Hush Money (Talent Chronicles)

by Susan Bischoff

  A) Aren’t you the charmer, and B) Stop paying attention to me, it’s freaking me out!!

  He shrugged out of his jacket and was slipping it onto me before I could think to refuse it, and only a moment before my teeth started to chatter. It wasn’t even that cold, but I was exhausted, hurting, freaked out, and exposed in this stupid outfit I’d forgotten about. I couldn’t do anything but stammer a thank you and take a step back to get myself some distance. Of course the heel of Kat’s stupid shoe sunk into the ground, which I wasn’t used to, I stumbled sideways, and Dylan was there to catch me.

  That’s when Heather stepped in. “Hey Joss, I really gotta…you know. Walk with me.”

  I shrugged at Dylan as I set off with Heather, like I was resigned to my girly duty to accompany my kind to the bathroom. When I’d never done any such thing in my life. And now I had to do it walking around in these stupid shoes. The heels were low—I couldn’t have walked in high ones—but they were pointy, and kept sinking. The things didn’t even have toes. On top of everything else, I had cold feet. I was starting to get irritable.

  “Ok, spill. How long have you been in my head? What do you know about me? Who have—”

  “Before you ask me something that’s just going to be really insulting, I’ll just tell you, ok? I’m not in your head. Your head, his head, practically every head in this town—you’re all over the place. You’re all constantly yelling out your thoughts at me. So if you’re going to expect me to apologize for hearing your mind chatter for the last decade or so—and girl, you think a lot—you can just forget it.”

  Well, that stopped me. “Yeah, yeah, all right. I get it. Sorry.” And I did get it. We were born this way, and it wasn’t like we could just snap our fingers and turn off the Talent.

  “You say sorry and you’re still thinking you don’t trust me.”

  “You see why I feel this is a problem?”

  Heather just grinned at me. “If it makes you feel better, I usually try not to listen to you because I know how private you are. But sometimes I just can’t help it.”

  There were probably a lot of fascinating tidbits I could ask her about, but I needed to stick to the important stuff. “What happened back there…what I did…do they know it was me?”

  “The agents? No. They don’t have the first clue what happened. It was all a blur to them. As for the other kids…they’re wondering. They’re going over it in their heads and trying to figure it out. Some of them think that the way you took charge, the way you kept your head—they think that was your Talent and someone else must have rearranged the furniture.”

  “And all these kids…are they all Talents?”

  Heather thought for a moment. “Yeah, ok, I can’t tell you that. It’s not ’cause I don’t know who is and who isn’t. There are very few people I don’t hear, but I don’t think I can tell you something like that. It’s not that I don’t trust you, Joss,” she added quickly. “I know who you are, what your principles are, and that you’re probably about the most trustworthy person I know. But I have my own rules and I need to stick by them.”

  I supposed that, given how much Heather knew about how many people, that pretty much made my trustworthiness epic. But if that wasn’t going to get me a pass on her rules—which I had to respect her for…

  “What I can tell you,” she continued, and I was kind of embarrassed knowing she was hearing what I was saying and what I wasn’t, “is that the reason there are a bunch of Talents with us right now is because there’s a feeling of kinship among them. You felt it when everything started to go crazy—that’s why you knocked the Taser out of that agent’s hand. That’s why, when you started barricading us in, Jessica joined us instead of slipping out the door. I think we all want to hang out with people who are like us, you know? Well, not you, but most people—and I get why you’re like that. I mean, with Emily and all. But actually, even you want—”

  “Things are going to go better between us if you don’t do things like analyze my memories and tell me what I really want, k?”

  “Yeah. Sorry. I knew that. Well, what I was saying was that the desire to find other Talents and sort of, I don’t know, bond and band together…that’s just out there. It’s been out there. Everyone needs people to share their secrets with. But right now, with this group, it’s more. It’s like they’ve had a taste of their own power—”

  “Oh God,” I groaned.

  “No, it’s not like that. I mean that they saw how we could all stand together to protect one of our own. I mean, Joss, we totally saved Phil. From NIAC. We saved one of our own from our own personal boogeyman squad. Not everyone is clear that that’s what they’re feeling, but that’s the gist of it. They want to organize, they need the security of that. And they want someone to take charge. They want—”

  “Don’t even.”

  “—you. I know, you don’t want any part of a group anything. The very idea scares the crap out of you. It totally goes against your training and just your whole personality. And then, in a way, it totally doesn’t. It’s kind of also like totally who you are—inside. It’s like your destiny.”

  This bit of insanity effectively rendered me speechless. I just turned and started walking back. I had pretty much caught on to the fact that my spoken responses were not really necessary—nor necessarily wanted.

  “That’s not true,” she said, tagging along behind me. “Of course I want to hear what you choose to say. But also I have to say that what you just thought about me was really not very nice.” She threw up her hands when I turned to glare at her. “Not that I’m the thought police or anything.”

  We were nearly back to the others I saw a pair of headlights coming around the bend.

  “Ouch. Speaking of the thought police, here comes your dad. And, um, he’s kind of pissed at you.”

  I wondered if telling me my dad’s thoughts really fit in with Heather’s avowed principles, but then, as soon as he got out of the car, it was pretty obvious. And it was obvious just by being obvious, if that makes any sense. Because Dad wouldn’t show that anything was wrong if he could possibly help it. I could tell he was way agitated by the way he had swung around drive, pulled the car in front of the van and braked hard, leaving the back end half in the road and the lights on. He got out and started scanning the kids nearby, looking for me. I’d say I felt about half guilty about what I had caused, and half dread at having to deal with it.

  I cringed some more when Dylan walked up to him. They were caught in the lights of the van and we had been sticking to the shadows, so even though Dylan gestured in the direction we had walked, I was pretty sure they couldn’t see us yet. When Dad started to turn, Dylan quickly moved into his path and said something else. Dad became visibly belligerent, and I picked up my pace.

  “I wish I could tell you, what they were saying.” Heather said in response to my thoughts.

  I didn’t bother to answer. And what was up with Dylan? His behavior was bordering on bizarre. He’d paid more attention to me in the last few hours than in the last ten years put together. Maybe I should have liked it, but…

  “I wish I—”

  “Yeah, yeah. Save it, Principle Girl.”

  I saw Dad catch sight of us, and I waved for good measure. He brushed Dylan off and started toward us.

  “Jocelyn, what the Hell are you involved in, young lady? Do you have any idea what’s going on over the police band right now? The scanner’s been non-stop with tales of your exploits—er, your friends’…”

  “I know, Dad. I’m really sorry. Wrong place, wrong time.” I said quickly, covering. Dad would have known my work when he heard about it, but for him to actually attribute it to me in front of others…This was really bad. “I tried not to get mixed up in it, but everything happened so fast. Can you take me home now, so I can tell you what happened?”

  He swallowed hard, looking around us with jerky movements. He looked scared as well as angry, and my heart squeezed. I took his arm and started to steer h
im back toward the vehicles.

  “Joss, hang on.”

  Dylan had snagged my hand, stopping me in my tracks. Not because he had grabbed on hard, but because he was touching me, and I couldn’t make myself pull my fingers out of his light grasp if I’d wanted to. Which, apparently, I didn’t. And knowing that Heather knew all that just added a layer of mortification. I managed to look up at him anyway.

  “Are you sure you’re going to be ok?”

  For the blink of an eye, I wasn’t sure what he meant, and then his eyes flicked over my shoulder to my dad and back to me. In that instant I was pissed enough on Dad’s behalf to pull my hand away. I shrugged out of his jacket and held it out. “Of course,” with enough sting that I think he actually flinched. Of course I instantly regretted it, but I wasn’t in any position to try to figure out what he might have meant or try to smooth things over. I wasn’t even sure I should.

  I wasn’t sure of anything except that I wanted to lie down in the quiet for a while, and before that happened I had a lot of explaining to do.

  Then Kat ran up, with Maddy and Elizabeth in tow. “Joss, you’re leaving? Well, thanks for—” Kat stumbled, and she was looking over my shoulder. I imagined Heather was back there making some kind of sign to stop her from saying something stupid and getting me in more trouble. She gave this nervous little laugh. “I was going to say thanks for coming to my party, but I realized how stupid that was.”

  Dad tugged at me, and I started walking away. “Um, I guess I’ll see you guys at school.”

  “I’ll call you!” Kat waved.

  As soon as we got in the car Dad said, “No phone. No visitors. You’re coming right home after school every day. It’s school and the store for you from now on. I knew this party thing was a bad idea.”

  “I’m grounded?” It was a strange thing for me to have said because what he was describing was just life as usual. I’d been grounded since age 5.

  “You’ll see it that way if you want to, but I’m just doing what I need to do to keep this family together. Some day you’ll understand that.”

  Now that we were in the car and headed home he seemed a bit calmer already.

  “I understand it now, Dad, and you were right. It was a bad idea. Things got out of hand so fast.”

  “I went by the Dawson’s place first. Mr. Dawson brought me inside, past the police line,” I cringed appropriately at the way he said it, “and I saw what you’d done. They’re getting pictures of every bit of it, and they’re talking about tracking down more witnesses for statements.”

  “I didn’t do all of it,” I said meekly. So then I proceeded to give him a play-by-play of events, trying to downplay as much as possible. But it was hard. I had to leave out the whole thing about Heather wanting me to make decisions because of what she saw in my head because that would have sent Dad right over the edge. So I tried to make like I was just trapped with the group and following along.

  Until I got to the part where we made our escape, at which point I think I was a little too into the story, and too into describing the way Eric peeled out of the garage backward as soon as the door would let the little car through, how he swung it around without even slowing down and without hitting the cars that were parked in the driveway, and then sped off across two lawns before hitting the street and disappearing.

  “And then you drove everyone to the rest stop.”

  “Well, Dylan drove.”

  “Joss, you directed those kids to one of our family’s safe zones, which has now been compromised.”

  I opened my mouth to respond, but didn’t. He was right. I had done that. I had been trained about what to do in an emergency, how to keep thinking, how to assess options, and to have places in mind in case I needed them. I needed a safe place to take my group and so I used one of them. So yeah, the Marshall family had one less secret meet-up point, but didn’t I count as a Marshall? Wasn’t the point of it to be there in case any of us needed it? I found myself getting angry and chose not to answer while I calmed down.

  “That Maxwell boy sniffing around you?”

  “Dad! No! I mean…no. It’s not like that.”

  “Good. I don’t like him. You just steer clear of his type.”

  I pondered whether “his type” meant “cute boys”, “all boys”, or “humans”, but kept my mouth shut. And then I pondered Dylan some more, and what was his deal tonight? I’d gotten pissed because I thought he’d insinuated that I might not be safe with my own father—who would tear lesser men in half to protect me, I knew. Dad’s whole life was about protecting me, after all. But when I thought about it, what it might look like to someone else who didn’t know him, well…maybe it was kind of ok that Dylan was concerned.

  Or maybe it just violated all known Laws of the Universe.

  Chapter 13

  Joss

  Grounded or not, when Sunday afternoon came around both my parents needed to be in the shop for an on-going sale and someone had to take Jill to a birthday party in the park. Dad tried putting his foot down and grounding Jill too, but as she never really took to that like I did, she just cried until she turned purple. Mom suggested that I go to the store with Dad and she would do the party, but Dad didn’t want me anywhere near the store with all those shopping cops. So, having promised soulfully that I would lead a blameless life evermore, I found myself sitting under a tree a respectful distance away from the scary second-grade set, waiting for Jill. The party had broken up, but she was still playing with a few other stragglers, and I wasn’t in any mood to go home anyway.

  “I’m sorry about the other night. What I said.”

  I jumped and stifled a shriek. Dylan was suddenly sitting next to me, like he’d just materialized out of the air—or out of my brain. How out of it was I that I never even saw him come up?

  “I didn’t mean to startle you. I just thought if you saw me coming you might leave.”

  “I’m waiting for my sister.”

  “Oh.”

  There was an awkward silence, so I thought about what he said.

  “I’m not mad at you. The whole night was…messed up.”

  “Yeah.”

  Another silence.

  “Kat tried to call you. Your mom says you’re ‘not available’. Grounded?”

  “I guess.”

  “Sucks.”

  “I guess.” Duh. Come on, idiot. Say something. “What happened after I left?”

  “I drove everyone home, then Kat and I drove by her house but it was still crazy over there so we were driving down to the river to just kill some time when we saw Eric, so we picked him up. That was cool because it solved the problem of not having keys for the van. But then Eric said we should wipe the prints and leave it down there by the river in case someone wanted to say we stole it, so we ended up walking her all the way back home, and then the two of us went home.”

  “Sounds fun.” I sounded sarcastic, but I think I meant it.

  “Yeah, it wasn’t the greatest night ever. What about you? Your dad seemed…I guess he was mad?”

  “He was more freaked out than anything else. He’s pretty over-protective, I guess, and that was the first party I’d been to since Emily Gianni’s when I was five, so…”

  “Hey, I think I went to that party. Scary-ass clown, right?”

  “Yeah, there was. I don’t remember much about it. I didn’t remember you being there.”

  “My mom worked with her mom. I think possibly there was some kind of arranged marriage between me and Emily, but—well, whatever.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “She was the first kid I knew of who got…taken. I remember my parents talking about it a lot—that was before they got divorced. They talked about whether or not they should try to explain it to me or just not mention it or what. My dad said if they didn’t mention it then I’d just forget all about her, and I guess he won out.”

  “But you didn’t. Forget her.”

  “I don’t really remember her so mu
ch as them fighting about her. How about you?”

  “She was my best friend.”

  “Oh. Sorry. You know, I don’t actually set out to say exactly the wrong thing every time I talk to you. It just comes naturally.”

  Ok, that actually made me crack a smile, and I was glad I wasn’t facing him, so he didn’t see it.

  “Can I ask you something?” I said suddenly. “Why are you talking to me?” I hadn’t planned on it, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself.

  “Um…I don’t know if that’s, like, a question I’m supposed to answer, or the kind of thing where I’m just supposed to apologize and walk away.”

  “I’m just asking. Because…I realize we don’t run in the same circles or anything, but we’ve been in the same schools, in the same classes for, like, ever, and you’ve hardly said five words to me. And now it seems like all of a sudden you’re talking to me every time I turn around.” Oh my God, could I be more abrasive? Maybe I could say it with Mace for a similar effect.

  “It just seems like that because you’re a Joss.” He bumped my shoulder with his, congenially. “This is a perfectly normal amount of talking. Trust me.”

  Why should I? I thought. I also thought I was being a bitch, but seriously, this was the Twilight Zone. Maybe he’d been body-snatched. Maybe…maybe Heather had given up her much vaunted principles to tell him I’d liked him forever. That was just the sort of thing Kat would think was just oh-so-cute. But then Dylan thought oh great, freak girl likes me, but hey, may be good for laugh. So then he started talking to me and hinting that we’re friends and stuff just so he can lull me into a false sense of security so he can—

  What? Come on, Joss. Really. Dial down the psycho. Does he really even think about you enough for that? Maybe he’s just being nice.

  I sighed and looked around, trying to get my bearings.

  And saw Marco, crouched in the corner of the sandbox next to Jill, with roses blooming under her hands.

  * * *

  Dylan

  Maybe we’re not up to the teasing phase yet, I thought, judging by the scowl on Joss’s profile. It seemed like I was always finding the wrong thing to say to her. It would’ve been fine with me to just sit there and not talk at all.