by Jade Kerrion
Zara had none either, but she did not seem to have any trouble holding her own. Something to think about…
“I found a second job today,” Dee said as they began a slow walk back to their apartment.
“Where?”
“Legends. It’s a nightclub just a couple blocks over that way.”
Danyael stopped and stared at Dee. “There are safer jobs than working at nightclubs in Anacostia.”
“I know, but this way, I can hang around when you train Dum and go to work after.”
“You’re doing a great deal for your brother.”
Dee’s eyes narrowed. “Why wouldn’t I? He’s the only family I have left.”
“It’s an observation and a compliment. Don’t get defensive.”
“Oh.” Dee glanced at Dum, who had apparently heard nothing of her conversation with Danyael, not with those ear pods stuck in his ears. “How are your training sessions with him? Are you making any progress?”
“That would depend on your definition of progress.”
“Can he create psychic shields?”
“No.”
What on earth had Danyael been doing with Dum over the past few days? “He needs psychic shields if he’s going to be around others.” She winced at the note of complaint she heard in her own voice.
“Who told you that?”
“Seth Copper and all the other trainers at the council.”
Danyael shook his head. “Shields are, by definition, defensive. Shields protect you from others, not others from you.”
Dee’s brow furrowed. She shook her head, the motion jostling the dozing child on her shoulder. “So what’s going to protect people from Dum’s empathic powers?”
Danyael chuckled, a quiet and humorless sound. “Self-control.”
Dee waited for the punch line, but Danyael said nothing more. Self-control. It could not be that simple, could it?
6
Dee’s first night in the apartment was downright miserable. The old building creaked and groaned. The thermostat was unquestionably broken. It was either too hot or too cold; she could never get the temperature just right. The futon mattress was too thin. The wooden bars of the futon frame got in the way of every comfortable position Dee tried to find on the mattress. Perhaps it was just as well that she had purchased it second-hand for pennies on the dollar. Several times through the night, Dee contemplated switching places with Dum. Surely he was more comfortable on the ratty old couch they had picked up from the neighborhood Goodwill store.
Gritty-eyed from disrupted sleep, Dee rose from the mattress the moment the sun peeked over the horizon and through the grimy apartment windows. Speaking of which, the windows would have to be cleaned. She had a couple of hours for chores before heading to the diner for her lunch shift. Dee showered quickly and found the cleanliness of the bathroom still questionable. When she crept out of the bedroom, she found Dum fast asleep, comfortably so, damn it, on the couch.
As she stood barefoot in the kitchen, washing down a bagel with a glass of milk, she heard the quiet murmur of conversation in the corridor. She could almost make out Danyael’s familiar melodic tenor. Peeking out of her apartment, Dee saw Zara, with Laura in her arms, standing outside Danyael’s apartment. The alpha empath was at the door of his apartment, and for a brief moment, with both their heads bent over their daughter, they looked like a happy family.
The illusion was dispelled when Zara looked up in Dee’s direction. The assassin’s eyes narrowed, but Danyael touched Zara’s cheek. The gesture seemed like a careless brush of skin against skin, but Danyael was never careless with touch; an alpha empath could not afford to be. Zara inhaled deeply, released her breath, and visibly relaxed. Dee pressed her lips together to conceal a smile as she ducked back into her apartment.
Dee was no expert on relationships, but she could identify a screwed-up relationship when she saw it. Alpha females, and the men who control them. She leaned against the door, closing it. From across the small living room, his face still buried in his pillow, Dum raised a hand in acknowledgment. Dee chuckled. “Orange juice or milk?”
Dum held up his index finger. One. The first option.
Dee poured orange juice into a glass and carried it over to him. Dum sat up on the couch and scrubbed sleep from his eyes. “You’re sleeping on the futon tonight,” she told him as she held the glass out to him.
Dum grabbed the glass and downed a mouthful of orange juice before he smirked at her and shook his head.
She would see about that. Dee held out her glass of milk and waited until he touched the rim of his glass to hers. “Here’s to the first day of the rest of our lives.” Her grin wobbled. Damn it, she was terrified.
As first days went, it was not a total disaster. Dee did not spill food or drink on any customers, and while tips weren’t anything to write home about—not that she had a home—they did cover the bottom of the tip jar she had hidden at the back of her closet. Better yet, the kitchen staff had declared Dum diligent and responsive in his kitchen helper and dishwashing duties. Confiscating his ear pods and threatening to flush them down the toilet had likely helped.
By three in the afternoon, her back and legs ached. She propped them up on a cardboard box that served as a coffee table in their living room, leaned back against the couch, and closed her eyes. She could hear Dum moving around the apartment, but could not dredge up the will to care. She did not have anywhere to be until eight thirty. Perhaps a nap— the seat sank as Dum sat beside her. He tucked her hair behind an ear and gently maneuvered an ear pod into her ear canal.
She sat upright. “What are you doing?”
He pressed his finger to his lips. Listen.
The complex and flowing harmonies of a harp whispered from the ear pod. She breathed in time with the music, the tension easing from her shoulders as she closed her eyes and allowed the tune to carry her along. Dee exhaled through a smile. How had Dum known just how to reach her?
She must have drifted to sleep because when she jolted with a start, the sun had set. Her stomach rumbled, grumbling from the lack of attention. She glanced at her watch. Nine thirty? Had she slept the entire afternoon and evening away? The apartment was silent and dark except for the single light bulb blazing over the entryway. “Dum?” she called out, but no one responded. Dum was probably at the free clinic with Danyael, or at least she hoped Dum was at the clinic.
As she hastily dressed for her nightclub shift, she heard a pounding on the door. “Who is it?”
Jessica.
Can’t you let yourself in?
Well, sure I can. I just didn’t want to piss you off.
I’m not pissed off. I’m changing, and I can’t get to the door. Just come in.
The lock clicked, and the door opened. “Hurry up, or we’ll be late.”
How could Jessica sound that excited about starting work at ten in the evening? Dee stared at her reflection in the mirror, dabbed on a bit more lipstick, and walked out of the bathroom.
“What do you think?”
Jessica, bless her, answered the question lingering in the back of Dee’s mind, rather than the question she had asked. “No one is going to mistake you for a hooker, so no worries.”
Jessica, on the other hand, looked unusually severe in a black long-sleeved T-shirt and denim jeans in the same color. The long, blond hair that she usually wore loose and free around her shoulders had been pulled up into a practical ponytail.
“What’s with the black?” Dee asked as she slipped her driver’s license and a few dollars into the back pocket of her shorts and tucked her small tube of pepper spray between her breasts. A girl with a council-trained alpha mutant for a personal security guard could still use a backup plan.
Jessica smoothed down her shirt. “It’s what their bouncers wear. I’m sort of like a bouncer, right?”
Yeah, the cutest, chirpiest, youngest bouncer yet. She looked—
“I do not look fourteen and a half,” Jessica protested.
> “Sure, you do, but that’s okay. No one is going to card you. Come on. Let’s go, or we’ll be late.”
They ran the six blocks to Legends and arrived with a minute to spare. The club was empty at ten. By eleven, the place was crowded. At midnight, it was packed. Dee lost track of Jessica, but she was too busy to care. Drink orders kept her bustling between the bar and the cluster of tables in her section, which was largely occupied by leather-clad men and women. Everything was moving along smoothly until a large crowd entered the nightclub. Another gang, no doubt, judging from the red bandanas tied around their left biceps. Most of the gang members loitered around the edges of the dance floor, but four of them claimed the last empty table in Dee’s section. She fixed a smile on her face as she approached their table. “What can I get for you?”
“You can get those losers out of our section.”
“Uh…” Dee looked over her shoulder at her other customers. Their conversations had ceased. “I…”
A man stood, tipsy and unsteady on his feet, his leather jacket askew. “Hey, you get the—” He jerked, his eyes flaring wide as a stiletto blade sank into the wall behind him, missing his face by fractions of an inch. “What the—” He reached over his shoulder and yanked out the knife. His upper lip curled. “Looks like they want to play, boys.”
Brawny bodies surged past her, lunging toward each other. Dee screamed, stumbling backward over a table. It flipped, and she landed on her back. Beer sloshed, spilling out of glasses to soak her shirt. She scooted back on her butt, past a tangle of trampling feet, and took cover behind another overturned table. Dee wrapped her arms around herself, her trembling shoulders hunched against the spray of violence around her. Damn it. Where was Jessica?
From his perch on a cement bench a few doors down from Legends, Dum yawned. He could have gone home after concluding his training session with Danyael, but he had his music to keep him occupied, and he did not mind waiting. Besides, someone had to walk Dee home after her shift ended, and he felt up to the task, almost.
When Dee had fallen asleep, snoring softly against his shoulder earlier that afternoon, he had to suppress the gleeful dance for fear of waking her up. She had heard his voice through the music, and it had not hurt in the least to share the essence of what resided inside of him. It had not diminished him in any way; Danyael had assured him as much. Power increases when it is given away.
The experiment with Dee had been his own, though, not Danyael’s suggestion. For the first time in twelve years, since their father had died, he took care of Dee. The knowledge was enough to make him dance with joy, relieved that he was no longer just a burden, thrilled that he could do something for her, too.
Dum glanced up sharply as a discordant note slammed through the happy, lilting tune in his head. The bouncers scrambled into the club as the music transformed—the chords were jarring, the beat jagged. Dum shot to his feet and raced through the unguarded entrance. He stumbled as the music roiled through his skull like stampeding horses, ferocious and wild.
Dee?
He pushed forward. The entire club was in an uproar, the fighting seemingly discriminate. He could identify three…no, four gangs, at least, by their colors, but where was Dee? Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jessica yank two men apart, her telekinetic powers amplifying an otherwise pitiful physical attempt to separate fighting men who outweighed her by several hundred pounds each. The men reeled to the ground, unconscious. She must have followed up with a psi-blast.
At that rate, it would take Jessica forever to break up the fight. He had to find a faster way.
Dum raced along the wall, pausing twice as bodies crashed into the wall in front of him. He ducked under the swinging arms and scrambled onto the soundstage. The deejay was absent; perhaps he was in the crowd. Dum’s gaze swept over the knobs and buttons on the sound machine, or whatever that was called, and found a cord that looked like it could plug into his iPod. He inhaled deeply. No harm, no foul, right?
He switched on the music on his iPod, yanked his ear pod cord out, and inserted the cord to connect his iPod to the sound machine. The lively rhythm of a salsa thumped through the loudspeakers around the dance floor.
Nothing happened. The brawling left people oblivious to the music.
Damn it! The music jittered, reflecting the jagged edge of his nerves.
Near the soundstage, two men pulled back from their fight with each other, fear flashing briefly through their eyes.
The music was working, just not the way he had intended.
If only he had stronger psychic shields to block his undesired emotions—no, it was about self-control. Danyael’s voice, its timbre low and melodic, came back to him. Psychic shields are for defense. If you use them for any reason other than self-defense, then it is a crutch. You don’t need a crutch, Dum. You can still work through the pain of your memories; you don’t have to hide behind them. I can help you. Don’t live out your life a cripple, like me.
Self-control… It came down to self-control.
My emotions are my own. I decide what I feel…
Dum closed his eyes and sank into the music. The sounds of the fight faded, and all he could hear was the pounding beat of the congas, bongo, and timbales, anchoring the soaring and triumphant tune carried by the trumpets. He bopped along to the music. In the perfect world of his imagination, couples danced to the feverish beat, bodies gyrating.
He smiled, tension easing out of his shoulders. The music consumed him, or perhaps he consumed it. The difference scarcely mattered. They were one, and as one, the music soared, rising effortlessly above the now-silent crowd.
The complicated tangle of notes in the salsa conceded to the lighter beat of a merengue. He would have liked to dance, but he did not trust his feet to keep to the beat without tripping. Bouncing to the beat was a great deal simpler, so he bounced along until the merengue too faded into silence.
Silence.
He hated silence.
His brown eyes flashed open and he stared out into a nightclub filled with people who gazed silently at him. The chant started quietly, out at the back of the nightclub. “Play more music.” It built, layering into a roar. He glanced around, uncertain, until he caught a glimpse of Dee in the crowd, her arms wrapped around herself. He could not quite decipher the expression on her face, but she nodded, a faint smile on her lips.
He relaxed his expression into a grin. The music flicked on, and the dancing began.
Dee pushed her way through the crowd to Jessica. “What just happened?” Absent-mindedly, she rubbed at the aching spot on her upper arm where she had caught a vicious kick.
“There was a fight, and—”
“You know what I’m talking about. What did Dum just do?”
“He stopped the fighting.”
“He can do that?”
Jessica shrugged. “Well, yeah. Telepathy is more precise, but tends to be limited to one-on-one, or one-on-few. Empathy is less precise, but spreads faster and further.”
Great. So, in theory, Dum could do the wrong thing faster and with greater range.
“Something like that,” Jessica responded to Dee’s unvoiced observation. “He did the right thing today, though.”
“With music?”
“I told you, there’s music in his head. Maybe that’s how he communicates.”
Dum had also used music to help her relax that afternoon. The ache in her chest swelled, cutting off her breath, and she swiped away the tears before they could spill down her cheeks. He was talking to me!
Jessica swallowed hard and looked away. “Um, I’m going to help pick up the mess.”
“Did anyone call the cops?”
Jessica’s blue eyes appeared distant. “No,” she said finally. “And I’m getting the impression that even if they had, the cops would have found reasons not to show up.”
“But the ambulance will come, won’t it?” Dee glanced around. Those who were not dancing or clustering around the bar were groaning quietly
in corners. Perhaps there hadn’t been any fatalities, but there were lots of cuts, bruises, and broken bones to go around.
“No, it won’t. These people will be in Danyael’s clinic tomorrow.”
“But that’s crazy.”
“No. That is the real world, Dee. You think mutants have it bad? The poor have it worse. They’ve always had it worse. There are no safety nets for them, not beyond the soup kitchens and the free clinic. The hospitals won’t take them in. If Danyael’s not strong enough to heal them, they die. It’s not complicated.”
How could those people endure a life with so few options? They were among the poor, too, weren’t they? Their joint income scarcely covered their expenses, and Dum was a mutant. What kind of odds would he have in a world that tolerated neither mutants nor the indigent? What were their odds of breaking free from that world?
7
The next night, Dee mopped the floors in the free clinic as Danyael and Dum worked together in his office. “Working together” seemed little more than quiet one-sided conversations that frequently lapsed into silence from Dum’s non-response. Still, Danyael seemed to lose neither his patience nor his temper, though he looked exhausted, the shadows under his eyes more prominent than ever.
Dee worked quietly until she could no longer bear the silence. She slammed the mop into the pail, and water sloshed out. “I don’t get it.”
“What don’t you get?” Danyael asked.
She stalked into Danyael’s office and glared at him, her hands on her hips. “You know the nightclubs are dangerous. You could have stopped that fight yesterday if you were at the club. You could have stopped all the fights instead of waiting for the survivors to come to you the next day. Why won’t you do something?”
Danyael leaned back, and the old chair creaked under his weight. “I’m doing my job.”
She flung her arm out. “That’s not enough. You could help so many other people.”
