by Shelly Crane
Beck all of a sudden grabbed my arm, almost jerking it out of the socket.
“You have to come to the bathroom with me!”
“I do?” I asked sarcastically.
“Yes!”
“Whoa, wait,” Kyle interjected. “I’m coming too.”
“To the little girl’s room?” Beck asked with her hands on her hip. “Even you can’t finagle your way into the ladies bathroom, Kyle.”
“I need to stay with Maggie.”
“What, why?”
“I just do,” he answered firmly.
“Kyle,” I said and gave him a look. “I think it’s ok if we go to the bathroom without you.”
“Caleb asked me to watch out for you.”
“He didn’t say follow me to the bathroom!”
“I’ll wait for you guys in the hall.”
“Whatever, let’s go,” Beck yelled and whined as she pulled me behind her, Kyle right behind me. “Jeez. Why are you so precious all of a sudden?” She looked back at me and smirked but you could tell in her tone she was irritated and her mind was confirming that. “I wish I had every male in a half mile radius gawking after me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Did you not see? Every guy in this place has his eyes glued to you like you’re only wearing a corset or something.”
“Beck.”
“I’m serious.”
She walked into the bathroom door, pushing it until it banged loudly against the wall behind it, skipping two girls who were already in line.
“I’m sorry, she’s… I‘m sorry,” I told them and bolted in the door after her. “Look, everyone is just a little on edge because of everything that happened with the kidnapping, that’s all.”
“That has nothing to do with all these guys out there that don’t know you or anything about you, Mags.” She went in her stall but kept talking to me, to my embarrassment. “And the lead singer of Caleb’s band,” she yelled from her stall, “pulling you on stage like that, ugh. I’m telling you, Mags,” toilet flushed, stall door opened, “you’ve seriously changed since high school, ok? You have no idea what you look like do you? You’re like a movie star or something.”
“Beck, high school was only a couple weeks ago.”
“I know! That’s what I’m talking about!” she yelled and I stopped washing my hands to look at her. “You are so different: confident, pretty and important.” She sighed. “You don’t even talk to me anymore hardly. I was the last person you called when you got home from being kidnapped.”
I could feel my moods start to plummet, the thoughts of the other girls jammed in the bathroom coming to me against my will.
“Beck,” I said softly and went to hug her but I bumped into a girl who was coming to the sink. “Excuse-” I started but before I could finish, I was hit with a vision, right there in the middle of the crowded ladies room.
~ Nineteen ~
The girl who touched me was a small, waif of a girl. She was young, just graduated from high school too, and was going through a rough time. Her dad was a drug addict and they were being evicted. All she wanted was to get away.
In the vision, I saw her being woken up in the middle of the night and yanked by her hair from her bed by someone who had come to collect money her father owed him. He thought if he threatened his daughter’s life that her father would pay, but he didn’t know that her father could care less. He was in too deep, too far into the addiction. The girl I was looking at was going to be kidnapped tonight and killed as revenge for her fathers’ transgression four days from now.
As I watched it all play out so did she, as they did when the visions hit. She was dazed and her breathing was ragged. I gripped her arm to keep her steady and realized we’d both somehow sunk to the floor together. Beck was attempting to get our attention by snapping in front of us and waving.
I saw Kyle pushing his way through the girls at the door to get to me. He bent down, grabbing my arm gently to steady me.
There were a couple energy ribbons bouncing behind Beck’s head. Oh no, no! What could I do? Everyone was going to see and I couldn’t stop. My body was too worked up. I looked at Kyle helplessly, knowing there was no way to explain or make him understand. And he looked back knowing there was nothing he could do either. I hid my face and took a deep breath. Kyle pulled my face back to look at him with a hand on my cheek and I didn’t think, I just acted, or reacted rather.
I remembered Caleb and practicing reigning it in and kissing seemed to have worked, so without any thought to consequences for Kyle or me or Caleb, without any wonder to what Beck would think about seeing me kiss Kyle, without any thought at all really except to keep everyone from seeing what I was…
I reached up from my knees on the floor and kissed him.
I held his collar for stability and though Kyle’s mind was shocked and unsure, his hands definitely knew what to do. They snaked themselves around my waist and he had an inkling, an after thought really, that there was more to this. That there was a very good reason I was kissing him that had absolutely nothing to do with my wanting him, but he didn’t give a flip at the moment. This was what he had waited for for two years and he was going to savor it.
He kissed nothing like Caleb. His lips felt all wrong and not like the love I felt all through me when Caleb took my lips. All I saw and felt was Kyle’s want and desire for me. With Caleb there was love, protection and adoration mixed in with a need to make me happy and comfortable but with Kyle, he was solely focused on the fact that he’d wanted me for so long and could never have me. That thing inside me that told me what I was doing was so, so wrong was pulsing and screaming uncomfortably. I pulled back, hoping the short kiss had been enough to stop the uncontrollable Visionary in me.
“I’m sorry,” I told him quietly, looking up into his unbridled eyes. “I was losing control. I couldn’t think of anything else to do.”
“Maggie, what happened?” he asked breathlessly.
“I had a…” I looked at Beck sitting there waiting for her own explanation with wide unbelieving eyes and knew I couldn’t give him an answer. Beck’s mind screamed the fact that she was confused at why I was kissing Kyle. “It was nothing.”
I turned my gaze on the girl and begged her with my eyes not to say anything. Her eyes swept over me with a look of fright. I needed to talk to her. She couldn’t go home.
“It wasn’t nothing!” Beck yelled and stood. “That was definitely something. Why the hell did you kiss Kyle! And the lights flickered and they must have some kinda glow-in-the-dark paint in here because everything was glowing blue.” She looked at the girl. “You saw it too, what happened?”
The girl looked at me for an answer but I didn’t know what to tell her. I motioned with my eyes to the door and hoped she realized I wanted her to come with me. I let Kyle help me up and it didn’t escape my notice how his hands seemed to lock themselves to my waist from behind as his mind warred with the want to wrap me up and run with me and the fact that he knew I didn’t belong to him. I took the girl’s hands and stood her up beside me. I kept her hand in mine and looked back at the door to see if Caleb was there yet. I knew it wouldn’t take long until he realized something was wrong.
“Beck, I need some air. I’m going to go outside for a minute, ok?”
“I’m coming with.”
Dang it.
“Will you just go and make sure Dad isn’t looking for me? He’ll worry if I take too long.”
“You don’t want me to come with you?” she said but instead of being hurt she sounded extremely peeved about it. “Really, after everything that just happened?”
“Beck, I’m sorry, just-“
“Fine.”
She made her way out, pushing through bodies, and didn’t look back.
She’ll be ok. You did the right thing.
I looked at Kyle and smiled sadly.
“Yeah, but that doesn’t make me feel better.”
There was a growing crowd
outside the door and I saw in some of their minds that they had heard a scream and had come to see what had happened. I took the girls hand and pulled her behind me. Kyle stopped me and went first. He pushed and excused us as went went on and when we got to the hall, I saw Caleb coming.
We were separated by a sea of dark and skimpily dressed girls.
I can’t get through. What happened?
I had a vision in front of everyone.
His mouth opened slightly and his mind ran with scenarios that were all bad.
It wasn’t that bad, but I have to get this girl out. She’s gonna die tonight if I can’t get her to go somewhere other than home.
OK. Um…Just wait. I’ll…
Kyle must have understood better than I thought because he put a hand on my shoulder to get my attention.
“I’ll take you out this exit and Caleb can go around, out the front door, and meet us in the alley.”
Caleb heard Kyle’s plan through me and nodded. His gaze held mine for a moment longer and I saw in his mind that he knew. He knew that I had kissed Kyle and he’d seen it all and felt it in me. He knew why I did it and how I had felt about it but it didn’t make it any easier. I felt my lips part as if to say something but he just smiled sadly and turned to beat his way through the throngs of people.
I heaved an aggravated sigh. I was aggravated at the whole situation and still had to try to explain all this crazy mess to the scared girl gripping my fingers like a vise. I pulled her along behind me as Kyle pulled my hand to follow him.
“Hey!” we heard behind us. We turned to see a stocky and very overweight security guard. “You three, did you see what happened in there? All the girls are going nuts about something.”
“Nope, sorry,” Kyle answered and tugged me with him.
As soon as we busted through the back door, I was hit with water droplets. It was raining and the alley had standing water already, covering the ends of my shoes. The girl gasped and whimpered, lifting her short dress hem and muttering about it being silk.
I turned to her immediately. She was shorter than me and her blonde hair had long chunks of purple streaks on the ends. Her eyeliner was thick and her purple silk dress was short and completely contrasted to the big black boots she was wearing.
“Listen. You saw what I saw. You can’t go home,” I told her firmly.
“What are you?” she whispered but I still heard her. And I heard her thoughts. She was terrified of me and needed my comfort all at the same time. She gripped my hand tightly but also wanted to run the other direction. I smiled a little to hopefully ease her. It didn’t. “Are you psychic?”
“No.”
“Are you a vampire or something?”
“No,” I answered her and any other time would have laughed but the girl was freaked. “But I have gifts. I’m not going to hurt you.”
She looked up at Kyle questioningly.
“Does he have gifts too?” she said and her huffing breath made smoke in the rain.
“Not yet.”
“Yet?”
“I can’t explain it to you. Do you have somewhere else to go other than home. A friend’s?”
“No. None of my friends are trustworthy enough to stay with. I don’t exactly hang out with the Honor Society.”
“No one, no relatives,” Kyle butted in and asked her as he stood close to us.
“No. There’s just me and my pops.”
“Ok, um…” I tried to think of a solution but Caleb ran around the side of the building.
His father and everyone else were right behind him. I dropped the girl’s hand and ran to him. My legs moved and I had no thought to the notion but that I had to get to him. Once I reached him and felt his arms around me I was grateful for it. I pulled back to look at him.
“I’m so sorry. I had to. I didn’t know what else to do.” His hands came up to frame my face as the rain pounded us. “And I was losing it and…I’m sorry.”
He stopped anything else I might have said with a thumb over my lips. Drops of rain ran down his cheeks and he licked one that ran down his lip.
“I know. I saw. I knew what happened the second he touched you. I understand,” he sighed. “We just have to be more careful in the future. And work on controlling it better, that’s all,” he said a little harshly.
“It meant nothing,” I assured him, needing to explain my betrayal further.
“I know,” he said but his jaw was tight.
“It didn’t feel like nothing to me,” Kyle muttered behind us.
We both turned to look at him stunned.
“What did you say?” Caleb asked in a low voice.
“I said it didn’t feel like nothing to me. Maybe Mags was just using that as an excuse to kiss me,” he said quietly.
“Shut up, Kyle,” Caleb said, effectively dismissing him and turning back to me.
I looked at Kyle closely. What was he doing?
“Caleb, we need to go,” Peter said from behind us. “They may not realize what they saw but those people saw something. We need to get out of here.”
He was right. We had other things to think about right then. I looked back to see the girl watching the whole display with pursed lips and trembling hands. Kyle stood close to her and watched her with an odd expression but I tuned him out. I turned back at look at us, my whole family and friends, piled in the alley under the streetlight. We looked like a force to be reckoned with, dangerous. I shuffled my way over to her and tried to smile again.
“You’ll come with us tonight if that’s alright. Then tomorrow, you can go somewhere and stay for a while.”
“I can’t go anywhere. I don’t have any money,” she whispered.
“We’ll help you,” Caleb chimed from right behind. I should have known he’d shadow me. “Don’t worry about that. Come on.” He put an arm around my shoulders. “Let’s go to the car. You’re soaked to the bone.”
I grabbed the girl’s hand and she came willingly, at a loss of what else to do. As soon as I turned I realized what a mistake I’d made and I had no way to fix it. Beck was gripping Ralph’s hand tightly and looking at me like she didn’t even know who I was anymore. She shook her head and her fogged breath came out in long spurts into the rain as I sloshed through the water.
Her mind questioned me. As a friend, as a girl in love, as someone she used to know. She thought I’d let my good looks go to my head. She thought I was becoming superficial and arrogant and involved in something she didn’t even want to know about. Why else would I be dragging a girl I didn’t even know to my house after collapsing on the floor with her in a club bathroom?
I couldn’t say anything, couldn’t refute her thoughts. I just looked away and closed my eyes as Caleb led me to the Jeep and spoke softly in my mind.
She’ll understand. Once all this blows over, she’ll forget all about this.
I don’t think so. Not this time. I’m sorry. I was stupid and naïve to think I could keep her as a friend with everything going on. I was just selfish and wanted my friend.
You’re not to blame. I’m the one who brought her here. Normally it wouldn’t be an issue but, with everything going on with the Watsons and your new abilities…I’m sorry.
I’m going to send her home. It’s the best way, I think.
Well, Dad said we’re all going home. He booked flights for everyone for first thing in the morning.
But, why?
I told him about Amber.
Really, but he’s been so mellow all afternoon.
He didn’t want to worry your father, and especially Bish.
Aha.
He opened the door for us and pulled the seat for her to climb in the back. I went ahead and climbed in with her. Jen rode with us as Caleb took off towards the beach house. I saw Beck climbing in with Peter and Rachel and tried not to worry about her at the moment. She needed to hate me and be mad at me. That way she would go home and not contact me for a while and hopefully, all this would blow over and I’d be able
to get her to forgive me later.
“It’ll be ok, Maggie,” Jen soothed from the front seat.
“Yeah, I can’t wait for that part to come true.”
“Can someone maybe tell me what’s going on now?” the girl asked beside me.
“What’s your name?” I asked her.
“Ecstasy.” I gave her a questioning look and she sighed. “My father really loves his drugs, ok. Ecstasy Lynne Parker.”
Then her mind filled with images of him doing said drugs. He was doing plenty of other things that a small daughter should have never seen. I winced when she got to a particularly bad part with him hitting her with a spatula across her legs. She was thirteen at the time.
