by Gloria Craw
She handed the book to me.
“I’ll return it to you,” I promised.
“No,” she said firmly. “It’s yours now. I don’t think Angela meant for me to have it forever. Perhaps she knew another thoughtmaker would need it someday.”
She told me to stay put and look through her sister’s writings for the rest of my shift.
A quick glance through the pages showed me her sister had written everything from grocery lists to a few lines of poetry in it. Not knowing what might turn out to be valuable information, I decided to start at the beginning and work my way through. I’d made it about a quarter of the way when my cell phone rang.
“Hello,” my mom said happily. “We’re having dinner out tonight. Alex wants pizza, and since it’s his birthday, I’m giving in. Can you meet us?”
With everything else going on, I’d forgotten about Alex’s birthday. “Probably. Where are you going?” I asked.
“California Pizza at the Mirage. We’re bowling at Batcat’s afterward.”
“Okay, I’ll drive over after work.”
“Sounds good, sweetheart. I have to go. I can’t steer this shopping cart and talk on the phone at the same time.”
“Sure, Mom,” I said, envisioning a cart loaded down with gifts for Alex.
At seven o’clock, I was sitting in my car outside the Shadow Box still reading Angela’s journal. On Ian’s orders, I was waiting for Brandy to come before leaving Lillian’s protection. Brandy was going to tail me to the Mirage and then stake me out from a nearby spot.
Seeing Brandy’s white Toyota coming, I closed the notebook and turned the key in my ignition. I got nothing but a clicking sound as a result. Brandy pulled up and rolled her window down. My eyes went immediately to Ian in the passenger seat and stayed there.
“I knew your car was due for a breakdown,” Brandy said.
“What’s wrong with it?” Ian asked.
“It won’t start. The engine won’t turn over at all.”
I got out, locked my doors, and then slid into Brandy’s backseat.
“Hmm,” Ian muttered. “Nothing about the car look tampered with, did it?”
“I didn’t notice anything unusual.”
Ian and Brandy exchanged anxious looks. “What’s wrong now?” I asked.
“Sebastian’s men killed another dewing in Seattle this afternoon,” Brandy said. “She was Stentorian. We think Sebastian is trying to find Luke, too.”
“We’ve got to do more to protect the McKyes,” I said.
Brandy shook her head. “We can’t send for more protection. A bunch of dewing surrounding your house would be like yelling, ‘Hey, Sebastian, look over here.’”
“We’ve got day and night coverage on each member of your family,” Ian said. “We’ll keep things as they are until my mom and dad get back.”
“When will that be?”
Neither Brandy nor Ian could answer that question.
Alex and my parents were waiting for me under a palm tree outside the casino. My dad motioned for Brandy to roll her window down. “Where’s your car, Alison?” he asked me.
“Everyone’s negative energy finally killed it,” I replied grumpily. “It wouldn’t start after work.”
“I think there might be a problem with the alternator,” Ian volunteered.
My dad shook his head. “I’ll have it towed to my garage tomorrow.”
“Why don’t you kids come in and eat with us?” my mom suggested. “We’re celebrating Alex’s birthday, and then we’re going to bowl. We could use some extra players.”
Brandy and Ian hesitated, probably because they had bigger issues on their minds. “Come on,” my dad insisted. “It’s the least we can do after your family fed Alison all weekend.”
“Okay,” Brandy said, accepting the invitation. “We’ll meet you inside.”
So, in spite of the danger closing in all around us, I found myself celebrating my adopted brother’s fourteenth birthday in the company of my two new friends. My dad ordered four pizzas, and we were all painfully stuffed by the time our waitress brought out dessert with a candle burning on top. Alex was not too old for birthday wishes, so he closed his eyes and concentrated before blowing out the little flame.
We all clapped, and then he began opening gifts. I felt an edgy excitement as I handed mine over. I’d done my shopping at the Shadow Box. I’d picked three books in the Star Wars series and wrapped them in the cartoon section from one of Lillian’s newspapers. Alex wasn’t a big reader, but I hoped an action-packed series might change that.
“Those are great,” Ian said when Alex put them on the table.
Alex looked doubtful. “Really?”
Ian smiled. I loved that he was a nerd like me.
When we got to the bowling alley, I put on a pair of questionably smelly shoes and prepared myself for humiliation. I was good at most sports, but not bowling. The heavy ball always seemed to stick to my fingers longer than it should, and perfect recall did nothing to improve my aim. Helpful hints only made me mad, so basically I provided comic relief by bowling gutter balls all night.
After completing two pathetically low-scoring games, I sat back to watch the others. Dad and Brandy were having lots of fun. They were content with their mediocre performances. Mom was giving Ian a real run for his money. But Alex, who was doing his best to show off for Brandy, was the star of the show.
He was smart, funny, and most importantly he had a good heart. Someday he’d have a girlfriend. Weird. There weren’t a lot of teen boys who would consider a night out with their family and sister’s friends a good time. Whoever the girl ended up being, she would be lucky. I hoped I’d be around to meet her.
Alex came to sit next to me. “Thanks for the books,” he said.
I laughed. “That’s so genuine. It’s like I gave you a plate of vegetables to eat. Just promise me you’ll give reading them a chance.”
He put a hand over his heart. “I promise.”
I rustled his hair like I used to do when we were younger. On his way back to the lane, Ian punched him in the upper arm. It was a typically male gesture that brought an enormous smile to my little brother’s face. Ian caught my eye and winked.
During the next break, Ian sat with me. “Why, when you’re so good at everything else, do you suck at bowling?” he asked with laughter lighting his eyes.
“I’ve wondered that myself.”
We watched Alex roll a strike and then glance at Brandy to see if she’d been watching him. Ian leaned back and smiled, “I’m glad I got to spend some time with your family tonight,” he said. “They’re great. And it was nice to do something human. It took my mind off of Sebastian for a full thirty minutes.”
He left to go bowl. I was getting perilously close to crossing the line. I’d been fighting it from the beginning, but my feelings for him were getting stronger. I wouldn’t let that happen. It was okay to be his friend and enjoy his company, and I could appreciate that he was hot, but that was as far as it could go. After what had happened in the classroom, well, it would be too dangerous if we took whatever this was any further. We didn’t need the distraction, and I didn’t need to hurt any more than I already would when he went home.
Mom called the party quits, and Ian and Brandy drove away, promising to come pick me up for school the next day. I rode home in the backseat of my dad’s Mercedes, feeling the comforting vibrations of Spencer’s friends the entire way home.
For once, I pushed all the bad stuff aside and just enjoyed time with my family. I wasn’t sure how many more of these moments I would have.
Chapter Twenty-One
I opened my locker the next morning and knew something was wrong. A quick look around and I figured out the picture of Tsar, my dog, was missing. Thinking maybe the adhesive had come loose, I searched the bottom of my locker and the floor but didn’t find anything. The Low Tack on the inside of the door was still wet. I knew then that the picture hadn’t fallen off. It had been taken.
>
It was a picture of Tsar, sitting on his haunches with his slobbery tongue hanging out. Near him was our mailbox. “Red Canyon Estates” was spelled out across it. Our house showed in the background. Visible at the top left-hand corner of the picture were the five metal numbers above our garage.
My heart thumped. Someone had taken my picture because it was proof of my address.
I closed the locker door with a bang. I didn’t bother spinning the lock. Someone from Sebastian’s camp already knew the combination, anyway. Pulling my cell phone from my backpack, I dialed Mom’s number. She answered on the second ring, but before she could even say hello, I asked, “Are you okay, Mom?”
There was a moment of confused silence, and then she said, “I’m fine, Alison, but judging from your voice, you aren’t.”
I improvised. “My stomach is bothering me, probably from all the pizza we ate last night. I was wondering if you’re feeling it, too.”
“No, I feel wonderful,” she replied. “But then, I only ate the cheese pizza. You carnivores deserve indigestion.”
I made myself laugh at her joke. “Maybe you’re right. Are you teaching at the gym this morning?”
“Yes, but you left your calculus homework on the kitchen table. I’m on my way to drop it off at the school office for you.”
“Thanks,” I said, heading toward the main doors of Fillmore. “I’ll meet you out front. The bell hasn’t rung yet. How soon do you think you’ll be here?”
“Two or three minutes.”
I hung up and considered whether or not I should get Ian and Brandy from class. Telling them about my missing picture and the danger it suggested was high on my list of priorities, but I wanted to see my mom and know she was safe first.
Using all seventy-two inches of my height and muscle, I pushed my way through a throng of kids. Standing on the top step, I had a good view of the parking spaces in front of the school, as well as traffic on the main road. When I saw the bright blue paint of Mom’s rental car coming, I walked down the steps to meet her. The late bell rang behind me.
I caught a glimpse of something moving across the street and felt the tickling of an unfamiliar vibration. It was coming from a woman dressed in a too-tight skirt, a silk tank, and four-inch espadrilles. She stood leaning against her idling car. When Mom pulled to the curb, she got a cell phone out of her bag.
I reacted by running at her full speed. I didn’t know what I planned to do, but I couldn’t let her take my mom. She was staring at the rental car and didn’t see me coming until it was too late. I tackled her to the ground. She recovered quickly, and the look of surprise on her face was quickly replaced by a look of comprehension. I was ready for her when her essence reached out and struck me in the stomach. I pushed back against it, equalizing the pressure. Then I slammed my fist into the side of her face. She clawed at my neck and her energy hit me in the back. I fought through the pain and punched her in the jaw. Then her energy left me. She was concentrating on something or someone else.
Pushing her wrists against the cement, I glanced up and saw Brandy leaning over my mom, who had fallen to the ground. Before I could hit the dewing woman a third time, someone grabbed the collar of my shirt and hauled me up. In midair, I realized it was Ian. He steadied me on my feet, looking furious. The heat coming off him told me he was engaged in an essence fight with the dewing woman.
“Go check on your mom,” he said through clenched teeth.
Over his shoulder, I could see Brandy had maneuvered my mom so her face was turned away from us. She hadn’t seen what happened.
A black SUV pulled up behind the dewing woman’s still idling car, and a very tall man got out. He was one of the dewing who was supposed to be protecting my family. “Where were you?” I yelled, striding toward him.
Ian grabbed my hand, practically spinning me back to him. “Get your mom out of here,” he said to me. The dewing woman was bleeding and unconscious on the pavement.
I accepted the wisdom of his suggestion and turned back.
When I got to her, my mom was trying to explain to Brandy what had happened. “I think I passed out,” she was saying.
“Don’t worry, Mrs. McKye, the ambulance is on the way.” Mom tried to sit up, but Brandy eased her down again.
“Stay still,” I urged. “The paramedics should check you out before you try and move.”
When I looked up, Ian was hefting the dewing woman into the back of the SUV. The tall dewing got in the driver’s seat and drove away. I smoothed the hair away from Mom’s face. “What happened?” I asked her.
“I don’t know. I was fine one minute, and the next I had the worst headache of my life. It came and went so fast.”
The ambulance arrived and the paramedics started to check her out. “Her vitals look good,” one of them said to me. “We’ll take her in to the ER so she can get a thorough checkup there.”
“That’s not necessary,” Mom insisted.
“Just go to the hospital, Mom. That’s what Dad would want. I’ll drive your car over after I check out at the school office.”
I held her hand until they loaded her into the back of the ambulance.
The minute the ambulance door closed, Brandy grabbed my arm and marched me out of hearing distance of the onlookers. “What were you thinking when you ran at that woman?” she hissed.
“Isn’t it obvious? She was waiting here to snatch my mom.”
“No, she wasn’t. She was sent here as an observer. She was probably looking for information, anything out of the ordinary. You certainly gave it to her when you attacked her.”
Brandy’s words fanned the flame of my own anger. “I am sick of all this,” I said, with hot rage burning in the pit of my stomach. “I’m sick of worrying every second of every day that someone is going to get to my family. She attacked my mom.”
“She attacked her after you charged her. Sebastian will certainly figure everything out when one of his spies turns up missing from the front of Fillmore,” she retorted. “If you’d just done as I asked, if you’d just let us take care of things, we would have stood a real chance. But no, you had to rush headfirst into the situation and ruin everything.”
“This isn’t a situation anymore,” I said. “This is a catastrophe. That woman started texting at the very moment my mom drove up to the school. She was waiting for her to arrive. Someone out there knows about my family.”
“What’s going on?” Ian asked, coming to stand next to us.
“It’s all been for nothing,” I said. “Three years of hiding, and it all means nothing. They have the picture of Tsar, by the way.”
Ian and Brandy were confused. “Who’s Tsar?” Ian asked.
“My dog. My house number and the name of our development showed in the picture, too. It’s a sick way of saying ‘gotcha.’”
Ian sighed in frustration.
“I just want it over,” I said, putting a hand over my eyes. “Sebastian needs to die or I do. The McKyes are good people. They loved me when no one else did. I won’t let them become pawns in his sick game.”
“I think you know what this means,” I heard him say to Brandy. “You should probably go back to class. I’ll talk things over with Alison.”
I felt Brandy’s hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry I yelled at you,” she said. “I didn’t know they had your picture. I would probably have attacked the woman, too. I’ll call tonight to see how your mom is doing.”
I nodded as she left, but I was still furious. Ian pulled me in for a hug.
“We have to do something,” I insisted, “and soon.”
“I knew the time was getting close,” he said. “The clan chiefs can’t make a decision, Brandy is getting weaker each day, and the killings have started again. The dewing you just punched got a text off before you clobbered her. I think it’s safe to assume Sebastian knows you’re here.”
“It’s just a matter of time before he comes for me, right?”
“Yes, but this might work to our a
dvantage. We know he went to Seattle because he thought he was going to get information about you. I’d be willing to bet he’ll come to Vegas if he knows you’re here. I assume he’ll have to make some arrangement on his end, but he’ll likely give the order to have you picked up within the next day or so. We need a change of plan.”
“Okay, what do you want me to do?”
“Maybe nothing. We could let Sebastian’s people come for you. Brandy and I will stick close. Then when they try to pick you up…I’ll get one of them to tell us where Sebastian is, and we move on as we planned.”
Maybe it wasn’t the best plan, but it would get me to Sebastian fast, and that’s what I wanted. It was going to be him or me. “I just want one thing,” I said, pulling back to look at him. “I want an army of your dad’s friends around to protect my family.”
“They’ll be here by this afternoon,” Ian agreed. “I hate putting you in this position when you’re still so vulnerable.”
“I’m ready,” I stated.
He picked up my hand to look at my reddened knuckles. “You’ve got a great left hook, by the way.”
I examined my hand more closely. My knuckles were swollen and smeared with dried blood. “I thought I was a pacifist,” I said.
He chuckled. “We need to tell Brandy what we’re going to do.”
“I’m cutting for the rest of day,” I said. “I need to check on my mom at the hospital and drive over to the Shadow Box. I need to talk to Lillian.”
“I’ll go with you. At least until you get to Lillian’s. Then I’m going to talk to your mom’s surveillance team. They screwed up today.” With his arm over my shoulder, we went back inside.
“Think you can thoughtmake the secretary into checking us both out for the day?” he asked.
