by Gloria Craw
“They wonder why” echoed loud in my mind until the world around me started to spin. He was right. There had to have been a few kids I missed when I did thought transference. It would only take a couple of them saying, “What’s with that Alison girl?” and an undercurrent of feeling would be created. Good or bad, that undercurrent generated curiosity about me. By trying so hard to stay in the shadows at Fillmore High, I’d put myself on the radar.
“I don’t know why you’ve tried so hard to erase yourself,” Ian continued quietly, “but if it makes you feel any better, I believe you thought you had a good reason.”
Still holding my elbow, he steered me toward the cafeteria. When we got there, he handed me a plastic tray. I wasn’t hungry, but like a robot, I put things on my tray and carried it to where Brandy and Connor were sitting. Brandy glanced at me questioningly, but Ian shook his head at her, so she didn’t say anything.
I was quiet as the others ate and continued in a numb haze after dumping my uneaten food in the trash. Ian stayed by my side until we got to the north hall. Then he reached over, squeezed my hand, and drifted away.
I walked down the hall on autopilot and froze when I got to my locker. My fingers and toes started to tingle as the blood drained from them in a fight-or-flight reaction. The door was standing open. Someone had gotten into my stuff while I was at lunch. My mind whirled as I took my backpack out and searched through it to see if anything was missing.
A few pages had been torn out of one of my notebooks. I knew they were gone because the ragged pieces were still attached to the spine. I had OCD about removing those bits. Taking long, slow breaths, I reviewed my memory and saw the pages weren’t that important. On one I’d written a list of cities I might go to when I left Vegas. Unless the thief knew my plans, the list wouldn’t mean anything to them. On the other pages, I’d drawn doodles of my family members, but they could be interpreted as doodles of almost anyone.
That should have calmed me, but it didn’t. Someone had searched my things, and this was the third bizarre event I’d been dreading. Three anomalies in three days couldn’t be ignored. I’d leave Vegas.
I was numb during the last two periods of the day, but when I found Ian waiting at my locker after the final bell, tears welled in my eyes. I pushed them back.
“What’s up?” he asked conversationally.
Where should I start? “My life has spun completely out of control,” or “Someone broke into my locker during lunch and took some of my stuff,” or better yet, “Surprise, I’m not human.”
I leaned my back against my locker, closed my eyes, and slid down the length of it to the floor. A second later I felt Ian next to me. He didn’t touch me or say anything comforting. Which, in my messed-up state, I took as a sweet gesture. I was so overrun with dread and fear that I started to shake. I wrapped my arms tight over my chest and fought to pull myself together.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“It’s just been a really bad day,” I replied.
“Looks like more than just a bad day.”
“I shouldn’t be freaking out,” I said. “It’s really not that serious. Someone went through my locker while we were at lunch. You were right earlier when you said I was hiding. I’m a private person, and I don’t like that someone poked around in my things.”
I expected his reaction to be a shrug or some reassurance that it had been a harmless prank. Instead, he took a deep breath and looked me straight in the eye. “I think someone has been following you,” he stated.
That startled me. Could he really know about the black car that tailed me last night? I couldn’t see how. I tried to play it off by laughing. “Why would someone follow me?” I asked.
“Maybe it’s the guy who stole your book.” I started to object, but he stopped me. “It’s okay, Alison. You’re not in this alone.”
I wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but I wanted to get away from him and his concern as quickly as possible. I tried to get up, but he put a hand on my shoulder and held me back. “There’s a lot I need to tell you,” he continued, “but not here.”
“You have a lot to tell me about what?” I asked lightly.
He bent his head to meet my gaze straight on. “You can trust me,” he whispered. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
I shook my head at the absurdity of it all. It sounded like he was repeating words from a movie. Was this really my life? I didn’t think Ian was a bad guy. Since I met him a few days ago, he’d been nothing but helpful. Annoying but helpful.
I took a shaky breath and smoothed my hair back. “I need to get to the Shadow Box,” I said. “I’m late.”
He stood up and pulled me to my feet. “I’ll walk you to your car. We can talk when you’re done at work. Call your parents. Tell them you’ll be home late.”
He made it sound like I didn’t have a choice.
Chapter Seven
The Shadow Box was actually doing some business when I got there. Lillian looked up from the line at the register long enough to say, “You’re late.”
“Sorry, I got held up at school,” I replied.
The store stayed busy for most of the afternoon. Lillian manned the register while I directed people to the books they were interested in buying. I did it on autopilot. In my mind, I was busily formulating an escape route.
I’d decided to go to Alaska. Cooler weather would be a welcome change, and it was about as far away from Vegas as I could get and still be in the US. I would ditch my car a few miles out of town, so it would be harder for the police to track me. My thought transference would come in handy when hitching rides, and if I met up with any weirdos, I’d kick them with my size-ten shoes and spray them with my can of bear-strength pepper spray. I could work my mind magic on the border guards to get through Canada, too. I’d aim for the Anchorage area.
It would help that Fillmore was notoriously late reporting absences. I’d start the ball rolling first thing in the morning. My parents wouldn’t know I had been reported absent until after noon. By the time they figured out I was missing, I hoped to have a good cushion of distance between myself and the people I loved.
At a quarter to seven, I saw Ian’s light hair over the top of a bookshelf. “You almost ready to go?” he asked, coming around the corner to me.
I’d decided I didn’t want to waste time talking with him when I could be spending it with my family, so I had an excuse ready. “My stomach hurts, and I’m getting a headache. I’m going home tonight. We can talk some other time.”
He crossed his arms over his chest and tipped his head to the side. “Sometimes you suck at lying.”
“I’m not lying. I don’t—”
He cut me off. “I just want to talk to you for a few minutes. It won’t take long. Please.”
He had been nice to me that day. Weird but nice. I supposed I could give him a few minutes. “Fine,” I said. “Half an hour.”
“Thanks,” he replied.
Lillian came around the corner. “Take the trash out, will you, Ian?” she said. “I left it by the back door.”
He blinked at her presumptuousness, but agreed to it with a nod. “Where’s the back door?” he asked.
“Through the storage room there,” I said, pointing.
He left, and I slid into the bathroom to call home. Alex’s thirteen-year-old voice broke as he said, “Hello.”
“Hey. Is Mom around?” I asked.
“She went to the gym.”
“Will you let her know I’m going to be late getting home? I have to talk to someone about a school project.”
“It’s your night to cook,” he said in bored tones.
“Crap, I forgot. Will you switch with me?”
“For twenty bucks.”
“Fine. Don’t forget to tell Mom. I don’t want her to worry.”
“I’m not stupid, Alison.”
“I know,” I said, and then added, “I love you, Alex.”
There was silence on the line for a moment. T
hen he said, “You still have to pay me twenty bucks.”
Lillian had done the locking up when I went back out. She and Ian were deep in conversation near the cash register. It surprised me that they’d gone from awkward silence to rapid discussion in two days’ time, but I didn’t care that much. I would be miles away from both of them tomorrow.
“I’m almost finished up,” Lillian said. “The two of you can leave through the back door.”
Hanging my apron on its hook, I listened to the coins drop as she counted the money in the till. Other than Alex, she’d been the closest thing I had to a friend during the last three years. There had never been a lot of warmth between us, but I would miss her constant presence. I tried to think of something appropriate to say in the way of good-bye. I settled on, “See ya.”
In her typical style, she looked the other way.
“Stay on my bumper,” Ian instructed as we left the store. “Like I told you, I don’t live far from here.”
I followed him through a neighborhood I’d been to before. Instead of being a gated community like mine, the individual lots were gated. Which made sense since the houses and yards behind them were huge. One set of imposing gates opened as we approached, and Ian drove through them. His house, if you could call it that, was a modern cubist style, complete with hundreds of sharp angles and sand-colored stucco. My parents lived in a nice neighborhood, but this house was owned by someone of an entirely different class—the obscenely rich.
Instead of parking in the garage at the front, Ian turned down an unpaved path that circled behind the house. I followed and pulled in beside him, trying not to feel uncomfortable about my shabby little car parked next to his new Audi.
“Welcome to our humble abode,” he said sarcastically. “This place looks like a compound, doesn’t it?”
“Don’t you like it?”
“Can anyone really like a place that looks as cold as this?” he asked with disgust. “I would have parked in the front, but I can’t find the garage door opener. It’s lost somewhere inside that maze.”
“Can’t you just scan your eyeball to open it?”
He looked at me like I’d lost my mind.
“That’s how Batman does it, and he’s super rich, too.”
Ian shook his head and laughed. “That’s a good idea. I’ll tell my dad.”
I walked with him across a rockwork deck, and Brandy opened the back door. She came toward us, holding her hands out, palms up in a welcoming gesture. That’s when I saw it.
They weren’t faint blue like mine. Hers were more like the white lines of an old scar, but they formed a V in the palm of her hand. Just like they did in mine. She’d always kept her fingers slightly curled in, so I’d never noticed it before. I glanced at Ian’s hand. Consciously or not, he was curling his fingers in a bit, too. All the pieces came together at lightning speed. The Palmers had been interested in me from the start. I’d assumed they were just looking for new friends and that they’d crossed some sort of barrier when my thought transference was short-circuited. But it had been more than that.
With Brandy standing at the door, and Ian next to my shoulder, I felt trapped. As if reading my mind, Ian grabbed my hand. A part of me wondered what good it would do to run. One look at him, and I knew he was faster than me. The other part of me, the fighter part, wasn’t going to go quietly.
I yanked free of him and turned back the way we’d come. In two strides I was running at top speed. Behind me, I heard Ian yell, “Jeez, Brandy, could you be less subtle!”
My best option was a flat-out run for the safety of onlookers. Hot desert air filled my lungs as I ran full tilt toward the gates we’d come through. I had no idea how I was going to get over them before Ian caught me. I only knew I was going to give it everything I had.
Halfway there, I tried to throw him off by cutting sharply between a cactus and a wiry bush. He let me make it just far enough so that we were shielded from the view of traffic. Then he tackled me.
“Get off,” I yelled when I found myself pinned to the rocky ground.
“It’s not what you think,” he said. “We’re not the bad guys. We want to help you.”
I punched him in the mouth. He swore but didn’t let me go.
“I don’t believe you,” I yelled, winding up for another punch.
He pinned my free arm down. “Think about it, Alison. Either you trust us, or you face the dewing who’s been following you for three days on your own. I’m sure you’re strong, given who your mother was, but you won’t last long against him.”
I stopped struggling, partly because I feared he was right and partly because he’d mentioned my mother. “Get off!” I yelled again.
He complied but sat near enough to throw me down again if necessary. When he touched his lip, his fingers came away bloody. “You hit hard.”
“Good,” I replied. Then I sat up and scooted a couple of inches away from him.
“Come on, Alison. You can try running again, but I think we both know how that will end. All I want is for you to listen to me. Just hear what I have to say, and then you’re free to go if you want.”
He stood and offered me a hand. I continued to sit in the rocks, unsure of what I should do. I decided to stall. “You said given who my mother was. Does that mean she’s dead?”
His response wasn’t immediate. He looked back the way we’d come, like he was trying to decide what to say.
“Is she dead?” I repeated.
“Yes,” he replied quietly.
Over the years, I’d felt anger, resentment, and longing for my biological parents. Most of the time I chose to think they’d died. It was better than thinking they’d abandoned me. But deep down I’d always harbored a small hope they were okay and would eventually come for me. Confirmation that my biological mother was dead was another blow on an already awful day.
“You’re not in this alone, Alison,” he said. “I want to help you.”
I turned my head to watch a car go past the gate. I understood that going with him would be making a choice of some kind. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a clear picture of what that was. I thought I heard a faraway voice say, Trust him. I attributed it to auditory hallucination but gave in anyway. Things in my life had taken a turn for the terrible. I needed help, and the possibility that Ian and Brandy might offer some tipped the scale in their favor.
Reaching up to take his hand, I let him pull me to my feet. Then I dusted off the back of my shorts and checked my legs for blood. There were only a few scratches. “If I didn’t know better,” I said grumpily, “I’d think my butt would be black-and-blue with bruises tomorrow.”
Ian laughed and pointed to the bandage near my ear. “You could always darken some places with makeup,” he suggested. “Just an observation, but you aren’t very good at applying that stuff.”
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t use it much.”
Ian chuckled. “Are you hungry?”
“Not really.”
“You will be when you calm down,” he assured me. “You didn’t eat anything at lunch.”
“You kept track of what I ate? Where did you go to stalker school?”
He smiled over at me. “I notice a lot of things most people don’t. I’m sure you do, too.”
We walked in the front door, through an airy foyer and into a large open space that was both living room and dining room. A gourmet kitchen opened up in one of the back corners. The space looked modern and completely unoccupied. There wasn’t a single picture on any of the putty-colored walls in the living room, not one rug on the dark tile floor and no table under the dining room chandelier. The only signs of habitation were the few dirty dishes I saw peeking up from the sink.
Footsteps echoed through the empty space and Brandy came out of one of the darkened hallways. She’d pulled her curly hair into a short ponytail. “I’m sorry, Alison,” she said, coming forward. “We greet our own kind with our palms up. I’ve been thinking of you as one of us, so it seemed natural t
o welcome you that way. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
She’d scared the heck out of me, but whatever. “So when you say one of us, you mean the children of Atlantis?” I asked her.
“Of course,” she replied, coming to give me a hug. She laughed when I pulled back. “What’s with you?” she asked. “You’re so prickly all the time.”
I didn’t know how to answer that question without going into a very long, convoluted story about hiding my identity, so I just shrugged. Maybe later I’d get into it.
“I’m going out,” she said. “It would be best for Ian to fill you in on some stuff before your real education begins, anyway. He’s good at explaining things in simple, uncomplicated terms.”
It was meant as an insult, but Ian didn’t seem to mind it. “Thanks for that,” he responded.
With a smile at me, Brandy said, “I’m going to find out where your follower has gone to.”
“Shouldn’t I come along as bait or something?” I asked.
“I won’t need bait,” she replied, walking away. “Don’t worry. I won’t be gone long.”
I was left standing in the empty room with Ian, feeling ridiculous. He nodded toward a sofa. “Have a seat,” he suggested.
What choice did I have, really? If I tried to run, he’d just tackle me. So I sat while he disappeared down another of the dark hallways.
The windows at the far side of the room looked over the city. It was a beautiful view. The bright casino lights were just coming on, turning an ordinary desert town into a painted fairyland. I’d always thought of Vegas as a two-faced friend. On the one hand, she was a city of families and hardworking people who were trying to make a decent life for themselves. On the other, she was a city of illusion, living like a parasite off human greed and lust.
Ian came back quietly. I don’t know how long he stood behind me before I noticed him. He was perfectly at ease in his frayed denim jeans and faded T-shirt. He’d washed the blood from his mouth, but he was going to have a fat lip. It was weird to think I’d done that to him. I’d never hit anyone before.
