Glimpse (The Tesla Effect Book 1)

by Julie Drew

  “The lock’s broken?” Finn whispered behind her, just as Tesla reached the door and began to turn the handle.

  “No. We never lock it.”

  Finn shook his head in disgust. Brainiacs, he thought. How do they dress themselves in the morning?

  He cringed at the click of the screen latch as it closed behind him, and then followed Tesla across the kitchen floor. She paused in the wide, arched doorway that led to another room, and he came up close behind her. He put his hand on the small of her back, aware of how close she was, the faint lemony smell of her hair, the top of her head just under his chin.

  “Tesla, we have to go,” he whispered in her ear. “Now. This is dangerous.” Although it’s anybody’s guess where the danger is coming from, he thought grimly.

  Tesla surprised him again when she suddenly reached behind her, grabbed a handful of his T-shirt, and began to inch her way forward. She pulled him along behind her and he did not resist. He could not know that he would regret his acquiescence in this moment for a very long time.

  They inched forward, Tesla in the lead while Finn followed blindly behind her in the dark. They both froze at the sound of a creaky floorboard on the stairs; it served to remind them, viscerally, that they were not alone. No other sound followed, as if the entire house held its breath. And then a dark shape was in front of them. Finn was behind Tesla, unable to act as she was suddenly pulled forward into the wide expanse of the room. His hands reached out in front of him and found only air. The streetlights outside were inexplicably off and Finn was left to grope in the dark of an unfamiliar room. In the split second that it took for Tesla to be yanked away from him he understood what it meant to be helpless.

  He followed her momentum forward a step or two but stopped, afraid to go further and somehow make the situation worse, his body tense as a boxer’s. Within seconds he heard a crash and Tesla cried out—once, agonizingly—in pain.

  Finn turned his head left, then right. He attempted, as an act of will, to force his other senses to make up for his inability to see in the dark. He heard a hurried footfall close by, sensed someone move just out of reach, and he lunged to his left, relieved to be able to act, to set his body in motion and damn the consequences. He felt his shoulder connect with a very large, rock-hard torso.

  Finn and the man he had tackled fell to the floor. They rolled and clutched each other tightly in the dark, neither of them able to punch the other, as their arms strained to get a purchase on a largely unseen opponent. Finn felt the weight of the man on his chest and his right arm was pinned to the floor by the guy’s knee, meaning he was only seconds away from defeat—and then Tesla would be alone with their assailant. With the speed of desperation, Finn threw his head forward and connected with the man’s face, a dim shadow above him. Confusion reigned as he heard, simultaneously, the sound of shattering glass just above him and felt the sharp, feather-light shards of whatever had broken land in his hair and on his face. Warm blood was in Finn’s eyes—he wasn’t sure whose it was—and he blinked furiously to clear them, but the grunt of pain and sudden absence of pressure as the man slid off of him told him that the other guy had gotten the worst of it.

  Finn rolled away from the man who no longer pinned him to the floor, the man who now moved slowly, groggily, to his knees by the sound of it. He was just about to grab for the man again and finish it, anything to get some lights on and see what the hell had happened, when he heard Tesla moan somewhere behind him. He paused for only a fraction of a fraction of a second, uncertain whether to secure the man’s capture or go to Tesla, and realized immediately that even pausing to consider the question gave away the answer. He turned away from the injured man, whoever he was, and made his careful way toward the sound Tesla had made. He felt the air in front of him so as not to run into her, or over her, and though he clenched his jaw when he heard the heavy footsteps of the man he’d grappled with move away from him, cross the room, and then the slam of the backdoor, Finn remained undeterred until he heard Tesla whimper right in front of him, low to the ground.

  “Tes, it’s me, are you okay?” He wondered suddenly if there might be more people in the house when he heard the backdoor close again, gently and quietly this time.

  “Max?” Tesla asked, her voice thin and reedy.

  “No, it’s Finn. Are you hurt?” He crouched down and felt along the floor in front of him. And then his hand was in her hair, spread across the hardwood floor, and he followed it with his fingers to find her head, her shoulders. “Can you sit up?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I think—” she began, and he could feel her move to brace her hands against the floor and push herself up, but then she gave a cry of pain and fell back to the floor.

  “Fuck this,” Finn said through clenched teeth. He crawled a couple of feet away until he found a table leg, which turned into a table, upon which his scrabbling hands found a lamp. He flipped the switch on its base and the room was flooded with light. He squinted in the sudden glare and turned to find Tesla on the floor about four feet away from him. She lay in a fetal position, legs drawn up, head down, the long, bright waves of her hair tangled across her face so he could not see her expression, or even if her eyes were open, and she cradled her left arm against her body with her other hand.

  Finn scrambled over to her, still on his knees, and gently brushed her hair back from her face—and immediately wished he hadn’t. She turned stricken, drenched blue-green eyes toward him, bright as polished beach glass, all of her pain and fear right there for him to see, and when he went to reach for her, to offer whatever comfort he was capable of, she said, “Did you see my dad?”

  “No, I didn’t see him. And I think it was just the one guy, and he’s gone—your dad would certainly have heard the noise if he was here. Where are you hurt?” He wanted to touch her, as he had since he’d seen her up close for the first time, at the botched party, but unlike in the park earlier tonight, he was afraid. His hand hovered an inch above her shoulder as he waited for her to tell him what to do.

  “My arm,” she said as she closed her eyes, her wet lashes jet black against her cheeks. One tear squeezed out from under her eyelid, and Finn felt a rush of such tenderness and rage that he was paralyzed for a moment—not by the rage, which he had long ago grown accustomed to, but by the tenderness, unfamiliar and unwelcome.

  “Let me see.” He gently but firmly moved her hand away from the arm she held close.

  He had to quickly swallow the shocked gasp he would have otherwise made and turn back to her face, away from her already swollen forearm, the hand and wrist at a sickening angle. The end of a clearly broken bone pressed tightly against skin that was already a deep, angry purple, but at least the skin wasn’t broken—it wasn’t an open fracture. The pain must be unbearable.

  “Is it bad?” She looked at him with those eyes, summer sky and swimming pools and new leaves in the spring.

  “No, not really. Probably a sprain,” he assured her, the lie calm and sure. “Still, we should get it looked at. Can you stand up if I help?”

  “I think so,” she said, and he moved to get behind her, to offer his support so she wouldn’t need her injured arm, already swollen beyond recognition, and cradled in her other hand, up by the elbow. Slowly, carefully, Finn took most of her weight and they got her up on her feet. She shook uncontrollably, but she said she thought she could walk.

  With one arm around her waist to keep her steady, they made their way to the front door. Finn opened it—it was also unlocked—and they stepped out into the night. Tesla asked no questions as he walked her up the street toward the edge of campus, but he heard her suck in her breath whenever her steps jarred her arm. They were almost to the old Victorian house when Tesla stopped, and Finn, though his arm was tight around her waist, could feel her sway on her feet.

  “Tes, we’re almost there,” he said. “Hang on, okay?”

  Tesla turned her head to assure him she could make it, but just as she opened her mouth to speak, her
eyes fluttered and her knees gave out. Finn felt her slump against him, her dead weight more than he could support with one arm. He turned her body awkwardly, tried not to touch her injured forearm as he picked her up, her head fallen back over his arm. The vulnerable, pale flesh of her throat was revealed, the sharp little V of her chin he felt he already knew, as he’d seen it thrust out toward him in defiance on several occasions. Every muscle in his back and shoulders was tensed as he carried her up the steps to the front porch of the old house and leaned his shoulder into the buzzer.

  The door opened almost immediately, and he met Lydia’s eyes with their fine web of lines at the corners, as her sharp, observant intelligence shone out from behind her reading glasses.

  “We’ve got a problem.” Finn stepped into the parlor as Lydia held the door wide and moved out of his way. He carried the unconscious girl into the house and Lydia looked up and down the dark, quiet street of the sleepy college town before she shut the massive oak door. The sharp, metallic sound of a deadbolt as it slid into place echoed ominously down the sidewalk, just before the porch light went off and plunged the house into darkness once more.

  CHAPTER 8

  “What do we do with her?” asked a girl’s voice.

  “Beats me,” replied another girl. “I don’t know why he brought her here in the first place.”

  “He brought her here because she needed sanctuary, and a doctor—a doctor who would not involve the police. As you both well know,” said a third woman who was clearly neither as young as the first voice, nor as snotty as the second.

  Tesla lay perfectly still, her eyes closed. She did not know where she was, or who these people were, but she felt, oddly enough, okay with that.

  “Finn should be back by now, shouldn’t he?” asked a man’s voice, one that Tesla thought sounded vaguely familiar. “Perhaps I’ll just pop over there, see if he needs anything.”

  “No,” said the woman who sounded older and more authoritative than any of the others. “We’ll give him a little more time. Besides, if we decide to send someone, Joley, it’ll be Beckett, not you.” There was a faint, but discernable trace of amusement in her last comment.

  Joley, Tesla thought. And Beckett. I’m at Finn’s house? Her forehead wrinkled in concentration as she remembered the explosion she’d seen on the TV at Angelo’s, her race home, Finn’s urgent whispers in her ear, the powerful hands that had grabbed and thrown her across the living room and the unbelievable pain that had exploded in her arm and shoulder.

  “I’m not entirely useless, you know,” Joley said, and Tesla realized by the sound of his footsteps and voice that he had moved closer. “Look sharp—she’s awake,” he said, and everyone fell silent.

  Tesla opened her eyes, and the blurry details of the room came slowly into focus. It felt like the old Victorian house, but this was a room she hadn’t seen at the party. She lay on a sofa with some kind of soft beige upholstery, a pillow under her head. To the left of the sofa was a fireplace with a huge oak mantle, covered with framed photographs and candles. Joley stood with one hand on the mantle as he looked at her. Opposite the sofa were two overstuffed, leather club chairs, Beckett in one with that Goth girl, Bizzy, perched on the arm. An older woman with gray streaks in her brown hair, cut in a plain, practical bob, sat in the other. The woman peered at Tesla over the tops of her glasses.

  “How do you feel?” she asked, not unkindly, but without a smile.

  Tesla swallowed once, and licked dry lips before she could answer. “Okay. Good, actually.”

  The woman smiled then, briefly. “Yes, the doctor gave you some pain medication. That was a nasty break, clean through. The doctor set it, said you’d be fine. A few weeks in a cast.”

  Tesla was content to say nothing. She thought, suddenly, that she should feel awkward, reclined on a sofa in front of these people she didn’t know, that maybe she ought to sit up, but she couldn’t really make herself care, let alone actually do it. Painkillers, indeed.

  “Is my dad—” Tesla began, but stopped, not quite sure what question she wanted to ask.

  “Finn has gone to Dr. Abbott’s lab to see what he can find out,” the older woman said. “He brought you here about,” she paused and glanced at the clock ticking away on the mantle, “about two and a half hours ago.”

  “Did I go to the hospital?” Tesla asked. “I don’t remember.”

  “That’s because you fainted,” said Bizzy. She spoke cheerfully, her short, jet-black hair cut in uneven chunks and spiked all over her head. She stared at Tesla with undisguised interest, her eyes heavily rimmed in black. “Finn carried you here. We have—we found a doctor who makes house calls.”

  “Yes, it was all very romantic,” said Beckett pleasantly enough. “Finn burst in through the door, the damsel in distress in his arms in the classic movie pose, wan and pathetic in a dead faint, or an attack of the vapors, or whatever it’s called.”

  Tesla opened her mouth to retort, but stopped. She felt like she hadn’t even been there, so how could she argue? Maybe she had been pathetic.

  “Very dramatic, Beckett,” said the older woman from her chair. “Though I’m not sure I’d describe a person who has passed out from the pain of a serious injury as ‘pathetic.’” She turned back to Tesla. “I am Lydia, by the way. We haven’t actually met yet. I own this house, and rent rooms to these young people.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Tesla replied.

  “Finn said you surprised a burglar at your house,” Joley said.

  “I guess,” said Tesla. “Whoever it was threw me into a table and ran out.”

  “Yeah, Finn said that’s how you broke your arm,” said Bizzy. “He said you were trying to find Dr. Abbott—your dad—‘cause you’d seen the explosion on TV.”

  “Do you know what happened?” Tesla asked. “At the physics building? My dad works there, he has an office and lab, and I couldn’t tell from the news shot where the fire was, and he wasn’t home when we were there—” Tesla stopped in midsentence as she heard the rising panic in her own voice. She waited a moment, her eyes closed, and breathed deep before she continued. “I can’t believe all this happened at the same time—who would break into our house? Thank God Max is spending the night with Dylan.” She struggled to sit up. “I really can’t stay here, I need to see Max—and I have to find my dad.”

  “Because the first time you went looking for him turned out so well?” Beckett asked.

  “Excuse me, do I know you?” Tesla responded, sitting up at last but feeling weird, slightly addled from the painkillers. The low tone of her voice had a decided edge. “He might be in trouble, Beckett, and I’m not going to just sit here and do nothing.” Tesla’s chin jutted out and her eyes blazed blue-green fire.

  Beckett sat, slouched and relaxed. She fairly oozed condescension.

  “Understandable, of course,” Lydia announced. “But you’ll get better results this time if you think before you act, my dear. As for your brother, might I suggest that you text his friend’s mother, ask her to keep the news of the explosion and your, ah, accident, away from him for tonight, and then talk to him about it tomorrow when you have more information?”

  Tesla agreed. There was no sense scaring Max at this point, he’d only worry and wonder, much as she was doing now, and there was nothing he could do. She might as well let him enjoy his sleepover at Dylan’s, where she knew he was safe. Everyone waited while she sent the text, painstakingly tapping the touchscreen of her cell that she balanced on her knees, her left hand completely useless.

  “Should Finn be back by now?” Tesla asked suddenly. “How long has he been gone?”

  “That’s in the category of ‘need to know,’” Beckett said with a smirk, but her mouth snapped shut abruptly when Lydia looked at her.

  “We’ve been following the news and so far no injuries have been reported. No one can get into the building while the explosion is investigated, but Finn has a press pass that allows him some access, particularly on campus. He we
nt right to your father’s lab once you were safely here and the doctor was on the way,” Lydia said. She indicated with a wave of her hand Tesla’s arm, which was encased in a brand new, neon-turquoise cast all the way up to her elbow.

  “I picked out the color,” said Bizzy with a grin. “It matches your eyes. You know, together. Blue and green.”

  Beckett rolled her eyes.

  Tesla paused and took in the odd group that surrounded her. She remembered well the party a few days ago and now this bizarre turn of events. Was it all, somehow, connected? She had to ask.

  “Who, exactly, are you people?”

  The other four exchanged brief looks with one another, and then Lydia spoke.

  “Of course you’ve begun to wonder,” she said. “We had hoped to avoid this—your father, in particular, didn’t want you to know—but it seems we have no choice now. It begins with Elizabeth, who is one of your father’s prized students. She is his research assistant, a position that has never been given to an undergraduate. That should indicate his level of confidence in her current abilities, as well as her potential as a scientist.”

  “Elizabeth?” Tesla asked, confused. She looked at Joley, who pointed at Bizzy.

  Bizzy grinned from her perch on the arm of Beckett’s chair and waved. Her spiky hair and heroin-chic eyeliner, the nose stud and row of tiny eyebrow barbells, her underfed, hipster body did not shout ‘physicist,’ Tesla thought, but you never knew.

  “So we are, in a sense, familiar with your father and his work,” Lydia said.

  “Okaaay.” Tesla drew the word out. She didn’t get it.

  “Everyone here has different areas of interest, of expertise,” Lydia continued patiently. “Finn is a journalist, Joley is going into law, Elizabeth is a physicist, and Beckett is in philosophy and comparative religions.”

  “Really?” Tesla glanced at Beckett, surprised by what seemed to her an odd fit.