by Eros, Marata
Frantic thoughts of a mother he could not find.
A dark car that smells of trash and other things.
Pain... no... no more...where is my mommy....
Screaming, white heat... then blackness.
The minute I regained consciousness, I woke up screaming with Smith above my face.
He reached out and touched me, sending that current of memories streaming away into the ether and I was quiet and still.
There was silence.
My fragmented mind came back in jagged pieces like a glass jar being filled up with marbles. I could see Tiff, Garcia and Gale. Tiff's face told me so much. She looked worried, and for Tiff to be worried it was bad. I was on my back and that reminded me of Biology last spring. The frogs.
I stuck my arms straight above me and Smith and Tiff each took one and hauled me to my feet.
I staggered a little and put my hand on a gravestone, immediately snatching it back when a undead current snaked its way up my arm like a live wire.
“Could youʻtune-upʼ one-hundred percent or something? I'm kinda having a moment,” I told Smith.
He did, and it stopped.
I released the breath I didn't realize I'd been holding in a shaky rush.
I looked at him with all the gratefulness in the universe.
Garcia glowered at the Null. “You couldn't prevent him from passing out?”
Smith turned on him. “You try to hold the only five-point C-M and see how you do. How'd our boy Williams do over at Scenic? I heard that was a SNAFU!”
Garcia strode over to him, their noses almost touching and Tiff and I took a step back. Were they going to kick each other's asses, right here?
All the forensic people had stopped what they were doing, staring at the two of them.
Gale, (who seemed to have uncanny adult radar) saw violence brewing and jogged over there, slipping between the two of them, putting a hand on either chest.
“Knock it off, both of you. This isn't helping!” she said, disgusted. “We've got two teenagers over there risking themselves for this investigation and you two dogs have to run around peeing in corners. Figure it out!”
Garcia took a walk and Smith came over to me.
“Uh, what's going on?” I asked. I was still getting my act together, wiping a trembling hand over my mouth, trying to steady the quaking.
Gale made a water bottle appear from nowhere, uncapping it and giving it to me. “No gulping. Small sips.”
Right. I took a sip and felt a little better.
He rolled his shoulders into a shrug, answering me. “Raul, I mean, Officer Garcia, and I don't always see eye to eye on stuff. And,” he said quietly, “he's pre-inoculation.”
So? my look said.
“Some cops feel out of control when they can't be a part of the process...” Gale shrugged.
Garcia didn't like paranormals or...?
Clearly interpreting my expression, Smith shook his head. “It's not like there isn't a lot of the prejudice out there for us, Caleb. It's more like helplessness. He wanted you to not get hurt and couldn't trust that this was part of the process for you to get information and I would safeguard you through it.”
Oh.
“You remember my partner, Officer Wade,” Gale said.
Chuck, I nodded, remembering.
“Well, he had some of the same issues. He felt like he was out of the loop when paranormal crap went down.” Smith raised an eyebrow, “sorry... stuff,” Gale waved away her borderline swear word, “ and that is something he's getting used to now. Garcia needs—”
“Time,” Smith said simply.
“Well,” Tiff said, smacking fresh gum in her mouth, “he better get a handle on that ʼcuz he was gonna open a can of whoop ass on Officer Smith here.”
Smith smiled. “I don't think we were quite there yet.”
It'd looked plenty there to me.
Garcia came back over, throwing a hard glance at Smith but saying nothing. “So, you doing okay?”
No. “Yeah.”
“What do you have for us?”
I thought about it. “He was taken in a park.”
“Do you know which one?”
I nodded. “It's not there anymore. I mean, I don't know. I haven't been in,” I thought about it some more, Mom used to take me to that kiddy park... “maybe ten years now.” I shrugged. “It's by Meeker Middle School, or it was . ”
Gale nodded slowly. “I know the place. They took all the play equipment down, safety regulations.”
Tiff said, “Kinda like dodge ball.”
We laughed.
The adults looked at us with a question.
“Private joke,” I said.
They looked away, talking among themselves and I noticed it was getting pretty close to supper. I knew because The Hunger was making itself known. Translation: my stomach was digesting my spine.
Smith said, “I'll take the kids home.”
Garcia looked like he'd start barking at the end of his chain or something.
Gale put her hand on his forearm. “Raul.”
He looked down at her, his gaze softening.
Interesting.
He looked back at Smith and those eyes cooled right back down. “Okay.”
He turned to me. “Pulse me when you arrive. I want to make sure you're okay. And tell your folks we have a lead now, thanks to you,” he said, clapping me on the back.
Smith, Tiff and I walked to his car and he unlocked it straight from his pulse. It was one of the new ones. It could probably wipe your ass if you wanted it to.
So cool.
I saw Tiff salivating over it from the corner of my eye and she mimed her thumb over an imaginary pulse, I mouthed back, I know.. .
Smith caught us checking it out and said, “Want to see?”
“Yeah.” I laughed.
Tiff and I leaned over the pulse and she said, “John would have a kiwi if he saw this, being a tech-boy and all.”
The pulse had one of the new fingernail-sized thumb pads that lets ya use a part of your finger for pulsing and, it had magnetized clipping. Some kind of your-organic-matter-syncs with the pulse. So no, in-the-pocket hassle. You just stick it against your hip and it sits there.
“ Okay, I'll show you guys the coolest thing.”
He depressed his thumb (just barely ʼcuz it was a thumbnail pulse), and thought into it: attach, then he let it go. It hovered in the air for a second then attached to his hip. Totally awesome!
Tiff and I stared at each other.
But something disturbing had occurred to me. Could it attach, like anywhere? I asked him that.
He laughed. “You mean like...”
“Some dumb-ass walking around with it stuck to their crotch,” Tiff said delicately, a bubble bursting, echoing slightly.
Smith barked out a laugh. “Well, aren't you eloquent?”
Tiff shrugged, snapping her gum.
He gave me his attention, answering, “Ah, I guess you can attach it anywhere you want,” and his eyes swung to Tiff who stared blankly back.
Unflappable.
“But,” he continued, “most people just use the hip because that's where pulses usually go.”
I didn't know about that, mine was always digging uncomfortably into my ass.
We got into the back of his cop car and I noticed that his vehicle wasn't as gross as Garcia's.
“This is a better ride than the G-man,” Tiff observed for me.
Smith looked at Tiff in the rear view mirror like, huh?
“Garcia,” I answered for her, and she held out her palm like I was insanely brilliant.
“Oh. Well, he has a lot of criminals he transports, and I mainly hit crime scenes after the crime has been committed.”
Made sense.
We were quiet on the way to our respective houses and pulled up in front of the Weller house. Tiff's place was huge with a tree standing guard in the front lawn and a tire swing hanging from it. Toys littered the front y
ard in a distractingly colorful way.
“Where'd you get that old tire?” I asked, knowing that sucker was way-illegal.
Tiff's smile got wider. “A certain refuse station had a ton lying around.” She winked.
Ah. The dump. Bry must have hauled the thing around in his crappy car.
A little kid about five years old zoomed out the front door looking a lot like Tiff's mom, Shirley.
Tiff opened the door and he leaped into her arms. “Tiffie!” he shrieked in a most annoying way. In that moment I was deeply glad I was an only child.
“How many Wellers are there?” I asked.
Smith looked on with interest.
She looked at me, ruffling the kid's hair. “I have four younger brothers.”
Geez, that explained a buttload about Tiff. She's always jockeying for position.
“What? Your parents are trying to repopulate the world?” I asked.
“Somethinʼ like that,” Bry said, walking up to the cop car with the hottest chick in the world . So this was the one he'd been eye-ballinʼ...
She was tall and slim, but had weight in all the right spots. Long red hair, not carrot-colored like John's but a deeply burnished copper penny color, (not that those were around anymore), but I had a few in a jar. Whiskey-colored eyes that took up about half her face. Wow.
Then she spoke and ruined it. “Is this the AFTD pair?” she said in a voice that rivaled Griswold's, her eyes filled to the brim with loathing.
Tiff looked at me and made a face and I knew I was in for it. I started having the insane urge-to-laugh-at-inappropriate times.
Like now.
The impulse started from my gut, and gales of laughter pealed out and it appeared that I was laughing at Miss Hotness. Which I was, which made me laugh harder.
Smith looked alarmed, and Tiff said quickly, “Catch ya later, Hart.”
She took off before her laughter began, the coward.
I sat in the back of the cop car with tears streaming down my face.
Bry glowered and his girlfriend said, “Is he retarded or something?”
Bry looked mildly offended on my behalf, then looked at Miss Hotness and rethought his priorities. “Not usually,” he said with barely-there tact.
“Well, he is today ,” she said, huffing. She looked as good walking away as coming, but I couldn't appreciate it because I was laughing so hard and she was clearly, a raging bitch.
I hiccuped to a stop and said to Bry, “Good luck with that!” then started howling again.
He slammed the door on me, jogging after the witch. Who was probably looking for her broomstick about now. She was gonna throw that sucker in low gear and take it for a spin, chasing all the Weller kids around with a pointy hat jammed on her head.
Smith pulsed his car to start and turned to me. “She was a piece of work.”
I nodded. “Yeah she is.” I wouldn't be able to wipe the grin off my face if it killed me.
He said, “You handled that well.”
Which made me laugh again. Smith shook his head and started driving and my pulse vibrated. I looked down at the screen, wiping tears away from my eyes:
The MJ light illuminated and I depressed my thumb on the pad and thought: accept contact.
Guess what Hart? - MJ
Idk. ..CH
Kent Lake flat-lined today .- MJ
No profanity-block! -CH
No profanity-block! - MJ
Quickly, I thought:
Multiple-contact and all my contact names for the group came up.
Hey - JLeC, John Terran, AS, BW, TW, SM
Okay, J-man, tell the group.- CH
Maybe I didn't want them all to know .-MJ
I have proven myself and would appreciate knowing everything. John has filled me in on it all anyways. -AS
Okay... Sims, but you have to grow on me... I'm like a fine wine...
Jonesy! Get over yourself and tell us what's happening! - SM
Soph... don't get your panties in a twist. - MJ
What happened at the school, Jones? -TW
The school flat-lined.- MJ
silence.
Like the chopper at the cemetery in June? John Terran
Kinda like. .. profanity-block! You connect-the-dots fast, Terran!- MJ
No electrical activity whatsoever? - AS
Nada. They couldn't even get the back-up pulse generators going.- MJ
Are you profanity-block kidding me? I've never heard of that happening! -BW
Well, it happened and it was great ... the adults were scrambling around like eggs trying to get everything back online and nothing! Righteous! -MJ
rolls eyes you're still gonna have to do the homework, Jones. -TW
What are they speculating? -AS
Good question, Alex. - John Terran
mock-bow Thanks.- AS
Can it, dip- profanity-block, they think they've got an unclassified in the school .-MJ
I'm unclassified . -AS
Not like you, obviously... hey, I thought you were smart? -MJ
Knock it off, Jonesy, this is serious. Maybe it's some wacko! -JLeC
Jade's right. When do they think they can get power back on?- CH
Already done, my man. -MJ
When? -John Terran.
Soon as school was over.- MJ
Definitely a student. -AS
Yeah, the kids leave, the power comes on. Two plus two equals four. -BW
Not for everyone laughs -TW
Just wanted you clowns to know shrugs -MJ
ʼK, we're still meeting at the hide-a-way on Friday? CH
Yeah. - Multiple-contact response
Six o'clock then. -CH
I'll have the AP results then, too.- MJ
Great, we'll all sleep like babies tonight knowing that .-BW
Piss off Bry .-MJ
See you guys on Friday. -John Terran
Signing off. -AS
Signing off? Seriously?
See ya.- Multiple-contact response.
Jade? -CH
Still here .-JLeC
I'm in the back of a cop car so I'll pulse you later. - CH
K... Garcia's? -JLeC
No. It's a long story. -CH
You okay ? -JLeC
Yeah. Ttys, Love you. -CH
smiles Love you too .-JLeC
Smith rolled up to my house and turned. “You say your friend is a Null?”
“Yeah.”
“He any good?”
“Maybe better than you. Someday.” I winked. “Thanks for your help today.”
He nodded.
I turned with one foot on the cement sidewalk and one in the car's floorboard. “What's with you and Garcia?”
Smith stared at me for a second. “You're not a big talker are ya?”
I shook my head, not really .
“Bobbi and I used to go out.”
So? I shrugged.
“I think he likes her, and doesn't like that I was in the picture before.”
“Isn't that kinda adult info. for me to have?”
Couldn't believe he was sharing.
“Not so much. But, you and I might work together more and I would rather treat you like a peer than not. You're a powerful paranormal and that needs a dose of healthy respect. Also,” he smiled now, “like Gale said before, Garcia just missed the inoculation and maybe is frustrated over that.”
I shook my head. “I don't get that. I think maybe it's the criminals that are paranormal that's the problem. You're reading him wrong.”
After last year and all that Garcia had risked for my motley crew of friends, I was a believer that he stood for what he was supposed to:
serve and protect.
CHAPTER EIGHT
I wasn't seeing enough of Jade and needed a rendezvous (that was a damn fancy word that had come from Jade. She was forcing herself to take French as a foreign language class this semester.)
I remembered the conversation exactly:
*
I looked at her as if I was really interested in listening to school-talk. What I was really interested in was... and my gaze drifted to her mouth.
“Come on Caleb,” she'd said. “You don't see the logic?”
I didn't, and told her so. I was trying to figure out some way to take all Vo-Tech but so far, I hadn't managed it. I had to take my paranormal ability class, core, which meant all the normal sleep-through-thems: Math, English, Science, and History. That left me with one fun class (PE, duh). Which would have been fun but Griswold was teaching it this year at KPH so nothing was exciting. That left Affinity for the Dead...which was not fun yet, but definitely interesting.
Focus Caleb, I thought, dragging my lustful gaze away from her mouth. That would work for about ten seconds.
“And you're taking French why?”
“I am French,” she said.
“I thought you were Cherokee Indian?”
She nodded. “That too.”
She smiled at me.
I grinned back.
I could totally work this angle.
“So, since you're French (LeClerc), I was thinking that meant you could French kiss me?” I lifted my eyebrows.
She stepped closer to me, and I reached for her, pulling her in tight against my body, where she fit like a puzzle piece.
And we tried that whole French thing out .
Finally, we broke apart, my hands lingering everywhere on her. There were so many fantastic parts of Jade, but it was her eyes that my gaze always came back to. They were full of what she felt for me... unguarded and vulnerable, her love for me a thing that lived there.
I never got tired of looking into them.
*
I pulsed her. All this thinking about Jade made me want to see her. Supper was over and it was time to connect, with all the cop stuff today, I hadn't had time. We were still in that lame first week of school where we're getting “reacquainted” and suffering through review of... I don't know, everything. That meant no useless homework, yet.
Onyx pushed his head underneath my hand, and I absently stroked it.
