by Tara Maya, Elle Casey, J L Bryan, Anthea Sharp, Jenna Elizabeth Johnson, Alexia Purdy (epub)
Tony was practically wheezing by the time he got to me. "I'm sorry. I'm ... " He had to stop to catch his breath. "I didn't mean to ... make you upset. I just wanted ... to try and figure out ... ," he dropped the bags at our feet, " ... why it is that I'm in your head sometimes ... "
I realized what he was trying to say, and the horribleness of my situation became overshadowed by the strange, otherworldly stuff he was describing.
"In my head?" The idea of Tony in my head was both scary and entertaining at the same time.
"Kind of – yeah."
"What's it like in there?" I was smiling now, thinking of all the ways I could torture Tony without lifting a finger. Too bad the kid was as loony as a ... loon.
"Why aren't you taking this seriously?" he asked, frustrated.
"Because, Tony, it's ridiculous. You had some crazy, effed up dream, and now suddenly you're in my head."
"It wasn't a dream, Jayne. I heard you; I felt your feelings. Don't try to tell me something didn't happen with him."
"You're just projecting or something," I said, defensively.
"Oh, yeah? Well how did I know you liked Spike's smile or his teeth or something? And by the way, that's a little crazy, liking someone's teeth, don't you think?"
I didn't know what to say. It probably was weird to like someone's teeth, but how the heck did he know I'd thought that?
I was willing to consider his arguments, but still wasn't convinced. "You just liked his teeth and now you're acting like it's me who liked them. Or, you're trying to do some kind of brainwashing thing."
"I've got one thing to say to you," said Tony, a defiant look on his face.
I hate that look; I usually see it on those rare occasions when Tony finally puts his foot down and I had to let him have his way. Not this time, buddy, I was thinking.
He said two words: "Tom Sawyer."
My eyes bugged out of my head. "No!"
"Yes!"
"Tony, that is just rude!"
"What's rude?"
"Getting in my head like that! Those thoughts are private!"
Tony nearly exploded. "I know that! Do you think I want to be in your head? Do you think I want to wander around in that crazy place you call your mind? I don't want to be in there! I care about you, you know that, you're my best friend. But seriously, no offense ... I could never ever go back there again and be perfectly happy for the rest of my life. Do you know how busy your head is? Like, all the time busy. You never stop flooding your brain with thoughts and emotions and ideas and feelings ... it's exhausting!" He stopped to catch his breath, but before I could get a word in edgewise, he was off again. "I would do anything to stop it, but I can't control it. One minute I'm drifting off to a nice, quiet, uninteresting sleep and then all of a sudden - bam - I'm there in your bedroom ... or I'm in your brain in History class, or Psychology or Health class. Health class! Can you imagine what that's like for me in your head during Health?!"
I couldn't help it; I giggled. We had just recently been going over the male genitalia in that class. It was super hilarious, and I did spend an inordinate amount of time running some internal commentary in my head while looking at the pictures we were seeing on the teacher's slideshow.
"It's not funny. It's been torture for me, not saying anything to you. We have to figure out how to turn this thing off." Tony was trying to stay serious, but he couldn't help laughing along with me, particularly since my giggles had turned into hardcore cracking-up at this point.
"What am I thinking ... right now?" I had a hard time saying it because I couldn't stop snorting. I was focusing really hard on recalling the picture of a cross section of a testicle from page fifty of our textbook. Don't ask me why I remember the page number.
"It doesn't work like that, thank God. It only happens sometimes and not when I try to do it."
"When you try? Tony, have you tried to get into my head?" I looked at him suspiciously, the laughter fading quickly.
He started to squirm a little. "No, not really. Well, okay, I did try a couple times ... but not to invade your privacy!" He could see I was getting cranky, so he tried quickly to calm me down. "I just wanted to see if I could turn it on, because I figured if I could turn it on, I could learn how to turn it off, see?" He looked at me hopefully, a little bit of desperation in his eyes.
"Fine." I sighed. It made sense. I knew for sure I wouldn't want to be floating around in his head. I loved the guy, but I preferred to keep a little mystery in our relationship. "So, you don't know what I'm thinking right now?"
"No. I just get the slight feeling that you're not so mad anymore. You were mad earlier."
"Right. You're right - I was mad, but I'm not anymore. I know you wouldn't do anything to hurt me on purpose."
"Never in a million years," said Tony, earnestly.
I grabbed my backpack off the sand. "Well, nobody ever said life with me was going to be dull."
Tony grabbed his bag too. "Nope. Never has been, so I don't expect it will be anytime soon."
We stood on the beach smiling at each other. That lasted a full two seconds before Tony had to go ruin it with his persistence again. I think maybe he learned a little of that from me.
"So, about your mother's boyfriend ... "
"Leave it!" I said forcefully, walking away.
"I just wanted to ask you what you did. I know you did something that made you very happy." He was walking at my elbow now, refusing to be left behind. "You kicked his ass, didn't you?" He was smiling, like he already knew the answer.
"You were there, you tell me," I challenged, still miffed at him that he wouldn't let it drop.
"I told you, it doesn't work like that. I don't see anything; I hear and feel ... that's it. I felt ... triumph. That's the only way to describe it."
I smiled in bitter memory of that night. "Yep, you could call it 'triumph'."
"Tell me, Jayne; stop playing with me."
"Fine, you really want to know? I'll tell you. That night, the third night he came - after I found out the bastard could pick my lock - I was waiting for him. I had my softball bat in bed with me. When he came over and tried to touch me, I pulled the bat out and jabbed him in the nuts with it; and then when he was down on the floor, I took my dad's old electric hair razor, and I buzzed off one of his eyebrows and shaved a strip down the side of his head before he got away."
Tony's eyes nearly fell out of his head; he was unable to speak for a full five seconds. Then he whispered, "No?!"
"Yep." I stared straight ahead, no expression on my face. "Why do you think he left town that night, not even saying goodbye to my mom? No way was he going to be able to explain that shit away."
"Holy crap, Jayne." He was smiling. "Remind me never to get on your bad side."
"Yeah, well, don't ever try to put your grubby hands on me in the middle of the night and you won't have anything to worry about."
He looked at me, a little concerned, before he caught my smile. We both laughed at the same time. I was thinking about what that perv had looked like when he hobbled out the door that night minus one eyebrow and a strip from his hair. Tony was probably laughing because he felt sorry for me, but what the hell - it felt good.
"I'm so glad you're my friend, Jayne," said Tony, putting his arm around my shoulders. He still loved me, even though that slimy douche had tried to put his hands on me.
"Me too, Tones, me too. Want to go back to the warehouse? See what everyone else is doing?"
"Nah, let's go to the library ... use their computers to go on the Internet and see what we can find out about that company doing the fitness study."
I nodded in appreciation of his brilliance. "Excellent idea. We can also look up 'psychic phenomenon', see what we can do about this gift of yours - or curse, depending on how you look at it." We reached the seawall that ran the length of the beach, bordered on one side by the sand and the other by a wide sidewalk, now empty. It was still too early for many people to be out. We climbed over the wall and stood there, look
ing up and down the street that was about ten feet away. "So where's the library?" I asked.
"I have no idea."
I rolled my eyes. "Tony, Tony, Tony ... what am I going to do with you?"
"What? ... We're not lost ... we have a map, remember?" He smiled at me with a cocky grin.
I wasn't used to seeing that on his face, but I liked it. I liked it a lot. "You'd better be careful, Tones. I think I'm being a bad influence - rubbing off on you."
"Yeah, well, I don't think that's so bad," he said, dropping his bag off his shoulder and bending down to retrieve the map from inside.
I looked out across the distant ocean while he figured out where we needed to go. The same waves were crashing on the shore, over and over. The seagulls were still screeching. I was still surrounded by millions of pieces of crushed up rock and seashell. Everything was the same, and yet, everything had changed, too. Funny how change can sneak up on you when you least expect it.
Chapter Seven
We found nothing of use on the Internet. There was no record of a One Eleven company being registered as a business in Florida. After searching around for an hour and then browsing through some books and magazines for another two, we decided to head over to the area where the informational meeting was being held. It was only about five blocks away. The sun wasn't shining as brightly as it had been earlier, and the temperature had dropped a little too, but that wasn't so unusual for this time of year in Florida. In Spring, the weather tended to be a little fickle.
We stopped at a sandwich shop and got a sub and a soda, sharing it on our way to the hotel meeting room. I told the guy making our sandwich to hold the onions, but he'd obviously ignored me. I was hoping to see Spike again soon, but now I was worried that I'd breathe my horrid onion breath on him and he'd never want to talk to me up close again ... or do other stuff. Hey ... a girl can dream, right?
"Whatever you're thinking about right now, stop," said Tony, as he pushed on the revolving door at the hotel entrance.
I walked next to him in a slow circle towards the hotel's interior. "What's the matter, getting you nervous?"
"No, you're feeling all warm and stuff, and it makes me feel funny," he said, not meeting my eyes.
"Wow. This does complicate things, doesn't it?" I didn't want to think of all the ramifications. "I thought it only happened when you were going to sleep."
"I think when you're close to me, it's easier to fall into that state of connectedness. When you're far, it has to be a stronger emotion or I have to be in some sort of sleep-like state. That's my theory right now. Don't hold me to it though; it could change."
Our Internet search on psychic reading abilities had spewed out so much garbage, it was hard to filter through it all to come up with something that made sense. There were so many kooks out there claiming to be psychics and vampires and God knows what else. It was frustrating trying to find real information. We decided to go back another time and look again. We'd run out of time and mojo to do it any longer today.
We got directions from someone at the front desk to the meeting room, and arrived at the door to find Chase, Finn, Samantha, and Becky waiting out front.
"Hey, guys!" said Becky, cheerfully. "You made it!"
"Yeah. What's going on? You guys going in?" I asked.
"We're waiting for Jared and Spike," said Finn.
"Anyone else here?" asked Tony.
"Yeah, there's a couple people already in there ... some ol' lady, an ol' guy too. Can't tell if the person runnin' the show is here or not ... don't look like it." Apparently, Finn had been assigned the mission of scoping out the room ahead of time.
"I guess we'll see you guys in there, then," I said, nudging Tony's arm. He was busy acting like he wasn't staring at Samantha again. She was looking in the opposite direction, down the hall, oblivious to his crush.
We went in and took seats in the middle - not all the way in front and not in the back. It wasn't in my nature to be an eager beaver, but I also didn't want to look like a total slacker - there was five hundred bucks on the line, after all. The middle was the best place. I could tell, though, that Tony wanted to be in the front row. He was a front row, note-taking kind of guy. Two years of me still hadn't broken him of that. It was probably for the better.
Soon enough, Jared and Spike arrived. The rest of the crew came in, taking seats in various places. They didn't sit right next to each other, with the exception of Chase and Becky, who sat together on the right side of the room. I wondered about that, assuming they would all want to present a united front. I also wondered if Chase and Becky had something going on. That would be an odd couple. I would have expected her to be with Finn before Chase. For some reason, I was pairing Chase and Samantha up in my mind; but what did I know? Tony would say that I suck at matchmaking. He had the scars to prove it, too.
Spike flashed Tony and me a smile as he moved across the room. I tried to keep my blood pressure under control, but it was hard. I kicked Tony under the table in case he was creeping around in my head. I didn't need him knowing I was getting all hot and bothered over a stupid smile. But damn, Spike has the coolest teeth!
At one o'clock on the dot, the door opened and a man walked in. He was old. I don't know how old exactly because I'm terrible at guessing ages, but he had silver hair. It was thick and kind of wavy. Not long, but not military short either. He wore a silver-gray suit. It wasn't quite shiny, but I wouldn't say it was dull either. His eyes were the most striking thing about him - they were icy gray and matched his suit really well, actually. I never thought about matching my eyes to my clothes, which was probably a good thing, since they're a mottled combination of mostly green, with brown and gold - a hazel mix that looked a lot like camouflage. I didn't look good in army gear.
When the old guy smiled, I noticed that he had movie star teeth; they were perfectly straight and dazzling white. But they weren't nearly as interesting as Spike's choppers.
"Hello, and welcome to the informational meeting sponsored by One Eleven Group. I assume you have all read the advertisement and know that we are seeking some very special candidates to participate in a study we are conducting. This is a fitness-type study, so it does have some basic physical and mental health requirements. The purpose of today's meeting is to give you information about the study and, for those of you who are interested in participating, a battery of tests to determine your suitability." He looked out over the group of us, resting his eyes on no one in particular. I was waiting to hear clues about the test or about this One Eleven company while also sneaking glances at Spike. I could only see the back of his head and part of his face. Dammit.
"The test will commence tomorrow; we are truly sorry about the short notice. We had some scheduling conflicts, so it couldn't be avoided. Hopefully, this will not interfere with your ability to participate." He stopped to share a smile with us. It was very cool and professional, not reaching his eyes.
"The test itself lasts three full days, and then there will be one day after for our ... ahem ... focus group." He reached down to take a sip of water from the glass on the table next to him; he seemed to have a bit of a frog in his throat.
He continued, "You will be provided transportation from the Miami Executive Airport to the test location. After the test is complete, you will be brought back to the same airport. For those who finish the test successfully, you will be paid five hundred dollars in cash upon arrival at the airport. For those of you who do not finish the test, but who do complete parts of it, you will receive compensation based on how much of the test you do complete." He clasped his hands together and gave one of those million-dollar smiles again. "Does anyone have any questions?"
I saw the crew look around at each other and then at Jared. He just stared at the guy in gray. Tony leaned in towards me and whispered, "Do we have any questions?"
I decided not to wait for anyone else to break the ice. "Where is your company from and what is the purpose of this test?" There. That'll get the ball rol
ling.
"And your name is, Miss ... ?"
"Jayne."
"Thank you, Jayne, for your question. One Eleven Group is a think tank of sorts, located overseas, mainly in France, but we have branches elsewhere as well. Its purpose is to study humans ... people ... in their environments, and through our tests, we seek to identify those who have certain qualities, so that we can better understand our possible futures."
Well that's about as clear as mud. "Thank you, mister ... sorry, I don't remember your name."
"Oh, no, my apologies, Jayne, I should have introduced myself already. My name is Anton Dardennes." He said it with some kind of accent ... maybe French, I wan't sure. It sounded cool, though. I could never say it the way he did; there was something going on with that 'r' of his. It almost sounded like he said 'Doll-den'.
I noticed Finn and Becky looking over at me. I caught their eyes and they both nodded slightly. Apparently, they approved of my questions. I waited to see who else was going to get to the bottom of this mysterious test.
Chase leaned over to whisper in Becky's ear. As soon as he straightened, she raised her hand.
Mr. Dardennes gestured to her raised hand. "Yes?"
"I ... I mean, we ... we were wondering, where is the test location?"
"The test location is confidential. We will bring you there and back, but we cannot reveal its exact location because we do not wish to compromise the validity of our test results."
Another clear as mud answer. Normally when someone doesn't give me information I think I should have, I am instantly on my guard. But for some reason, this particular secret didn't seem like that big of a deal to me. I couldn't see how it would hurt us not knowing where we were going. I decided to let that one slide. I looked at Tony and he gave me a slight nod, as if he agreed. Maybe this mind reading stuff isn't all bad, I thought.
"If there are no more questions, we can commence with the battery of tests. For those of you not interested in participating, we ask that you leave now. The next phase of this meeting will take approximately one hour. There will be a written exam and then an interview."
