Wild Sky

by Suzanne Brockmann

  After he’d exchanged texts with Rochelle.

  Milo no doubt was able to read my mind despite our lack of contact, and he coughed. “I didn’t really care about waking her, so…I was trying to get her to meet up earlier. For lunch instead of dinner.”

  My heart was pounding. “So you’re actually going to go through with meeting her for lunch now.”

  “No,” he said. “Well, no because Ro’s not available until seven. Tonight. For dinner.”

  Ro? Give me a break.

  “So,” Dana prompted Milo to continue, “did you make solid plans with her?”

  “We’re on for dinner at seven sharp.”

  “Good boy. Rochelle will definitely be ready. She wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  Dana had that right.

  “Gonna be interesting to see what’s on her busy, busy schedule for today,” she continued, settling onto the sofa between Garrett and Milo, and putting her steel-toed boots up onto the coffee table. Thump and thump.

  Now that we no longer had to peer at the tiny tablet to monitor the feeds from Rochelle’s house, Dana turned her attention to me. “Good reason for being inexcusably late?” she prompted with her usual tact and grace.

  I definitely deserved bonus points for not taking my frustration with Milo out on her.

  “Yes,” I said politely instead of screaming at her. “It occurred to me that my mother’s been in touch with Sasha’s mother, so I asked my mom to give her a call, see if we could set up a visit. You know, instead of me homing in on her, and then Sasha’s parents wondering how we found them and getting all freaked out and probably not even letting me see her—”

  “A normie approach,” Dana said, nodding. “Smart. When will we know if you’re cleared to visit?”

  “Right now,” I said. “I’m cleared. Calvin, as well. I told my mom that he wanted to see Sasha, too—and that he could drive me. She already called and set it up. Well, almost set it up. We’re working out the best day and time for Sasha, but it’s definitely going to happen before the end of school vacation.”

  “Sooner is better,” Dana reminded me. “Today, in fact, would be—”

  “Yes, I know, but we’re trying to find a time that’s best for Sasha,” I said a bit testily.

  “Also?” Cal chimed in, aiming his words at Dana. “A delay gives us more time to meet with Morgan and convince her to go with.”

  To my surprise, Dana nodded. I looked at Cal, confused. “I thought that was a dead end.”

  After leaving the CoffeeBoy last night, Calvin had attempted to email Morgan, but his message had bounced. Her email account had been deleted. Just like that. Same thing happened when we tried to call the phone number from which we’d received those texts. It was disconnected. Even the Internet message board where he’d first made contact was shut down.

  “Is her email working again?” I asked.

  “Noooooo,” Cal said, drawing out the vowel in a way that clued me in to the fact that he and Dana had done some strategizing without me. “But we’ve been brainstorming ideas for how to do a face-to-face.”

  He wasn’t kidding. But before he could elaborate, Garrett pointed to the TV screen. “Guys! Heads up!”

  Sure enough, Rochelle had come into view, via the kitchen-cam.

  I sat down, tailor-style, on Cal’s floor and held my breath, studying the Destiny addict’s petite and perfect body. She moved like a dancer—all grace and elegant lines—and it was weird to think she was, in truth, a total monster. Today, she was wearing a pair of jean cutoffs, along with a white spaghetti-strap tank top. Her hair was, of course, perfect, too, and her tanned skin glowed as she went directly toward what looked like a programmable coffeemaker, opening the cabinet above it to get a mug.

  But the cabinet was bare—she was going to have to give in and do the dishes. But as we watched, she took a mug from the pile of dirties in the sink, dumped out whatever had been in it, sniffed it, then poured herself some coffee.

  “Ew, not even a rinse?” Garrett asked. Apparently he, of the toilet manatee, was squeamish about that.

  That obvious discussion Cal and Dana had had about Morgan—and probably quite a few other things before I’d arrived—had left me feeling out of the loop. And last night’s bad dream was still a vivid memory, so I asked, “Has anyone come out to the house? I’m thinking male, ginormous, hairy shoulders, scabby knees…?” I turned to look at Milo and found him staring at me as if maybe my words had rung a bell. “It definitely wasn’t Man-in-Black from the spa parking lot money-drop. He was big, too, but it wasn’t him.”

  Now Dana, Garrett, and Cal were also looking at me.

  “Who wasn’t him?” Garrett asked, confused.

  “No one’s come to the house,” Dana said. She looked at Milo and Garrett. “Right?”

  “Not that I saw,” Milo said.

  “Nope. It’s been all Ro, all alone. So where do you get scabby knees?” Garrett asked.

  “I had a weird dream last night,” I reported.

  “How weird?” Dana asked, eyes narrowing. “And was it a dream or a vision?”

  Milo turned to look at me again, and now he was frowning too. But really, his expression was more sad than anything.

  I studied the tops of my hands and shook my head. “I don’t…know. I feel…felt…like it was real. But I don’t think it was in real time, you know, like a psychic event. It felt more like a memory, but through someone else’s eyes…if that makes sense. It wasn’t my memory, but at the same time, it kind of was. For most of it, I was in a closet, so I was thinking I was picking up something from Jilly, because… Well. But there was this giant man with a belt and, yeah, really nasty knees.”

  Milo made a noise deep in his throat, like he’d been wounded. Just as quickly, he cleared his throat and reached into his pocket to pull out a piece of Smok’B’Gon gum.

  Garrett did his creepy-laugh thing and looked from Dana to me and back again. “Do you seriously mean visions? Like, your dreams actually come true?”

  “Not all of them,” I replied. “Sometimes. It’s kind of hard to explain.” I then told Dana and the guys the details—well, most of them—about the dream, focusing on the man with the belt and the smell of evil. As I spoke, I was even more convinced that I was somehow seeing the world through Jilly’s traumatized eyes.

  “But since there’s been no giant, hairy, scabby-kneed men showing up here,” I pointed out, “maybe Dana’s theory is right. Maybe Rochelle sold Jilly to her dealer, who sold her to some Destiny farm, where she’s been thrown into their version of solitary because—”

  “No.” Milo interrupted me.

  I looked over at him, eyebrows raised. “Excuse me?”

  He shrugged helplessly. “I mean, maybe you were just, you know, dreaming. Jilly’s in that closet”—he pointed at the TV screen—“in that beach house. I know it. There’s no giant hairy man, just Rochelle, who, believe me, is awful enough.”

  “You know it,” I countered flatly. “Because your G-T talents include omniscience—oh, wait, except you’re not a Greater-Than. You’re just a normie.”

  As the words left my lips, I wished I could take them back, even before the hurt flashed in Milo’s dark eyes. There was no such thing as just a normie, and even if there was, he was anything but.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered as Milo looked away from me. “I didn’t mean that.”

  And there we were, sitting there in silence, while Dana, Cal, and Garrett all tried to be invisible.

  “I know,” Milo finally said, glancing back at me.

  “Guys?” Garrett pointed to the TV.

  Rochelle had left the kitchen, and for a moment, we all just stared at the video feeds, trying to figure out where she’d gone.

  “There!” Dana said, pointing.

  As we watched, Rochelle went into her playroom-sl
ash-home-gym and headed directly for that dead-bolted closet door.

  “She’s going to open it,” Cal started in a hushed voice, as if Rochelle could hear us from his rec room.

  “Open it, dammit!” Milo hissed through clenched teeth. He was leaning forward in his seat on the couch, his eyes glued to the screen as though his life depended on it. “Open the closet, Ro!”

  Dana also leaned forward as she, too, watched Rochelle. And we all heard the click of the lock as it opened.

  The door creaked, and Rochelle quickly went inside. Despite the high quality of the camera, everything beyond the door was completely dark.

  “Do you see anything—” I started. But Rochelle swung the door closed behind her, leaving us as clueless as we were a minute ago.

  “Shit!” Milo breathed.

  “She’ll come back out again,” Garrett said. “She did last night.”

  All four of us whipped our heads around to look at him.

  “I’m sorry,” Dana said in a normal voice, but then leaned in close to shout, “What?”

  “Heh-heh.” Garrett thought she was kidding. “She went in, she came out; she went in, she came out. You know?”

  “Rochelle went into that closet twice last night?” I clarified, and he nodded.

  “When?” Milo asked.

  “It was when I was watching the tablet,” Garrett said. “Dana was sleeping in the backseat of my car and you—”

  “Went to get dinner,” Milo grimly finished for him.

  “It didn’t occur to you to wake me up?” Dana was incredulous.

  “Or to tell me when I got back with the food?” Milo asked.

  Garrett looked from Milo to Dana to Cal to me. It’s possible I was making the least-angry-looking face, because he explained to me somewhat plaintively, “But we were looking for any sign of Jilly.” He turned back to Milo. “You came back and you said, Any sign of Jilly? And there wasn’t. Any. Jilly.”

  “And you didn’t think the fact that Rochelle went into that closet—twice—was worth reporting?” Dana asked.

  “Well, no,” Garrett said, “because she didn’t bring Jilly out with her.”

  “You told us about the very important fact that Rochelle farted,” Dana pointed out. “You even wrote down the time code for when it happened.”

  “Well, yeah, because that was funny,” Garrett said. “It was like a trombone solo.” He imitated the sound, and out of the corner of my eye, I could see Calvin making a mental note to rewind to that part of the digital recording.

  “What is she doing in there?” Dana asked. “And what was she doing last night?”

  “I don’t know,” Garrett said. “All I know is, she went in and after a few minutes, she came out. And then she did it again.”

  What was behind that dead-bolted closet door?

  I found myself leaning forward, too, but on Cal’s TV nothing moved.

  The waiting was terrible. Seconds passed, and then minutes, and nothing happened. And nothing happened. And…

  “Here she comes!” Cal exclaimed.

  Sure enough, the door to the closet was moving, Rochelle’s talon-like fingers wrapped around the edge as she pushed the door open and came back out into the hallway. Her body was positioned so that, once again, there was no way for any of us to spot what lay beyond her, inside that very dark closet. Cal grabbed the tablet, opened a fourth window, and used it to rewind the footage from that camera’s feed. He played it back and even took several screenshot stills, zooming in close in an attempt to see into the darkness. But all we saw were close-ups of darkness.

  Milo was careful not to curse out loud this time. But I could tell by the way his jaw tightened that he was extremely unhappy.

  Once the door was completely closed, Rochelle worked on checking and rechecking that the bolt was locked again.

  “What’re those thingies in her hand?” Garrett asked.

  “What thingies?” Cal asked.

  “There—” Garrett began to point, but Rochelle was already moving out of the camera’s static view.

  There was another pause, and then she reappeared again, this time in front of the sofa in the living room. The camera in the floral arrangement was positioned perfectly, and we had a clear shot of Rochelle as she sat down.

  We could now see that she held not one but two syringes…along with a little vial of liquid and two rubber tourniquets—the kind that the lab tech uses before drawing blood. She set it all down on the glass coffee table in front of her. And, because of the camera in the strategically placed floral arrangement, in front of us, too.

  “Wait. Is that—”

  “Destiny, already in the syringes.” Dana finished my sentence. “Street D, lower-grade stuff. You can tell ’cause it’s red-tinged, from blood. That’s processed out of the purer shit. Good eye, Garrett,” she added.

  “Is she… She’s gonna—shoot up? Right now?” Squeamish, Garrett looked like he might barf.

  Dana nodded grimly.

  “What’s in the vial?” Cal asked as Rochelle added a hefty amount of whatever it was to one of the syringes, then shook it as if to mix it up.

  “I bet she’s morphing it up,” Dana mumbled.

  Milo nodded his agreement.

  I had no idea what that meant. Cal apparently didn’t have a clue either. “Um, English, please?” he asked sweetly.

  None of us turned away from the TV screen, but Dana ran an impatient hand through her hair as she watched Rochelle do the same to the second syringe. “Morphing it up. Morphine.” She sighed, disgust tingeing her voice. “It’s the latest thing. Soup up your Destiny with either morphine or dope. Heroin.”

  “I know what dope is,” Cal said defensively.

  I actually hadn’t. But there was a reason why Dana always called me Bubble Gum and Princess. I didn’t exactly have a ton of experience with drugs, and my street cred was zilch.

  My stomach twisted as I remembered only a few months ago when Milo had reassured me that there was nothing wrong with not being street-smart. He had held my hand when he’d said it. It was right after we’d learned that we could communicate through touch, but before we’d become more than friends.

  Now, Milo sat across the room from me. But he might as well have been across the entire country in California, along with my other ex, Tom Diaz. I caught myself. Milo wasn’t my other ex. He wasn’t my ex. Oh my Lord, was I really starting to think of Milo as my ex?

  I willed my thoughts back to the present.

  Morphine. Or heroin. Mixed with Destiny.

  Dana was still talking. “The theory is that sedation makes it easier for the body to accept the dose of Destiny. So the chances of jokering are lower. At least that’s what people try to convince themselves. Who knows if it’s really any safer?”

  “Wait,” Garrett said. “Jokering is what, again?”

  “When Destiny addicts go full-on, super-villain insane,” Cal informed him. “It happens with a much higher rate of frequency when they shoot up.”

  “Kind of like overdosing, except instead of quietly dying, they kill everyone around them before they check out,” Dana said.

  “Destiny addicts develop their own unique superpowers,” I chimed in. “Kind of the same way that no two Greater-Thans have the exact same abilities—like Dana has serious TK while mine is limited to moving liquids. She can mind-control people, but I can’t. I can home in on them and track them, but she can’t. Right? It’s the same for D-addicts. Their powers are unique.”

  “And those powers get increasingly stronger when they joker,” Calvin said.

  “Which means it gets increasingly harder to kill a joker,” Milo pointed out. “It’s always best to do it fast.”

  “Good to know,” Garrett muttered.

  Dana pointed to the TV screen as Rochelle put down the second syringe. “What I
can’t figure out is, why two needles?”

  I had been wondering the same thing.

  We didn’t wonder long though.

  Because just then Rochelle’s doorbell rang.

  “Destiny party?” Cal asked in a grim tone.

  “Or it’s the ginormous man, come to stand guard while she’s morphing it up,” I suggested, and even though Milo shifted in his seat, he didn’t contradict me.

  “Come on in, Ash. It’s open—but lock it behind you, ’kay?” Rochelle called.

  “Hey, Ro. Ooh, looks like you’re all ready for me!” Another woman walked into the camera frame and sat down on the couch next to Rochelle, giving her one of those weird not-quite-touching hugs and air kisses on each non-cheek.

  “Aww,” Cal gushed. “Demon lady’s got a lil’ buddy!”

  “That’s Ashley,” Milo informed us.

  “Lunch-at-Harbor-Locke Ashley?” Dana asked, and Milo nodded. “She’s definitely a user, too.”

  Like Rochelle, this woman was blond, tan, and Barbie-doll perfect. She handed “Ro” a huge wad of cash that was immediately pocketed.

  Garrett made a strangled sound, and when I glanced over at him, it was obvious he was torn. He looked like he couldn’t decide if he should start drooling—the two women were, after all, movie-star hot—or puking, since they were also about to inject enzymes from the blood of innocent little girls into their veins.

  We all fell silent as Rochelle helped Ashley tie off her arm above the elbow, and then Ashley did the same for Rochelle. All the while they were chatting about needing to shop for dresses for some upcoming gala and the color of their nail polish and Ashley’s new shoes. They tapped the insides of their elbows on the tied arm with a casual air—it was clear they were old hands at this—then both women picked up a syringe and thrust their needles underneath their skin.

  Garrett cringed and looked away. “This is so effed.”

  Milo chewed on his gum, his jaw working hard.

  The two women instantly slumped against the couch. For a second, I actually thought that neither Rochelle nor her friend would possess the energy to extract the now-empty syringes from their arms. They were that out of it.