by Clara Kensie
“Oh, you know me,” he said. “I’m having a hard time settling into retirement, so sometimes I consult on the open cases. Jillian and Logan’s case is at a standstill, so I thought I’d take a look at your family’s file. Would you like to see it? The others are confidential, but you can look at yours.”
“No, thank you,” I said as Marmalade tapped me with her paw. I picked her up awkwardly with my one good arm. “I’ve already seen my file.” Tristan and I had pored through every word in that file, multiple times, back in our Underground cell. I did not want to see the photos of my parents’ victims again. I already saw them every night in my dreams.
Dennis returned to the file he’d been studying. “So how is our Tessa adjusting to life as a Connelly?”
I was a Carson, not a Connelly. I could only shrug in response.
He chuckled. “You still don’t think of this house as home yet, do you?”
“Not really,” I said honestly.
“I know how you feel,” he said. “I was shuffled between my mother and various foster homes for years. Even after I was permanently placed somewhere, it took me a long time to think of it as home.”
At that, a vision appeared in the fog. A young woman, just a teenager. Scrawny and dirty, hair stringy and eyes sunken from drug use. Pamela Connelly. A small boy with dark hair and wise, sad, blue eyes. Dennis. Even at that age, he wore wire-rimmed glasses.
“My mother loved me, but she was relieved when the state finally terminated her parental rights,” he said. “She didn’t admit it out loud, but I knew.” He tapped his head—he was able to read her mind. “I was ten years old, resentful and rebellious. She was twenty-five, overwhelmed, a high school dropout and addicted to crack. We had a very tumultuous relationship.”
Oh, poor Dennis. “I am so sorry.”
“The first thing I did once I was hired by the APR was try to find her,” he said.
“Did you?”
“Yes. She died two years after losing custody of me. She was under the influence and got in a fatal car accident.”
“How awful,” I said.
He looked at me over his glasses. “She used to tell me she could hear animals think.”
“Like Ember?”
“Ember inherited her ability to communicate with animals from her. But my mother never knew she had a psionic gift. She thought she was insane. That’s why she turned to drugs. They impeded her ability to hear them think.”
My heart ached for Dennis. And for his mother. What a sad, lonely life she’d had.
My mother had had a sad, lonely childhood too.
“What about your father?” I asked.
“My mother never knew who my father was, but with the help of the APR, I was able to identify him, eventually. He was her dealer. A neutral. He never knew about me. He died in prison, a few years after my mother died.” He turned back to the binder.
“Ember looks like your mother,” I said. “If Ember left her hair blond.”
Dennis perked up his head, his blue eyes suddenly bright. “You think so?”
“Kind of, yeah. Ember looks healthier than she did. Happier, too.”
“It’s nice that you know what my mother looks like,” Dennis said. “I don’t have any pictures of her. No one else in the family has ever seen her.”
In the family. Dennis had said it so casually, like he truly considered me to be part of his family.
“Did you love her? Your mom?” I asked. “Even though she was a bad mother?”
“I loved her very much,” he said. “I was also angry at her for a long time. But now I just feel sorry for her. If she’d grown up in Lilybrook, her life would have been completely different. That’s why, when the APR found Deirdre and me, I chose to be on the recruiting team. I wanted to bring psionic families to Lilybrook, so no child would grow up feeling lonely or scared because of their abilities.”
How different my mother’s life would have been if she’d grown up in Lilybrook. She could have used her psychokinesis to help people, not to kill people. Instead, she’d grown up in a rickety old trailer with an overburdened mother and an abusive stepfather. When she finally came to Lilybrook as an adult, it was only to spend the rest of her life in a gray Underground cell.
My mother had brought tragedy to so many people, but her life was tragic as well.
* * *
Sleepy-eyed, Tristan leaned on the bathroom door frame as I tried to brush my teeth with my right hand. “Why are you up so early on a Saturday?” he asked through a yawn. “Another nightmare?”
Of course I’d had another nightmare. But that wasn’t why I was awake. “I’m going to the APR to visit my mother.”
He jolted upright. “What?”
“I’m going right after breakfast.” Marmalade purred from the counter. I put down the toothbrush and scratched under her chin.
Tristan rubbed the heel of his hands in his eyes, like he was trying to wake up from a dream. “She almost killed you, Tessa. She tried to kill me. Twice. She tried to kill my dad. She killed dozens of people. How can you want to see that woman?”
The venom in his tone hit me in the core. He hated my mother as much as Nathan did.
Understandable. I hated her too. I did. My hatred for her crawled around inside me like insects. But I needed to see her. Today. Right now. “She’s my mother,” I said. “What other reason do I need? But maybe she has an idea where Jillian and Logan are. Maybe she can give us a lead.”
He shook his head. “You can send her a note, then. You don’t have to go see her.”
“Tristan, I can visit my mother if I want to,” I said.
“She’s going to hurt you.”
“Are you getting a warning premonition?”
“I don’t need a premonition,” he said. “It’s not a psionic thing. She’s going to hurt you. I know it.”
“She can’t hurt me,” I said. “She’s been neutralized.”
“Your father’s neutralized, and he hurt you,” he said. “From his hospital bed. While he was restrained.”
“This is different.” Why was he being so difficult? “My dad’s not lucid. Mom is.”
“I’m just trying to keep you safe,” he said, lightly running his fingers over my cast. “It’s my job to keep you safe.”
A detonator went off inside me and I exploded. “Your job? I’m your girlfriend, not your assignment.” I flung my casted arm away from him, and Marmalade bolted. “In case you haven’t noticed, Tristan, but even with your premonitions, you can’t fix everything bad in my life.”
He flinched like I’d punched him. “I need to do this, Tessa. Please. I need to keep you safe.”
“And I need to see my mother,” I said, and stormed past him out of the bathroom, almost bowling him over.
I marched downstairs, only to find Deirdre on the sofa, sorting through a storage container of Valentine’s Day decorations. Half the room was already covered in red and pink hearts. She gestured for me to come sit with her, but I stayed where I was. “So,” she said, “I hear you want to visit your mother.”
“Are you going to tell me I can’t go too?” I asked crossly. “It’s a prison cell, not a silver room.”
“I’m not going to stop you,” she said. “I think it would be good for you to see your mother. But don’t be angry at Tristan. He can’t help wanting to protect you.”
I snorted. “He didn’t even have a warning premonition but he thinks my mom is going to hurt me.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Tristan has always taken care of the people he loves. Even if he wasn’t precognitive, he’d be that way. But precogs like Tristan and me, when we see something bad in the future, we feel responsible to prevent it from happening. Tristan defines himself by his warning premonitions. When he fails to prevent somethin
g bad from happening to you, whether it’s because you ignored his warning or he didn’t have the premonition at all, he blames himself. He feels worthless.”
Tristan wanted to be a hero. He needed to be a hero. His entire self-worth was tied up in being a hero.
If Tristan needed to be a hero, then he should go back to slaying dragons for Melanie Brunswick. Because my dragons were indestructible.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“You’re sure?” Tristan had his arm around me as the elevator took us down to the Underground. “You’re absolutely sure you want to do this?”
“You don’t have to come with me if it bothers you this much,” I said.
His only response was tightening his arm around me.
The elevator doors opened to reveal Mr. Milbourne waiting to escort us, arms crossed, chomping on gum. “Let’s go,” he said. “I don’t have a lot of time today.”
We followed him into the labyrinth of the prison. He didn’t look back as I thanked him for allowing this unscheduled visit with my mother. As we neared the cell that served as my father’s hospital room, I stopped. “Can I see my dad first?”
“No change in his status,” he grunted. “Still unconscious.”
“I still want to see him.”
He slid a glance at my cast. “Fine, but it’s against my recommendation.” He slid his badge through the keypad at the door.
Mine too, Tristan said silently.
I lingered in the doorway, leaning against Tristan. My father looked exactly as he had when I’d left him earlier this week. Sleeping, apparently at peace. Wrists in restraints. An IV needle piercing his arm. The only noise was the occasional beeping of his breathing and heart monitors, their screens reflecting the light from above.
Are you going in? Tristan asked.
Not yet.
I watched my father from the doorway for a long, slow minute. He didn’t move. Neither did I. I willed him to open his eyes.
“If you’re not going in, then you need to leave,” Mr. Milbourne snapped.
His words spurred me inside the cell and to my father’s bedside. Tristan held my right hand. You’re too close, he warned me silently. I stepped back, suddenly fearful my father would spring to life and attack me again.
“Dad,” I whispered.
As if on cue, my father moaned. The monitors beeped faster.
“Daddy,” I said again, louder.
His head turned to the side, facing me. His eyes were still closed, but his breathing started coming in short, shallow gasps.
The beeping was faster now, almost frantic. A white-clad nurse rushed in and checked the monitors. “You should leave,” she said to me. “You’re disturbing him.”
“Is he waking up?”
“No. Just go, please.”
Gingerly, I stepped closer and reached out to him, but Tristan pulled me back. “Tristan, please. I need to see his eyes.”
The monitors beeped faster, louder.
“Please leave,” the nurse said again, more urgently. Mr. Milbourne marched in, ready to take me out by force.
At that, Tristan stepped between us. “She wants to see his eyes. That’s all. Then we’ll leave.”
The warden sighed and nodded to the nurse. “Do it.”
The nurse, lips in a tight line, put her fingertips lightly on my father’s eyelids and pulled them open. “Quickly,” she said.
I held my breath and leaned forward. Despite his racing heart and shallow breathing, he stared vacantly back at me. Blank. Empty. Dull, lifeless. No panic, no fear, no grief or despair. No hatred or rage. No love, either. Just...nothing.
Before the nurse closed his lids, I double, then triple-checked.
Hazel. My father’s eyes were definitely hazel. Vacant, but hazel. Not lucid and black.
It had just been my imagination.
Mr. Milbourne swept Tristan and me back out to the hall. As my father’s door swung shut, the monitors beeped slower again.
* * *
Tristan insisted on accompanying me inside the visiting room to see my mother. I blocked his entrance, arms crossed awkwardly with my cast. “You’ll just upset her.” And me.
“But—”
“You need to keep me safe. I get it,” I said. “But I will be safe. There’s no way she can hurt me.”
Mr. Milbourne flipped through some papers on a clipboard. “Doesn’t matter anyway, Connelly. You’re on her do-not-allow list.”
“I can’t go in there?” Tristan glowered. “What right does she have to keep a list like that?”
The warden chomped away on his gum. “I hear ya, but even inmates have rights. That list helps keep the peace around here. And I don’t want to rile her up. She’s a hard one to calm down.”
“Don’t talk about her that way,” I said. They may be right, but I was feeling very defensive about my mother today. She had grown up alone and abused. She deserved a little compassion, even if I was the only one who was willing to give it. “Who else is on her list?”
“Everyone. The only visitors she’ll consent to are Andrew Carson, Jillian Carson, Tessa Carson and Logan Carson.”
Of the four people on my mother’s list of approved visitors, one was in a coma and two were missing. The only person left was me, and I had refused to see her until today.
I tried not to feel guilty about that, but I did.
“It’s fine,” I told Mr. Milbourne. “I’ll go in alone.”
“With a guard,” Tristan said. “Two guards. And I want them armed with tranq guns.”
“Tristan, that’s a little extreme,” I said.
“Do it, Milbourne,” Tristan said. “Two armed guards. Her own father broke her wrist on your watch. You think the board will let you keep your job if she gets attacked again?”
The warden shrugged. “Not a problem. I’ll go in there myself,” he said, then called for three more guards.
Ridiculous, I flashed to Tristan. He stared straight ahead and did not move.
“Keep your eyes on the inmate at all times,” Mr. Milbourne growled to the guards. “Stay alert. Do not hesitate to shoot if she does anything out of line.”
Tristan had his own orders for me. “Do not touch her,” he said. “I will be right here, outside this door. If you get a warning from me, listen. I mean it, Tessa. Do what I say, as soon as I say it.”
Without acknowledging him, I stepped into the visitor’s room with the guards. I glanced behind me to see Tristan pulling his hands through his hair, watching me until the door shut.
The four armed guards took their place, one in each corner of the small gray room. The air was thicker in here. I sat on a hard metal chair at the stainless steel table, placed squarely in the center of the room, and waited. No one spoke.
The door leading to the prison opened, and the guards stiffened. I mimicked them as a shot of nerves and fear ricocheted through me, then forced myself to relax. My mother, a crumpled form of gray, was brought in by another guard, who forced her to sit in the chair across the table, chained her to it, and joined the posse along the wall.
All these guards, all these precautions, for such a tiny, broken woman.
Shackled at wrist and ankles, as she had been on my last visit when I’d confronted her about her crimes. Hair short, as if it was cut without a mirror and with dull scissors. Pasty. Thin. Vulnerable and defeated, like she had been when she was a little girl. I made a point to study her eyes. They were anxious. Miserable. Grateful. Gray.
Her lips trembled, and two fat tears rolled down her cheeks. “Babydoll,” she quivered. “I’m so glad you came. They told me you had finally come, but I can’t believe anything they tell me. But you’re here. You’re here.”
I could barely speak. “Hi, Mom.”
I waited f
or her to ask why I hadn’t come sooner, but she didn’t. Perhaps she already knew.
“How are you?” I asked.
“I miss everyone. I miss my PK. They...they lie to me.” She shrugged as much as she could in her restraints. “But I’m seeing a therapist. I’ve got a job in the kitchen, cooking for the other inmates. I like that. I do a lot of crossword puzzles.”
“That’s good.” The therapist was probably the best thing for her, and I was glad they allowed her to cook and do her puzzles. “I’ll bring you some crossword puzzle magazines. I can bring you some cookbooks too. Would that be okay?”
“Thank you, Babydoll. That’s so nice of you,” she said, eyes downcast. “How are you?”
I wanted to tell her, “The kids at school hate me.”
I wanted to tell her, “I have bad dreams every night. My Nightmare Eyes follow me around and I can’t get rid of them.”
I wanted to tell her, “You made me Killers’ Spawn.”
I opened my mouth to tell her everything, about my shame and grief and burning blood, about how I couldn’t find Jillian and Logan, about how I couldn’t leave Lilybrook because of a dream about a little house with silver walls.
But she spoke first. “Have you grown?” she asked, lips trembling. “You look taller.”
So. She wanted to stick to neutral topics. Maybe she wasn’t ready to hear about the hard stuff. She looked too fragile to hear it, anyway.
“I’m still four foot ten, Mom,” I said.
“Oh,” she said, and tried again. “I like your hair. It’s gotten longer.”
That observation was correct; my hair had grown an inch or two, because I hadn’t thought about trimming it. My hand flitted to my hair and smoothed it.
