daughter, Scarlet affected a calm but stern mask. For her clients, she was simpering and obliging. Had she ever decided on a career change, I might have suggested actress. During one of her phone calls, Abigail got sick of sitting there and slammed her fist onto the glass coffee table.
The resultant bang made Scarlet startle and she fumbled with the receiver. Whoever was on the other side of the line must have mentioned it.
“No.” Scarlet’s voice dripped with good humour that her flashing eyes didn’t transmit. “Clumsy me. I just dropped something.”
Abigail seemed to catch on that she’d gone too far. Her head shrank back into her body like a turtle and she braced her arms over her head. Scarlet and I stood at the same time. She stepped gingerly around the coffee table, but I was a savage and jumped right on it to get to Abigail first. I scooped the kid up in my arms and she pinched me in the neck.
“I think it’s time to go.”
Scarlet was still on the phone but her lips were drawn tight with tension. Twisted with fury, her face finally showed its true age. Lines appeared at the corners of her eyes and lips. I turned to place my body in between mother and daughter. She might be a terror, but Abigail was still mine to protect, and I wasn’t going to let her be abused. Of course, Abigail picked that moment to try and slap me. I caught her movement, pinning her hand to her chest.
I backtracked with her and was about to reach for the doorknob when it swung open and two women barged into the room, clutching a third unconscious woman in their arms.
5
With no room to move, I stepped back with Abigail and hit a wall. In their haste, the women ignored us completely. They laid their quarry on the carpet in front of the door.
“It’s happened again,” the redhead said. She was down on her knees beside the unconscious woman. Her porcelain hands shook as she searched for a pulse on the woman’s neck. Scarlet hung up quickly, her anger dissipating in light of the emergency.
“I told her not to mess with that stuff!” Kneeling on the floor, Scarlet lifted the unconscious woman’s eyelids. The whites of her eyes were now more yellow than white. I’d seen that look before.
“Yuck,” Abigail said in my ear. Turning my attention to her line of light, I took in the unconscious woman’s leather mini-skirt and fishnet stockings. The sleeves of her red satin shirt were rolled up past her elbow. All along the inside of both of her arms were patches of bruises. At the centre of each bruise was a scab or a weeping wound. The area was so traumatised that the skin was thin and scarred. Pinprick holes told me exactly where those injuries came from.
Taking a step forward, my intention had been to vault over the body and make myself scarce. That was when the whispers began.
For a second, I thought Abigail had said something, but when I turned my head down, she was sucking her thumb. As I stood there, the whispers began to grow in number and intensity. It was never anything I could discern as actual words. More like impressions; tiny fragments of noise, as though I was picking up distorted feedback while someone was tuning a radio in my head.
On the floor, Scarlet had placed her ear over the unconscious woman’s mouth, listening to see whether she was breathing. One of the other women, a chesty brunette, left the room quickly and returned with a metal case sporting a red cross on the lid. She handed the case to Scarlet. As she did so, her mop of shiny, curly hair pushed forward. It was a wig.
“I think you should call an ambulance,” I said.
Scarlet’s head snapped up as though the sound of my voice was an unwelcome reminder. “Just take her home!”
I was more than happy to oblige. Except that the redhead was searching the unconscious woman’s pockets. From the one in the unconscious woman’s skirt, Redhead withdrew a zip-lock bag containing two tiny white pills. They were circular in shape and had the number two stamped on them. Scarlet snatched the pills as soon as she saw them, glancing up at me to gauge whether I’d noticed. My eyes narrowed.
Adam! I sent. His mind reacted immediately to the apprehension in my mental voice. Can you get up here, please?
What’s wrong? Outside I heard a car door open and shut. I transmitted the image I’d just witnessed to him a couple of seconds before he entered the room. Scarlet glared at me. There went any goodwill I’d managed to cultivate over the past month. Adam took one look at the scene and was on his communicator.
He called in the overdose and radioed the Academy officers officially on patrol in this sector. “Alright, ladies. I’m going to have to ask you to step back. Willow, call an ambulance.”
As I tried to squeeze past the huddled women, Adam held out his hand, palm open, to Scarlet. She didn’t move. “Pills, please.”
Still nothing. “Either you hand it over or I arrest you. Your choice.”
Her eyes fluttered in distress. She swallowed and then her back straightened, a movement that pushed her chest out. The collar of the robe shifted to reveal the upper curve of her left breast. Holy hell! She was trying to flirt her way out of this!
In my mind, I felt Adam recoil. “I’ll save you the trouble, sweetheart. It’s not working.”
I was almost through the gap between Scarlet and the couch now. Trying to move with Abigail perched on my hip was difficult in the tight space. Without being able to see the placement of my feet, I accidentally stepped on something soft and felt it move beneath me.
The unconscious woman groaned. I winced and stepped off her hand. The whispers increased in fervour. I couldn’t help swivelling my head in a vain attempt to locate the source.
A cold finger touched the exposed band of skin just above my left ankle. My ears popped as though I’d just been sucked out of a vacuum, and then the whispers were gone. The unconscious woman’s head rolled to the side, her breathing evening out.
What was that? Adam asked telepathically.
I don’t know. The ceiling fan above my head swayed a little. A tiny hand reached out to touch my cheek, no slap this time.
“You’re pink!” Abigail prodded me curiously. Since I was going nowhere fast, I sat back down on the couch to call the ambulance. Abigail scowled when I set her down next to me, but she was too riveted by the scene over the coffee table to make much of a fuss. With her feminine wiles rebuffed, Scarlet had no choice but to hand over the pills.
A minute later, footsteps thundered on the staircase. There was a single hard knock on the door before it was opened and a quartet of Psi-Ops agents barged into the room. Or at least that’s what they tried to do. With the floor space occupied by the unconscious woman, only two of them managed to fully get inside. The other two stood menacingly at the door. Behind then, I recognized the two Academy officers bringing up the rear. And behind them, a crowd of residents and patrons gathered to rubber-neck.
The Psi-Ops agents were suited up in all black. The idiot in front kept his sunglasses on inside. Out in the field, you could spot them easy as pie. But I guess that was the point. They didn’t bother to play undercover because their rules were unbreakable. They were the law when it came to the Esper Containment and Tech Restriction Acts. Most espers feared them. Abigail was no exception. Sunglasses flashed his badge and Abigail slugged me in the arm. It was like a mini battering ram.
“Everybody up off the floor,” the agent said. Stunned by the confidence in his demeanour, the women complied. Scarlet stood huddled with her co-workers, forgetting altogether that her daughter was here. Abigail dragged herself over to me using her arms. I met her halfway and saw Adam frown when I hugged her to me. She burrowed into the crook of my neck like she was going to hide under my skin. The itch at the base of my skull was the first inkling that something was wrong with her. The second was that she was letting me hold her without abusing me.
A second later, I felt something push against the shield I had erected as soon as the Psi-Ops showed up. My eyes drifted to the flat, square device each of them had secured to their belts beside their guns. Psi-Scanners. Not all of them were espers, but they had the tech to figure out if other people were. With my recent discovery about my powers, I couldn’t take any chances with them.
The telepathic pushing was rudimentary and frantic. It took me a fraction of time to work out that it was Abigail. I absorbed her probe, and as soon as she felt contact, she screamed in my head.
The bad men! The bad men are here! Go! We have to go!
Her burrowing was going to leave me with a bruise. I reared back a little in shock and then my attention focused on Scarlet. She was oblivious to her daughter’s distress. The first time I’d come, Abigail had refused to speak to her mother. Scarlet only got her to open her mouth by threatening her with the bad men.
I thought maybe it was a bogeyman type of threat to get Abigail to behave. Not that she was being threatened with the Psi-Ops. But the more I thought about it, the more it started to make sense.
Amps were rare, even amongst espers. Unlike Siphons who tended to be selfish with their powers, an Amp could turn a couple of beta espers into alphas, and in a telepathic firefight, that would really come in handy. With her disability, the Psi-Ops would try to paint her joining them as an opportunity. Not the straitjacket that it really was. The poor kid already couldn’t walk. I shuddered to think how many other freedoms they’d stealthily strip if they got their hands on her.
Once the women were off the floor, the dark-skinned agent made a forward hand gesture. Two of the men behind him lifted the unconscious woman and attempted to move her out the door.
“What the hell is all this?” a man shouted from what sounded like the base of the stairs. “Who called for the ambulance? We got an emergency call about an overdose. Get the hell out of the way!”
Yikes. Technically that had been me, but I couldn’t find my voice at the moment. Though I wanted to point out that for an emergency service, they sure took their sweet time. Then I remembered where we were. The residents of Silhouette Row weren’t exactly top priority. We should be glad they came at all.
The Psi-Ops didn’t seem too impressed. The dark-skinned agent marched out of the room and shouted at everyone to leave. When he returned, his eyes were hard lumps of coal.
“You the one who alerted the Academy?” he asked Adam. The agent glanced up and down and took Adam’s measure. Unlike the other men in the room, Adam wasn’t imposing. He had a dancer’s sleek physique and a pianist’s hands. In another lifetime, I could imagine him as a performer. In the here and now, he simply shrugged.
Adam glanced at me, and I could see his lips bulge as though he was running his tongue over his teeth. It was a small gesture but predatory nonetheless. The big, bad wolves circling a leopard in their midst.
“Let’s see some ID,” the agent said. Adam took out his wallet. The agent studied it for longer than necessary, no doubt recalculating his assessment of Adam. Psi-Ops or not, only an idiot would underestimate a Hyper operative. I was so busy watching them that I hadn’t noticed Sunglasses approaching me.
Ah, shit. I stood up, refusing to meet his questions while he looked down on me. Turns out he did so anyway. He was freaking huge. Everything about him was thick. Neck, hands, thighs.
“Name?” Something sarcastic slid to the tip of my tongue. I bit down hard on it. Now just wasn’t the time. Not with Abigail grinding her forehead into my shoulder.
“Willow Nguyen.”
“You got some ID?”
Reaching into the back pocket of my jeans, I pulled out my wallet. What I really wanted to do was scratch the hell out of the base of my neck where Abigail’s telepathy clawed at me. She wanted to unleash, and her fear made her completely irrational. The shield I’d placed around her mind was holding, but my head was getting dizzy trying to focus on stopping her from manifesting her powers. This volcano was going to blow any second.
“Who’s the kid?” Sunglasses handed me back my wallet. The tiniest spark of electricity jumped between our fingers. I snapped my hand back and gave a little giggle.
“Pretty staticky in here.” He took off his sunglasses and stared at me with grey eyes ringed in a brown circle. They were small eyes in a big head. He had a naturally suspicious face.
“Who’s the kid?” he repeated.
Adam, I thought. I projected what I needed from him and then added a very weak apology. I was asking him to commit a federal crime, but something about handing over Abigail’s details to the organisation that spark
ed deathly fear in her seemed off.
“I found her running around downstairs. Her mum is working in one of the other buildings.”
The flicker of distaste was only momentary, but I caught it nonetheless. The other territories treated the Row as a separate entity, and most turned their noses up when they weren’t partaking of the wares it had to offer. “Does she have a name?”
“Allison De Vries.”
His eyes got squintier. What was Adam making him see?
“What are the two of you doing here?”
I looked down at my feet and then back up. Then I allowed my eyes to wander to where Scarlet was being questioned by the other agent. I made it seem as though I was avoiding the question because I was worried. Finally, I turned back to him and swallowed. “I have a friend who lives near here. I was visiting him, and we were walking back to the car when we heard the commotion. I should probably be taking her back.”
“Your friend’s name?”
“Naveen De Silva.”
“If we need anything else—”
“You know where to find us.”
I didn’t give him a chance to rethink the excuses I’d made. Adam and I left as quickly as we could, but not before I pierced Scarlet with a measured glare that I hoped would tell her to keep her mouth shut about everything I’d told the agent. I could have tried to reach out to her telepathically but trying to communicate with Basics was a pain in the ass. Right now I didn’t have the wherewithal to do it and keep Abigail contained.
I thought Abigail might have fallen asleep on me, but as soon as she was safely back in the van, she burst into tears. Ten minutes later she still hadn’t stopped.
“I’m beginning to regret lying to the stiffs,” Adam said. His voice was level, but it sounded quiet against Abigail’s wracked sobbing.
