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. Then 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 to 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.

I took a deep breath and dove in with a question. “There aren’t any adults living here, are there?” I asked.

“That depends on your definition of an adult,” he replied with an Australian accent.

“Wow. You’re Australian?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Is that a problem?”

“No. Just a surprise.”

“Using an American accent when I enrolled at Fillmore simplified things,” he explained.

“What sort of alien-species business brings you here?”

He laughed. “We came looking for a young thoughtmaker who was being raised by humans.”

“And you think that’s me?”

He reached over and turned my hand. Tracing the faint lines in my palm with his index finger, he said, “I’m pretty sure it is.”

I didn’t deny it further. “Why have you been looking for me?”

“Because we need your help.”

It was my turn to laugh. “In what way could I possibly help you? As you so insightfully point out, I’ve been raised by humans. I know almost nothing about…whatever we are.”

“Dewing,” he said.

“Right. As if ‘children of Atlantis’ wasn’t creepy enough.”

Smiling he collapsed onto the sofa next to me. “I’m not sure if it was naïveté or just hope,” he said, “but I didn’t expect to find you so…human. I stood next to you in line at registration last week and thought you were just another human girl. Even when I helped you up after your fall at school, I never suspected you were dewing. When I used my joining on you in the sickroom and then again that night in the car, it worked. It shouldn’t have. Not on another dewing. Of course, I sensed Lillian the first time I walked into the Shadow Box, but she didn’t confirm my suspicion about you until last night.”

I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach. “Lillian is a dewing?” I asked in a whisper.

“Yes, but she’s an odd one. She’s gone rogue. She doesn’t interact with others of our kind on a regular basis. She’s even stopped going to her clan gatherings. She’s chosen to isolate herself, so she’s become less sensitive to our clan affiliations. She took you for a human at first, same as Brandy and I did, but when she tried to read your emotions, like she would any other human, she couldn’t get a clear picture of them.”

“Why didn’t she say anything to me?”

“Your skittish behavior made that difficult. She didn’t know how or why you ended up with a human family, but she sensed you were afraid of someone discovering you were dewing. She determined later that you were a thoughtmaker like her sister. Maybe because of that, she felt a connection with you. She helped you in the only ways she could, by keeping you close and not asking questions.”

I was newly grateful for Lillian’s silent presence at the Shadow Box.

“I’ve been dying to ask,” Ian continued. “How did you come to live with a human family in the first place?”

“I wish I could tell you. All I know is that I was left at a state hospital when I was three. I bounced around between foster homes after that. I’d been in system for five years when the McKyes came along and adopted me.”

He pondered that and then asked, “And you haven’t interacted with any dewing for all these years?”

“Only one. I met a guy three years ago who told me he saw human emotions. He was the one who warned me.”

Ian leaned back. “What exactly did he warn you about?”

“He said I was valuable to a powerful man and that man would want me to do thought transference for him. He told me to use my ability to become invisible in order to protect my family.”

“Did you the two of you talk a lot?”

I laughed ruefully. “We had one conversation that lasted less than ten minutes. I was like a disease he didn’t want to catch. He practically ran from me. Basically he messed up my entire life and left me alone to deal with it.”

“Considering the tension among us, he could have gotten into a lot of trouble if he’d been caught talking to you.”

That tidbit was less than comforting. I sighed. “You can’t know how worried I’ve been. The idea that someone would hurt my family in order to get to me has been my constant companion for the past three years.”

“So you turned yourself inside out and tried to stop existing in order to protect them.”

“After what you said today, I realize I took it too far, but at the time, I thought I was doing the right thing.”

Ian nodded. “I won’t sugarcoat it,” he said. “The reader told you the truth. As a thoughtmaker you are valuable, especially now that so many others with your ability have been killed. You are right to fear for your family, too. They could be used as a means to control your thoughtmaking.”

“That’s another problem,” I replied. “Even when I want to do thought transference, it only takes a minor roadblock to stop me. I would probably have to watch my whole family suffer and die before anybody realized I can’t do stuff the way other dewing can.”

“That’s only because you haven’t been taught,” he said.

“Well, I can’t endanger my family any longer,” I said, pinching the bridge of my nose. “I have to leave Vegas tomorrow.”

He put a reassuring hand on my shoulder, and I tried not to flinch. Without success.

“What’s with all the touching?” I asked. “Is that like a genetic thing? If so, I’m missing that gene.”

He laughed. “Maybe we are a little more affectionate than the average human. It’s because there are so few of us. We have to draw strength from each other.”

“At the moment, I don’t have much strength for you to draw from, and I’m better able to think when no one touches me.”

He moved his hand away. “It’s kind of sad that it bothers you so much, but it’s not the only thing that’s different about you. You don’t have a vibration.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“We feel a kind of energy, or vibration, coming off of each other. Except you don’t vibrate at all. You feel completely human.”

“But something about me made you curious anyway?”

“It had more to do with how you acted than anything else. If you hadn’t been so edgy, I probably wouldn’t have given you a second thought.”

It was a good segue into the most important question I had. “If you knew enough to come looking for me, and I’ve got someone following me, are others coming for me, too?”

“I’m not sure. Only a few of us believe you really exist. I didn’t believe it myself until my mom told me. And it wasn’t easy to find you. I did months of research and still would have come up empty if it weren’t for…a friend who pointed me in the right direction.”

“What friend?”

“Just someone who suggested I look for you in Vegas. We got lucky when we started school at Fillmore. If it weren’t for that, I’d still be looking.”

“That’s some pretty amazing luck.”

“Call it destiny, then.”

“Either way, you found me. If you did it, someone else could, too. I could spend the rest of my life running and never be able to hide well enough to ensure the McKyes are safe.”

“Except that other than us, there’s only one man who wants to find you. Which brings us back to the original plan. When I started searching for you, I assumed there would be things you didn’t know or understand about us. I was prepared to teach you, but now that I know how human you think, I realize the learning curve would be really steep.”

His words were like a bright ray of light breaking through the clouds of my miserable day. “So there are things you can teach me,” I said. “Things that would help me keep my family safe.”

“It would be easier to leave the McKyes and relocate somewhere else, like you planned. My dad has connections. He can arrange a place for you to stay while you figure out what you want to do next.”

Leaving would be so much easier with help, but I could see complications now. When I was reported as a missing person, the McKyes would be all over the news asking for the public’s help finding me. If anyone suspected who I was, my ties to them would be public knowledge and…so much for hiding in the shadows. Not to mention that I’d wondered for years what I’d be able to do with my abilities if someone explained how they worked. It was an opportunity I didn’t want to miss. I didn’t want to live in fear and vulnerability forever. I needed to be strong for myself and for my family.

“I’m a fast learner,” I assured him. “You said you needed my help. If you teach me, I’ll do anything you want me to.”

He was softening but not fully convinced teaching me was the best option. “I can help you understand how to use your joining better,” he relented, “and how to fight and defend yourself in our particular way, but I would have to ask for something in return later.”

“Anything,” I repeated.

He let out a long breath. “You won’t like it, but I won’t ask you to give anything I haven’t already committed to give myself.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I kept quiet while he considered what to do. Various emotions played across his face, but I knew the moment his decision was made. “Okay, Brandy and I will teach you. How much do you know about the dewing?”

“Not much,” I admitted.

He smiled. “Are you up for a dewing history lesson, then?”

“History is my best subject,” I replied with an internal sigh of relief.