Truths Unspoken

by K. J. McPike

  “Thank you!” she cried. “Lali’s bedroom is the first door on the right. You can just drop off the note and leave.”

  “I didn’t say I’d do it.” I hadn’t even had time to register the request before Solstice flipped out.

  “Please, Kai. Lali needs some preparation for what’s going to happen to her. She’ll have no idea what’s going on or why she suddenly has an ability or—”

  “Wait.” I held up my hand, finally processing what she was saying. “Lali turns sixteen tomorrow?”

  Xiomara nodded. She went on talking, but I wasn’t listening anymore. My mind was too busy racing through the possibilities. I hadn’t wanted to involve Xiomara’s kids, but if her daughter was going to come into her power right when we had run out of options, it had to be a sign. Maybe she could help us.

  Maybe she was exactly the Plan B I was hoping for.

  …Lali, I need you to know that I never would have gone after you if I felt I had another option. It was just, the way things were going, I was desperate. I couldn’t ignore that there was a chance you would be able to get us to Alea, especially after it was looking like we’d never be able to undo the energy sink.

  But after everything I’d done to mess up your family, I knew the least I could do was try and recruit you in as moral a way as possible. And trust me, I did try to do it the moral way. It just wasn’t as easy as I’d hoped…

  Chapter 18

  Alternative

  “Uncle Cade!” I rushed up to where he sat on one of the bar stools sipping from his newly refilled rum and Coke. “I have an idea.”

  His eyes didn’t move from the dry erase board, now flat on the granite counter. “You know, I’m getting quite tired of those words. They rarely seem to get us anywhere.”

  “It’s not about finding the other members of XODUS,” I said. “It’s about getting to Alea without them.”

  He inhaled part of his drink, coughing and spluttering as he set it down on the counter with a clank. “What?” he wheezed.

  I slid onto the stool next to him and quickly ran through my hope of recruiting Lali—provided she had an astral form. If she did, there was a good chance she could help us reach Kala. Cade had originally hoped I would be able to get to Alea on my own, but I couldn’t reach the portal because I couldn’t travel—meaning fly in astral form. I didn’t have an astral form. That was why we’d resorted to trying to get Cade’s ability back in the first place. But if Lali could travel, we could skip undoing the energy sink altogether.

  “We just have to figure out how Lali’s ability works,” I concluded, pausing to catch my breath.

  “Just show up and nab her. Seems simple enough to me.”

  I glared at Cade. Lali had nothing to do with what her mother did. She deserved a gentler approach, especially since I’d already caused her enough trauma. But I knew he wouldn’t see it that way. I had to go with a point he couldn’t argue.

  “Her power will have just manifested,” I tried. “She’ll need a clear head to learn how to control it. If I just up and kidnap her, her emotions are going to be all over the place.”

  Cade ran his tongue along his teeth. I knew he couldn’t dispute the logic—he’d seen firsthand how hard it was for me to learn to control my own projecting. Even with a level head and him there helping me, it still took all of my focus to manipulate my emotions in order to trigger my projections.

  “She’ll need a teacher,” I went on. “Someone who can walk her through learning her trigger like you did for me.”

  He lifted his drink again. “Fine. Try it your way.” Before I could enjoy my small victory, he added, “Maybe you’ll start listening to me once you see that it’s not nearly as efficient.”

  “Efficient?” I eyed the dry erase board on the counter. “That ship has sailed. We need a new approach.” He grumbled at me, but I kept going. “Tomorrow’s Thursday, so Lali has to go to school, right? I’ll pretend to be a new student—”

  “Now you're getting carried away. We took you out of school for a reason.”

  I sighed. Cade pulled me out of school after Grandma Naida died, preferring to homeschool me instead. I’d been more than happy to oblige, and I was still glad I didn’t have to deal with obnoxious classmates and going to pointless classes every day. But my uncle was missing the point.

  “I’m not really going to enroll,” I said. “I just need an excuse to talk to Lali. It’s not like I can randomly approach her on the street. If I pretend to be a new student, I can act like I’m trying to find a classroom and take the conversation from there.”

  Cade rubbed a palm along his buzz cut. “Let’s make sure her ability is even worth it before you show up at her school.”

  “How?”

  “We can observe her while she sleeps.”

  My nostril twitched. I’d felt like enough of a creep spying on Xiomara during her little beauty routine. Lingering in someone’s room to watch her sleep was on another level.

  “Semmies have a tendency to trigger their abilities in their sleep, especially before they gain control,” Cade explained. “The mind is most open in sleep. Don’t you remember your sixteenth birthday?”

  How could I forget? The morning I turned sixteen, I woke up on my favorite beach in nothing but my boxers. Thankfully, Cade had explained the whole semmie thing to me by then, so it wasn’t as terrifying as it could have been. But it was still humiliating, and it took me forever to get back home.

  After walking for what felt like an eternity, I’d stumbled upon a stranger who was kind enough to let me use her phone to call Cade. My guess was she wanted to get the kid in his underwear out of her space as quickly as possible, but I was just happy to talk to my uncle. He coached me through what I needed to do, and I found a secluded place to practice projecting until I got home.

  A sigh made its way through my nose. Cade had been there for me that day when no one else was—when no one else could be—just like he had been for the last three and a half years. I’d always be grateful to him for that, even if we disagreed on how best to recruit Lali. But at least he was working with me now. I could agree to watching her sleep if that meant we would learn about her ability without terrorizing her.

  “What time is it?” Cade glanced over his shoulder at the clock on the stove. Eleven-fifty-eight. “We should get there as soon as she turns sixteen, in case she projects right away.”

  “Will her ability manifest right at midnight?”

  “I don’t know.” He got to his feet and pushed a wrist in my direction. “But I’m not going to miss it if it does.”

  “Okay.” I stood up, happy to hear he was onboard. “I still haven’t gotten a look at her or her room, but Xiomara said it’s the first one on the right.”

  “That’s fine. We’ll just listen outside her door to make sure she’s asleep. Now let’s go.”

  The floor moaned under our weight as soon as we appeared in the hallway. I cringed, remembering how a creak had given me away right before I kidnapped Xiomara. It was like this house was determined to thwart my plans.

  The sound didn’t faze Cade. Illuminated by the moonlight pouring in through the window at the end of the hall, he started toward the door closest to the stairs. Right before he reached it, I heard the knob turn from the other side.

  Spinning in a half circle, I flattened my back against the wall just as the door flew open. “Mom!” a girl’s voice called out. “You—” Her words cut off, and I knew she’d seen Cade.

  Crap! Still out of Lali’s line of sight, I waved a hand to get my uncle’s attention. He staggered toward me, and I grabbed his wrist just as something snapped inside the bedroom.

  We didn’t stick around to see what it was.

  Once we arrived in our living room, I threw Cade’s arm back at him and shouted, “Why didn’t you duck out of sight when she opened the stupid door? Now we’re screwed. Again.”

  He looked at me with a stunned expression, and I wished I could take back what I’d said. It wasn�
�t fair for me to yell at him. He had been right in front of her room; there wasn’t time for him to react.

  “I’m sorry.” I tugged at my hair. “I’m just frustrated.” That’s putting it mildly. My hope of keeping Lali as level-headed as possible was officially shot. Our chances of getting her to help someone she caught sneaking around her house in the middle of the night were probably pretty slim, too.

  The knob to the basement door rattled, and Cade whirled around. I heaved a sigh. I couldn’t handle more drama with Xiomara and Solstice. I’d dealt with them enough for one night.

  “I’m going to bed,” I muttered as Cade reached to open the door. I projected to my room and flopped onto my mattress. Now what were we going to do? I was sure Lali was on high alert after seeing Cade, so I could rule out trying to catch her projecting in her sleep.

  I stared at the gray paint of my ceiling. Maybe I could still find her at school in the morning and figure out a way to talk to her privately. She’d seen Cade, but I was pretty confident she hadn’t seen me. If I could find a way to talk to her, she didn’t need to know I had anything to do with the man in her hallway.

  “What do your tattoos really mean?” Cade’s shout carried up from downstairs. “You know where the others are, don’t you?”

  “I told you everything I could think of,” Solstice cried. “I don’t know anything else!”

  I rolled my eyes and tugged a pillow over my ears like a kid trying to tune out his parents’ arguing. At some point, my uncle needed to accept that we’d exhausted our options for finding all the members of XODUS. But until then, I was stuck figuring out other solutions by myself.

  Okay. Game plan. I had no idea where Lali went to school, and I still hadn’t gotten a good enough look at her to be able to project to her.

  The photos in the hallway outside Xiomara’s bedroom popped into my mind. Maybe I could find a good picture of Lali now, and then preview her every few minutes until I got a decent look at her school tomorrow. From there, I could show up near the building and catch her in the hallway or something.

  I lifted the pillow from my head and tossed it aside. Before I could slip into a preview, I heard Cade shout, “Two!”

  Frowning, I turned to look toward my door just as an explosion came from downstairs.

  My whole body turned to stone. Was that…

  The gun.

  Cade had left it on the table.

  Chapter 19

  Temper

  No! No, no, no! The word echoed in my mind as I raced out of my room. I was halfway downstairs before I remembered I could project. When I appeared in the dining room, Solstice was swinging her fists at Cade, her red hair loose and flying around her shoulders.

  The air gushed out of my lungs at the sight of both of them. Alive. Cade had Solstice pinned against the dining room table so she practically sat on one of the bamboo place mats. He was the one holding the gun. But why would he fire it? Was he trying to scare information out of her?

  “I may need you,” he growled, still unaware of my presence. “But I don’t need you to have all of your body parts intact.” He pressed the gun into her leg, and my stomach rolled.

  “Uncle Cade! What are you doing?”

  He looked up at me, and Solstice took advantage of his distraction. Knocking his gun-wielding arm aside, she kneed him in the groin. He let out a grunt and dropped the weapon as he doubled over.

  Solstice fought to get around him, and I realized she was trying to get to the gun. I projected to it and snatched it up off the floor before she could.

  “Everyone, just calm down!” I begged.

  At that moment, Xiomara banged on the basement door, screaming from the other side. That was it. I couldn’t take anything else tonight. I shoved the gun into the back of my shorts, grabbed Cade’s arm, and projected him up to his bedroom before he could protest.

  I pointed to his neatly made bed. “You’re drunk. You need to sleep it off before you do something we’ll both regret.”

  Still hunched over, he all but fell onto his mattress. I felt my face twist as I watched him. When did I become the adult in this equation? He was normally so collected and in control. I guessed all the recent letdowns had gotten to him more than I’d realized. He wasn’t invincible after all.

  Folding one side of the blanket over him, I appeared downstairs again in time to see Solstice yank open the front door.

  Son of a—

  I dove forward, barely catching it with my foot. The bottom scraped across my exposed toes, and I swore at the top of my lungs.

  “Let me go home,” Solstice cried. “Please. I have to get away from Cade. He’s insane!”

  “He’s not insane.” I wrestled her away from the door and shoved it closed. “He’s drunk. And desperate.”

  “He’s going to kill me!”

  I threw my head back, feeling my patience deteriorate. “He’s not going to—”

  Solstice raked her nails across my arm and lunged for the door again. Biting back another string of curses, I wrapped my fingers around her arm and projected her to the basement before she could get away. She collapsed to the floor in a heap, but I was beyond the point of caring.

  Xiomara finally gave up pounding on the door at the top of the stairs and raced down to us. “What’s going on?” she cried. “Is Solstice okay?”

  I waved her off. “She’s fine.” Sort of.

  “I heard a gun.” Xiomara cast a sidelong glance at Solstice’s curled up form. “She was trying to force her way upstairs when Cade dragged her out to the living room. He locked the door before I could go after her, and then they were arguing—”

  “Yeah, well, she’s fine,” I snapped. “And I’ve had enough for one night.” With that, I projected to my room and locked the door behind me. As if I didn’t have enough reason to pursue an option that didn’t involve holding these women captive, now I had to deal with Cade nearly shooting one of them. The sooner we got them out of here, the better.

  Pulling the gun from my waistband, I stormed over to my closet. I quickly ejected the magazine and cleared the gun before shoving it and the ammo inside my hamper. No one needed to know where either was for a while.

  Sliding my closet closed, I spun around and pressed my back into the door. What a mess. It was barely a quarter after midnight, and my newfound hope had already been squashed.

  No. I could still salvage my plan. I just had to find a photo of Lali in her hallway tonight so I could preview her first thing in the morning and scope out her school. Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I switched it to airplane mode so it wouldn’t ring and give me away while I used its flashlight function in the dark hall. The way things were going tonight, I wasn’t taking any chances.

  I previewed the hallway to see if the coast was clear.

  It wasn’t. A little dog had its nose pressed into the wood floor right outside Lali’s room.

  Great. There was no way I could get a look at any pictures without the dog barking and freaking Lali out even more.

  Pulling out of the preview, I threw my head back and let out a long, satisfying string of profanity. It was tempting to kick the half-open drawer built into my bed frame, but I resisted the urge. My toes had taken enough of beating after Solstice smashed them with the bottom of the door.

  I needed to regroup. I glanced at my open bathroom and decided on a hot shower. Peeling off my clothes as I went, I stepped onto the cool tile floor and turned on the water. Soon steam fogged up the room.

  Taking a deep breath of warm air, I moved into the stream. The hot water rolled down my body, and I ran through my plan for the next day. If I wanted to show up at Lali’s school and talk to her before class, the timing would be tight. I’d have to try and find a picture as soon as she left her house, which meant I’d have to preview her every few minutes even earlier than I thought. Once I had a picture, I would preview Lali and find a landmark at her school.

  I sighed, letting the water run over my hair and flatten it along my foreh
ead. I’d be doing twice as much previewing as I thought. It would be draining, but I could make it work.

  Unless…

  I could just linger until I heard everyone leave her house. Thankfully, I’d mapped out the whole place the day before I kidnapped Xiomara, and I knew the front door was through the kitchen. I also knew there was a pantry not too far from that. Maybe I could hide with the cereal and canned vegetables and listen until everyone left. As soon as the house was empty, I’d be able to knock out the rest of my plan without a problem. Then I wouldn’t be totally drained from incessant previews, and hopefully, I wouldn’t look like hell when I first approached Lali.

  You're getting carried away. Cade’s earlier claim played through my mind, but I refused to listen. Even though I didn’t know exactly how Lali’s ability would manifest, I had to believe it would be something useful. Maybe it was irrational, but after the day I’d had, I needed something to hang on to. And I wasn’t going to let it go without a fight.

  Chapter 20

  Snoop

  I pressed my ear up to the pantry door and held my breath. Dishes clattered, chairs scraped across the floor, and muffled voices came from the kitchen just around the corner. It was breakfast time, and Xiomara’s family was pattering around, oblivious to my presence as I waited for an opening. The minute they left the house, I would be off like a shot to find a picture of Lali and head to her school. But for now, I was biding my time.

  At least the pantry didn’t smell like mothballs.

  “Where are the bagels?” a boy asked.

  “Sal ate the last one yesterday,” an identical voice answered. I assumed it was his brother, but they sounded so similar, it was like the kid was talking to himself.

  “I didn’t realize we were out.” Judging from the deep bass tinged with exhaustion, that answer came from their dad. “I’ll get some more tonight, D-Rex.”