by Skye Genaro
The front door of the house slammed.
"Run!" I said. "Go!"
Becca took off. Heavy footsteps came from the front of the house and paused below me. I flattened against the shingles and waited, my heart thrashing in my ears.
In the distance, a car started and screeched down the street. I hoped it was Becca, even though that meant I was now alone.
Harsh auras lashed at me like a viper's tongue. The footsteps moved to the back of the house. Behind me, someone tried to wrench the window open from the inside. I worm-crawled up the pitch and crammed next to the chimney. Every inch of my aura and body tried to betray me. I wanted to throw up, pee my pants.
The wind carried low voices from the ground. I couldn't make out what they were saying, but hearing them so close was enough to make me bite through my lip.
The person working at the second story window gave up. The men's voices receded and they pounded back onto the porch. The front door slammed.
Twenty minutes passed before I convinced myself to slither back to the edge. I was shivering from the cold as much as anything, and my fingers had gone numb. The second floor window was still lit. Faint voices reached me from inside, meaning they'd probably gone right back to their bizarre ritual. A sense of obligation ticked through me before I convinced myself that staying wouldn't do the girl any good. What could I do, bust in superhero style and steal her away? Only in the movies.
I blew warm air onto my fingers, then clutched the gutter and inched a foot onto the trellis. I put all my weight on the crossbar and stepped down to the next one. I lowered a foot, swinging the toe of my tennie back and forth in search of the next bar and missed. I lost my balance; the wood in my hand cracked, split, and gave way.
I squealed when my knees smacked against the side of the house. My tennies raked the siding and finally found a toehold between intersecting vines.
"I'm okay I'm okay I'm okay…" I chanted.
My cell phone rang.
The volume was on high.
"Shit!"
I dug it out of my pocket. It was a text from Becca.
Where are you?
Trellis, I madly thumbed my response with one hand.
Loud voices penetrated the home's thin walls. Movement from inside told me they were on their way out again. I let go and fell the last few feet.
My phone rang again.
End of the block, the text read.
I was deciding which way to go when a flashlight bounced along the front yard and pointed in my direction. I sprinted across the back yard and squeezed behind a shrub, partly to catch my breath but also because I'd lost my sense of direction. Becca was waiting for me at the end of the block but which way was that?
The flashlight beam found my feet and trailed up my legs. I took off running. Behind me, heavy puffing from an out-of-shape chaser fell farther and farther behind.
I tore down the street, spotted Becca's car, and jumped inside. She hit the gas before my door fully closed.
On the ride back, we broke a record for how long we could go without talking. We pulled into my driveway before she finally spoke.
"What. The. Hell," she said.
"It was them," I replied, tasting iron from where I'd bit into my lip. "And I'm pretty sure Keenan was there. He might have been wearing the gold mask."
A thought blindsided me. "Omigod." I pulled out my phone. "Jaxon was with Keenan. He doesn't have any idea what is going on."
Becca put her hand over mine. "Wait." She thought a moment. "How do you know?"
"What do you mean?"
"They went to Witch's Castle together, remember? Maybe Jaxon already knows."
I swallowed. "He would have told me."
"Are you sure?"
I put my phone down. He had told me. "Jaxon said he met someone who could get him closer to the Mutila. That's why he didn't show up for our date."
"But how much does he really know?" Her eyes were spooked.
I honestly didn't know how to answer that. Now he was out with one of their agents. Unease skipped along my spine, but I said, "No more than I do. I can't text him right now. He'll still be with Luma."
She shook her head and shrugged, not liking the way Jaxon played into this. I didn't feel much better, but I wasn't jumping to any conclusions.
"What was going on back there?" she asked.
"It looked like the man was being forced to make that V sign with his fingers."
"But why?"
"I don't know. The Mutila uses different tactics, like coercion, destruction, and…assassination." I shuddered. At least we hadn't witnessed that tonight. "I think he was giving in to them, but I don't get why."
We sat quiet for a few minutes.
"O.M.G." Her head wagged.
"I know, right? A guy burst into flames. At least it didn't look like anyone got burned."
"Do we tell someone?"
"What would we say? Did we see anything illegal?"
We were silent for a beat, and then, like we were prone to do in the most tense, inappropriate situations, we burst out laughing.
"She set a man on fire! How can that not be illegal?" she giggled with tears streaming down her face.
I shook my head, laughing too hard to speak. When I pulled myself together, I said, "I need to tell the police what we saw. I'll make an anonymous tip." This wasn't the sort of thing I wanted to report using my name. After the drinking incident, they already thought I was nuts.
"I'll straighten this out with Jaxon tomorrow." I slid out of the car. "Good luck sleeping."
"Lock your doors," Becca replied.
"I always do."
Chapter 21
Late that night, when I was sure Jaxon's date had ended, I texted him.
U all right?
Fine, he texted back. Tired. Details tomorrow.
After my morning classes, I sent another text asking him to meet me in the cafeteria. On the way, I swung by the bathroom and smeared extra concealer on the dark circles under my eyes. I hadn't slept a wink.
I was worried Jaxon was going to get himself killed. I'd thought long and hard about his meeting near Witch's Castle. He knew about Keenan's involvement. That's why he'd met with him. Did he understand how much danger he'd been in, getting that close? I had the impression he had no clue. Then he'd gone and made a date with that psychopath, Luma. I did not like that his well-being was at risk.
In the cafeteria, Jaxon strode toward me with a broad grin. He spun his chair backward and crossed his arms over the back as he sat.
"You look like you were up all night," he said. "Are you still mad at me for going out with Luma?"
"I'm not mad." I took his hand. "What did you find out?"
"Over dinner, I told Luma I'd heard about the Mutila legend, how they use paranormal ability to intimidate and torture people. You know, nice light dinner conversation. At first she laughed it off, but she knew exactly what I was talking about. I couldn't get her to answer any questions directly, but we made a game of it. You're going to hate this part."
"Just tell me," I said.
His cheeks filled with air and he let it out in one breath. "Just keep in mind, this was her idea of fun. I asked questions with yes or no answers. If the answer was yes, she would rub my leg with her foot. I don't know what that was about. Probably some kind of fetish."
"What did she answer 'yes' to?" I managed not to sound peeved.
"I think she enjoys causing physical pain. She joined the faction voluntarily, said she likes having a place where her talent is respected."
"I can't believe she told you this."
"It was like she was bragging. The Mutila think they're untouchable." He held back a smile. "Also, she thought I was into her." Jaxon read the question on my lips. He squeezed my hand. "There won't be a second date. I didn't even kiss her goodnight."
I couldn't hold back a smile. "Good. I don't want you seeing her again. It's too dangerous. Who's their leader?"
"She wouldn't go near that question." He put
his hands on my shoulders to steady me. "They are looking for you. They don't know who you are yet but they've felt your energy field and they're floored by it. Luma even seemed jealous." Beneath his firm hands, I began to shake.
"Are they going to find me?"
His aura formed a concrete wall between us. I was pretty sure I knew what that meant. He didn't want to say what he really thought. "I don't know," he answered. "They don't know where you live or go to school."
"They know I was at the Smoothie Shack," I said.
"You should probably get a new job."
I nodded and squeezed his hand. "Did they know I worked there or was it coincidence that they came in?"
Jaxon's head jerked to the side and he pasted his gaze to the floor. "Beats me."
When our eyes met again, I saw uncertainty.
"Is there anything else I should know?" I asked.
"That's all I've got."
It wasn't much. I got the impression I'd landed in sensitive territory, that there was more to that conversation. If I accused him of holding back, his stubborn streak would take over. I moved to the next item of business.
I reached into my folder and pulled out the magazine. Keenan stared at us with one ice-blue eye.
"This is the guy you met at Witch's Castle, isn't it?" I asked.
Jaxon jolted backward. "That's Keenan Feller. How did you know—"
"Kids go up to the trailhead to make out, and some of them saw you," I said vaguely so he wouldn't guess it was one person, Becca, who had busted him. She was in this deep enough. "They heard part of your conversation."
"Echo, you've got to stay away from this man. He's…" His voice dropped. "Feller is in deep. I think he knows every faction member up and down the coast, and there are thousands of them. He's pretty high up." Jaxon looked at me squarely. "He's very dangerous."
"I know." I was seething inside. "I can't believe you hid this from me. You should have said something when I asked you the first time. This guy could get you in deep trouble. What did he mean when he said you had to prove yourself that night?"
His jaw lowered an inch. "Who saw us?"
"What did he mean?" I repeated.
He scratched into his hair like he was going to yank out a handful.
"They don't allow outsiders to get close to them unless you're willing to prove your loyalty. They give you a test. If you pass, you gain their trust, you get inside knowledge. If they ever get the impression I'll use what I know against them…" He shook his head slowly.
"He wanted you to take the test, didn't he? What was it?"
He waved me off. "No. It's disgusting. It's not important and I'm not going to talk about it." The muscles in his cheeks went tight.
I'd planned on telling Jaxon what I had seen at the house last night. When I started to, something in my chest pinched, like my intuition was shouting for me to keep it to myself. It was hard to tell where these intuitive hits came from, but they were usually right.
"I think you should quit," I said. "I don't want you to get hurt because of me."
"I'll be fine," he assured me. "I learned how to play head games in West Region. I can hold my own here." There was a glint in his eye, like he was charged up by the challenge of living a double life.
My brain went back to the day when Jaxon made it clear he was not here to protect me. Yet that's what he had been doing, getting close to the most frightening people imaginable so that I might live in peace.
I looked at him carefully. "Why are you doing this?"
"I care about you." He ran a thumb over the back of my hand in what was meant to be a soothing motion. The skin on his pad was rough and snagged on my knuckles. I let my hand drop.
He seemed to pick and choose his next words. "And I think the Mutila destroyed my foster family. Everyone except my foster brother was killed in a car accident while I was living in West Region."
"Oh, Jaxon." I didn't know what else to say.
"The more I think about the strange meetings my foster dad held—the kids in the garage, the levitating ball—I'm almost sure he was one of their soldiers. I want to find out for sure."
"What are you going to do if you find out he was?" I finally said.
"Nothing, probably. I just want to know."
This was way more than I was ready to take in. If Jaxon was right, his father was responsible for some horrible crimes.
"Did you get Luma's last name?" I asked.
He hesitated. "Uh, Van Astor."
I wrote this down next to Keenan's picture. Wild thoughts raced through my head. When I first started my hunt, I wanted to be able to identify the dangerous people so I could stay clear of them, stay safe. Now I wanted to expose what they were doing and bring it out to the public. Names were a good start but I needed proof of their crimes, of the pain they were causing.
He watched me scribble notes on the dog-eared magazine. "What are you going to do with that?"
I got to my feet and gave him a kiss on the forehead. "Good things. Thank you for your help."
I scoped the cafeteria for Becca. She was seated at the jocks' table, her tiny figure scrunched between Lucas and a linebacker for the football team. I tapped her on the shoulder.
"Nice bodyguards," I joked when she squeezed out of her spot.
"Are you still freaked out about last night?"
"Nope. You?"
She twisted a lip. "Nah. A little bit. I mean, it's not like we saw anyone get murdered."
Not this time, I almost said.
"I want to go back to the house tonight. If they're there, I'm going to get a video of their license plates and whatever they're doing in that room."
"Uhhhhhh….I don't think I want to do that," Becca said slowly. "I mean, it was cool to see that one time, but…why not ask Jaxon to take you? I bet he'd go."
I thought up an excuse why he wouldn't be part of this. "No. He's got his hands full."
She got very quiet. "Do you think the girl is okay?"
"As long as she does what she's told. That could change at any time."
She picked nervously at a hangnail. "I'll think about going back, all right?"
I answered with a nod. All I needed was footage. That, along with Keenan Feller's name, would be enough to take to the police. The bell rang and I dumped my lunch in the garbage. I'd been too excited to eat.
*******
Trigonometry class started off with a quiz. I whipped through it, sure of my answers, and turned it face down on my desk. I savored this small sense of accomplishment. The simple things were important to me now—sitting among my classmates, hearing my pencil scroll across the quiz paper, watching Ms. Fullner sit peacefully at her desk—because over the next few days, my life was going to change drastically.
I'd come to the decision that I was done hoarding secrets. One after another, I'd taken the hard truths about my life—my paranormal gifts, my relationship with Connor, my uncertain future—and stuffed them into an invisible backpack that I carried everywhere. The weight had become crushing. The closer I got to revealing the Mutila and their criminal acts, the more confident I became that it was time to reveal the truth about me, too. Not to everyone, of course. The planet wasn't ready for that. But my dad deserved to know.
I would show him the telekinesis first, then levitation. Then, assuming he didn't suffer a stroke, I'd lay out what I knew about the criminal secret society. Giving the police an anonymous tip didn't seem like the right approach anymore. I had to do more. My dad would know what to do with the evidence I'd gathered.
One by one, the rest of the kids finished their quizzes.
"Time's up," the teacher said. "Please hand your papers to the front."
Most of the kids did as they were told, but there was a holdup in the far row.
"You too, Gianna. Stop writing and turn your quiz in," the teacher pressed.
We all craned our necks to see who was going over the time limit. When I spotted her in the back row, I gasped so loudly the boy next to me
said, "You all right?"
The girl who was slow to finish her quiz felt me staring. She gave me a subtle, sideways glance and her face went dead. It was the girl from the bridge. The girl from the house last night.
Chapter 22
I recognized Gianna from two of my first semester classes. If I had felt her aura then, when I was a paranormal rookie, I wouldn't have been able to separate it from the stew of fitful teenage energy. Not that it mattered, because this girl was an expert at cloaking her aura. From where I sat, I felt none of the dread that slowly crept over her delicate features.
Her desk at the opposite end of the room had been empty most of spring semester, making me think she rarely attended class. Gianna had nearly mastered the art of invisibility. She sat in the back, staying low in her seat. Never made eye contact. Never spoke a word. Dark clothing, mousy hair and a bland, expressionless face made her anonymous among the thousand-plus student body.
She might have gone unnoticed the entire semester, but for one mistake. She had not conformed when the teacher asked for everyone's quizzes. She became visible. And looking at her now, there was no question she was the one I'd seen on the platform.
The bell rang and I cut her off at the door.
"Gianna…"
She shoulder-checked me, and released her aura into mine. Her grief and ache nearly flattened me.
"Wait. Please," I said. She hurried into the sea of students.
"Stay away," she hissed when got near.
"I just want to talk." I put my hand on her shoulder. Big mistake. The rage in her eyes ran so deep, I thought she was going to throw a punch. Her aura leaked misery, deliberately making me feel sick.
"I wanted to see if you're okay. I saw you at the house last night with the men in masks," I said.
She tilted her head, as an animal might if it were trying to process human language. A twinge of distress pinched my gut; her body language was so feral.
Gianna grabbed the front of my shirt and shoved me into the janitor's alcove. Kids jumped out of our way. Someone yelled "Girl fight!" but nobody tried to stop us.
"You saw nothing. Get it?" she spat.
When I tried to push her off, her sleeve slid to her elbow. A red scar starting at her wrist ran the length of her forearm. I sucked in a breath.
