by Alex Barnett
Before Lydia could say anything Ava was beside her, clutching at her hands and demanding to know if she was all right. She leaned against her best friend for a moment, holding onto the edge of the island like her life depended on it while nausea roiled in her gut.
“What—what was that?” she croaked out finally. She grabbed a dishtowel still hanging on a series of hooks on her side of the island and passed it over to Zack, brushing it against his hand until he took it and dabbed it against his nose.
Caleb’s mouth was a grim slash, his dark eyes bleak. “You saw it?”
“Saw what?” Ava snapped. “What just happened?”
Lydia shook her head, visions of Meadowbrook Court overrun with Burnouts still flashing in her head. Remembered fear pounded through her veins, the echoes of people screaming too loud to ignore, even though she knew they weren’t real. She whirled on Ava, the thought that her best friend might be one of those people screaming in terror too much to bear.
“He’s for real. He showed me something—something from back in June.” She stumbled over her explanation, not wanting to bring up the memory of the night Ava lost her parents. But she needed Ava to understand. “But then there was something else…something that hasn’t happened yet. Av, there were Burnouts everywhere.”
Ava reeled back, her brow furrowing. “What? Wait, he showed you? That’s not—that’s not how precogs work!”
“Pretty sure your friend’s not how telekinetics usually work either,” Caleb interrupted. He stepped away from Zack, but kept a steadying hand on his brother’s back. “Look, I’m sorry, I know you’re freaked out…but you saw it, right? We’re running out of time.”
Zack wadded the dishtowel up so that the bloody part was covered and tossed it down onto the island with a sniff. “I’ll explain everything. I promise I’ll explain, but please believe me when I say we gotta get that group moving away from your wall. It’s—there’s a way we all survive this. But if those things’re still out front tomorrow morning, we’re dead.”
“Lydia,” Ava said urgently, grabbing her arm and pulling her around so that they were facing each other. “Do you believe them?” she asked in Spanish. “You’re sure it isn’t a trick? What if he’s like your grandmother?”
Lydia swallowed, forcing herself to slow down and really consider what Ava was asking. She still felt like the world had tilted slightly to one side with the revelation that Zack was a Psio.
But beneath the confusion, beneath even the crushing, choking loss that she had lived with from the moment she read her mother’s final message on the netglass…there was fear. She felt it like icy claws on the back of her neck, curdling in the pit of her stomach. She remembered the feelings that had raced through her in the final moments of the vision Zack showed her. The sense that people she cared about were going to Burn if she did not move fast enough. That urgency roared through her now, accompanied by a certainty that seeped into her bones.
I love you. Be brave.
“I believe him,” she said, turning her gaze back to the Reeds. “I’m sure.”
8
Under other circumstances, the way Caleb and Zack almost collapsed in relief might have been comical. Caleb bent forward, bracing his hands against the island and leaning down until his forehead almost touched the surface. He let out a heavy sigh as Zack closed his eyes, pounding one fist into the opposite palm.
“Okay, all right then. All right, we just might survive this.” He grinned, and now that she knew what he could do, it looked even sharper to Lydia. Stranger. As if there were a hundred secrets hiding just behind that smile, a hundred shadows.
She wondered if he knew what had happened to the people he loved.
“We gotta move,” Caleb said, startling her out of the dark turn her thoughts had taken. “You got any weapons here?”
“Wait, you want her to go with you right now?” Ava said in shock, her eyes darting between Lydia and Caleb. “Whoa, hold on! We have to tell the others!”
“You’re not listenin’ to me, there’s no time,” Caleb ground out, clearly holding onto his patience by the tips of his fingers. Now that there was the possibility of action, he was twitching, jumpy, as if he couldn’t wait to get going.
“No, you’re not listening,” Ava snapped. “Lydia says she believes you, fine, I believe you too. But I’m still not hearing any details on an actual plan for the actually suicidal actions you wanna take.”
“The plan is run like hell, get the truck, drive like hell, get back here,” Zack answered, irritation smoldering in the words like a live coal.
“That’s not good enough.” Ava shook her head, her braid flying.
Lydia swallowed hard, the frenzied mass of Burnouts pounding at the Royce house flashing before her eyes again. “How long do we have before that,” she broke off, unsure of how to describe it, “before what you showed me happens?”
Zack tapped a finger against the countertop and shook his head. “Not long,” he said quietly. “Caleb was gonna try to lead them off no matter what you said. It’s our only chance.”
For the first time, Lydia saw real, raw fear flicker across his face, and she realized that no matter how well they managed to run together, Zack would be a liability on the kind of plan Caleb had. He would have had to let his brother go alone. She couldn’t imagine sending Ava out over the barricade by herself, with no backup but a gun.
“Well, that’s not the plan anymore,” she said, trying to sound reassuring. Ava turned to her with a raised eyebrow. Lydia met her friend’s gaze steadily, and an entire conversation passed between them, an argument in facial expressions that you could only have when you had been best friends for half your lives.
“Are you sure?” Ava asked after a moment. “Really sure?”
“You know I’m the safest person here,” Lydia replied. “Nothing’s touching me unless I let it. Isn’t it about time I used that to help all of us?”
“I’m coming with you,” Ava said, grabbing her wrist. Almost before she finished speaking, Lydia was shaking her head.
“No way, I need you to stay here and help Zack if anything goes wrong.”
Ava drew herself up to her full height, glaring down at Lydia the way she only did when she was really made. “Are you insane? I’m not letting you go out there by yourself!”
“Hey!” Caleb protested, and Ava waved him off with an irritated flap of one hand.
“You know what I meant! Lyds, you’re talking about going over the barricade.”
“Which is why I need you here.”
Ava glared at her a moment longer, and then her eyes narrowed into slits. “You want me to be the one to tell Mike what you’re doing.”
Lydia held her gaze for all of two seconds. “Yes. I want you to be the one to tell Grandpa what I’m doing.”
Ava snorted, then surged forward and wrapped Lydia in a tight hug. “He’s gonna kill you,” she whispered. “You better come back for him to do it.”
“I’ll be careful,” she whispered back. “You know I can handle myself
“I know.” Ava sounded like she was trying to convince herself, but Lydia wasn’t going to call her on it. When she stepped back, her friend’s face was set in a determined expression that Lydia knew as well as her own name. “I’ll make sure Mike understands what’s going on—we’ll start gathering up the weapons and supplies, just in case.”
Neither of them could bring themselves to voice what “just in case” meant. She pulled a hairband off her wrist and gathered her hair up into a ponytail with more care than was strictly necessary, to give herself a few moments to calm her racing heart. “There’s a blaster in the living room,” she said finally. “Av, would you run upstairs and grab me Grandpa’s holster? No way I’m just sticking it down my pants if we’re gonna be running for our lives.”
Zack snorted, an abbreviated huff of laughter that had Caleb reaching over and smacking him upside the head without even looking. “Sorry!” Zack protested. “I’m sorry, it’s th
e stress!”
Lydia rolled her eyes. “First time I hear you say ‘that’s what she said’ I’m kicking your ass.”
“I’ll help,” Ava muttered.
“I’ll hold him,” Caleb said, shooting a glare at his brother’s head. Zack held up his hands in surrender.
Ava shook her head and turned around, heading out into the hallway that led to the stairs. “I’ll get the holster.”
The three of them listened to Ava’s retreating footsteps as Zack scrubbed his hands over his face. “Thanks,” he said after a moment. “For believing us.”
“Like I’m gonna argue with you after that,” Lydia said with a shudder. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Huh? Oh yeah—the…” He gestured towards his nose. “It’s fine, not the worst I ever done to myself. Backlash just sucks, you know?”
Lydia did, indeed, know how much backlash sucked.
It was a fact of life for any Psio—using your abilities had consequences. For most, it just felt like you had the flu. General fatigue, a headache, nausea and chills. You slept it off, drank plenty of fluids, and sometimes it helped to eat something high in protein or sugar. The more you used your ability, though, the worse the backlash got. Nosebleeds, burst capillaries in the eyes, dizziness and fainting—these were warnings that Psio was pushing their powers to their limits. And if those warnings were ignored? Then a Psio risked doing themselves permanent injury. There were records of people who had died pushing the limits of their powers in the first years after Invasion, collapsing to the ground with blood pouring out of their ears, eyes, and nose.
Lydia had only pushed herself to the point it hurt a few times in her life (the last time had been the day that Ava found out she was a Psio as a matter of fact).
She regarded Zack silently for a few heartbeats, a hundred questions bubbling up inside her. She’d met other Psios, of course. Friends of Grandma and Mom, people who formed a loose sort of community around each other. Psios weren’t exactly stigmatized in society, but some people were…uncomfortable around them. Uncomfortable enough that Lydia’s family had spent most of their lives trying to fly under the radar of anyone who might figure out the level of their abilities.
It had been years since she’d talked to a Psio who was her own age. And she’d never met anyone outside of family whose ability was even a fraction as strong as hers. Zack’s had to be, though. Ava wasn’t wrong—what Zack had done really wasn’t how precogs worked. It wasn’t even how telepaths like Grandma worked.
There were a thousand things she wanted to say, to talk about, and no time for any of them. As if sensing the turn her thoughts had taken, Zack tilted his head and stretched out his hand again. Hesitating only slightly, Lydia took it. There was no rush of images or feelings this time, just the solid warmth of his fingers tightening around hers.
“We’ll talk later, okay? When you get back…we have to talk when you get back,” he said. Caleb was watching the two of them with an unreadable look, but a hint of a smile flickered in the corners of his mouth.
“You sure we’ll get back?” Lydia meant it to be a joke. Meant it to be flippant. It came out sounding like a child asking for reassurance that the monsters under their bed weren’t real.
The deadly serious expression that settled on Zack’s face, crooked eyebrows drawn together in a frown, seemed wrong to Lydia, somehow. He sucked on his teeth, lowering his head for a few heartbeats.
“There’s a way we all survive what’s coming,” he said, and Lydia didn’t have to know him well to hear the careful, hedging tone to his words. “I can’t tell you more than that.” He let go of her hand, shaking his head. “And I mean I literally can’t—I showed you everything I know.”
“Trust me, we’ve gone over it every way we could,” Caleb interjected.
It wasn’t quite what Lydia wanted to hear, but it was better than nothing. And if Zack was as powerful as she thought he was, it was about as good a guarantee as she would get. She turned towards Caleb.
“So do we have an actual plan? Like with details and stuff?”
Caleb chuckled dryly. “It’s kind of a work in progress. He reached into the front pocket of the gray hoodie he was wearing and pulled out clear rod that resembled an elongated soda can with two copper-colored prongs sticking out of one end. “The one dude with the glasses, Eric? He hooked us up with a charge for the truck. Not much juice left, but he swears it’ll get us at least twenty miles, even with the pedal to the floor.”
“You told Mr. Grant what we’re doing?” she asked in surprise. Caleb immediately snorted, rocking back on his heels.
“Hell no! We were gonna try and lift some gas out of a lawn mower or something. But he said he wanted us to have it on us, just in case.”
Just then, Ava returned to the kitchen, one of Grandpa’s leather belts dangling on her shoulder. She was carrying the blaster Lydia preferred to use, holding it like it was something that could bite. Lydia smiled fondly as she took both, checking to see that the blaster had a charge cartridge already loaded. She set the gun down on the island and began winding the belt around her waist. She had to wrap it twice to get it tightened all the way, and clipped the blaster holster on so it rested just against her hip. Ava watched the process silently, wrapping and unwrapping the end of her braid from the end of one finger.
“You sure about this?” she asked one more time. “We can still go talk to Mike. Come up with a plan together.”
Lydia slid the blaster into the holster. “Hey. Tell me you think they’re lying to us…I’ll go to Grandpa right now.” She met her friend’s gaze steadily, pouring every ounce of sincerity into her expression that she could. She meant it. As much as her own instincts were screaming at her that this was the right thing to do—Ava was and always had been better at reading people. If she thought there was even a hint of deception in the Reeds, Lydia would listen to her.
Zack bristled, opening his mouth, but Caleb laid a quieting hand on his shoulder. Ava stared at her a moment, before her eyes slid to the brothers.
“No,” she said, her voice barely audible. “No, I don’t think they’re lying to us.”
“Then you know I’ve gotta do this. I’m not letting what I saw happen here.”
Ava took a deep breath and pulled her into a rib-crushing hug. “Be careful,” she said.
Lydia hugged her back even more tightly, the reality of what she was about to do setting in. “I will. Promise.”
When she stepped back, Caleb was checking the charge cartridge on his own blaster. He gave her a grave nod and tucked the gun into its holder on his belt. “Hey, Ava,” he said hesitantly, drumming his fingers on the island once. “You mind keeping an eye on Z for me?”
“Not six, dude,” Zack grumbled.
“I know,” Caleb said with patience that only sounded a little exaggerated. “Humor me, okay? You said there was one option where her grandpa punches you.”
“He punches you,” Zack countered, waving a dismissive hand. “And I think we closed that option down.”
“My grandpa punches one of you?” Lydia asked, quirking an eyebrow. Zack shook his head.
“Not anymore. That only happened if—well, not anymore.”
Lydia exchanged a look with Ava, but let it slide. She wasn’t sure she wanted the details, if there were multiple ways that was she was about to do could go down. Especially if the one Zack had shown her wasn’t the one where Grandpa was angry enough to punch someone a third of his age!
“We’ve got to go explain what’s going on to Mike anyway, Zack,” Ava said. “If you want to hang out with me while we wait for them to get back, it’s cool. Lydia and I have a bag of Hershey kisses stashed away.”
Immediately, Zack perked up. “Chocolate? Hell yeah, I’m there.” Caleb rolled his eyes at the swift mood change, while Lydia reached over and smacked her friend on the arm.
“Don’t give away all our candy,” she mock-growled. Ava winked at her.
“Relax, he’s not
touching the Reese’s.”
Caleb laughed, shaking his head, but turned serious again. He reached up and laid one hand on his brother’s neck, pulling the younger boy close in a not-quite embrace. “Rule thirteen, okay Z?” he said in a grave tone. Zack grabbed Caleb’s wrist, squeezing once as he nodded.
“Rule thirteen,” he agreed.
Caleb drew back and rubbed a hand over the stubble that was starting to shadow his jawline. “All right, you ready?” he asked, looking over at Lydia.
She really, really was not. But she glanced over at Ava and then nodded as firmly as she could. “Let’s get moving,” she said.
She followed Caleb out the back door into the yard, pausing for a moment on the paving stones that made up a little patio. She took a deep breath of the cooling air, glancing around at the lengthening shadows and the last scraps of orange sunlight clinging to the Western edge of the sky. She forced herself to follow Caleb towards the fence without looking back at where Ava and Zack were standing in the doorway.
“Hey Caleb?” she asked.
“Hmm?”
“What’s rule thirty-five?” She couldn’t quite decide if the exchanges she kept hearing were a joke, or an actual creed that the brothers were living by. Caleb ducked his head, laughing a little.
“Rule thirty-five is just for Zack…no one ever knows as much as you think they know. He gets carried away sometimes, forgets the difference between what’s happened and what might happen.”
“Ah.” They followed the fence to the very back of the yard, near Grandma’s lilac bushes and the beds of flowers that had been dead or dying long before the world had ended. None of them quite had Grandma’s gift for gardening, but Mom and Grandpa refused to take the flowerbeds out. She hesitated at the makeshift door that would let them into Jim and Iris’s yard. “What’s rule thirteen then?”
Caleb froze in the action of boosting himself over the fence, one foot dangling near her head. When he looked down at her, he seemed to have aged ten years, shadows in his eyes that Lydia didn’t want to know the reasons for. Again, she wondered what Zack knew about their family, their friends; if he’d been able to tell Caleb what had happened to any of them.
