Lunatic Fringe

by TL Schaefer

  I spent the flight time inside my head, plotting the heinous ways the bastards who had dared touch my child would die. Gruesome didn’t begin to cover it, but I felt amazingly better as we touched down.

  In a scene eerily reminiscent of when Sara, Brian, Farrell and I had our showdown with Wes Burke almost a year ago, a small caravan of black SUVs awaited us, ready to spirit us to CASI, the school Sara had once called the belly of the beast.

  She wasn’t very far off.

  The Colorado Academy for Superior Intellect was where everything had begun. For Sara and me it had been a birthplace of sorts. The place where our Talent made itself truly known. The last time I’d been here, I hadn’t felt the emotions of everyone around me, but I had to wonder if that had been the start of it. If being around other Talented people had bitten me in the butt. The cause of it didn’t really matter, the day-to-day reality did.

  And now, as if having my daughter missing and my sanity on a knife’s edge wasn’t real enough, I had my ex-husband’s rage to contend with.

  Awesome.

  THE GATES OF CASI WERE just as impressive as they'd been a year ago, but now they meant so much more than they had. Now they were a gateway, rather than a barrier. A gateway to finding my child. And quite possibly myself.

  The thought terrified as much as I yearned for it.

  What if I found something within myself I didn’t want to see?

  Jonah Summers met us at the front doors of the school, still channeling the rogue academic. FBI agent Arin Thomas was by his side. They looked good together, better than I remembered, as if they'd grown into the idea of being each other's Number One.

  I felt a pang as I thought of how Joe and I had stood, side by side, just over a year ago, at the Met Christmas gala. We hadn't looked anything remotely like that. Yeah, we'd had the clothes and the bling, but we'd been partners. Parenting partners. Not the family I’d wanted for what seemed like forever.

  Where had that thought come from?

  I shook my head. Tori was my one and only concern. Everything else was secondary to that. Even Joe’s miraculous return from the dead.

  From the way he was giving me the side-eye, I was quite sure we’d be having a conversation about all of this, and soon. In fact, I was surprised he hadn’t already laid into me. Now that he knew the details of what had happened over the last year, I knew exactly where his lawyerly brain would go.

  Straight to blaming me.

  For once, I’d be a bit of a coward, make him come to me, rather than defusing him with an apology. No matter how much I’d regained my equilibrium from my epic meltdown last night, I was still less-than-steady on my emotional feet.

  I was pissed off enough for both of us and was almost afraid of what might happen when his anger combined with mine inside my head.

  I pulled Arin aside as we entered the building.

  “Any word?” She’d been our point person while we’d been in the air. As a FBI agent, she had access to data. Data that would lead us to Tori. I had to believe that.

  “Nothing yet, but I’m pulling strings and have some folks on the lookout at airports. If they drove somewhere, not sure what we’ll get until we make this official and can dive in to toll booth cameras and such. But we need a direction to start searching, first. No ransom demand from Dallas, either.”

  I nodded, a bit defeated, but unsurprised. I’d been expecting her answer, and knew she would do her damndest to bring my girl home.

  I had to be patient, when everything inside me wanted to rip the world apart at the seams.

  We were given rooms in a separate wing from the students. From the looks of it, they were newly dusted-off staff rooms. CASI had just been reopened after a decade of being shuttered, thanks to Sara and her friend-at-the-time Wes Burke. Burke was dead now, at Sara's hand, and I could tell it still bothered her. Hell, the school itself still bothered her, but she was becoming more at ease with it.

  The fact I had gotten that impression as we walked side by side said that my alone time hadn't been quite enough. I had to do something more permanent when it came to buffering peoples’ emotions before I lost my sanity, and I could think of no one better than Sara to help me. Hopefully before Joe cornered me.

  I don't think she was surprised when I knocked on her door, two down from mine. Roney was conspicuously absent, and I wondered if she'd "seen" my visit.

  "Come in, Monica," she opened the door wide.

  I sat in one of the armchairs grouped in a corner and thought about what I was going to say. Then Sara took that uncertainly away and addressed my problem, not my ex’s presence. It was exactly what I needed.

  "I can tell it's getting worse. But you're handling it better, putting filters on it, just like I do with my glasses." She'd had special lenses made for her glasses to shut out the auras of everyone around her. I envied her in that. "I think you should talk to Jonah."

  My shoulders slumped. I'd been hoping for more than that. "I've already seen a shrink, Sara. All they wanted to do was give me meds for what they diagnosed as PTSD." If Sara couldn't help me, then who the hell could?

  "You didn't see a shrink who was Talented, Monica," she replied gently. "Jonah may be the one person on this earth who can teach you how to deal with being Talented."

  I sat back in my chair. She was right. Summers was Talented, could control people with his touch. To have learned to control that, serve as a corpsman in the navy and then go on to be a shrink on top of it...

  I stood. I wanted this done now, before we got a lead on finding Tori. "Thank you, Sara," I said quietly. "You've actually given me hope. Let's hope Summers can deliver on it."

  JONAH WAS UNAVAILABLE for the next few hours, doing school administrator stuff, in addition to making sure the school was as secure as we could make it.

  I’d had time to think about my avoidance of Joe, and realized it was only going to get worse the longer I waited. I tracked him down and settled in for some one-on-one time. Sort of like ripping off a Band-Aid quickly. The sooner we hashed it out, the better. Or so I hoped.

  To say my ex was furious was an understatement. I didn’t need to be an empath to figure that out. But before he could get started...

  “What the hell happened, Joe? We thought you were dead!” I didn’t mention that I’d mourned him more than a little.

  “First responders got me and Collins mixed up,” he said. “They were getting chewed by the dispatcher, and by the cops on-scene, traffic was all jammed up around us. I can see how it happened,” he admitted. “It wasn’t until I regained consciousness that we figured it out, and even then, the hospital staff had to triple check against IDs and such. Apparently we resembled each other enough to confuse it even more.

  “How are you involved in this, Monica? I need to understand how our daughter became endangered.”

  “It all started out as a case last year...”

  “That you just had to solve,” Joe interrupted. It was a bad habit of his. An attorney tactic I’d always hated. “I remember, Monica. I didn’t like it then and I like it even less now. Your job was always your first priority, even over your family.”

  “Not over Tori.” My reply was hot. I’d never, ever prioritized my job over my daughter. “Never over Tori.”

  “And yet, here we are. You’re neck deep in all of this bullshit and our daughter is missing. How, besides your fucked-up priorities, do you explain it?”

  He wasn’t going to believe a word I said. I sighed. Somehow, I’d make him believe. Even if I had to work out a show-and-tell for him and Lawrence, just like Jonah had for me. Those events seemed like a million years ago.

  Heath had given him the basics... “I’m Talented,” I said, and the words made my stomach churn. “Empathic, or so we suspect.”

  Joe looked like he’d just bitten into a rotten apple and his expression mirrored the distaste I felt rolling off of him in waves. “Jesus, Monica. First you go completely batshit and now this?”

  His words sliced dee
p, mostly because they were true, and that knife’s edge had nothing to do with my newfound abilities. As the father of our child, he deserved the truth. “I’m pretty sure ‘this’ is what drove me batshit in the first place.” I took a deep breath. “I can feel things, Joe, things I shouldn’t be able to. It may be what caused my dreams, someone else’s feelings coming through.”

  I don’t know where the words came from because I certainly hadn’t been consciously thinking them. But just like when I admitted to Farrell that I was an empath, it felt right. What if some kind of emotional shielding I hadn’t even known about had started to disintegrate?

  He snorted in derision, claiming my attention again.

  “I don’t know what in the hell you’re talking about, but I do know one thing. This isn’t about your feelings or this crazy school. This is one hundred percent about Heath Farrell. You’d do well to remember that. I might not understand who you’ve become lately, but you’re still my ex-wife, Tori’s mother. Watch your back around Farrell.”

  “Where is this coming from? You two have been pals since college. You’ve been joined at the hip for almost as long as I’ve known you.”

  My words provoked a response I’d never suspected. A response laced with bitterness and almost a bit of hatred. And the pure anger coming from him? It was sour and old and felt like it’d been cultivated over a long, long time.

  “And all that time he’s looked at you like I’m not even around.” He took a step back, as if distancing himself from me. “When our marriage fell apart, I half wondered if you were fucking him. But no, you’re Saint Monica. You’d never compromise your principles, even if it turned you into a sexless crone. Well, I wasn’t willing to do that, not even for Tori.”

  He turned on his heel, wincing from his injuries as he turned his torso, and left me there, gaping. It wasn’t his acknowledgement of adultery. I’d long suspected that once we went to separate beds, he’d found another woman. But he’d provided a loving home for Tori, and for that I was willing to accept certain...deviations from a traditional relationship.

  For family, for Tori, I was willing to do almost anything.

  Even his hateful words weren’t all that surprising, nor did they cut me to the quick the way they should have. While the papers had been signed a few months ago, Joe and I had been divorced for a long, long time before this. Dammit, I’d actually grieved for him earlier this morning, found myself snipping all of the threads that tied us together but Tori.

  No, what had me reeling, as I sat here alone in the library, were his words about Heath. I grappled with them, because they were undeniably genuine, the emotion behind them valid, especially after the way Heath had held me last night, talked me down from my nightmare.

  Joe was angry over the way Heath looked at me. I guess there was a first time for everything.

  I allowed myself to remember how it had felt to be safe, to be cared for, to allow myself to just be. For the warmth that had cascaded from him, seeping deep inside, healing something I hadn’t realized was wounded.

  Joe had been wrong in saying I was a sexless crone. While I hadn’t cheated on him during our marriage, after it all but ended, I’d been more than capable of taking care of myself.

  Heath had always been a beautiful man, even when we were younger. Now that beauty had been tempered by time and circumstance, making him striking and more than a little bit dangerous.

  The dichotomy of that danger and the way he’d soothed me last night made him all the more appealing.

  The cold, hard fact I didn’t dare deny any longer was that I’d been picturing Heath Farrell’s face and body as I gave myself pleasure. And that I’d undoubtedly be doing it again. And that was fine, healthy even.

  But the whole touching, soothing thing that had happened last night? Never again. There was no way I could be that vulnerable to Heath Farrell again. Because as much as I might like the thought of doing more than touching Farrell, the shitshow that my life had become only had room in it for me and Tori.

  TO SAY I WAS UNCOMFORTABLE when Heath poked his head into the library a few minutes later was an understatement. How in the hell was I supposed to react to Joe’s words? To my own inner candor?

  As he settled himself I realized there was only one way to deal with it. Denial. At least for the here and now. I didn’t have the time to work through my attraction to Heath, to Joe’s words, which had almost freed me, in a weird way.

  Farrell and Joe and I weren’t the important parts of this situation. Tori was, and I’d suck it up from here to eternity to return her safely home. Even to Joe’s home.

  I put on a professional mask—I was exceptionally good at that, after all—and pushed Joe’s words, my thoughts about Heath, to the back of my mind and got to work.

  There weren't any staff in place so far but Summers and Sara, who came and went as Summers needed her since she still had a job in Dallas, so our conversation was as private as it could be in a school full of kids with Talent.

  "How's the security here?" I asked, because it concerned me, and was an innocuous topic. We'd find Tori, and when we did, she'd need someplace safe to come to while we dealt with the rest. CASI seemed like as good a place as any, at least for starters.

  "Good," Heath said restlessly. "I wish Trang hadn't put it all together, though. We haven't heard from him since he dropped Gordon."

  Ah yes, that had been a fuck-up of monumental proportions. We'd caught the one guy who might be able to help us figure out what was going on, and Farrell's ex-bodyguard had taken the guy out with a headshot, as a "gift" to Farrell.

  None of us were sure what the hell that was supposed to mean; all we knew was that our first good lead in the last year of intrigue was a corpse. And now a lone gunman with a penchant for amazing sniper shots was on the loose, and unpredictable.

  Our attention was pulled away from each other by the sound of voices. Children’s voices. I was tempted to peek out, to see the faces of kids Tori's age, to connect on some vital plane as a mother.

  Then their emotions swept over me, turbulent and young, full of angst and betrayal, love and hope. I sat back in the chair sharply, as if I'd been shot, and closed my eyes, bringing my fingertips to my temples, trying to block it all out.

  God, it was if I was being eaten alive, as if the kids outside the door were trying to obliterate me, erase my very being. I concentrated hard, focusing on Tori’s face, on the sound of her laughter, and slowly came back to myself.

  I felt a hand stroke the back of my neck, a low murmur at my ear. "Breathe through it, Moni." The low rumble spread through me slowly, one tiny piece at a time, until the children had passed the door, moved out of range, and I had only my own turbulent thoughts to deal with.

  I opened my eyes and dropped my hands.

  Heath crouched beside me, something approaching true concern in his eyes. Again. "Are you all right?"

  I blew out a long breath. Right now keeping my breakfast down was a bigger concern than appearing weak to Heath—again—but the choice was too close for comfort.

  The fact that big, warm hand felt just as soothing as it had last night set alarm bells ringing. I’d told myself, not half an hour ago, that there’d be no more touching, no more soothing, no more concern or safety.

  So much for that.

  I could blame it on my dreams or my Talent or any manner of things, but the bottom line was that as much as my mind might rail against my attraction to Heath, my body liked his touch just fine.

  "I’m fine. It just overwhelmed, me, all those young hormones." And then, because he’d been there for me not once, but twice... “This was different than last night.”

  The nightmares were one thing. They were abstract, even as they terrified. Visions I never remembered even though their emotional impact echoed through me hours after they ended.

  This reminded me of the bullpen and when the vic’s sister had disintegrated and taken me with her. Not so much a nightmare as a memory, and one that occurred as fr
equently as the night terrors, as if they occupied balanced space in my brain.

  "I'm fine now, but I guess it's even more important to talk to Summers." I needed to get my head back in the game.

  Regardless of my Talent, of the things Farrell made me feel, simply by being near, being solid, being secure, Tori was my number one concern.

  Always had been, always would be.

  Farrell stood and walked back to his chair, grabbed his cell from a side table. "Then let's go hunt up Jonah," he said, and held out his hand to help me up.

  God help me, despite everything I kept telling myself over and over, I took it, and the mere feel of his fingers against mine settled something deep inside.

  WHEN SUMMERS RETURNED, we were waiting in his office. The kids were apparently at lunch, though Heath stayed with me, likely to make sure I didn't have a complete breakdown. I'd have been humiliated if it weren't a very real possibility.

  "I need your help," I blurted as Jonah took his seat. Behind his desk, he appeared very much the headmaster, very much the shrink. He didn't look like someone who could control you by mere touch, and I'd noticed that he was very careful in all of his movements, as if trying not to scare us away. Well, except around Arin. He was handsy as hell with his significant other.

  He folded his hands in front of him, assuming a professorial pose, but it was too similar to what I'd just been thinking, and I wondered if I was picking up something from him. "What can I do for you, Monica?"

  Of all the Scooby gang, I was the least acquainted with Summers, but Arin thought he was the bomb, and I was willing to trust her judgement. She'd saved my life, after all.

  "You've suspected that I'm one of you," I said, making a broad gesture that encompassed CASI.

  He nodded. "I just wasn't sure if you had a small amount of Talent, or the full spectrum."