I’m pretty sure, however, that my best friend disagreed. “Oh, now you’re in trouble!” Cal bellowed and wheeled himself directly between Eric and me. The left tire of the chair rolled over the top of Eric’s sneaker. It didn’t look like an accident.
“Owww!” The a-hole howled as he hopped up and down, grabbing at his foot. “What the fuck?” Just as fast, his pain turned to rage, and he pulled back his giant arm and turned his ham-sized hand into a fist.
I moved faster, throwing myself between them, using my back to shield Cal from the incoming blow. It was gonna hurt, but I had wicked-fast healing abilities in my superpower toolbox, while Calvin not so much.
“Eric, don’t you dare!” I heard Ray shout.
I braced myself, but Eric didn’t hit me.
And then, a heartbeat later, he still didn’t hit me.
And then?
The weirdest thing happened. I felt it again. That sense that there was another G-T here in the CoffeeBoy with me. But it was so faint and…distant—like whoever she was, she was here, except she wasn’t…
And I turned to look and saw giant Eric stand up straight, his hand relaxed and down by his side as he tipped his head back and literally screamed, “Ray, I love you and I always have and I just wanted to get up the nerve to be as brave as you are and ask you to the prom and I love your rainbow shirt and I think you’re gorgeous and amazing and if I could, I’d kiss you right! Now!”
And suddenly, the fear I could smell made total sense.
There was a long, awkward pause. The sound of the clock on the wall was like a bass drum thumping.
“Wait-wait-wait. Come again?” Cal’s voice finally broke the silence. He craned his neck to peer out around my shield-stance to verify that he really had just heard what he thought he’d heard.
He had.
We all had.
Someone in the CoffeeBoy started to applaud, and others joined in, like this was the ending of some sappy romantic comedy movie.
Ray was openmouthed. And rather horrified. Like, kissing Eric was on his ish list instead of his wish list.
Eric also seemed stunned. His chin wobbled for a split second before he turned on his heels and sprinted out of the CoffeeBoy.
“Whoa,” Cal said. “Just whoa.” He shook his head fast, as if trying to manually reset his brain in order to decipher the last five minutes of his life. “What was that?”
“I don’t know,” Ray replied. “But I’m pretty sure I no longer need any caffeine. Maybe not ever again.” He extracted himself from the line as he pulled his cell phone from his bag. He’d already started to put it up to his ear when he turned back to us. “Thanks,” he added. “Nice meeting you both.”
I nodded and looked at Cal as Ray hurried for the opposite exit, already talking on his cell. “Holy crap, Lisa. You will not. Believe. What just happened.”
“I saw it, Lisa,” Cal called after him. “And I’m not sure I believe it.” He looked me up and down with concern. “You okay? He hit you pretty hard.”
I was about to say that I was fine. But I didn’t have time to respond.
Because the young man who’d been sitting in the corner reading that book with real paper pages? He was standing right beside us. I glanced over and saw that he’d left the book on his table, spine up to mark his place.
Up close, I could see that he was younger than I’d first thought. Maybe Milo’s age, maybe a little older. A college boy. Palm River had a handful of expensive private universities. In fact, my mother had already started making noise about taking campus tours, and was all Wouldn’t it be nice if you went to college somewhere close to Coconut Key?
I’d given little to no thought to the future—my main focus these days was on keeping myself and my friends alive.
But this guy’s photo could’ve been in the dictionary next to college-student-comma-wealthy. He was one of those too-handsome-for-his-own-good types: wavy blond hair, emerald green eyes, lightly tanned clear skin, average height with a lean, strong runner’s build. His shabby-chic wardrobe screamed—almost as loudly as Eric had—that his trust fund was at least eight figures.
Please don’t hassle us, please don’t hassle us…
Calvin was thinking the same thing that I was, although he put what I was thinking into words. “If you really need a piece of us, too, dude, can you wait until after we get the coffee?”
The young man shook his perfect blond head and smiled with a mix of exasperation and disgust. “You must be Skylar and Calvin,” he said in an accent that I couldn’t quite place. “I’ve been waiting for you. Get your coffee but then come. Join me in my corner.”
He didn’t say please. He just turned and walked back to his table.
————
“Who the hell are you?”
Cal’s question was a good one, although it could have been asked a bit more politely with about half-a-boatload less attitude. But after our little escapade with Eric and his projectile vomit of an emotional outburst, I was willing to cut Calvin some slack. I even raised his opening bid with an elevated eyebrow and slightly narrowed eyes aimed at our new blond associate.
“My name is John Morningstar,” the blond said. “Please. Join me.”
I sat, and Calvin rolled closer, and it was strange—I wouldn’t have labeled this guy as sexy, because one, wealthy college boys had never floated my boat. And two, let’s face it, after Milo had come into my life, no one held a candle in comparison. But as I studied John Morningstar, the word beautiful popped into my head. And he was—in an ethereal, almost elfin way. In fact, he looked as though he had slipped out from the pages of a leather-bound collection of fairy tales. The kind of book with gold-edged pages and a red velvet page marker sewn into the spine.
And although he was attempting to maintain an expression of disapproval or disappointment or maybe even disgust as he gazed at us, he couldn’t quite pull it off. There was something back there—a twinkle in his eyes—that he couldn’t quite hide.
I thought about what Dana had told me about micro-expressions and tried to freeze-frame his.
But instead of bared teeth and snarling, I kept getting amusement and laughter and genuine joy, which was kind of weird.
“There’s been a mistake,” I started.
Calvin nodded. “Yeah, we’re supposed to be meeting—” He cut himself off, because in her instructions, Morgan had made it clear that we were not, under any circumstances, to speak her name out loud. Cal cleared his throat. “Someone else.”
“There’s no mistake,” John said. “You are Skylar and Calvin. Correct?”
We nodded.
“Well, there you go.” He was satisfied.
“But you’re not—” I also stopped myself. It was possible this was some kind of test. “The person with whom we’re supposed to be meeting.” If I was lucky, Morgan would give me extra points for my good grammar.
“It’s okay. It’s safe in here,” John said. “I’m Morgan’s advisor, for lack of a better term.”
Cal scowled. “So you’re, like, her minion?”
John laughed. It was just as supernal as the micro-twinkle in his eyes. I, however, didn’t find any of this funny. But I didn’t stand up and storm out, even though part of me wanted to. See, I still had that vague, way-back-there sense that another G-T was nearby—maybe monitoring this conversation, maybe lurking in the bushes outside…?
“Well, that’s actually an even more perfect word,” John said. “Minion. Yes. I do like that. I’m her minion. Indeed. Do you have the payment?”
Calvin had the cash in his wallet, in an envelope, and he leaned to the side so he could extract it from his back pocket and put it on the table.
John Morningstar immediately reached for it, but Calvin put his own hand down on top of it.
“So we give this to you,” Cal clarified, “and you co
unt it, and then…call the person we’re meeting so we can actually, you know, meet her?”
“Of course,” John said with a smile.
Calvin pushed the envelope toward him and lifted his hand off of it, complete with jazz fingers.
John pocketed it without any counting. “Also, of course, Morgan gives me permission to make this type of decision on my own, and I have to be honest, the odds of you making it through this first round of interviews…? Slim to none. You’re terminal do-gooders—in fact, you drip with it. Morgan doesn’t need the complications that come with entanglement with the likes of you. My recommendation—after I call her, which will be later tonight because she’s very, very busy—will be RRAFAYC. Run, run, as fast as you can.”
This was just great. For once, Dana’s cynicism had been spot-on. We’d been duped. Except…I could still feel that weird little…something, and I knew with a certainty that I trusted that Morgan was not only real but she was out there. Somewhere. Maybe even watching and listening to us right now.
“This is bullshit,” Calvin announced.
“I demand to see her,” I said. I was still being careful not to say her name.
“I don’t understand,” Calvin said. “How is trying to do something good a bad thing?”
John leaned in, motioning Calvin to do the same. He created a steeple with his fingers as he rested his elbows on the cheap CoffeeBoy table. I noticed how elegant his hands were. Everything about him was nimble and striking. Even the way he moved—as though he were made from pixie dust.
“It’s not so much you as her,” he told Calvin as he gestured to me with a tip of his head. “I mean, she’s the G-T, right? And hello, not only is her best friend in a wheelchair, but she’s not in here five minutes before she nearly gets beaten up defending a total stranger from a homophobe? Life expectancies of girls like that are… Well, her survival’s got those same slim-to-none odds that I quoted you earlier.” He leaned back in his seat. “Darlings, look, let’s not waste any more of our time and just call it a night.”
I stood up at that and squared my shoulders. “Then give the money back.”
“Ooh,” John said, winking at Calvin. “And she’s feisty, too. They can chip that onto your gravestone. She was a feisty do-gooder. But you know what else drips off you, along with the little Skylar Do-Good vibe?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. “The angst. Oh, my Gods, the teenage angst. Sweetheart, it radiates from you. And trust me, if I’m picking that up, then just being in the same room with you will make my poor darling Morgan’s head explode.”
I got right up in his face, both hands braced on the table. “Then I’ll stay out of the room. And FYI? I’ll take She was a feisty do-gooder over He was a cowardly douche.”
He looked at me with those emerald eyes as he laughed off my insult, but now his micro-expressions were something else. I caught flashes of sadness. Or maybe longing. And possibly even shame.
And because I could still feel it—that vague something I believed was Morgan—I pushed even harder. “A G-T named Sasha was kidnapped a few months ago,” I said. “She’s nine years old, but she’s on the autism spectrum, so she seems younger. She’s tiny. She’s special. And she was taken from her bedroom in the middle of the night. We’re not certain exactly who took her or where she was held during the weeks she was abducted, but we believe she was eventually transported north in a Doggy Doo Good truck, imprisoned in a dog crate along with dozens of other little girls.”
He winced at that.
I continued. “Whatever happened to her, she’s traumatized. We do know that she ended up in a low-tech Destiny farm in a rotting barn in Alabama. We found her there, and we got her out.
“And the night that we got her out, she said something that makes us believe that at some point during her captivity she’d seen a girl named Lacey, who’s been missing for years,” I told him and hopefully told Morgan, too. “Did Sasha really see this girl, or was it only some kind of psychic vision or dream? We don’t know. But it’s important that we find out. However. That answer is locked inside Sasha’s head.
“She’s back with her parents now, safely in hiding, and she’s also struggling with PTSD, because Jesus. All we’re asking is for your employer to go and spend a few hours with her, to help us in our search for Lacey, and maybe, please Gods”—I purposely imitated him—“give Sasha some relief. We’ll get the money to pay her fee. Somehow. And, I repeat: I do not have to be there, as much as I’d like to be.”
I straightened back up. “So there’s the interview. Either take that information to your boss…I know she’s here somewhere—I can feel her. Or give us our freaking money back.” Only I didn’t say freaking.
John’s eyelids lowered a bit, but he continued to gaze into my eyes. “You can feel her?”
I nodded. “Yup.”
“That’s quite a powerful little talent you have there.”
“If we could do this without her help,” I said, “trust me, we would.”
John looked from me to Calvin and back, and sighed heavily. “You win,” he said, and for a moment I actually thought that we had won, and that he was going to help us.
But instead, as he stood up, he took the envelope of cash out of his pocket and tore it open. He took out a ten-dollar bill, saying, “For gas and my latte,” and tossed the rest of it back to Calvin. It landed with a very unsatisfying plop on the table.
“Ta, kids,” he said, and tucking his book under his arm, he walked away.
Chapter Eleven
I was locked in a closet.
Wait. I should back up.
My dream self was locked in a closet.
Ever since I’d first become aware that I was a Greater-Than, back just a few short months ago, my dreams-per-night average had increased exponentially.
Some of the dreams were incredibly amazing, like the ones that included Milo…and beds…and candlelight…
But some were the most terrible nightmares I’d ever had.
The craziest piece of it all was that, unlike your typical normie dreamer’s, my unconscious mind had a habit of mixing random dream images with actual meaningful ones. In other words, my G-T talents included dreaming about things that had either already taken place in real life, or were yet to happen…also in real life.
Yup. I’m a little bit psychic. And a tiny bit prescient. And I can do something called dream-project, which means that while I’m sleeping, I often send my dream-vision mix directly into Milo’s also-sleeping head. (But only Milo’s, thank goodness.) But while I’m doing that, Milo’s own creative dream-brain has the opportunity to chime in and add his random thoughts and images into the already-too-cryptic, mixed-up dream pot.
And yes. After months of this, I still thought it all sounded completely batshit crazy. And, as far as G-T skills go, its usefulness was questionable.
Let me give you an example of what I mean. Say I wake up to discover that I’ve dreamed about a pig who was eating my homework and who looked up at me to grumpily say, “Your spelling is atrocious.”
It was possible that my psychic skills were letting me know—very cryptically—that there was an important, albeit misspelled document that would help lead us to, say, Lacey, and that we’d find that document hidden at a pig farm. Or maybe even just a farm. Or a farm stand. Or stuck between the pages of a book about pig farming.
Or it was possible that my prescient skills, which occasionally popped up to warn me of potential future events, were telling me that we might find a clue to Lacey’s whereabouts near a misspelled sign that bore a picture of a pig—maybe for a barbecue place? So next time we ventured into, say, the wilds of Harrisburg, I’d be on the lookout for a misspelled sign for a barbecue “kichen” and, on that future afternoon, we’d meet someone inside who would give us information we needed. Maybe.
Of course, it was also entirely possible that I’d had the drea
m only because Charlotte’s Web was playing on Animated Classics and Milo had caught a glimpse of it while flipping channels, and I was stressed about my English homework.
Sometimes freaky dreams were just freaky dreams.
Top this off with the fact that, like most G-T talents, my dream-skills were extremely hit and miss. I couldn’t make myself dream about a future event. I couldn’t make myself dream about anything. Few and far between are the G-Ts who can actually control their dreams and nightmares.
Anyway. In this particular dream, which occurred the night after we’d been rejected by Morgan’s assistant, I found myself locked in a closet. Or at least I thought it was a closet. It was hard to tell because the space was so tiny. And it was pitch-black. I’m talking no sight whatsoever. I even tried to stick my dream-hand in front of my dream-nose and wiggle my dream-fingers a little bit.
Nope. Couldn’t see a thing.
Luckily, I knew that I was in a dream. And luckily I’m not too claustrophobic. Otherwise, I would have been panicking.
Instead, I took a deep breath and reached my hands out to see if I could feel where I was. And ow! My knuckles rapped against wood way before I expected them to. Yeah. This room was small. It had to be a closet.
It made sense, considering all the noise Milo had been making earlier today about us having to go into Rochelle’s house and find out if Jilly was locked in that closet.
Carefully, I tried to stand. I was crouching down, my knees close to my feet. My bare feet. I reached down to feel my legs—and they were bare too.
I was in my underwear.
Nope, make that underpants. Only underpants.
Oh joy.
I was able to stand up completely without hitting my head. But my knees felt weak—as if I hadn’t eaten anything for days. My mouth was dry, and I tried to swallow, but it felt like my saliva was made of razor blades.
Things shifted then, the way they often do in dreams, and I was out in the bright sunshine, in Garrett’s car with Dana, holding the stupid tablet and watching Milo and Rochelle over one of the flower-cams. Figures my subconscious would bring me back here. Thanks, brain.
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