He stopped, obviously expecting me to comment, but I crossed my arms and waited for him to continue. Inside I was feeling a mix of emotions I didn’t know how to sort out. My hands clenched into fists, and I could feel my fingernails digging into my palms.
With a shrug, he said, “Anyway, what you do is ride along with cops, go on patrols, do some paperwork.” He clasped his hands behind his back. “It’s cool.”
”How long have you been in this cadet program?” I asked, speaking each word very precisely. I could feel anger inside my belly, heating my body.
“A few weeks.” He peered at me with concern. “Are you ok?” Before I could answer, he said, “I was going to tell you, but I thought you’d think it was silly. And, I don’t know, it was kind of my own thing.” He smiled at me proudly. “They say I’m good at picking out little details at crime scenes.”
It was too much. I glared at him, dropping my hands in fists at my sides and bouncing on the balls of my feet. “You accused me of keeping secrets! You basically broke up with me over what you thought I was keeping from you, and all this time you’ve been keeping your own stupid secrets.” I fought to keep from pushing him, knowing I could really hurt him in my rage. “You jerk. You…” I thought of the worst thing I could call someone. “Assclown!”
I trembled with fear and anger; he didn’t even know how dangerous his cadet training was for me. What if he saw me fighting a monster while he was on patrol? Or saw one of my cousins?
Jack stepped back from me with his mouth open in shock. Had he really expected me not to be mad about this? Idiot. My hands felt hot and sweaty in their fists, so I unclenched them, but they were still hot. I felt heat building in my chest, and I raised my hands, palms out. In the depths of my minds, I wondered, was my significant ability manifesting? I felt so strange and light-headed.
“Young lady.” The sharp voice of the policeman broke through my rage haze. “If you hit him, you’ll be assaulting a police officer. You need to step back right now.”
His stern order distracted me, and I gaped at him, dropping my hands and feeling the heat inside me subside. He nodded in satisfaction, and I bit the inside of my mouth to keep from speaking. Even in this much of a temper, I knew not to antagonize a cop.
The policeman spoke to Jack. “Is everything ok? Do you and this young woman have a problem?”
Oh yeah, we have a problem, I thought, but Jack just shook his head.
“No sir.” He looked at me earnestly. “Can we talk about this later?”
Suddenly I was tired, so tired of being around people I needed to keep secrets from who were keeping secrets from me. A small part of me whispered that I was being unfair but I shushed it. I didn’t want to talk to him. I didn’t even want to look at him. And the thought of sneaking around to see him now when Uncle Dan would probably find out and ground me more would suck. It wasn’t worth it.
I said, “Know what? No, we can’t.” I stepped back and turned away. “We don’t have anything to say to each other.”
Chapter 24
My eyes were full of angry tears as I marched away, not caring where I walked as long as it was wherever Jack wasn’t. How could he – judging me for keeping secrets when he had his own? I remembered the brochure with the police logo on it that he’d been reading when I saw him at the coffee shop a few days after the bank robbery. Even then he’d been hiding something from me, even on the day he was such a jerk about what I was hiding.
Jerk, jerk, jerk, I thought viciously, kicking an acorn so hard it landed a block away.
Righteous indignation propelled me along until a shadow loomed in front of me, and I stopped abruptly. My angry walk had taken me to the North Park Blocks not far from the soup kitchen. I was a few steps away from bumping into the bronze Elephant Sculpture, a supersized reproduction of an elephant-shaped Chinese wine pitcher.
The elephant in the room, I thought bitterly. That old saying seemed apt right then. My elephant in the room was my supernormal heritage. All my problems came back to my choice to rejoin the supernormal world. Life would be so much easier if I went back to being normal.
Yeah, well, I’d tried that, hadn’t I? I closed my eyes and remembered my life before the bank robbery. Weeknights and weekends spent doing what I wanted with friends, no sore muscles from intense training, no feeling of humiliation because I couldn’t run a 30-minute marathon or lift a thousand pounds …my mother unavenged, still.
Dammit. I opened my eyes and grimaced. The knowledge that Mom’s murderers were still free in the world superseded everything else. It didn’t matter that my old life was lost to me. It didn’t matter that there were days I was so sore I could barely get out of bed. It didn’t matter that I felt like I was a ball tossed by the waves of old and new lives. I had to learn to use my abilities, and I had to find the terrorists who killed Mom. Period.
Drained of anger and feeling empty, I sat down on a bench and looked at the elephant sculpture. It was really two elephants, a small one perched on top of the larger one. Both were decorated with raised symbols from Chinese mythology and the little elephant was being carried by the larger elephant as a way of showing how parents protect their offspring. I smiled. Ms. Peterson, my seventh grade Oregon History teacher, would be proud at how much I remembered about this piece of art. My smile faded. Parents protecting their offspring. My mother protected me with her death. Would she want me to go after those that killed her? Would she want me to put myself in danger?
I rubbed my palm where I’d deflected the bullet in the bank robbery, pondering this conundrum. People milled around me; a woman sat down on the bench near me. A couple posed for a photo in front of the sculpture while another woman laughed and reached up to touch the trunk of the larger elephant.
I drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, feeling prickling along my arms. I looked around, alerted by … something. I didn’t know what had triggered my internal alarm. All I knew was something was off.
Suddenly and silently, the sculpture was in pieces all around the little square. I ducked as a piece of the baby elephant’s foot flew by my head. The trunk of the big elephant slammed into the hood of a parked car. More bronzed elephant body parts, mingled with fleshy human parts, were flung in a circle around the epicenter of another explosion.
Smoke drifted by me; through it, I saw the woman who had been reaching for the trunk lying on the ground, screaming and clutching what was left of her arm while steaks of blood slid down her face. The couple who had been posing for a picture lay face down in the grass, not moving. A mother ran by me, clutching her screaming baby in her arms.
I stood up quickly, shocked by the abrupt change from peace to chaos. I ran over to the woman who had lost her arm. She screamed in throat-wrenching wails while blood spurted from the shattered stump where her hand once was. I yanked off my belt, ripping a few belt loops in the process, and grabbed the woman’s arm, my hands slipping on her blood. I murmured platitudes as I tightened my belt below her elbow. She had screamed herself hoarse and huddled on the ground, cradling her bloodied arm. I worried she was going into shock.
I was shaking as I pulled out my phone and called 911. As I did, a man rushed over, told me he was a doctor and started checking out the woman.
Shivering at the scene before my eyes, I assessed the damage. Whatever, whoever, had taken out the sculpture had been powerful. In fact, if I had just walked up to the scene right now, I would have assumed there had been a loud, dramatic explosion based on the damage inflicted on the artwork and the people around it. But I had been sitting right here when it happened and there had been no explosion. In the blink of an eye, the sculpture went from being intact to being in pieces.
It was just like Vera and the Umbrella Man. And once again, I hadn’t seen what had happened. I kept missing it, whatever it was.
I raised my hand to scratch an itch on my face, and it came away bloody. I’d been hit; I didn’t think the cut was bad. All around me were injured people. The woman who h
ad been sitting on the bench near me was huddled on it, holding her arm and crying. I went over and sat down next to her. “Are you okay?”
She managed a weak smile. “Just a small cut,” she said with a sniffle and raised her hand from her arm to show me the shallow graze. “More just shocked. What happened? One minute…” She trailed off, staring at the wreckage.
I followed her gaze. “I have no idea.” I tensed as I saw Uncle Dan and Aunt Kate coming towards me. Oh crap, I was supposed to be with Uncle Alex.
And then Jack and his cops came running onto the scene, while several fire trucks pulled up, followed by police cars.
Great, now all I needed were the cousins to show up. And…there they were. Lange and Hugh entered the park at the far end, followed by Zoe and Kevin. Super. I looked for Emma and saw her standing at the edge of the square; her head was turned toward our cousins as if she had been waiting for them to arrive.
I stood up, preparing to explain to the ‘rents why I was here instead of with Uncle Alex. Before I could meet them, Jack ran up to me saying, “Are you ok? You’re bleeding! What happened? Did you see anything?” He pulled out a notepad and looked at me expectantly.
I blinked at him, speechless at the cadet version of Jack.
This gave the ‘rents time to arrive and begin grilling me.
“Olivia, why aren’t you with Alex? You’re bleeding. Are you hurt? What did you see? Are you okay?” Aunt Kate caught me by the shoulder and examined me.
“I’m okay. It’s someone else’s blood,” I managed to tell her and Jack.
Uncle Dan frowned at me and then at the carnage. He pulled out his iPhone and started taking photos of the scene.
Lange, Hugh, and Emma rushed up, beginning round three of questions while I stood there with my mouth opened to respond but unable to get a word in edgewise.
Zoe had stopped to talk to a hipster guy with a huge handlebar mustache. He was holding a digital camera; they bent over the screen while he talked animatedly to her. Kevin stood beside them with his arms crossed and eyes narrowed as he surveyed the damage.
Emma said, interrupting the barrage of questions from everyone, “Olivia, you got here awfully fast.” Her voice was pitched so everyone heard; as one, they all stared at me, waiting for my answer.
I shoved my hands in the pockets of my jacket and deliberately avoided looking at Jack. “I was walking, had some thinking to do.” I looked down and nudged a piece of elephant with my toe. “And then I was just sitting here when the statue blew to pieces.”
“Blew to pieces? You saw it happen?” Aunt Kate pinned me with an intense look.
I took a small step back before answering. Aunt Kate could be a little scary when she was focused on something. “Um, well, I don’t know.” I stumbled over my words as Uncle Alex jogged by, obviously on his way to help people; Lange slipped away to follow him. Uncle Alex’s frown at me promised a long conversation about my transgressions. I took a deep breath and looked back at Aunt Kate. “I was just sitting here and all of a sudden the statue was all in pieces and people were hurt.” I gestured at the carnage where Uncle Alex and Lange were helping Zoe and Kevin with the injured. “It was…eerie.”
Emma put her hands on her hips and said, “Really? Just like that? You didn’t see anything suspicious?”
“Hey –” I began heatedly, but Jack interrupted.
“Ollie, who are these people?” He still held his notepad. His eyes narrowed while he watched me and my family thoughtfully.
Uncle Dan gave him a stern look. “And just who are you, young man?”
Jack bristled at his tone. “Sir –”
I jumped in before he could make Uncle Dan mad. “Whoa, stop, I forgot you guys haven’t met.” I gave a sweeping wave that included my family. “Jack, this is my family on my mother’s side.” I gestured to Jack. “And this is Jack, my ex-boyfriend.” I felt a mix of spite and relief at Jack’s wince. “He’s in the Portland police cadet program.”
“Ex-boyfriend?” Emma looked at Jack with interest. “I wonder what would have caused a rift between two lovebirds?”
I glared at her, knowing she wasn’t that dumb.
“I see.” Uncle Dan stepped to Jack’s side with a surreptitious glance at the notebook Jack gripped. “Well, Jack, it looks like the police have their hands full and could use your help over there.” He nodded at me. “We’ll make sure Olivia is taken care of.”
Jack looked uncertain, and I almost wanted to see him take on Uncle Dan, but I didn’t think it would improve anyone’s mood to deal with a nosy normal right now. “Jack, I’m really okay. Thanks for checking up on me.” To encourage his exit, I turned my back and peered at Aunt Kate’s iPad as if interested in what was on the screen. When I glanced up, Jack was walking over the grass to the policemen he’d been with earlier.
I let out a small sigh and immediately sucked air back into my nose with surprise when Emma wheeled around to face me. “Now that he’s gone, I think we have a bigger problem.” She pointed at me. “Don’t you think it’s odd that Olivia was here? At the scene, again?”
Aunt Kate, Uncle Dan, and Hugh all looked confused. Hugh said slowly, “What do you mean?”
“Don’t you think it’s strange that these incidents started happening after the bank robbery?” She ticked over her points on one hand. “Vera was destroyed the day Olivia met with all of the ‘rents. She was there when the Umbrella Man blew up. And here she is, and look…more destruction. And,” Emma continued in a malicious tone, “she looks guilty. I saw her surprise when we all showed up so quickly.”
My mouth opened and closed a few times before I could get the words out. “What…I mean…what?” I shook my head to clear it, but it didn’t really help. I was so astonished at her accusations that I couldn’t quite take a full breath. I managed to say, “I look guilty because I am supposed to be with Uncle Alex.” My voice sounded weak to my ears.
Emma started to say something, but Aunt Kate put a hand on her arm. Emma stopped talking but gave me a fake sympathetic look.
Aunt Kate‘s expression was grave as she said, “These are serious accusations. Do you have any evidence to back up your statements?”
I gaped at her. Did she really think I was guilty of this sort of carnage?
“Just that she is here, and this is obviously the work of a supernormal.” Emma clasped her hands behind her back and bounced on her toes.
Why does she look almost happy about this? I wondered abstractly while the rest of my brain was caught up in trying to process what was happening.
Emma was still talking. Couldn’t she shut up for a minute and let me speak? “Plus, she says she hasn’t manifested her special ability. But I mean, come on, who is so lame as to have not gotten their ability by now?” She gave me a pitying look. “I don’t know how she expects us to believe that. For all we know, this” – she pointed at the bits and pieces of elephant and human around us – “is what she can do.”
“Emma.” Uncle Dan spoke sharply to stop her torrent of words.
I’d had enough. I started forward with my fists raised. Hugh caught my arm and dragged me out of reach of her stupid face. I struggled ineffectively against his strength. Finally I went limp, but he still didn’t release me. “Damn it, Hugh, you’ve got to stop stopping me!”
Emma started to speak, but Uncle Dan held up a hand. “Emma, I think you’ve said your piece.” He looked at my flushed face carefully, saying formally, “Olivia, it is true that you are not with Alex. Why are you here?”
I shook my head again and pulled away from Hugh. My thoughts buzzed around in my head, and there was a cold hard knot in my stomach. It felt like something was trying to get my attention, like I’d missed an important clue about what was going on, but I couldn’t focus on anything except the fear that my family would think I’d done this. I tried to keep my eyes on Uncle Dan’s face as I answered. “I was supposed to go get food for the soup kitchen.” I remembered the list and pulled it out as evidence. “Bu
t I saw Jack and found out he’s been hiding the cadet program thing from me. I got upset and took a walk.” I blew out my breath in a vain attempt to relieve the weight on my chest. “I ended up here. And then…well, I told you the rest.” I realized tears were running down my face and wiped them away quickly.
“So you were upset, and you ended up here?” Aunt Kate tapped her lips thoughtfully.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the rest of my cousins and Uncle Alex coming toward us.
In a sight that was becoming all too familiar, emergency personnel were on the scene, rushing around in an organized fashion and treating the injured. Fire trucks and ambulances filled the streets. The police were talking to witnesses and taking notes.
Uncle Alex tucked a plastic baggie into his pocket when he reached us. He looked at the scene in front of him, taking in Aunt Kate and Uncle Dan’s serious expressions, Emma’s crossed arms and my tear-streaked face. He raised an eyebrow. “What’s going on?”
Lange, Kevin and Zoe looked at us with similar expressions of curiosity.
“Did you send Olivia out for groceries?” Aunt Kate asked her brother.
Uncle Alex nodded slowly while his fist clenched, and he repeated, looking at Aunt Kate. “What is going on? Olivia should not be here because she should be buying onions and potatoes for the soup kitchen.” He frowned at us. “However, this doesn’t feel like you’re mad at her for avoiding her duties. This feels darker.” He peered at me. “Are you okay?”
I almost burst into tears, but I managed to swallow them down and concentrate on staying as calm as possible. I gripped my shaking hands together and tried to keep my voice steady. “They think I did this.”
“Are they crazy? Who says you did this?” Kevin said in a burst of words. “No way.” He shook his head.
I gave Kevin a weak smile, grateful for his support.
“I say she could have done this,” Emma said firmly, her head held high.
Kevin just stared at her. Zoe frowned at Emma while chewing on her fingernail. Lange shuffled his feet and looked uncomfortable.
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