“Hey,” he croaked.
“Hey,” she returned his greeting as she started picking through a basket looking for small items. She came up with socks, which she also tucked into the machine.
“I don’t think you can get the clothes clean that way,” he joked.
“Why?” Her rounded cheeks and lush, earthen lips curved invitingly.
“You’ve got about three loads too many packed in there as it is.”
Bright Star stood back and looked in the machine. A lock of sweat-dampened copper hair fell into her eyes. Her hair was softly curling this day. “I hate laundry,” was her answer.
“Then why are you doing it?”
“It’s good for me,” she answered. When she said nothing further, Jackson crossed his arms in front of him. “And your brother.” As if there could have been any other reason. Jackson mentally rolled his eyes. “I don’t know why,” she continued, “but he has this great respect for people who do laundry. I’ve never particularly liked it, but I have to respect people who do it, too.” She laughed and even though he didn’t understand, even though he chafed at the fact she was glorifying the act of doing laundry, he laughed too. He couldn’t help it.
Then, he held his hands over the open mouth of the washer and put them together. He wringed them as if he were washing them. Below, the clothing seemed to Shift as well. Once he was done, he stretched his hands out again then flipped them up quickly. The clothes came out of the washer in a steady stream and folded themselves back into an empty basket. When Bright Star looked around, the other baskets held clean clothes as well.
For a moment, Jackson worried that she would reject his Shift and wash the clothes anyway, but she didn’t. “I won’t tell if you won’t,” she grinned.
“A Service Man knows how to keep a secret,” Jackson vowed.
“Jackson?” When she said his name, it was always as if she were going to asking him something profound, something earth shattering. It was enough to suspend his breath and jolt his heart. “Were you looking for me?”
“Yes,” he replied automatically. For a moment, he let himself bathe in the blue of her eyes. “It’s… ah… time. Well, not really, you’ve got just under two hours. I thought I’d take you. There’s nothing to eat in the house, so I was going out to get something anyway. Do you want to go?”
Bright Star paused as she thought about the offer. Then with a quick nod, she agreed, “Sure, I don’t think Rush will mind. I need to get changed first. After we eat and if there’s time we can go by the grocery store as well and pick up some things for the house.”
“Good. I’ll meet you outside in ten minutes?”
“That works.”
Jackson felt like an idiot as he rushed upstairs to change clothes. He didn’t have to do it. This wasn’t a date. He knew that very well. But, the idea of spending time with her outside of that house… well. He changed into nice jeans and a button-down. He wore a light leather jacket, some nice shoes, and designer aftershave. He’d raced down the stairs trying to ensure he made it out and to the car before she did. He didn’t want her to believe he had gone to any great lengths.
Bright Star was less than a minute behind him. Jackson remarked that she hadn’t really changed clothes at all. Instead she’d put on a dark mustard-colored jacket and a white baseball cap with a bill of the same dark yellow color. White sneakers were peeking out from beneath the hem of the track pants. She probably had ten of those twenty minutes to spare. “Where we going to eat?” she asked casually as she went round to the passenger side of the car.
Jackson missed a beat but quickly rounded the car to open the door for her. “I don’t care.”
“Peter’s?” she asked.
“Sure,” Jackson returned wondering how his reservations had turned into an afternoon at a hot dog stand.
*
She convinced him to sit outside. The air was piercing with its chill, but Bright Star found them a spot near the rattling space heater suspended from the metal rafter supporting the awning. She sat cross-legged on top of a flaking picnic table. She had two chilidogs and a giant cola. Jackson had the same. He sat on the edge of the table next to her with his feet up on the bench.
“A woman after my own heart.” He whistled as she pushed the sleeves of her jacket up on her forearms and took a large bite from her dog.
“I adore chilidogs,” she offered with a grin. “I used to be a performance artist. I think liking chili dogs comes with the job.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. At least, that’s what I liked to call myself. Performance artist. I travelled with my troupe—so to speak—though everyone else called it a circus. I was a side show… hence the hot dog fetish” She paused. Jackson didn’t press her because it was the first time since he’d met her that she’d actually talked about herself without talking about Rush. “Anyway, I started when my Energy started to show itself. My first job was guessing things about people. You know, their heights, their weights, age, name of their childhood ferret…” They both chuckled. “You name it, I was guessing it. Then, as I got stronger, I started to make small predictions, ones that could be proven before the show was over. It wasn’t long before I was billed for private readings. Usually whole groups at a time. Individuals rarely wanted to book me. I guess they thought I was too intense. For legal purposes I had to give them the entertainment spiel up front and continue to call myself a performance artist, but it didn’t take long for people to start ignoring that, even. Sometimes it felt like they were swarming on me, you know. It felt like they wanted both more and less from me all at the same time. They wanted everything, and I didn’t have the strength then…” She didn’t finish.
Jackson nodded, patiently waiting for her to continue. Bright Star sighed.
“Anyway,” she chirped too brightly, “when I started out, in true circus fashion, we had a hot dog guy who made the best coneys ever.”
Jackson was disappointed that she’d cut off her story so quickly. Then he caught sight of something that Bright Star quickly tried to hide. She was pulling down her sleeves when Jackson said, “Stop.”
She did stop and she was there, a fallen angel frozen in time. He reached out a hand to grab her wrist and pull it toward him. There were three horizontal marks starting at the tender place where her hand met her arm and graduating in length and depth as they disappeared into her jacket. The last one that nearly wrapped around her arm had merited seventy-five stitches. Jackson caught a flash of her lying in a hospital bed picking at the tape covering the bandage. For a moment, he absently massaged her flesh with the pad of his thumb.
“I want to help you,” he told her softly.
“There is only one way to help me.”
“Anything.”
She leaned close to him. She pressed her lips so near to his ear that he could feel them move against his flesh. “Get your brother to see that if he doesn’t start to care soon, I will die, because the world as we know it will end.”
Jackson pulled back from her. For a moment he was speechless. His jaw worked but he said nothing. Finally he was able to get out, “I know you’ve got this idea, this theory, or whatever you want to call it, but you’re a smart woman, Bright Star. You know that’s just an excuse to hurt yourself.”
“It’s not.”
“You scared me, you know,” Jackson told her somberly.
“I know,” she answered almost apologetic.
“We have to find out why you keep doing this—”
“That’s not a mystery, Jackson.”
Jackson ignored that feeling, the quick tension that occurred every single solitary time she said his name. He tried to focus on the fact that her voice was no longer apologetic. It was now bordering on impatient, but his body’s reaction only strengthened as he watched her. “If we understand it, we can stop it. You can stop it.”
“I’ll go see your doctor, but it won’t matter. I can’t stop. I won’t stop. One day you’ll see,” she argued with a mutin
ous set to her jaw and an electric luster to her eyes. And then she was calm again, her voice dry and monotone. “Your chilidogs are getting cold, and we only have forty-five minutes.”
Jackson cast around in his mind for a way to make peace. He shoved his hands in his pockets. His right hand found something small, smooth, and cool. His fingers closed around it and he found himself saying, “There’s something I want to give you.”
She looked up at him and waited with strained patience.
“Open your hand.”
She did so.
Jackson placed his hand over hers and dropped the glinting hematite rock back into her palm. He’d forgotten that he brought it, then in one moment, he’d realized that he needed to give it to her.
Her expression was quizzical.
“You took it from my nightstand that day… It belonged to a friend of mine. It was dangerous for him, but despite the havoc it wreaked on his life, the rock always brought him comfort in the end. Why don’t you hold on to it?”
*
Peter’s was adjacent to the grocery store parking lot. After they finished eating—Jackson spent the rest of their meal trying desperately and failing miserably to engage her in conversation—they walked across the lot and went inside to shop.
Some of the tension left them as they pushed a buggy up and down the aisles picking up normal items for a normal household. Sometimes, Bright Star would even hold up things for Jackson’s approval and he’d nod or shake his head. Jackson noticed as they carried on that men were looking at him with envy. Bright Star was not gorgeous. She was mesmerizing. And she was obviously deferent. He looked like a strong, tall, masculine man who’d picked his small, fragile wife up after work and brought her shopping. They looked like a happy couple.
Jackson couldn’t help making the comparison. He knew if she were there with Rush, they would not look like a happy couple. Instead, people would be looking at her with pity and shaking their heads. They would see Rush as swarthy and menacing. They would see him hang back and away from her, watching furtively and with an unexplained control. They would see her deference and attempts to please and understand that she could never please him. It was a cruel thought, but Jackson didn’t care. His brother didn’t want her.
God help him, Jackson did.
As they packed bags into the car, Jackson asked casually: “Are you ready?”
“If you are,” she responded noncommittally. Then she cast her eyes fleetingly at the trunk. Jackson laid a hand on top of it for a moment to cool the groceries. Jackson smiled at the thought of being her personal refrigerator. “If you’re up to it after your session, there’s a place I’d like to show you.”
“I’m game,” Bright Star answered and let him take her hand then tuck her into the passenger seat.
“Do you have ID with you?”
“Yeah, will I need it?”
“Not sure,” was his only answer. Jackson tamped down the urge to ask her to see it. He wanted to know what name was listed on her government-issued identification. “Depends on how much High Energy you emit when they read you at the gate.”
“How much should I emit?” She asked.
Jackson started to laugh but realized that she was serious. Of course, she was serious; he already knew that she was a pro at masking her High Energy. What he didn’t know was how much control she had over it.
“OK,” she answered audibly reading the gauge in his mind. They drove in silence for the next ten minutes. Their destination was just off the interstate.
Service Headquarters sat on 100 acres. Completely circular, the building lay bracketed by a series of white pillars that went from base to roof. The columns gave the impression that the building, while elegant, while beautiful, was behind bars. Lit well from the ground up, the building acted as a beacon on any clear day or dark night. Close up, the famous structure was obscured by a thick white wall rising to twelve feet.
Jackson drove up to the complex and the thick white wall seemed to pull right back and open for him. Upon closer inspection, one could see it was an arcing gate only designed to look like a portion of the wall. He stopped at the entrance of the gate At first glance, it didn’t look as if there was anything beyond the gate but a long cobblestone driveway. Jackson rolled down his window and leaned out. Bright Star peered around him as he talked with the security guard leaning out of a dark green guard booth that blended smoothing into the foliage behind. The guard was not close enough for Jackson to reach him from his car. However, a wand slid out of the side of the guard house and Jackson swiped a badge against it. The wand retracted and Jackson eased his car forward about ten feet. It was at that point he reached out of the window and held his hand in the air. The touch screen appeared out of what seemed like thin air. Jackson pressed his entire hand against it. He introduced Bright Star as his guest to no one in particular. He indicated that she roll her window down and hold out her hand. The touch screen appeared next to her hand and she also pressed her hand as it prompted. The heavy gate slid open and they drove inside.
“Very nice,” Bright Star breathed.
“Yes, but I have to tell you, though, this entrance has the least security of any of them. It’s not the employee entrance. There are a couple thousand people who work inside and most come in from east and west underground entrances. This public entrance is where tours come through, et cetera. They don’t get the full treatment because they don’t get access to ninety percent of the building. Most don’t even know the rest exists.”
Bright Star listened but her eyes grew wide as they neared the massive white structure.
“Oh, if you think the outside is impressive, you’ll definitely love the surprise I have in store.”
Jackson drove round to the west of the building, ensuring Bright Star had the opportunity to see the impressive flora that surrounded it. Positioned all around the porch, rocking chairs gave the image of being very quaint but not nearly as deceptive as they needed to be. Jackson got out of the car then went around to Bright Star’s side to open the door for her. She accepted his hand to help her out though they both knew she didn’t need it. He led her into the west lobby and through another security checkpoint. He waved to a tall woman and chatted with her as he signed Bright Star in.
“Can you just bring anybody you want in here?”
“There are certain perks to being one in a trillion.”
“Precocial?” she offered, letting the word roll slowly off her tongue.
“Yes,” Jackson gave a cocky smirk. “Hey, we have to stop by my office for a minute first.”
“OK,” she said and followed him to a room with an expansive glass window. Inside, there were bookcases, file cabinets, a desk and a computer, a baseball trophy, and a picture turned toward the seat at the desk. Bright Star went over to it and turned it around. There was a flaxen-haired Jackson probably no more than four years old being held with his fingers fussing intently with the top button on the woman’s—obviously their mother—blouse. She was holding him with one arm and pressing a kiss to his forehead. Her other hand was tangled in Rush’s who seemed, even then, dark and brooding. He looked foreign and unrelated to the other two. He stared right into the camera. Bright Star ran a tapered finger over his face. Jackson was glad she only touched cool glass.
He cleared his throat, “Let me call Sandoval and make sure he’s ready for you,” he said, then made the call. “He wants us to give him fifteen minutes. We’ll take the scenic route to his office.”
Bright Star started to follow him out of the office. Jackson could feel her disapproval as she could probably sense his discomfort with the way she looked at that picture of his brother.
Jackson led her to a set of double doors and swiped his badge again to allow them access. With the sound of cicadas and the feel of humid air on her skin, Bright Star knew they were outside again, this time at the center of the building. There were compact metal tables and chairs dotting the perimeter of what looked to Bright Star like a sawed off lig
hthouse. She said as much.
“What is it?” she asked as they went up to the door of the round building in the center of the courtyard.
“The observatory,” Jackson answered, then reached for her hand again.
Inside, there were just two other people in the darkened room. They were sitting one seat apart in seats that looked very much like those in a movie theater and discussing something related to hot gases and Energy. Jackson didn’t know either of them, but they apparently knew him. They didn’t ask if he had permission to be there—Jackson had permission to be anywhere. No, they just watched him as if they were watching a rock star. That’s how people saw him at the Service. He was a celebrity amongst Shifters. He was the most powerful and unique of all the Shifters. He was precocial.
He was nothing in comparison to his brother.
Hell, Jackson already suspected he was no comparison even to the woman standing beside him. Suddenly, there was thudding in his chest and goose bumps shot along his arms. “The sensors,” he rasped.
“Don’t worry,” Bright Star smiled. “I figured you’d have sensors here.”
“But if they find you...”
“I said don’t worry,” she whispered with a finger to his lips to quiet him. “I dimmed my Energy when we drove up, remember? They won’t pick me up.”
“If they do—”
Bright Star Page 9
