Not Alone

by Frederic Martin

  Will considered the idea that it might have been something totally unrelated, like maybe she was mugged because of the night vision camera, since it was pretty valuable. He was starting to regret that he hadn’t immediately gone over to the O’Day’s and asked for it back yesterday. He had let it go partly because of the way he and Blue had parted, and partly because he was implicitly loaning it to her so she could follow through with her plan. That made him a partial accomplice.

  He didn’t think a mugging was likely, though. Blue was far too skilled to let something like that happen. Even if it had, she still would have returned home. Unless the unthinkable happened. He pushed that out of his mind.

  He ran into Nate, who was going around to the neighbor’s houses and knocking on doors. Nate had a paper in his hand that had a picture of Blue—an ID picture from her file. She looked a lot younger, but just as serious. “Hey Will, I just got a call. The police are at our house and Ma Beth wants us all to come back, so they can interview us.”

  Will went back to his house where his mom and Rose were waiting for him. Together, they walked quickly down to the O’Day’s house. There were two police cars outside, and the whole O’Day family was out in the front yard. Nate was already busy talking to the police. Will spotted Wu and Sam, and he and Rose went over to meet them, while his mom went on to join the group of adults.

  “Will! Rose!” yelled Wu. As they walked over he immediately launched into explaining the situation. “Ma Beth called for Blue when she didn’t come down for breakfast this morning and then she went up to check, and she wasn’t there. So we all started looking. We turned the house upside down, I mean upside down, and then we turned it upside down again while Ma Beth started calling the neighbors. She finally called the cops, and they just got here. I’ve been looking all around the yard in case she fell asleep outside or something, but she would have been awake by now.”

  While Wu was blurting out the details, Sam was nodding his head in agreement. Wu went into a loud whisper, looking over his shoulder first to make sure he wouldn’t be overheard, “Will, did she sneak over to your house last night? I know she has been doing it, but I never told anyone!” Wu had grabbed Will by the shoulders firmly with a flash of desperation and a little bit of anger in his eyes.

  Will looked back in surprise and said completely sincerely, “No, Wu, she didn’t come over last night, honest. Believe me, I wouldn’t lie to you about this.” Wu relaxed his grip and his glare. Will added, “And thanks for not telling anyone. How did you guys know?”

  Sam had been wiggling to get a word in edgewise, and he finally piped up, “I know she went out last night—she thinks she can get by everyone else.” He looked at Wu, “But I know how she does it, and I figured out how to . . .” Sam trailed off, because Wu was signaling him to hush. A female police officer was walking over to the small group.

  Wu said, “Hey Chief Hannah, can you tell us what’s up?” Will recognized the officer—she was the police liaison officer at school, so a lot of kids knew her.

  “Hey Wu,” she said. “And this is Will, right? And who are you, miss?” directing this last question at Rose.

  “I’m Will’s sister. My name is Rose” she said boldly.

  “Nice to meet you, Rose,” Chief Hannah said with a kindly smile. Then her face became more business-like but still kindly. “Okay, I am going to be straight with all of you kids. We are considering this a runaway right at the moment. There is nothing to indicate that it is anything else. You may have heard that most runaways are found close to home. This is true. It is also true that as time goes by, the chances of finding the person drop very rapidly. We think that Blue has been missing for about 12 hours, which is not good.” She paused to gauge the effect of what she was saying to her young audience. They were all somber, but not panicking. She decided to go on.

  “What helps a lot—and I mean a lot—is information. Information about where she might have gone, if she left on her own, and it seems that she left on her own. If any of you know anything about why she left or where she was going, it would increase our chances a great deal.” She paused. “Look, I know a lot goes on that you’d rather not let adults know about—I was a kid once, believe it or not. Right now, however, is not a good time to play this game. Adults and kids need to be honest. No one is going to get in trouble if it leads to finding Blue. Is there anything you want to share now?”

  Wu, Will, and Sam couldn’t help but squirm and glance at each other a little bit. Rose was cool as a cucumber. So was Chief Hannah. She was watching them carefully. She looked at each of them and then said, “Okay, but if any of you think of something, the sooner the better, and come right to me, right? Here is my card—you can contact me any time, and I mean any time—even if it is the middle of the night, okay?” She handed out business cards to everyone.

  They all nodded their heads. Chief Hannah nodded back and then said, “Okay. Don’t hesitate to call, I mean it.” And with one last meaningful glance, she walked back to the group of officers talking to the adults.

  Wu, Will, Sam, and Rose watched her go, and then immediately started talking intensely among themselves.

  Wu was the first to speak, “Will, it’s time to ‘fess up right now. Why have you and Blue been meeting at night? It’s got to have something to do with what’s going on right now. We all have to know, even Rose and Sam.”

  Sam and Rose gave Wu a half sour look, but Rose piped right up “Blue came to our house the first time after our sleepover. She thought everyone would be asleep.”

  Will was shocked, “You knew about that? Why didn’t you say something?”

  “I won’t tattle on you, and that’s that,” said Rose. She continued, “And they’ve both gone out at night a few times since then.”

  Will felt defeated, but resolved, “It’s been more like four or five times.” “Rosie, I want to know how you found out!” Wu was starting to look angry and ready to pop. “Look, Wu, it was totally innocent—don’t get worked up about it. We weren’t ‘doing’ anything!”

  Wu finally let it out, “Then what the hell WERE you doing? What girl is crazy enough to get up secretly in the middle of the night and go meet a boy unless they are ‘doing’ something!” He could barely contain himself.

  Sam said quietly, “It’s because they have ‘powers.’”

  This time not only Wu, but Will and Rose turned in shock to Sam.

  “Sam, what in hell . . . heck . . . are you talking about?” Wu was almost apoplectic. Will checked to see if adults had noticed this sudden, heated discussion, but they all seemed absorbed in a sober conversation.

  Sam repeated, “They have superpowers. I know it. Haven’t you noticed how Blue can read your thoughts sometimes?”

  Wu sat on the ground and put his head in his hands and shook it back and forth. “I don’t believe this. Blue is missing and you are talking about goofy nonsense. Sam, this is not the time!”

  Will looked at his friend, and then at Sam, and then at Rose. Rose seemed to be the wisest person right at the moment and she was looking back at Will. She nodded her head slowly and voxed, “We should tell them. They’re our best friends.”

  Sam was watching them with a knowing look. Wu was still shaking his head, looking at the ground.

  Will didn’t know what to do. Everything they had been taught was telling him that they should keep vox a secret. But he also knew his parents had already trusted certain friends. He knew there would come a time when he could trust a friend. Now seemed like the time, and who was better than Wu. And Sam?

  “Do you trust Sam?” he asked Rose.

  Rose nodded.

  Will took a deep breath, made his decision and said, “It’s true. Wu, what Sam said is true . . . sort of.”

  “Ha ha, not a very good time to be joking,” replied Wu, still holding his head in his hands. He seemed to be wrestling with several emotions at once.

  Rose said, “It’s true. It’s not really a super-power, though.”

&nb
sp; “Well then, what good is it? Is it going to help us find Blue?” Wu asked. “You guys are talking about super-powers when Blue is missing. How about just coming out and telling us what you were doing, so we can get some real truth and maybe find her still alive!”

  This last part kind of woke them all up. Will and Rose had gotten caught up in the moment. They hadn’t expected such a dismissive response to their revelation. And the suggestion that Blue might be dead, well . . . when someone said it out loud, it was kind of sobering.

  Will felt he had to explain. “Look, Wu, the reason Blue came that first night—remember all the notes and stuff?”

  “Yeah,” said Wu starting to pay attention.

  “Well it was because I suspected she could vox,” said Will.

  “She could what?” said Wu in new exasperation.

  “She can vox, Wu,” said Rose. “I can, too. It means we can talk to each other without using our voices.”

  Wu stared at her.

  “I know, biz-arre, right?” Rose continued.

  Sam nearly jumped out of his skin, “I KNEW it! I knew it, I knew it,” and he capered around in a jerky victory dance chanting, “I knew it, I knew it, I knew it . . .”

  “Sam!” hissed Rose. The adults had looked around at them a little disapprovingly.

  Sam calmed down. “Sorry!” he said and stood still as a post.

  Wu, however, was still sitting on the ground, stock still. He said, “What does this mean, ‘Talk without using your voice’? If not your voice, what are you using? Do you mean you are telepathic or something?”

  Will felt he finally had Wu’s serious attention, and he jumped in quickly to explain in a rapid, hushed whisper. “It’s not telepathy. It’s our eyes. You know how a cat’s eyes shine in the dark when you turn a flashlight on them? It’s something like that. We are sensitive to infrared light, and we can communicate with it.”

  Wu took this in and then thought for a moment. “Wait, how can you communicate with light—you have to generate light or something like that. Are you saying your eyes are like flashlights?” Wu said, suddenly all concentration.

  “Infrared flashlights,” said Will, “Well, not really flashlights, more like infrared glow sticks. Something like fireflies, only it’s not visible.”

  Sam just went “Whoa!” and they were all silent for a long moment. A very long moment.

  “Bullshit,” said Wu, but not convincingly.

  Rose stepped over to Wu and said, “Whisper something in my ear—anything.”

  Wu hesitated but then said, “Okay.” Rose bent down to Wu’s mouth and Wu cupped his hands around her ear and whispered.

  Rose looked at Will. Will smiled and repeated, “You said, ‘Stop screwing around so we can get busy and look for Blue.’”

  Wu just sat there stunned. Sam was jumping excitedly and saying, “Let me try, let me try!”

  But Rose warned them very gravely, “You guys cannot tell anyone!”

  Will suddenly remembered the seriousness of what they had just done and said, “Really, you can’t tell anyone. We trusted you guys with this. It may seem unbelievable to you guys, but for us, it’s like a curse sometimes. You would not believe what people would do to you if they find out you could do something like this.”

  “Like the Salem witch trials,” said Rose.

  “I get it,” said Sam seriously. “I know what it’s like, a little.” Will remembered Rose telling him that Sam was often picked on at school.

  Will looked at Wu. His harelip scar was often the victim of cruel side comments and jokes. He was silent, though. Will realized it was time to get to the point. “Blue came over because she hasn’t had anyone to vox—talk—with since her family . . . well . . .” and he trailed off. He could never really say they ‘died.’ He just went on “Anyway, so she snuck over to my window one night and scared the crap out of me. But then we just talked. I think it was a big help for her. Since then, we’ve met to just talk, but she’s also been teaching me how to hunt at night! I know that sounds weird, but I guess her family was really good at hunting at night, and they practiced it. She is really amazing how she can move around at night. With our voxing, we can communicate at night even when we are far apart, and no one can hear us or see us.”

  Rose jumped on Will, “And you never took me along!” She crossed her arms.

  “Rosie, I know you hate it, but we were taking a big risk ourselves doing this. I didn’t want to get you in trouble. Mom and Dad would kill me if they found out we took you along. Well they’d kill me if they knew Blue and I were sneaking out at night. I really did it because I thought it was helping Blue come out of her shell.”

  Wu and Sam were just listening somewhat dumbstruck, but Wu finally said, “So where IS she? What does this have to do with why she is missing?”

  Then Sam jumped in. “That’s what I was trying to tell you before. I think she climbs down the trellis outside the bathroom. One night, really late, like after midnight, I got up to go to the bathroom and when I got to the door, I thought I heard someone moving inside, so I waited. But then I noticed that the bathroom light wasn’t on. Then I heard the trellis creaking. It was scary, but I had to go, so I peeked in the bathroom and it was empty.” Sam turned to Will, “It happened again last night, but it wasn’t that late—only, like, 11:30.”

  Will felt like things were moving too fast now. He wasn’t sure how much he should say. He wanted to say enough that it wouldn’t impede them finding Blue, but not so much that she would get in trouble after she was found. She had trusted him, and they both knew how important it was to keep this secret, but he also felt that there was a middle ground. Time was running out, and as his dad said, you can’t think too long before deciding to jump out of the way of an oncoming freight train. Will’s decision seemed to come out of nowhere, but he was confident it was the right one.

  “Okay, look, you have to trust me. Let’s go talk to Chief Hannah, but let me do all the talking. I’m going to tell her the truth, but not everything. We can NOT tell her about voxing. Rose and I have been doing this a long time and I know how to tell people the truth without bringing it up. It’s something we have learned to live with.” He looked at Wu and Sam and went on, “But afterward, we four are going to come up with our own plan to help. Because Rose and I and my parents can vox, we may be the only ones to hear Blue if she is voxing for help.”

  Sam agreed right away. Wu seemed reluctant, but then shrugged and said, “Well let’s get going then.”

  As a group, they headed over to Chief Hannah with Will leading them.

  27

  Still Captive

  Blue had finally gotten control of her emotions. It had taken a while. With her hands too far away to dry them, her tears had woven their way down across the contours of her cheeks, dripping onto her shirt, leaving cool tracks crisscrossing her skin. They were drying now. The feeling of dried tears on her cheeks was an almost forgotten sensation.

  She was angry with herself because she had let Bronco get to her. She wasn’t going to let him do that again. His threat was not empty; he was clearly a dangerous man. She would do as he said to protect her family and friends, but she would not let him break her. The anger made her feel better, and with that, and the quiet of the house, the immediacy of her predicament faded a little, and she could relax somewhat. Her head felt better, too. The Tylenol must have worked. For the first time, she felt like she was more herself. Until that moment, she hadn’t even had a chance to look around carefully at her prison. She started to slowly scan the room, taking note of all the detail.

  There was one window, which had a roller shade pulled all the way down. In spite of the surveillance camera, she tried hopping her chair over to it, but there was no way she could get enough body movement to hop the chair. It was heavy and she was expertly bound. She looked at her feet bindings—several wraps of duct tape around the legs of the chair. She would’ve slumped in defeat, but the bindings kept her too upright for that. She could move
her hands and wrists, and that was somewhat of a comfort. Bronco was right, about all she could do was scratch her navel.

  She continued her scan of the room. There was the little closet bathroom. There was a chair with a side table and lamp on it, and a chest of drawers with a mirror on the top, and a ceiling fan with a light. Both lights were off. The only light in the room was coming from the translucent roller shade. It cast a yellowish pale light. And there was the bed she had been tied to. That was it. That was her world right now.

  She suddenly wondered what time it was. She had no idea how long she had been there. She had been so distracted by the pain and fear and disorientation that she had lost track of time. It could be early morning. It could be noon. It may not even have been the same day. Maybe she’d been out more than 24 hours.

  Either way, she must have been missed by now. She had a sick feeling when she realized that even if she had been missed, they didn’t even know where to look for her. She didn’t even know where she was. She could be anywhere, though her first guess was that she was in Bronco’s apartment. Or was she? He was smart. Maybe he didn’t take her to his place.

  Will knew, or probably guessed, that she went to the park to follow through with her plan. He would tell them, thank God, about her plan because he was too straight an arrow to not confess. That would cause problems for her down the road, but she realized that that was not important right now. She just wanted to survive so she could have any road to go down at all.

  If Will told people about their plan, then they would eventually get around to checking out Bronco. The problem was they didn’t know who Bronco really was. Jack might know, so they would probably question him first. But how long would that take? Then they would have to find Bronco. By the time the police figured out who he was and where he lived, hours could have passed. Even then, they would have to find evidence or get a warrant to search . . . search what? His apartment? Maybe that’s where Bronco went, back to his apartment to come up ‘clean.’ Maybe make an alibi. If that was the case, then where was she? She had been too fuzzy-headed while in the back of the car to notice how long they had been driving, or where. She couldn’t see anything because she was covered up, but the few times she was semi-conscious, she could tell they were passing street lights and making turns.