by Jo Ramsey
Most of the kids who lived there went to the town high school, the one Derek had mentioned. In the past they’d had a couple who couldn’t attend school because their powers were too unpredictable, so they’d done online school instead. I assumed the person with pyrokinesis Shad had told me about had been one of them. If I stayed, I’d be expected to go to the town high school. Apparently my pyrokinesis wasn’t unpredictable enough for them to keep me home.
Aside from the three adults and me, eight other people lived in the house. Derek, Eben, Treese, and Lauren, along with another girl and three other boys whose names pretty much evaporated from my brain as soon as Garrett said them. I’d be more likely to remember them when we actually met. Treese and two of the other boys were in college or worked full time, and the rest went to high school.
Lauren kept fidgeting while Garrett talked. I sensed she didn’t want to be there. She looked at me and smiled a couple of times, but mostly she just ate her breakfast, jiggled her leg, and stared at the desk.
Finally, Garrett ran out of things to say. “Do you have any questions, Kellan?” he asked.
I shook my head. “I probably will if I stay, but I can’t think of any right now.”
“If you stay?” Lauren said.
“I haven’t decided completely yet.”
“I hope you do.” She smiled again.
I smiled back. She hoped I would stay. She liked me. Maybe not the way I wished she would, but I’d take friendship. If I did decide to stay.
“He has until tomorrow night to make a decision,” Garrett said. “We don’t want to push him.”
“Oh.” She drank more of her juice.
“Now I’d like to ask you some questions, Kellan.” Garrett glanced at Lauren, who just kept staring at the desk. “Would you rather have someone else here while you answer? You just met Lauren. Are you comfortable enough with her?”
“She’s fine,” I said again. “What do you want to know?”
“Why don’t you start by telling me why you left your home?”
He already knew that part. According to Shad, the group was aware of everything from the time I’d set Gene’s friend’s on fire. I had no clue why Garrett was asking me to rehash it all, but I didn’t feel like arguing about it, so I started talking.
“My mother and sisters went with my stepfather to run errands.” My voice cracked. My mouth was too dry. I swallowed a couple of times, hoping to get some saliva going. “They left me home. My stepfather didn’t like taking me out in public.”
I paused, twisting my fingers together in my lap. I couldn’t look at Garrett or Lauren, and neither of them spoke.
“Someone rang the doorbell.” The words came out more easily this time. “It was a guy from church. I figured he was there to see my stepfather, so I let him in.”
A sob burst out of me, and I pressed my hands against my eyes. I couldn’t say the next part. No way. Images raced through my head of everything that had happened that day, and my gut twisted so hard I doubled over. Screams echoed in my mind. Mine and the guy’s. I started shaking, chills racing through my body, and even the fire inside me couldn’t warm me. My teeth chattered so much I couldn’t speak.
“You’re safe.” Garrett’s calm, quiet voice cut through the shrieks in my head. “Kellan. Open your eyes. You’re safe.”
You’re safe. The calm coolness in the back of my mind echoed Garrett’s words.
I nodded and slowly pulled my hands away from my eyes. The desk was dark wood. The chair I sat in was hard. Lauren’s breathing was louder than it had been. Taking note of the little details anchored me. I was safe, no matter how much everything hurt.
I was breathing more loudly too. I sniffled, and Garrett pushed a box of tissues across the desk. I took one and touched it to the corners of my eyes, then blew my nose. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Garrett leaned back and relaxed his face into a half smile. “Go on when you’re ready. I know this is hard. We’re here for you.”
I nodded again and soaked in the warmth that came with his words. After a few breaths, my throat loosened. “He—the guy from church—told me he wanted to help me. That God had given me a woman’s body, and I should learn to use it.”
An image of me pinned beneath the guy shot through my head, blocking my vision. I shook my head hard, trying to clear it. The desk was dark wood.
“His hands were all over me.” I couldn’t make myself be any more specific. “I started feeling hot. So hot, like everything around me was on fire. And then I realized it was. There were flames everywhere, but they weren’t burning me.”
I forced myself to chant the words, as if I was reciting a poem or something. Or talking about someone else’s experiences. The chair beneath me was barely there. The desk was at the end of a long tunnel.
The chair is hard. The desk is dark wood.
I had to keep my distance from the words coming out of my mouth, or I would break down completely.
“I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.” The last word broke on a sob, and tears ran down my face. “I just wanted to be safe, and he wouldn’t leave me alone. No matter how much I begged, he wouldn’t leave me alone. And then the fire went out, and he was on the floor.”
Chills racked my body, and I wrapped my arms around myself. “My family came home, and he was still there on the floor. His hands were gone.”
I stopped and ran my too-dry tongue over my even dryer lips. “Go on if you can,” Garrett said gently.
I hitched in a breath and nodded again. “My mother pushed my sisters into their bedrooms. My stepfather called an ambulance. I tried to tell him what happened, but he told me to just shut up and get out of his sight, so I went into my room. The ambulance came, but I stayed in my room until the next morning. No one came to check on me.”
“We’ll find you a counselor,” Garrett said. “Someone to help you recover. How did you end up on the road?”
I didn’t know if I would ever be able to tell the story to anyone else, but I didn’t argue with him about the counselor. “My mother said I had to leave. She gave me money and told me to go so everyone would be safe.”
My mother’s dead eyes and thin lips as she’d spoken those words flashed into my head, and I covered my face with my hands. I was a monster, and obviously my mother thought so too. My heart shattered, and I bit my lip to hold back sobs while tears streamed down my cheeks.
After a few seconds, I pressed my hands against my eyes and took a deep breath. “My family thought they wouldn’t be safe with me.”
I was proud of how steady my voice was.
“So your mother gave you money and sent you away,” Garrett said. “And somehow you found your way to Sadie and then to Shad.”
I shrugged. “I went to the places that sounded right when I saw their names. It might have been a weird way to do it, but it worked for me.”
“Possibly you sensed there were people in those places who would help you.” He pushed the pancake platter toward me. “If either of you wants those, go ahead.”
I took one and Lauren snagged the other. She didn’t eat hers, just cut it up and pushed the pieces around in the syrup dregs that coated her plate. I ate mine. I was still hungry.
“Did you have any other problems along the way?” Garrett asked.
He already knew that answer too. Was this all a test? He wanted to see whether I’d be honest with him. I had no reason to lie, and I wouldn’t have been able to even if I’d wanted to. The thing in Denver was all over the news. The creep in New Mexico probably hadn’t reported anything, but Sadie knew about it and most likely had told the group.
I reminded myself to call Sadie the second I had a chance. I wanted to hear her voice.
“In Albuquerque—well, the town Sadie’s in, whatever it’s called—some guy tried to mess with me,” I said. “He hit on me and didn’t want to take no for an answer. I was scared, and I lost control of the pyrokinesis. He didn’t catch fire, but it was pretty close.”
“Good for you,” Lauren said softly.
Garrett shot her a glare she didn’t see because she was still staring at the desk. “Anything else?”
“In Denver I had a really strong feeling I shouldn’t stay.” I sniffled. Garrett held out a tissue. I took it and wiped my nose. “I didn’t have a choice, because the next bus didn’t leave until morning. So I went to a hotel, and as soon as I was there, I knew someone needed help. I found a woman who’d tried to—to drown her two kids.”
Lauren gasped.
Even Garrett looked upset, and he no doubt knew what had happened. “What did you do?”
“I pulled the kids out of the tub and called the front desk.” It had all happened so fast, I wasn’t sure I could remember everything. “They called the cops and an ambulance. The desk clerk tried to help me stay under the radar, but he couldn’t lie to the police when they asked who’d reported the crime, so I kind of got dragged into everything.”
“That’s unfortunate but not your fault,” Garrett said. “You did the right thing. Even when we need to protect ourselves from being found out, it’s hard not to protect others when our abilities tell us someone needs our help.”
“Yeah.” The way he put it sounded a little too superheroish.
“Did you speak to the police?”
“I had to.” This was where things were going to get a little sketchy. “One of them caught me in the hall and started asking questions. It would have been worse if I hadn’t answered. But the big problem is, now it’s on the news. The Denver police are looking for me because one of the kids died, so now I’m a murder witness. Somehow my stepfather heard about it, so he’s in Denver going on TV and stuff begging people to turn me in if they’ve seen me.”
I spewed it all out so fast I barely understood myself, and then I held my breath. Police were looking for me. My stepfather was looking for me. If they somehow managed to track me to this house, I’d be putting everyone in danger.
“Shad contacted the Denver police last night and told them he’d taken you to Chicago,” Garrett said.
My heart just about stopped. Why had Shad told the truth? I’d thought he was my friend, that he would protect me. I’d trusted him. When my heart started again, it was faster than usual, and my hands were hot. Shad wasn’t there for me to burn, but that didn’t mean the fire wouldn’t try to find someone. I took deep breaths and clenched my fists. “He did what?”
Garrett held up a hand. “Easy. He told them he dropped you at Midway Airport, where as far as he knows, you caught a plane to Florida. At least that’s what you told him you were planning to do.”
“They wouldn’t have let me on a plane,” I said. “I didn’t have any documentation.” At least Shad hadn’t completely ratted me out. I calmed down to the point where I wasn’t in danger of setting anything on fire. I was still far too hot.
“True, and they’ll find that out,” Garrett said. “It’ll distract them for a while. They’ll learn you didn’t take a flight, but that won’t necessarily mean you didn’t find another way to go to Florida. There are other methods of transportation. You didn’t tell Shad a city name, only a state, so it will take a while for them to check out all the possibilities. Florida tends to be a popular place for runaways. It’s warm there.”
Now I understood. Shad probably had to tell the truth about where he’d brought me. After all, he’d had a hotel room there. Plus we’d made all those stops along the way. Too many people had seen us, and the only ones who didn’t remember were Ian and the woman whose computer we’d used.
He’d done what he’d had to do, but he’d still protected me by lying about where he’d taken me and where I said I was going. It was November. People probably would buy the idea of a runaway going to a warm place like Florida over going to Boston.
“I won’t be safe here for long.” I said it without even thinking, but as soon as the words came out, I knew I was right.
“Eventually someone might figure out where you are,” Garrett agreed. “You used our credit card to pay for the train ticket, so it isn’t in your name, but people saw you on the train. They may be able to trace you here. We’ll deal with it if they do.”
“I owe you money for the ticket,” I said. “Shad said I could only use your card if I paid it back.”
“Consider it a gift,” Garrett replied.
“Thanks.” I couldn’t come up with an argument against it, but I wasn’t pleased with the gift. I felt obligated now, which bothered me. I would pay the group back eventually, because I didn’t want it hanging over my head.
“What do you think will happen if your stepfather finds you?” Garrett turned toward Lauren. “Either of you.”
Lauren fidgeted again. I guessed seeing the future was one of her powers, and she wasn’t happy about being asked to use it. I wanted to yell at Garrett for asking her to.
Instead I answered the question so she wouldn’t have to. “He belongs to this weird church. I mean, they’re Christian, but they don’t act like the people at other Christian churches I went to before my mom married him. They’re very strict about what the members can do, especially women and kids. They weren’t happy when I came out as transgender.”
I threw that last one in there on purpose, because I wasn’t sure if Lauren knew I was trans, and I wanted her to. She might decide she didn’t want anything to do with me, but at least she’d know the truth.
She didn’t react to it, so I guessed someone had already told her. “He’s hunting for you, because you did something that goes against the church,” she said.
“The guy who came to our house was supposedly trying to teach me to ‘enjoy’ my body.” I did air quotes. “The church teaches against homosexuality and things like that, and as I said, they weren’t happy about me being trans. For all I knew, they sent him. If they’re after me, it’s because of what I did to defend myself. They won’t turn me over to the police or anything. They’ll deal with me themselves.”
“Have they found out about your abilities?” Garrett asked. “Other than the pyrokinesis, I mean.”
“I don’t know.” I didn’t even know if Gene had told anyone else about me setting the guy’s hands on fire with my mind. Probably not. It would have been too unbelievable. More likely he’d told them I’d done it with a lighter or something.
“Some churches believe psychic abilities are a product of the devil,” Lauren said. “Mine did.”
“That might be part of it, but I think mostly they’ll want revenge.” Another little piece of information my powers decided to hand to me. “They’re after me because I hurt one of them. Gene didn’t like me much anyway. He loves my mother, at least when she does what he says, but he didn’t like me. He tolerated me because he didn’t have a choice.”
The phone rang again, and Garrett leaned over to see the caller ID. This time he picked it up. “Please excuse me, both of you.”
“That means leave,” Lauren whispered with a grin.
We went out to the hall. A girl I didn’t recognize was sitting on the floor nearby. “You guys done?”
“He had a phone call,” Lauren said. “I don’t know if he’s finished talking to Kellan or not. Kellan, this is Charlotte.”
It was one of the names Garrett had given me. “Nice to meet you.”
“You too.” She didn’t sound like she thought it was all that nice. “How much longer? I need to talk to him about the guy in my psych class.”
The office door opened. “Kellan, Lauren, come back in. Please.”
Garrett was on his feet, breathing fast. He held a crumpled piece of paper. I didn’t know why he was so agitated, but it had something to do with the phone call. And with me.
“I need to talk to you.” Charlotte either didn’t notice that he was upset, or she didn’t care.
“Please wait.” Garrett went back into the office.
Lauren and I followed him, and I shut the door. “What happened?”
He looked at me for a minute. I wan
ted to turn away, but I wouldn’t let myself. I hadn’t done anything wrong, and I didn’t appreciate being glared at as if I had.
“That was Rudy,” he said finally. “He’s catching today. He said Shad called in to report that your stepfather found him and threatened him. Shad gave him the same story he told the police, but your stepfather didn’t believe it. He said he knew you’d come to the northeast and he wasn’t going to give up until Shad told the truth.”
He took a deep breath. I knew right then, more had happened to Shad than being threatened. I was afraid to hear the rest of it.
“He had two other men with him,” he said. “They forced Shad to go with them. One of them beat him. The other tried to force Shad to drive into a bridge abutment.”
He looked me right in the eye, and this time I did look away.
“He didn’t use words or threats,” he said. “He used mind control. Kellan, did you know any of the members of your stepfather’s church had abilities?”
My stomach dropped to the floor. I’d never even suspected it. The church had preached against witchcraft, and I’d interpreted it to include psychic powers. They’d never actually mentioned powers. I’d assumed it was because they didn’t believe in them. Maybe it was because they would be preaching against some of their own.
I hadn’t sensed anything about any of them. That didn’t mean anything. I didn’t always trust my instincts, and since I hadn’t expected any of them to have powers, I might not have paid attention.
“I didn’t know.” I hesitated. My instincts weren’t telling me anything right now about whether Garrett blamed me for this. He might. After all, Shad had been hurt because of me. But Shad was my friend, and I hadn’t done anything wrong. It wasn’t my fault Gene had found him. “Is Shad all right?”
“He’s good at fighting off attempted mind control,” Garrett said.
